The keynote started in the usual boring way, only this time, it went all downhill from there, in terms of density of interesting information. Jobs was only about 10 minutes into his iPhone presentation, and I already had the impression that he was drawing it out, playing for time, as if he wouldn't be able to show as much as he ought to. Hmm, maybe Leopard is delayed? And I was wondering what the Big Deal could possibly be. You see, there's no way the iPhone could become the next iPod. The mobile telephone market is nothing like the portable music player market was when the iPod launched. It is much more saturated with products, competitors, distributors, and customers that already have at least one of the things. No way for Apple to get any significant market share there anytime soon.

I began to see the light when Jobs explained how HUGE exactly the phone market is, so even if they can get just 1% of the market, they'll roll in big loads of cash. But convinced I am not; it still doesn't add up. You see, Jobs was talking about the market for mobile phones. Not about the market for USD 500 telephony-enabled PDAs.

The iPhone is super sexy, super desireable, we all want one; but all in all, how many people will spend USD 500 on one? Usually, when you pay that kind of money for a phone, it doesn't come locked to a specific network, it doesn't come with any contract. Yet in the US (at least), there will only be one phone company you can choose as carrier for your iPhone. So that thing will be even more proprietary than it already is, with both the hard- and the software coming from the same company.

Oh, and how odd is that? The iPhone has super-fast network capabilities, both in terms of phone networks (EDGE) and computer networks (WLAN), it has a gorgeous screen, it has a 2MP camera ... but you won't ever be able to use it for video telephony.

So when that bit was over, I was really exited, because, after all, now was the time for the One More Thing, right? Any time now, One More Thing would be presented? Please? Errm, nope.

Well, maybe I'd expected too much. Maybe I should have expected that there wouldn't be any news for me as a developer; as this keynote simply wasn't the place for that kind of news. Maybe there is, after all, a new XCode that supports making iPhone apps, and it will just be unveiled in a more appropriate context. Maybe Jobs just forgot to mention that 3rd parties will be able to make iPhone apps and that the iPhone won't be a completely closed, walled-in, proprietary device.

But there also was nothing new for me as a user of personal computers and workstations. Leopard wasn't mentioned, nor iLife, nor iWork, nor any of the hardware ... not even a tiny upgrade in a single machine, say a bit more RAM, a couple more MHz ... nothing. Let alone an octo core Mac Pro, a 12" Macbook (Pro or not), new Cinema Displays with an iSight or a tuner built in, new universal binaries of important apps, virtualization features in Leopard, ... there was NONE of that! When Jobs erased the word "computer" from the company name with this slick Keynote effect, I almost felt betrayed.

Personally, I think the iPhone is an overpriced piece of junk and I sincerely hope that millions of suckers are going to buy it, to Apple will get tons of money and can continue to improve this wonderful OS of theirs.