After some verbal grandstanding and many deadlines, Cisco and Apple worked out their differences regarding the iPhone trademark. The unusually short press release mentions:
In addition, Cisco and Apple will explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications.
This leads Wired's Cult of Mac to speculate about the possibilities of of voice over IP compatibility between Cisco products and the iPhone.
However, the Cisco (or rather, Linksys) iPhones aren't so much VoIP phones that use the standard SIP protocol (Cisco does make these for the enterprise market), but rather proprietary Skype or Yahoo Messenger phones. As such, it's hard to see how interoperability would even be possible, unless Apple's iPhone were to come with its own version of these applications. Apple hasn't exactly been forthcoming with details about what will and what won't run on its iPhone, but curiously missing in action during Steve Jobs' demo was Apple's own instant messaging and voice chat program, iChat.
But here's a more fundamental question: why does Apple's iPhone have WiFi in the first place? All the applications that that Steve Jobs demoed would work well enough over EDGE. EDGE is not particularly fast, but it's not that slow. Mail and the kind of web pages that are usable on a hand-held device (even a relatively powerful one) don't require multi-megabit per second Internet access speeds. Would the same company that keeps putting last year's graphics cards in top segment computers spend extra money on a WiFi chip just to speed up applications that don't really require the extra speed? It's not like we get to sync or buy from the iTunes Store wirelessly. Or will we?
I'm pretty sure there is one more thing, something that really needs the 802.11 capability. VoIP would fit the bill perfectly. With VoIP on board, the iPhone can replace existing fixed phones and more easily justify its steep price tag. It also makes sense that Apple would like to keep this secret from Cingular (or maybe just the overseas wireless networks that it's no doubt negotiating with right now) in order to get the best deal possible. When Steve then drops the VoIP bomb on them right before the iPhone becomes available, the carriers are already committed and it won't be easy to back out. Or maybe the carriers are in on the deal and are working on mobile-VoIP integration as we speak. This is where a user calls over VoIP/WiFi/ADSL at home and over the cell network elsewhere.
Or maybe the raison d'être for the iPhone's WiFi is something completely different. But somewhere, somehow, there's another shoe that has yet to drop.
After some verbal grandstanding and many deadlines, Cisco and Apple worked out their differences regarding the iPhone trademark. The unusually short press release mentions:
In addition, Cisco and Apple will explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications.This leads Wired's Cult of Mac to speculate about the possibilities of of voice over IP compatibility between Cisco products and the iPhone.
However, the Cisco (or rather, Linksys) iPhones aren't so much VoIP phones that use the standard SIP protocol (Cisco does make these for the enterprise market), but rather proprietary Skype or Yahoo Messenger phones. As such, it's hard to see how interoperability would even be possible, unless Apple's iPhone were to come with its own version of these applications. Apple hasn't exactly been forthcoming with details about what will and what won't run on its iPhone, but curiously missing in action during Steve Jobs' demo was Apple's own instant messaging and voice chat program, iChat.But here's a more fundamental question: why does Apple's iPhone have WiFi in the first place? All the applications that that Steve Jobs demoed would work well enough over EDGE. EDGE is not particularly fast, but it's not that slow. Mail and the kind of web pages that are usable on a hand-held device (even a relatively powerful one) don't require multi-megabit per second Internet access speeds. Would the same company that keeps putting last year's graphics cards in top segment computers spend extra money on a WiFi chip just to speed up applications that don't really require the extra speed? It's not like we get to sync or buy from the iTunes Store wirelessly. Or will we?I'm pretty sure there is one more thing, something that really needs the 802.11 capability. VoIP would fit the bill perfectly. With VoIP on board, the iPhone can replace existing fixed phones and more easily justify its steep price tag. It also makes sense that Apple would like to keep this secret from Cingular (or maybe just the overseas wireless networks that it's no doubt negotiating with right now) in order to get the best deal possible. When Steve then drops the VoIP bomb on them right before the iPhone becomes available, the carriers are already committed and it won't be easy to back out. Or maybe the carriers are in on the deal and are working on mobile-VoIP integration as we speak. This is where a user calls over VoIP/WiFi/ADSL at home and over the cell network elsewhere.
Or maybe the raison d'être for the iPhone's WiFi is something completely different. But somewhere, somehow, there's another shoe that has yet to drop.
