Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple more than 30 years ago in 1976. Since then Apple has grown to be the most valuable company with some of the best products in the world. Think about Mac and iPhone, they really care about the user experience more than anything else.

I completely understand why many people can’t see why we love Steve Jobs so much. He was just a man, right? Of course, but his brilliant and crazy ideas changed the world forever. Steve knew technology alone wouldn’t do any difference. You have to make the products fun, magical and easy to use in order to make the customers excited. Do you remember how you felt the first time you touched an iPad?

In 2010 after introducing the iPhone 4 he said something which I think really describes the company.

What made Steve Jobs truly legendary for the Apple fans was the keynotes where he got to introduce all of the new products, just like the video above. Steve had the magical ability to sort of catch the audience. In many ways I think the audience was more excited to see Steve Jobs than the actual products. He was simply amazing and I can’t describe why.

My favorite moment with him is the iPhone 2007 presentation. You can really see how excited he was and today we know it was a revolution in technology.

Ultimately, Steve Jobs has been a huge inspiration for me. He’s why I love and care about technology and I personally see him as one of the greatest men who’ve ever lived. That’s why I still can’t believe how such a genius could pass away so early in life.

Rest in peace, Steve. We’ll all miss you.

They’ve also made a video about it, watch it here:

Are you going to buy it? I’m not sure myself. I want to buy one expensive gadget in 2011, but I’m not sure whether it’s going to be this one. It’s awesome… but also a lot like the original and do I really need one? I don’t know…

Oh, and maybe the best thing. Steve Jobs did the keynote!

Nintendo 3DS (e3.nintendo.com/3ds)
You’ve probably already heard about it, Nintendo 3DS is the next portable console from Nintendo. It has two screens just like the previous DSi but this time one of them can show 3D without the user needs to wear special glasses or anything.
There are lots of upcoming games for this console too, including Mario Kart and Animal Crossing.

New iPhone, iPods, iPad and Macs (apple.com)
Like every year there’ll of course be new Apple products too. A new iPad, new iPods, new MacBooks and so on. The next iPad will probably be the first product to be introduced in just a few weeks.
They’ll also release their new OS X Lion operating system next year.

Mac App Store (apple.com/mac/app-store)
Also something from Apple. The online store for applications, we know from the iPhone, is coming to the Mac.
This is something I am very excited about! It’s going to be released for everyone with the newest OS X Snow Leopard operating system. It’s coming Janary 6th.

Chrome OS notebooks (google.com/chromeos)
Last year Google announced their new operating system based on their Chrome-browser. It’s mostly for people using the surfing the web since it’s bascially… a web browser.
2011 will be the year when we’ll get to see lots of new shiny notebooks running this operating system.

There is probably more cool stuff to be relased next year. What are YOU excited about?

RIM

First of all, he mentions RIM, and that Apple has known passed them. Steve doesn’t see RIM catching up with Apple in the future, mainly because of the App Store.

Android

Then he mentions Android. Steve thinks it’s fragmented because of all the different phones, compared to the iPhone where all phones are the same.

“Google love to characterize Android as open, and iOS and iPhone as closed. We find this a bit disingenous and clouding the real difference between are two approaches. The first thing most of us think about, when we hear the word “open”, is Windows, which is available on a variety of devices. Unlike Windows, hovever, where most PCs have the same interfaces and run the same apps, Android is very fragmented.

Many Android OEMs, including the two largest HTC and Motorola, install proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience. The users are left to figure it all out. Compare this with iPhone where all handsets work the same.

I think he’s totally right. The reason I think the iPhone is the best phone right now, is because there’s only one. I don’t like the fact, that I’ll have to choose between hundreds of Androids phones, just to get one that’s already old tommorrow. I wrote a post about this half a year ago. You can find it here.

