The Microsoft Surface the table top iPhone?

It is funny to think that years ago if you had a Mac you were considered a chump. Microsoft reigned supreme in the PC dominated world. Now, Microsoft is seeing a decline in their financial earnings and aren't making news headlines with many innovations. The revamping of Macintosh's company and the creation of iPods and iPhones has certainly catapulted the company into the technological media spotlight. But two years ago, billions of years ago in technology terms, Microsoft sounded like they were really on to something. It seemed like they had created a product that might revolutionize the way we dine and shop. In 2007, Microsoft Surface previewed its innovation.

When a friend of mine chose Microsoft Surface as the topic of her Com 114 speech, I was enthralled. What a cool invention! Microsoft Surface was a table top computer with multi-touchpoints. You could lay your credit card on the table at a restaurant and pay your bill. Or for the stingy who hate to split a bill in half, you could lay everyone's credit card on the table. If you had the cheesecake and the steak dinner, tiny pictures would come up from your digitilized bill and you could drag those pictures to your card, allowing your friends to deduct what food was their own. You could lay a digital camera on the Surface and watch as it spit out all of the pictures on your memory card. You could share pictures with friends or send them off to relatives with a message on the back. The Surface could allow bar and restaurant patrons to play games or put their glass of wine on the table and have the Surface say what dish would compliment it. There seemed to be a million things you could do with the Surface. In the beginning only retail stores, restaurants, and hotels bought the $10,000 Surface to use. Then, the hype about this new product seemed to fade away. Who wants a $10,000 interactive table when they could buy a computer for less than half that?

Then Macintosh's iPhone took off like wildfire. People were willing to be a still expensive, but more reasonable, $600 for basically the phone version of the Surface. Of course, there are pros to the Surface and some capabilities it has that iPhone hasn't developed yet (I mean will we ever be able to rest a wine glass on an iPhone to hear what dish would go best with it?). But, there are too many cons when weighed against the iPhone. It might be comforting for Microsoft to know that Macintosh was in their same shoes years ago and now look at them! We'll see what Microsoft innovators come up with next to combat the Macintosh empire.

Zipcars? Of course there's an app for that!

Walking down my street in Chicago I saw a curious sign for a zipcar. My brother explained its basically a car borrowing program that started in Boston and is now expanding to major cities across the country. Had I been in West Lafayette too long? This seemed to be the most original idea I had heard in a very long time.

So how does this all work? If you go to the zipcar website they break it all down in four steps. First, you join. There are a couple of payment plans you can choose from depending how frequent of a user you will be of the cars. Gas, the first 180 miles, insurance, and parking is all free for the user. The first question people may ask at this point is, "Is this really cheaper than buying a car?" In the city? It's incredibly cheaper. Living in the city makes everything from groceries to movies to gyms within a block or two from your place. With cabs, trains, and buses all circulating the city, there is no need to have a car to get from place to place. If you needed to go visit your sister in the suburbs or want to go on a road trip somewhere outside of the city, just get a zipcar and return it when you are done. No having to buy your own car for those few trips out of the city. No having to drive around your block for hours waiting for a parking space on the street to open up.

What about those who have cars and a parking space in their building? They are the lucky city dwellers, but not by much. The average parking space in buildings are $30,000. Yes, there are four zeroes. Did I mention you pay taxes on that spot, too? A parking space is its own form of real estate in the city! A zipcar sounds expensive at about 60$ a day with an annual fee of 50$, but its actually a bargain. You won't have to use the car everyday and even if you did, its cheaper than buying a car, buying a parking space, and paying for insurance and gas.

So what is the next step after joining on the zipcar website? You receive your zipcar card and then decide when you want to use it. When you decide you need a car, simply reserve the car of your choice online or over the phone. Here is where your iPhone comes in! The zipcar app is just as novel of an idea as the zipcar. Your iPhone can check the availability of the car you want to drive. It can show, make, or extend your reservation. Your iPhone even turns into the car keys, unlocking and locking the doors or honking the horn in case you cannot find your zipcar in a crowded parking garage.

Take your card for your zipcar and hold it to the windshield. The doors unlock and you are free to drive your car until your reservation end time. Then simply return the car to its space. Gas and insurance included! If you live in the city, check out this option for a car. If you are visiting a city, check the rates of a rental to zipcars. I guarantee paying 7$ an hour to drive the car around the city and then returning it is much cheaper and less stressful than paying for a car rental fee, looking for parking, and then paying for that on top of it (An hour in a Chicago parking garage=23$!)

