The New iPhone

Well, Apple finally did it. They announced that they're almost ready to ship another product. Apple TV – announced before Al Gore announced his intention to run for President again – is now shipping. Leopard? Soon. The iPhone will be ready in June.

The iPhone has all of the promised features we've been reading about for months:
• It runs OS X
• It's a widescreen video iPod
• It has Safari
• It's a Phone
• It's a 2 Megapixel digital camera
• It's a PDA
• It pops popcorn without oil
• It has a touch-screen
• It can guess your height and weight
• It loves children
• It's hypo-allergenic
• It tastes like chicken
• It only has one button
• It's color coordinated
• It has no trans-fats

An iPod finally looks kinda clunky compared to something. The Zune looks positively primitive, even though His Steveness didn't even mention an ability to squirt songs. Strangely, there was no catch-phrase associated with the new device.

Earlier, Bill Gates said to C|Net news that Apple is at a huge disadvantage because they make their own software for their hardware. The disadvantage of what Mr. Gates called a "tightly coupled monolithic design" was displayed today. Apple is hobbled by yet another technologically superior product that doesn't deliberately cripple or completely disable features.

This is in stark contrast to the advantages of the Zune, which has captured an impressive two percent of the music player market share with its convoluted user interface, prohibitively restrictive DRM, and practically useless WiFi.

Apple treats its customers as though they are intelligent and honest while Microsoft treats its customers as though they are not particularly bright thieves.

They're right.