Open vs closed

After some more iPhone vs Android talk, he goes into a open vs closed talk:

“You know, even if Google were right, and the real issue is closed versus open, it is worthwhile to remember that open systems don’t always win. … (Some Microsoft and Google talk) … In reality, we think the open vs closed argument is just a smoke screen trying to hide the real issue, which is what’s best for the customer – fragmented vs integrated. We think Android is very, very fragmented, and becoming more fragmented by the day. And as you know, Apple strives for the integrated model, so that the user isn’t forced to be the systems integrator. We see tremendous value at having Apple, rather than our users, be the systems integrator. We think this is a huge strength of our approach compared to Google’s, when selling the users, who want their devices to just work, we believe integrated will trump fragmented every time.

And we also think our developers can be more innovative if they can target a singular platform, rather than a hundred variants. They can put their time into innovative new features, rather than testing on hundreds of handsets. So we are very committed to the integrated approach, no matter how many times Google tries to characterize it as ‘closed’. And we are confident that it will trump over Google’s fragmented approach, no matter how many times Google tries to characterize it as ‘open’”.

It’s hard for me to comment on that, I think. I don’t like when something is too closed, but I don’t like something either that just doesn’t work, so both ‘open’ and ‘closed’ has their own advantages. And I think the same thing about ‘fragmented’ vs ‘integrated’.

7-inch tablets

He also talks about why the iPad is better than 7-inch tablets because, according to him, a 7-inch screen just isn’t big enough. He says:

“It’s meaningless unless your tablet also include sand paper, so that your user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of their present size.”

I think he might be right about that. I don’t like all the new huge phones myself, because they’re just to big to carry around. I remember people thought the iPhone was big, when it came out, but now phones are getting way bigger.

You can find the conference call on Apple’s website. Engadget has also been kind enough to put the part with Steve Jobs up here. They also have a post of their own here about this subject.

Steve’s conclusions is:

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

I think he is pretty much right. I don’t need Flash 90% of the time I’m using my iPhone anyway. What do you think?

Apple iPad Review (Engadget)
Looking at the iPad From Two Angles (David Pogue, NY Times)

Instead of writing a long post about iPad, I want to make your day a little happier by showing you a few of the parodies people have been making about Apple in the past years. Maybe people will start making a lot about the iPad soon?

Big Mac Air (MacBook Air Parody)

Apple parody

So… The iPad is a big flat device with a 9.7-inch touch screen, and it’s only 0.5 inch (13.4 mm) thick. It only has one button, a “Home”-button(like iPhone).
It has many of the features and apps from the iPhone and iPod touch, but according to Apple, they’ve optimized them for the iPad. It can run most of the applications from the App Store, but developers will be able to make applications specially for the iPad.
A brand feature new feature is iBooks. You can read and buy books on it. iBooks is going to be a free app in the App Store.
16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB Wi-Fi models starts to ship in March, and special Wi-Fi + 3G starts to ship in April. It starts at only 499$.

Engadget has made a nice post about the iPad – Apple iPad: The definitive guide (so far).

You can of course also find a lot information on the official Apple site – http://www.apple.com/ipad/.

Apple says this about the iPad:

“Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.”

Here’s a video from the keynote:

So what do I think? I like it! It might look a bit too much like the iPhone and iPod touch, but still… It’s awesome! I’m sure the big screen is a lot better to things like videos, pictures and internet. Also, I can’t wait to see all the new apps, which will be made for this new device.
The price is also pretty neat! It might not seem cheap, but I’m sure Apple could have charged a lot more for it, if they wanted. I’m also sure that it won’t be that cheap in Denmark, but I still think it’s a good price.

One thing, I’ve been wondering about, is the on-screen keyboard. I really can’t imagine it being used for writing long documents, but I’m sure it’s quite good for stuff like e-mail. Also the fact that the iPad isn’t all flat, so it might be a bit frustrating to type on it, while it’s lieing on a table.

Of course this isn’t a revolution, as when the iPhone was introduced… But it’s still a new category for Apple, and I’m sure they’ll keep introducing new iPads, as they’re doing with all their other products.

Of course, we can’t say anything before trying it, but what do you think about the iPad?