We're all forgetting what market apple is in:

HARDWARE.

They make their money selling the iPhone, they couldn't care less about what you do with it after.

Remember how stubborn Apple is, despite every iBook/Powerbook/Macbook/MacBook Pro user CRYING OUT for an option to stop the laptops suspending automatically when you close the lid, there is none.

But do apple care? Of course not, you've bought their product, as far as they are concerned, job done.

-Comment posted from a MacBook running a 3rd party app to stop it suspending when I don't want it to!

When there's another lower cost iPhone (sort of an iPhone Nano), very likely there will be an SDK etc for the current "iPhone Pro", but Apple needs mainstream apps to support the entry level phone too. So Apple won't talk about SDK's or Java or flash until then.

And by the way macbooks/macbook pro's don't go to sleep when you shut the lid if: the power adaptor is connected and on, and an external keyboard and mouse are connected.

'...despite every iBook/Powerbook/Macbook/MacBook Pro user CRYING OUT for an option to stop the laptops suspending automatically when you close the lid, there is none.'

Wrong, not me or anyone else I know so shouting from the rooftops does not make it so.

I can imagine someone, somewhere just occasionally might want this but battery life is far more important when mobile - it's all too easy to leave it running when not needed otherwise and then it's too late with a flat battery.

FWIW you can have it running when closed if you have an external keyboard attached. Anyway you have it solved to do what you want so what's the problem?

Apple do not care?

That'll be why there's all this 'kerfuffle' then.

if by sweet you mean "like a rancid old mans arse-leak" kind of sweet then yeah, AJAX on the iPhone is SWEEET!

I am always amazed about the fawning admiration of Jobbs and his empire and his holier-than-thou posturing. This is another example of Apple's control-freak approcah and disregard for what anyone in the market is actually asking for. A huge amount of editorial and comment is spent lobbing grenades at our friends in Redmond for their protectionist tactics, but Apple have always had a cosy, closed protected environment and watch-out anyone who tries to challenge that. You can be sure that if had Apple won through in the race to be the de-facto personal computer platform, there wouldn't really be a PC industry today, just a big, bloated, rotten bit of fruit.

The iPhone design ties all users to a GSM Operator and the major benefits of Internet based Voice and Data calls are completely under their control. Free calls over WiFi "On-Net" are just not available and data downloads is a big source of revenue to the GSM operators.

If users want free-of-cost downloads they must use a 'SIP' [session initiation protocol] based dual WiFi / GSM Smartphone and all users then have the best of both worlds. Use WiFi to make outbound calls and for free data downloads and GSM gives ubiquitous Call-receiving capabilities so you are never out-of-touch.

Of course you can't possibly expect users to learn to put their laptop on suspend manually before closing the lid. If you run down your battery by forgetting a few times you won't forget again. The only reason you should have for forgetting to suspend your lappy before closing the lid is that you've used an Apple too long.

When you've got BlackBerry, Symbian, Palm and Windows SmartPhones does the iPhone really matter? Is it's mobile data service as good as a BlackBerry? No. Is it as cross-platform as Symbian? Ubiquitous as Palm? As many third party apps as Windows Mobile? No. Business was never crying out for it and better solutions already exist, so why bother? What people really mean is they want a free iPhone coutesy of their employer, yet more subsidy for white-collar workers and I thought BlackBerry leeches were bad enough...

The main thrust of your article seems to totally ignore the discussion and hype that surfaced at Office 2.0

For more on iPhone check this quick video from Rod Boothby http://innovationcreators.com/wp/?p=358 ... on their iPhone spreadsheet and the creativity of the developers at EditGrid.

You may also be interested in Boothby's views on Web 2.0 types of work (looks strangely familiar to an assessment method I put together for Workflow and BPM suites in the 90's). http://innovationcreators.com/wp/?p=353

Also, a lot of other reporting here http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9772214-2.html (or at least links to it) ... not that I agree with the bloggers views on what should or should not be in a Web 2.0 app.

Seems like the event was very interesting ...

And on the Apple iPhone hype (brown-nosing), check this one out from Ismael Ghalimi the organizer of the Office 2.0 conference. http://itredux.com/blog/2007/08/27/iphones-shipping/

Jobs is a control freak - that's why the bloody products are sooo good. Absolutely NO unapproved 3rd party parts - hardware or software. From the battery to the lack of external plugin memory and even a reluctance to allow other headphones!!! The whole thing is designed as one seamless unit. That's why its so slick! It's also why I don't think I would buy one.

But that said, the hardware is just too good for the hackers to ignore: http://www.iphonehacks.com/ ...although this not good enough for Businesses who want legit products / licences / support, it's good enough for savy home users with a few pennies and a little tech know how.

If they only built a few essential business aps themselves though - even if you did have to purchase them seperately. Something to read/write office docs and outlook calanders and pdfs, support for exchange, a file manager, non-yahoo push email client. That's all business users want by way of third party aps anyway! They could keep it in-house and seamless. All would be happy!