Image courtesy of Flickr user SolYoung

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The pitch is fevered, with the crowd as antsy as a crowd at an Apple event has ever been. The lights dim, music crescendos up a couple of notches, and STEVE IS ON STAGE!

“Thanks for joining me today for this event, the greatest event in the history of Apple.”

Applause, then complete silence as Jobs holds up something in his left hand.

“This is the greatest thing I have ever done. This is the one thing that will change your life. This is the thing that will impact every single person attending this event, and those watching it later. This is the thing that will not only change your life, it will make it better. I present to you — the OmniPad.”

Wild hysteria ensues. Steve waves the OmniPad in his hand until the crowd goes totally silent.

“The OmniPad is no thicker than a single sheet of paper. It weighs no more than that same sheet of paper. Which is why you can do this.”

The crowd goes crazy as Jobs FOLDS THE OMNIPAD IN TWO! AND THEN IN FOURTHS!

“The OmniPad is the epitome of everything I have done at Apple. It is a computer, an entertainment device, a book reader, a game machine, a window into our very lives! And it folds into your pocket when not in use. Only we could do this.”

He takes the OmniPad out of his pocket and unfolds it back into a whole sheet.

“The OmniPad has the highest resolution screen ever produced. It has terrabytes of memory to store the entire world’s information. It is connected to everything, all the time. It is easy to use, it is self updating, it corrects user errors before they create problems! It is omniscient, thus the OmniPad!

“Now you’re probably asking, how can I get one of my very own? That’s a smart question. The OmniPad is available at apple.com right now! It is available in one color, this one. It is the only device you need, the only device you will EVER NEED! And it is yours for only $2,399!”

Wild applause.

“Some of you may be thinking that this is an awfully high price, but think about it for a moment. The OmniPad replaces the entire Apple product line, and for only $2,399! That is an incredible bargain no matter how you look at it!

“Look at everything you can do with the OmniPad. It’s a full computer that can handle everything you do with one. It has multitouch, and multi-tasking! It uses our new intuitive interface that anticipates what you want to do next. And it just does it! No action on your part is required at all, thus no keyboard, no trackpad, nothing! Just think it and the OmniPad does it!

“E-books are the hot ticket right now, and the OmniPad is the greatest reader ever invented. What is more natural than reading a book on a screen like a sheet of paper? Nothing, that’s what.

“And the method for getting books is something only we could deliver. I am happy to announce the launch of ThoughtNet to go along with the OmniPad! Think of a book you want to read, and in less than two seconds it is on the OmniPad! No action on your part is required, just think it and read it! The cost is automatically deducted from your bank account with no hassles.

“ThoughtNet also works the same way for movies, or TV shows or music! Think it and it’s simply there on the OmniPad. It couldn’t be easier to buy content. This is also the greatest thing I have ever done!”

The screen is showing The Hangover playing on the OmniPad and the crowd goes crazy again.

“So you’re asking, how does the OmniPad do all of these things? Easy — iPhone OS 4.0! This new version of the iPhone OS is also the greatest thing I have ever done. It takes the greatness that is the iPhone, and makes it work better for the bigger screen! Just swipe, and things happen. Or better yet, just think them and they happen!

“I had to develop iPhone 4.0 not just for the OmniPad, but also for the NEXT GENERATION IPHONE!”

Crazy whoops and hollers in the audience.

“Now, on the surface the next generation iPhone may look just like the last version, and the one before that. But this generation iPhone is better than anything out there today. Why? Because it is an iPhone that has been untethered from the AT&T network!”

Audience is whipped into a frenzy.

“That’s right, as of today you can buy an iPhone 4G on every carrier in the world! It works on all of them, and they’ll all give you a GIANT SUBSIDY so that it only costs you $299!

“So go out today and buy an OmniPad! Your life will be better for it, and even your self-esteem will improve! Pick up an iPhone 4G too, on any network besides AT&T! All of these things are the best things I have ever done, and I am proud to share them with you. Just pay the money, and I will share them with you. Thank you!

“There will be no hands-on sessions after the event as these new products are too precious to let anyone touch them for free. You will have to pay online to get them in your own hands. You will be happy you did so. Thanks for coming!”