Is the iPhone the new laptop? The new digital camera?

A comment to my first post raised a great question. With the iPhone's extensive library of apps that can really do anything, will there be a need to lug around your laptop or digital camera? If you are driving and decide to get something to eat, there's an app to find a restaurant. If you are lost, your iPhone has GPS or you can mapquest. If you forgot your camera, you can use your iPhone to take a picture, edit it, and save it or send it. Your iPhone can send and receive email, allow you to read a book, and surf the web. So is there a need for your bulky laptop or your digital camera?

In my opinion, iPhone, as impressive its capabilities are, will not phase out laptops or cameras. While cameras are the closest to being replaced by iPhone, they have two saving graces. The first is that the camera quality on an iPhone does not quite match the quality of a digital camera. The second is that not everyone is an iPhone user who has the capabilities of taking pictures you can edit and email. Laptops are nowhere close to being pushed aside for the iPhone. The iPhone has all the capabilities of a laptop and is lighter and more compact. But there lies its flaw when compared to a laptop. If you had a five page paper due would you want to be typing it out on the tiny iPhone screen with a keyboard that is sometimes hard to just text with? Would you want to read all of your articles online by expanding the screen and moving it back and forth multiple times for each line you read? You cannot edit movies on an iPhone. Downloading things can get pretty difficult, especially if its a .zip file. There is no place to plug in your jump drive to transfer a document from your iPhone to your jump drive. The last saving grace for a laptop is simply not all laptop users have an iPhone.

So while that iPhone has an app for almost anything, it seems, I do not think it is anything for manufacturers of laptops and digital cameras to worry about. Are less people taking their laptop to Starbucks and to campus when they have an iPhone? Probably. But I would not start thinking of the iPhone as the omniscient, omnipotent piece of technology.

Musicians. There's an app for that...

As a musician, I found it quite an inconvenience that my Baby Grand piano and guitar took up too much space in my cramped living quarters at college. Even though the iPhone music apps cannot count as a complete substitute for the real instruments, I was pleasantly surprised at how vast the choices were for those without instruments at their disposal.

For those who want to practice or mess around on an instrument of their choice, they can download the app for it! Pianist is an iPhone app with the full keyboard (that's all 52 white keys and all 36 black keys) that even includes the three pedals for softening and sustaining notes. You can play around on the keyboard or compose a piano piece all on your phone. There is also the Pocket Guitar app, if you are a guitarist. This is includes all six strings, so you can strum away without the nasty blisters. If you need a refresher on chords, download the Guitar tool kit. It will show you any chord variation you need to learn or need to be reminded of. You can even set your phone on your desk and have it become your portable metronome, tuner, or recorder. The one downside of these instruments on your phone is that they are harder to manipulate than a real instrument. However, anyone who plays an instrument knows how addicting it can be to play. Any instrument, even a electronic substitute, will do. Also, if inspiration for a song comes into your head at any point in time, you can record it on the spot instead of forgetting it later.

But for those music lovers who do not play an instrument, there are apps for you, too. Pandora.com is quickly becoming a cheap college students favorite website for free music, and the iPhone was quick to notice. Download the Pandora app and listen and create your stations from anywhere to listen wherever you are. However, I think the most ingenious app was created for those who always ask, "Who sings this?" Put your iPhone up to a speaker when you hear that new song you can't get out of your head, but still don't know the artist or title and Shazam will identify the song, artist, and allow you to download it from the iTunes store. Did I mention Shazam is a free app?

Did you know there's an app for that?

A cellphone that costs from $499-599 with a cellphone bill that could range from $59.99 to $99.99 a month does not seem to be worth it. What is so unique about the iPhone? Why does it seem to reign supreme amongst cellphones? Why is it the envy of every cellphone user? Why are there hits on the web for iPhone application development workshops that cost $1200 to attend?

It all goes back to the iPhone tag line, "There's an app for that". The next few weeks I will be highlighting what iPhone apps there are, what they can do, and how you can actually profit from developing an app. Hopefully, these postings will give you a better understanding of why some people will spend the money for an iPhone and why it may not be such a bad investment after all.