Jinn of Quality and Risk

Today was one of the few times I've had the opportunity to watch Steve Jobs give a keynote presentation (thanks to a 56k modem, the Internet, Quicktime, and about two hours free). Not much news in the hardware department: a beautiful 17-inch flat-screen iMac and a gorgeous 20GB iPod. On the other hand, besides the Jaguar release of Mac OS X, a lot is happening on the software side; Apple is trying to position itself as a service provider, to create an integrated experience and generate other revenues (Jobs called it "Internet services for the rest of us"). One thing I found particularly interesting, in terms of the close future, is support for something I call nomadic computing (with Rendezvous and iSync):

• automatically detect other digital devices (computers, printers, PDAs, phones) and network them, usually without wires;
• synchronize PDA-style data between your computer, networked devices (airport), and lifestyle devices including the iPod (firewire), classical PDAs (USB), and mobile phones (bluetooth);
• manage pictures from digital cameras (iPhoto);
• share music and audiobooks between CDs, the Internet, and your iPod (iTunes); and
• create movies from digital video-cameras (iMovie).

I love that vision and want more of it to be a reality. There are tons of everyday services that could be created or improved with nomadic computing (not to mention the return to an ancient lifestyle...). I already have an iBook, a Handspring PDA, a Canon digital camera, and a Sony Ericsson bluetooth+GPRS mobile phone. Further, I am of course lusting for an airport card (end of July) and the iPod (xmas?). And let's not forget a reasonable cable or ADSL connection when I'm at home (end of August).