This morning’s Observer column…

The iPhone has arrived. Yawn. It was one of the worst-kept secrets of the technology world – that Apple had teamed up with Motorola to produce a mobile phone with an iPod inside. For months, Photoshopped fantasies of what the new device would look like circulated on the internet, no doubt elevating the blood pressure of Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs, who is famously paranoid about the advance leaking of product details. But last week in San Francisco, Mr Jobs came clean, unveiling the Rokr (as in ‘rocker’, apparently)…

Continued here, if you’re interested.

Yawn. According to the New York Times…

Apple Computer and Motorola plan to unveil a long-awaited mobile phone and music player next week that will incorporate Apple’s iTunes software, a telecommunications industry analyst who has been briefed on the announcement said on Monday.

The development marks a melding of two of the digital era’s most popular devices, the cellphone and the iPod, which has become largely synonymous with the concept of downloading songs from the Internet or transferring them from compact discs. Roger Entner, a telecommunications analyst with Ovum, a market research firm, said he had been told by an industry executive that the new phone, to be made by Motorola, would be marketed by Cingular Wireless. Mr. Entner said it would include iTunes software, which helps power the iPod.

At last — Apple has given up on the one-button mouse. About time too. Thanks to Dave Hill for the news.

Today’s Observer column.

Last week, Apple trumpeted its support of podcasting with a technically misleading but undeniably catchy tag line: “Podcasting. The next generation of radio.”

At the same time, Audible brought out its own print ad: “Audible.com announces a revolutionary breakthrough in podcasting. Profit.”

Randall Stross, writing in the New York Times about Apple’s incorporation of podcasts into iTunes.

From this morning’s Observer column.

Here’s one way of looking at it. Apple’s position in the PC industry is very like that of BMW in the car business: small market share; innovative and much-admired products; and a fanatically loyal customer base. I don’t think I ever met a BMW driver who would willingly change to another marque. And much the same goes for Apple users. For these reasons, the rest of the automobile industry is perpetually fascinated by everything that BMW does. Same goes for Apple. In those terms, the processor decision is analogous to BMW deciding that instead of having its engines made by, say, Mercedes, it would henceforth get them from Ford. And that would be big news in the car business.