iPhone
I was up late last night catching up on Steve Jobs' keynote. Man, that iPhone is a real piece of engineering. I'm tempted to call it a UMPC, although you probably won't get as much utility out of it as you would from a full computer. What's really annoying about "embedded" devices is they are reluctant to quote specs. Nobody knows what kind of CPU is in this or how much RAM it uses. All we know is the storage is 4 or 8GB of flash and it uses a cut-down version of OSX. I was just struck at how smooth the multitasking and animation was. If this uses the same class of hardware (XScale ARM) as other PDAs/Smartphones then this is a real damnation of Microsoft's WindowsMobile OS.
On the flipside, I really don't like how closed off the hardware is. On my Cingular 8125 I have a miniSD slot. By not having removable memory, as flash technology improves, this device will become obsolete just by virtue of not having enough storage space. Same deal with the radio. It should have a removable flash chip and radio. Without it, Apple has just forced people onto an upgrade treadmill and potentially created a lot of future industrial waste.
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