My buddy Andy from Microsoft showed me an unreleased version in August. So I knew they would be cool.
Quite different, too, from Apple and Android.
Here’s the first available commercially, I believe, though not in North America. You can order one in Europe, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.
If I actually use the device for navigation, email, social networking … I’ll want excellent syncing between phone and my MacBook Air. Not perfect, it looks like Apple is on the way to getting that working.
Leo Laporte, Om Malik, Robert Scoble, and John C. Dvorak
The first 3 are respected tech gurus. Dvorak’s there as a comic, contrary counterpoint. Here’s their advice:
• iPhone 4S is a winner — first as a replacement for you point-and-shoot camera. Still a great phone for regular folks. Tech geeks will be happier with the high end Androids. Look for the Nexus Prime with Ice Cream Sandwich to be launched next week.
• Kindle Fire (coming Nov. 15th) likely to be a loser, a poor competitor to the iPad. Instead get a $79 Kindle e-reader, the low end. A perfect Christmas present.
It costs $109 if you want NO ADS on that same cheap device. … I’m not sure how well it works around the world. Check first before you buy one if you’re not living in the States.
• huge fight looming between Facebook & Google. Many already spend most of their time in Facebook … when they can SEARCH and WATCH TV / Movies in Facebook, they’ll never need to leave.
• the future of watching what you want, when you want, online is still up in the air. Another looming battle.
• Microsoft bought Skype. The gurus have no confidence that’s going to work. Competitors could beat Skype.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
… When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” …
A lot of people like best his 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech. (VIDEO)
It’s a simple, humble, narrative-driven speech, touching on his adoption, his decision to drop out of Reed College, getting fired from and then returning to Apple, and being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004
, best watch it. 
