Steve Jobs says Iphone is a Pocket PC

Here is confirmation I was correct in calling the iPhone and iTouch as the equivalent of handheld PCs, which is its true disruptive power. This means handheld consoles are not competitors, no matter what Apple fansites say, and it means iPhone will not alter or change how we use cell-phones. It is essentially a cell-phone combined with a pocket PC. The purpose of the cell phone is to give new powers to the pocket PC, not for the pocket PC to give new powers to the cell phone.

In October, Steve Jobs made these remarks in a conference call to investors. He is replying about the question of Apple getting into the netbook business.

”As we look at the netbook category, that’s a nascent category. As best as we can tell, there’s not a lot of them being sold,“ Jobs said.

”You know, one of our entrants into that category if you will is the iPhone, for browsing the Internet, and doing email and all the other things that a netbook lets you do. And being connected via the cellular network wherever you are, an iPhone is a pretty good solution for that, and it fits in your pocket.

“But we’ll wait and see how that nascent category evolves, and we have got some pretty interesting ideas if it does evolve,” Jobs said.

We have always known the two sides of the coin of PC and game consoles. Handheld consoles really haven’t had a PC equivalent until the iPhone. But this raises the question of whether a third form of console can exist. The laptop, which is between pocket PC and home PC, does not yet have a gaming console equivalent. And no, the PSP is not it.

Why would someone want such a laptop equivalent console? Oh, I don’t know. But I imagine a dedicated screen and enough power to be desired for various purposes. Multiplayer gaming on consoles is poor in that everyone has to share a single television screen (or online which isn’t as fun since multiplayer fun really comes from being in the same room). Handhelds are great since they do provide both the different screen and same room multiplayer. But handhelds are puny. A laptop equivalent console could have people play Halo together instead of trying to find TVs or monitors to hook up Xbox systems. It would be better for the American ‘house party’ phenomenon.

And let’s face it, laptops suck for gaming since it becomes much more expensive. I wonder what a cheaper, dedicated gaming laptop equivalent console could do (almost the power of a regular console but has its own screen). It is a crazy idea but if Microsoft ever goes the portable console route, I prefer they go that direction instead of competing with the Sony and Nintendo handhelds. Unfortunately, Microsoft is not too good at getting the hardware right which would likely kill any possibility.

So ignore the above and watch this for fun: Mac Vs. PC.