Apple will begin their iThingy presentation in just two hours, so here’s the last minute roundup of speculations. Philip Elmer-Dewitt blogs at Fortune as Apple 2.0, and offers a sensible roundup of rumors with a business slant. It’s good work.
Fellow agent and E-Reads publisher, Richard Curtis, offers his thoughts at Start Your Apps.
Technology blogger, John Martellaro, reminds us to embrace surprise with a very thoughtful essay, Say What?
My own final note is that however well the iThingy works as an e-book and or e-magazine reader, and the CEO of McGraw-Hill assured us yesterday that it will do these things, there’s still got to be the surprise. Everyone expects it to continue the Apple iLife activities of managing, buying and sharing images and music through iTunes. All Macs to this and so do iPods and iPhones that are also hand held gaming devices. If the rumors of the touch interface being surprising are true, and the iThingy builds local networks among other iThingys (iPhones and other smart phones can do this now), perhaps it will also act as a musical instrument. A new harmonica or concertina that anyone can learn to play well enough to jam with their friends. GarageBand, an application within iLife, is already a great studio mixer for real and electronic instruments. Why not offer a general purpose input device as well. Just a thought.
After the announcement, we will get back to Publishing and talk about why the current publisher’s business model is dead and how authors and agents can thrive in the new world order.