The World Might Have Changed A Bit Today

No, I'm not going to continue to exhaust the internets with pictures and specs of the iPhone announced today at MacWorld. I think it's a pretty impressive device, and I do think it will revolutionize the industry. I was hoping for an announcement for a new iPod, maybe with a bigger screen or some sort of wireless features, but alas, just the iPhone. I thought of my former colleagues in their CDMA world up in Alaska...no iPhone for you, but considering it doesn't come out until June, I wouldn't put it past Motorola, Samsung, LG or even Nokia to roll out a similar product to go with carriers other than Cingular. Perhaps smart that Jobs and Co. went with Cingular, after all, they are the biggest (58+ million subs). But with Verizon (56+ million subs), Sprint/Nextel (51+), T-Mobile (80 million [worldwide] subs), and the assortment of other carriers both national and regional, the majority of wireless subscribers are not Cingular customers, and carriers other than Cingular want to keep it that way. In fact, there are plenty of exciting phone models being covered down in Vegas at CES, but just none with the buzz of the iPhone. Looks like the other carriers and manufacturers have their work cut out for them in the marketing and competitive strategies. Incidentally, although AAPL shot through the roof today, other manufacturers and carriers were pretty flatlined and unaffected. If Google jumps in the cell world (rumored for a while now), watch out! But enough about a device that won't be out for months...
What's more exciting to me and the original reason for the title is that several leaks have said that the iTunes store will soon sell Beatles music. Although I have every album the Beatles released themselves and a bunch of other stuff, it will make a big splash to have it out there. I recently bought Love, the Beatles remixed and had to wait a few days to receive it. A few days! I highly recommend the album and if you're not convinced or you're a purist and prefer to hear it the way they were originally mixed, do me a favor and listen to NPR's All Songs Considered from December 22nd...it could just change your mind.
And after all that, it's now crunch time for me to decide between the U2 video iPod or the 80GB video iPod to replace my current "dying-a-little-more-everyday-two-plus-year-old" U2 iPod.