Sorry folks. I'd like to do better. Not sure I can promise that though.
It seems that the consensus regarding this announcement is that Verizon is finally getting the iPhone. I have to agree that this makes sense. There is just too much money to be made not to spread the iPhone to additional carriers. I'm kind of surprised it took this long but the entanglement of corporate politics may be to blame for the delay. Then again there may be another reason and this brings me to the second part of my prediction. Verizon is hot on LTE right now as they just announced a line of LTE devices at CES. Their focus on LTE and the delay of this launch makes me think that they are going to open with an LTE iPhone out of the gate. This would be a great way to put a choke hole on the industry and put Verizon in a great position for dominance over the next few years.
If the final verdict is indeed a Verizon iPhone I will then have to decide whether or not to switch from Android to the iPhone. I believe that my decision will be to switch but the decision is not as clear cut as it once was. There was a time when I wouldn't have thought twice but the are aspects of Android that I would definitely miss. If I do switch I will try to write an entry discussing my reasoning. If I decide not to I will try to do the same.
We will just have to see if Apple has waited too long and allowed Android to gain to much of a foothold in the industry to take the market share they want. My hope is that the current climate encourages as much competition as possible. In that scenario the winner is the consumer. I'll keep my fingers crossed for that outcome.
I wanted to expand on my impressions of the Apple desktop app store today. I did end up purchasing the new version of iPhoto. I really wanted to buy aperture but I just couldn't justify the $80. What I am happy about is that I was able to buy iPhoto without having to buy the entire iLife package. At $15.99 it was just an easier pill to swallow. Once I installed it on my MacBook I was curious to see whether Apple would allow me to install it on any other computers. I went downstairs and logged into the Mac Mini at my entertainment center and applied the update. Once it was finished I fired up the App Store, logged in with my Apple ID, and check out the UI. I was happy to see that on the purchases screen iPhoto was listed with an install option. I was able to install iPhoto on my mac mini with no issues. At that point I updated my wife's MacBook ran the app store and was able to install iPhoto there as well. I thought $15.99 with a pretty good price just to get iPhoto on my MacBook. Being able to install it on all of the Macs in the house makes it a really great deal. Like I said before, good job Apple. I think this is going to be huge home run for you.