We bought 15 iPhones in San Francisco last year for all our friends.

Yep, I’m serious. The other reasons for wanting an iPhone are valid too and apply to me too. It is the mother of all shiny objects, a great tool and a nice phone and you just want one as soon as you hold one in your hands. But besides that the iPhone platform is also clearly the start of something new. And I want to be a part of that.

Early Apple computers (before the Macintosh) had serial ports and something called a Game Port. It could be used for digital and analog input and output and was very powerful. People would buy an Apple I or Apple II and hack around with these ports to build exiting stuff like printers or home automation tools. Back then it was clear to people that you could build practicably anything with these machines if you had some basic hard- and software knowledge and that was an extremely exciting prospect.

Now we have the iPhone. A lot of people are complaining about the closed character of the iPhone but I see it differently. Sure, things could improve a lot. The NDA should go and the App store should work more transparent and all that. But look at the possibilities for a moment and you will realize just how empowering this little computer is!

The early Apple computers had serial ports that let people do anything with their computers which was cool. The box itself could do a few basic things which were exciting but still fairly limited. Now look at the iPhone: developers have access to the Internet, the GPS chip and all the motion sensors. The touch, tilt and move interface is all there waiting for you to take advantage of. All you have to do is come up with an application that uses a few of these, freely available, technologies and built it.

Better yet; you don’t even have to worry about setting up an eShop, coming up with license fees, promotion, illegal copies or how to make your invention available to users. The App store handles everything for you.

So what you have is a phenomenon with unlimited possibilities, free tools to build applications, an app store that handles distribution, promotion and security and millions of eager users who can’t wait to play with your products, and pay for them too.

It is not often that a revolution takes place where you get a chance to participate. It happened, and is still happening, with the Internet and now it has just started with a new platform called the iPhone.

I just couldn’t resist becoming a part of that.

arly a 0.1 product. Can’t find out how to delete blogs and adding a new blog publishes an empty post. Besides that it does make the iPhone and iPod touch extra interesting for bloggers.

It also let’s you add photos or screenshots to new posts, as you can see:

(updated the posts slightly afterward so it looked better. I aligned the image right instead of posting it beneath the post)

The result:

My grandfather was a doctor in a small village. He had one of the 20 phones. His phonenumber was 9. When my father grew up the phone was still regarded as a serious tool which you would only use for urgent matters. My father made one phonecall a year and his father had him sit down and make a list of things he wanted to ask – a script – which he had to show for approval before he made the call.

I remember when I had to explain – defend even – to people why I had a mobile phone. Recently I met someone who didn’t own a mobile phone. This was a fact that led to a lot of amusement at the party where I was at. It was noteworthy enough to keep everybody talking about it for about a hour.

One day telephone calls will be free. They might be always on. Probably it will use some technology that confuses me. I will not understand it and resist. My daughters will come over to have a chat about my phone use. They will say something like this:

“Why do you hang up daddy? What is the use? Why do you need to be disconnected? It is so inconvenient to have to reconnect every time we want to hear how you are doing. Last week you hung up the phone for 3 hours! We only found out after 2 hours and then we spent almost a full hour to reconnect! You know it is free, right? No need to keep it short. From now on just keep your communicator switched on at all times so we can hear you, see your heart rate and check your temperature…

Today Google announced something that might help: BlackBerry Sync for Google Calendar

I installed it and it seems to work fine, so far. Now I have to think of a way to sync Google Calendar with iCal and then I am Synced all over the place. Spanning Sync should do the trick but that is pretty expensive with a $25 one-year subscription or a $65 one-time purchase.

If you have a Blackberry just surf to this link and you can install the application right away:
http://m.google.com/sync.

But then Oscar Kneppers came up with a beautiful plan. I’m not going into all the details here because I want to leave that to Bright Magazine but it involved Mark Hoekstra and you can see the result here:

The Black iPhone:
http://geektechnique.org/projectlab/822/paint-it-black-the-iphone

I am so proud that MY old iPhone is now THE coolest iPhone in the world!

Please also Digg the story:
http://digg.com/gadgets/The_ONLY_Black_iPhone_in_the_World

Now also on Gizmodo:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/iphone/iphone-mod-thinks-differently-316602.php

And on the unofficial Apple weblog:
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/29/iphone-or-newton/

Make Magazine:
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/10/old_school_iphone.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

PRESS RELEASE – Amsterdam, October 22 2007
Software startup makes iPhone usage transparent
Amsterdam-based company Wakoopa has announced today that it’s tracking worldwide iPhone usage. Since January, Wakoopa has been developing an online social network where software usage can be tracked. Next to Mac and PC software, it now also monitors applications for the new Apple handheld, the iPhone.

Social network
Wakoopa (http://wakoopa.com) is a social network specifically for software users. Wakoopa’s service enables people to track and designate what software they are using. This creates a “view rating” or usage indication of software. Visitors and members of this community can look at what software has been used for how long in their social circle, and which type of software is most popular at a certain moment.

Better choices
Wakoopa founders Wouter Broekhof and Robert Gaal want to make iPhone application more transparent with this new addition. Broekhof: “The iPhone truly is a revolutionary device that has inspired developers worldwide. We want to make the usage of these applications more transparant. Not only for developers, but for our users who will be able to make better choices when it comes to software”. Apple announced last week that developers from outside the company will be able to create iPhone applications in the future. Currently it’s already possible to create iPhone software in the form of web applications. Both these types of applications can be added and tracked on Wakoopa’s iPhone site (http://i.wakoopa.com).

Wakoopa
Wakoopa launched in May this year and has welcomed over 20.000 unique members since. The Dutch Creative Industry Fund (DCIF), an investment fund founded by the three largest Dutch media companies, invested in the company earlier this year. Shortly after, BusinessWeek awarded Broekhof (23) and Gaal (22) as “Europe’s Top Young Entrepreneurs 2007”.

Even if you don’t have an iPhone Wakoopa is still a great service to check out. I use it on my Mac and display a widget on my blog here showing what applications I use. When I visit Wakoopa I get suggestions of other interesting applications I could use besides or instead of my current software.

The last question that Gary Wolf asks is “Is there anything well designed today that inspires you?”. Steve Jobs then tells a very personal story about his ideas about design and how he and his family deals with technology.

I can recommend reading the whole article but i also want to quote this one particular part here:

Design is not limited to fancy new gadgets. Our family just bought a new washing machine and dryer. We didn’t have a very good one so we spent a little time looking at them. It turns out that the Americans make washers and dryers all wrong. The Europeans make them much better – but they take twice as long to do clothes! It turns out that they wash them with about a quarter as much water and your clothes end up with a lot less detergent on them. Most important, they don’t trash your clothes. They use a lot less soap, a lot less water, but they come out much cleaner, much softer, and they last a lot longer.

We spent some time in our family talking about what’s the trade-off we want to make. We ended up talking a lot about design, but also about the values of our family. Did we care most about getting our wash done in an hour versus an hour and a half? Or did we care most about our clothes feeling really soft and lasting longer? Did we care about using a quarter of the water? We spent about two weeks talking about this every night at the dinner table. We’d get around to that old washer-dryer discussion. And the talk was about design.

We ended up opting for these Miele appliances, made in Germany. They’re too expensive, but that’s just because nobody buys them in this country. They are really wonderfully made and one of the few products we’ve bought over the last few years that we’re all really happy about. These guys really thought the process through. They did such a great job designing these washers and dryers. I got more thrill out of them than I have out of any piece of high tech in years.

From an interview by Gary Wolf with Steve Jobs for Wired Magazine in 1996 titled “Give The People What They Want“