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As we get closer and closer to the big announcement, whenever it will be, I’ve not been wasting any time. I have positioned myself to take advantage of whatever greatness Steve Jobs is going to offer me. I have cleaned off my desk, and I now have two prominent spots ready. One place for the slate, a prime piece of desk real estate in front of me so I can gaze longingly at it all day. The other spot on the desk is to be ready in case Apple makes a dock the slate can sit in while doing amazing things. Oh, that thought makes me giddy.

I know that such great technology, whatever it might be, can’t be cheap, so I’ve taken adequate steps to insure I am ready to grab one of the very first ones. First up, I sold my car. Heck, that decision was easy, I’m not going anywhere once I have the perfect device in my hands anyway. I’d have to put it down to drive a car, and that’s not going to happen. I also cashed in my kid’s college fund. He’ll learn more by watching me use the slate, anyway. It will be able to tap into all the world’s information, and I’ll pass on that to the kid. One day I might even let him use the slate, but that won’t happen for a good while. Maybe never, given how special I will feel the entire time I use it.

I don’t know what the slate will be like, I can only imagine. It is going to be wonderful, I know that for certain. It will make everything I do much easier than before. It will open up new doors I never even imagined existed. It will take me to places I could not go otherwise. It will make me a better person in every way. And I’ll look cool doing it. Thank you, Mr. Jobs, for whatever you’ll offer up. I’ll pay it gladly.

Note: no devices made by Apple’s competitors were harmed in the writing of this piece. Hopefully anyone reading this will understand that it was all in jest. Hey, I’m still exhausted from CES week. :)

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Mark my words, it won’t be long before we start hearing statements like these in tech settings:

“My system pulled a sidekick — all my data’s gone!”

“We just got sidekicked off the server!”

“Make sure your backup data is good — you don’t want to be sidekicked in the face.”

“Yesterday my system worked fine — today it’s just a sidekick!”

Don’t be fast to judge, I feel so bad for those poor Sidekick owners who are now without all of their personal data. It is an unthinkable situation and it demonstrates the importance of keeping data backed up. Those of us who have lost a system, only to discover our backup (that had been duly maintained) was no good, know exactly how demoralizing the Sidekick issue can be. Sometimes things make so little sense you just have to joke about them to keep sane.

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I can’t prove it, but I believe that Apple updated my Palm Pre to iPhone 3.0! Now before you blow me off thinking I am crazy, here’s my thought process. I looked at the Pre after syncing it with iTunes today and find the following iPhone 3.0 features front and center:

• Copy/Cut/Paste: check
• MMS and A2DP: check
• Spotlight (integrated search): check
• Turn-by-Turn Navigation: check
• Google Maps: check
• Push Notification: check

If it was only one or two iPhone 3.0 features I would think it a coincidence, but this is just too many. It definitely looks like my Palm Pre is now running iPhone 3.0.

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When word comes out about an upcoming tech product, the first thing that starts appearing is how this new product will be a “gadget x killer.” You know what I’m talking about. There have been no fewer than a dozen smartphones that were going to be the big “iPhone killer.” Some of these gadgets were going to be “BlackBerry killers” or “Windows Mobile killers.” It seems that every new smartphone is going to kill off some other phone. That must mean that competition is a bad thing if we all want a new product to kill off an existing one. It must be better to have only one product in a category, right?

Netbooks, those cheap, little notebooks that have taken the tech world by storm, have been “notebook killers” since they appeared. MIDs have also been touted as “notebook killers.” Those notebooks must need killing off with everything out to get them. Those of us who cover the tech world must believe it is, so as we keep anointing products as killers of something else. It must mean that competition is a bad thing, or we wouldn’t want it killed off so regularly.

Consumers feel that way, too, no matter what you think. Check the comments on a review of any new tech product, and you’ll be inundated with claims that the product will kill off the competition and that it will be deserved because all other products “suck.” In any given tech category, there is obviously only one product that deserves to live and all others need to go away. It’s repeated too often to not be true.

Now that we have come to grips that competition in the tech world is a bad thing, there only remains one important task. That is deciding which single product in each category is the one that lives. That will be the hard part, I am pretty sure.

