Nutsmuggling

Yesterday’s keynote has probably been the most predictable ever. All the rumours were dead-on, so accurate that I wonder whether Apple let the keynote program slip by accident.

Despite the lack of properly called surprises, the keynote address stands out as a very singular one. All of the address, 1h 45m, have been dedicated to the iPhone: its sales, its new features, its SDK, its OS. Wait a minute, did I say OS?

The iPhone is powered by (Mac) Os X. The actual name of the OS is iPhone OS, a mobile version of Os X. The banners at the Moscone center contain only OS X Leopard and OS X iPhone. The removal of “Mac” might hurt the sensibility old aficionados, but it’s clearly meant at making the parallel obvious: this is the WWDC, we’re talking OS X in its two flavours, Leopard and iPhone.

The keynote demos were showing the OS X iPhone; this is quite understandable, for Leopard doesn’t need any publicity, nor has undergone substantial changes since its release. All the video-games and application demoed were directed to an audience of developers, as if telling them “hey folks, look at this, this is what you can do!”.

If you cannot accept the equation iPhone OS = OS X, take a look at what happened in the irc channels during the keynote, before the actual introduction of the hardware product: people were getting crazy, they wanted news about the 3g iPhone, not its OS. The discussion about the new physical model took only a small fraction of the whole presentation. I would say the keynote was atypical, but not, by any standards, off topic.

How will mac developers take this enthusiasm for the new kid on the block? I believe the reaction to Apple’s interest for mobile computing will be mixed. As Daniel Jalkut and Manton Reece pointed put in the first episode of their Core Intuition podcast, a number of people will be glad to join the app store bandwagon and make tons of money; other will miss the old mac-only Apple. But that’s life, any change is bound generate some grudges.

On a broader perspective, will Apple benefit from this news?
Are you joking? I will quote Gruber on this:

The physical phone is not the story. A year from now, the iPhone 3G will be replaced by another new model. The platform is the story. Platforms have staying power, and, once entrenched, are very hard to displace.

Apple is quite entrenched, and means to stay.