I clarified over on my blog, as you’ve seen - since you’ve invited me to write the same thing here, I will.

The thing I’m impressed by is the apparent neatness of the device convergence… I absolutely still think that open standards are needed for e.g. the web interaction (see the Google Maps stuff on the iPhone, the gadgets, and I imagine all kinds of other stuff). I’m thinking about the way in which this particular device appears to combine the phone/music/camera/photos/browser in a elegant way (although just how seamlessly it all works remains to be seen). That was where the “convergence” angle came from.

I liked Eric Schmidt’s comment in the keynote about companies doing the best things they can. It seems to me (and I don’t actually own any) that Apple make nice devices; I’m not so sure about the services that they offer. I believe that the SOA style can enable these kinds of devices to make the use of the best services they can

By the way, in the cold light of day, I’m still wowed by the demos on the Apple site, but I’m considering it all a lot more carefully. I’ll be interested to see where they go with e.g. 3G in Europe; how well this works as a converged device; how well the Apple manufacturing, retail and support infrastructure can scale to support the possible demand; how well it works with other devices when it does need to interoperate (Bluetooth, Wifi etc.).

As as added thought - an integrated user experience is what you can get through things like middleware portals. This is, of course, on the user interface side of things. Open standards, SOA and, as you put it componentisation can absolutely underpin this.

Maybe the iPhone is a really, really slick looking hardware / software mashup? It sounds like a lot of it is a lot more closed than might be ideal - but basically they’ve put together a lot of successful components, added a nice sprinkle of style, and not mentioned some of the closed bits yet.

I like your thought about Apple seemingly getting things right first time - I’d suggest that the secrecy and the time they take to produce a market-wowing device like this contributes to the success of their “right first time” products.

Savio I think you are right on.

I found it very interesting to see Andy Piper from IBM say he no longer believes in SOA but thinks an integrated experience is more important than componentisation. http://andypiper.wordpress.com/2007/01/09/apple-convergence-is-now/

Joining things together with bits of string is what gives us freedom.

“…(amongst) the biggest Apple fans.”

I think much of our interest in open source | open standards | freedom of choice was incubated in the traffic-jam crucible of the dominance of our choices by a culture of anti-design with emphasis of Soviet API-control — which has become as unmanageable and distracting as a Control Economy.

It’s becoming apparent to me that freedom is good but we value quality even more.

Incidentally, I disagree with the reactionary back-lash: iPhone — or whatever it will be called (they’ll come up with an even better name rather than pay Cisco [who will ask too much] — is for real. Disruptive, difficult to get used to, but easy to use, beautiful (makes one feel good about oneself) and for real.

It will take some of Blackberry’s share but will redefine the SmartPhone market to be a different, much larger thing. People! They are just getting started to leverage the, quite literally portable, BSD kernel.

You know what makes me laugh, most folks (sigh…including myself) who are such supporters of open standards, open source, freedom and choice when it comes to enterprise software seem to be (amongst) the biggest Apple fans.

As I’ve written here, does that mean open standards/open source/freedom/choice are things we’re willing to trade off against coolness and enjoyment when it comes to our consumer purchases, but not our enterprise purchases?

http://saviorodrigues.wordpress.com/2007/01/10/iphones-commentary-on-open-source/

I stand by my comments on device convergence, but may prove to have gone overboard in my boyish enthusiasm for it all.