Touched by Steve

Whao! Hey! Watch it! Yeah, touched by Steve is right...Steve Jobs that is. What the hell is up with this guy that anything coming out of his mouth is gold? As reported today by DailyTech, Apple issued a press release detailing its financial forecast, stating once again it has finished above expectations and that the next quarter may not be as great as it had been historically. However, with a single tag line at the end of the release where Steve Jobs says, "...and we’re busy finishing several more wonderful new products to launch in the coming months." sent Apple stocks rising again. So what is it about Steve that makes the industry swoon and the financial analysts quiver in their suits? Brand recognition is largely it, and with Steve Jobs heading up Apple in the late 90's to now, their rebranding and reimagining has been a huge success. Look at the recent iPhone 3G release, that was like the release of a Blackberry Pearl 8120 after a year and a half of having the Blackberry Pearl 8100. Or it really should have been and not what everyone blasphamistically referring to it as the Jesus Phone (that's seriously a good one, but what are you going to call the 4G?) Dispite what all the iPod and Apple haters want to say or how much they fight against the norm and accepted social staus quo that is defined by the latest iPod or iPhone, they won't be able to win. History has taught us that there will always be the hottest new thing that defines a generation. This current trend just happens to have lasted a bit longer than expected. Whether or not Apple will survive to be the leader of the next trend depends on how much more innovative they can be. Look at Motorola, they were the first on the market with a widely accepted and popular design for the clam-shell phone we know today. But where are they now? They haven't been able to make too much headway since and have slowly been losing their sales over to others that have been more innovative. Apple needs to be the Madonna and Cher of consumer electronics if they want to stay on top (or keep in the top tier). Why post about Apple again? Well I was able to get my hands on an 8GB iPod Touch at a substantial discount thanks to the mistakes of some drone working at a data entry position at Wal-Mart. If you have been following my blog for a while, you know that I don't have a lot of love for the iPod. Simply because of the restrictions Apple places on its use. But I can't say anything bad about its interface. It is still the best, easiest, and cleanest to use for a MP3 player. I will still use my Cowon A3 for videos because I can't be bothered to encode my Divx files for iTunes but in the car and out and about, this new iPod Touch is really something. It's basically a iPhone minus the phone. And with the 2.0 Firmware upgrade (which I didn't pay for and if Apple wants money for this they can shove it) and the new apps store, I could see it replacing my Blackberry one day. I just have to get used to the virtual keyboard, which I slow am. It's still not as great as the blackberry's tactile keyboard but I think it does everything else so well that it doesn't really matter in the long run. The beautiful thing about iPods is also its horrifiic flaw, you simply can't use them longer than 2 years. They either start to fail or functions have changed so much that you want the next best one. That's what Apple designed them to be, and that's what they want you to do. iPods, along with iPhones, are made to be disaposable electronics. Should they be? Environmentally, a resounding no. However all other sectors would call it nothing short of genius. Steve has effectively convinced the world that it needs a new iPod every 1.5 years and that it's totally normal. It's like I'm riding on a rollercoaster to hell and I can't off but oh is it ever fun while it lasts.