Alternative views.
1. I thought Jobs had been actively involved in apple business prior to his physical, June return to the campus. This article suggests otherwise.
Well if you are sick like that your involment can be difficult, not just for you but the people you work for.
In any event remember awhile back when Steve said he was a proud of things they didn't deliver as he was the iPhone. That to me signals a real personal interest in the product and the people he was working with. It sounds funny but having the CEO public declare that he was proud of a canceled project shows to me a person that values his team.
2. The second proposed tablet was nixed because of inadequate memory? Couldn't it have just been offered with more? Or does a limit on RAM suggest which OS was planned for that device?
How do you know it was an issue with RAM and not Flash? If it was RAM that might explain a new stadard that came out early in the year for high density low power RAM for portable devices. If flash it is obvious to me this thing needs lots of internal storage, there have been huge strides made in both Flash density and associated controllers so maybe this is solved. Or it could simply be a limitation on both technologies.
As to the amount of RAM implying what the OS is I think there is little chance of that being correlated. Remember iPhone OS is Mac OS with a different API for user apps, there is nothing to keep an app targetted to iPhone OS from using huge gobs of memory.
3. Does Jobs' "jarring" attention to detail bode well or ill for the product?
It is a mixed bag if you ask me. This is the same man that gave us the iMac and AIR. Most people would think one has been a great success. In the end you have a team with a vision, if that vision corresponds to consummer wants and motivates consummers then you win. In any event Steve has a proven ability to boil down the engineers vision into a successful product. IPhone is a perfect example as it was boiled down from a tablet project.
4. If he's only brought this scrutiny to bear in June, what does that say about the earliest possible release of such a product?
that depends upon where they are at in the marketing process. The only possible siting of related info has been the extra devices defined in the iPhone builds. This could imply a product that is near ready hardware wise. Of course the iPhone OS leaks could be garbage, a new Touch device or a country specific iPhone. In the end we have no valid info.
I would have thought the product would dictate the marketing, not the other way around.
Any given product can be marketed in a number of different ways. I see this alot in the business world where the same item gets purchased by big business at high prices while you and I buy it from Sams club dirt cheap. Computers and components for such are a perfect example. At times I've seen industry pay for stuff that I could purchase for a third of the cost. Some business think the service is worthwhile while others just consider it to be servicing.
If he was going to exercise "jarring" influence I would have wanted it on the product, not advertising.
Actually in this case I think you are wrong. Advertised wrong people may get the wrong idea. I don't foresee a tablet ever replacing a Mac, if advertised wrong you could end up with unhappy customers. The problem is it might not be obvious who the intended target is. We don't even know the exact combination of hardware and software so the thread is speculation.
It is not so much being jarred as it is an effort to generat consentious. Each person has his comfort zone and his way of seeing the product. Steves job is to condense all those views into a plan. Some will get beaten up badly or in ways they consider unfair. The goal though is to separate the thinkers ideas into groups of possible action.
Dave