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Clearly, they’ve achieved that goal based on the screen capture below from my netbook. In fact, they’ve accomplished something that not even Apple has done with Mac OS X, nor has Canonical done with Ubuntu: They have the operating system running without any RAM! If Microsoft can do that, just think of what’s next: computers without displays that project images right in your mind or entering text using a pen instead of keyboard. Oh wait…

OK, I’m joking about the RAM issue, although I was surprised to see that Windows 7 didn’t show any RAM in the System section of the Control Panel. Hey, it’s a release candidate, so there are still going to be bugs, issues and challenges to fix. Besides, I need a little humor in my life these days due to recent events, so maybe this was Microsoft’s way of trying to make me smile. ;)

All kidding aside, I like the new “Pen and Touch” status included with the system specs. I don’t recall if that was there with the beta builds or not, but it’s important. Windows 7 adds touch and ink improvements and consumers need to know if their hardware is capable of using them or not. You can also see that my MSI Wind with no RAM 2GB of RAM scored a Windows Experience Index of 2.1. That number represents the lowest subscore, which was the Graphics component. Next lowest was the Processor subscore at 2.2. Gaming Graphics was a 3.0 while the Primary Hard Disk score was 4.9. Ironically, the Memory (RAM) score was a respectable 4.5; not bad since I was expecting a big, fat zero!

Since I had planned to give Ubuntu 9.04 a good look, I’ll be putting that OS back on the netbook. Again, I’ll do this in a dual-boot configuration so I can pick and choose my operating system upon booting.

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12:01 Las Vegas

“We at Palm have a dedication to advance the technology in the products we produce and will not be happy to be second to any. We intend to reclaim the place at the top of the heap in a product group we invented with the first Palm Pilot and advanced further with the Palm Treo. We are always analyzing what we do with the aim to make it better than anything else on the market.

“That self analysis has led us to realize that the latest product in the Palm family fell short in certain areas and we could not be comfortable releasing it like that so we are canceling the Pre. I know the Pre has excited a lot of people who watch these things and it’s true we put a lot of innovation into the Pre but we can do better.

“There are those who will no doubt say deja vu- you came close to the release of the Foleo and canceled it prior to launch and you’d be right. The Foleo was so advanced a concept that it was simply too far ahead of its time. We were going to release it prior to this whole netbook craze and that shows how appropriate the Foleo was in its day. The problem with bringing the Foleo to market at that time was the divergence of the phone and the notebook. We realized the requirement that users bring their own phone, an older Treo at that, would not fly and that is why we stopped the Foleo before bringing it to market.

“This same process has led us to realize that the Pre is not the product that our customers want and need. There is only so much you can do with a phone, even one as advanced as the Pre. It is a case of the Pre being too far ahead of its time just as the Foleo was, and we can’t introduce a product that falls short in the area we feel is the most important.

“Imagine how productive you would be if you had a netbook-like device that was self-contained, including a phone. You could do all the work you need to do, hang out on all the social networks you enjoy, and also have the best phone on the market. Yes, it’s a dream but we at Palm are going to bring that dream to our customers.

“I am proud and excited to introduce you to the Palm Peo (Pay-o). The Palm Peo may look like the Foleo, after all the Foleo was an advanced, highly portable notebook type of device. But that’s where the resemblance ends. The Palm Peo has all the things you expect a notebook to have but is also a top-of-the-line phone. That’s right, we put the Pre in the Foleo and produced the Palm Peo.

“You only want to carry one device with you to do all you need to do both business and personal, and the Peo is your device. Imagine you get up in the morning and check your stocks right there on your Palm Peo. It’s always connected no matter where in the world you roam. Then you check your schedule to see what kind of day it’s going to be. Once you get to the office you can work on all the documents you need to until lunchtime. You decide to see if your friend Sue is free for lunch and you tap on her picture on the Peo screen. The Peo begins dialing Sue and when you hear her answer all you do is close the lid on the Peo and hold it up to your ear. You’re talking to Sue and make lunch plans and when you’re finished you simply set the Peo down and open the lid. The call is automatically ended, just that simply.

“I am convinced that the Palm Peo will be the converged device that revolutionizes the netbook/ notebook/ smartphone world. One device, all the time. There’s nothing better than a good Peo.”

Colligan’s announcement seemed to stun the press as only one question was put to him when his statement concluded. When asked if he knew what Peo meant in Spanish, Colligan said no and was heard to be asking an assistant off-stage what it means.

SLOOF LIRPA

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