Greatest Secret Never Told

I've always thought that the best-kept secret in history (at least the last 100 years) was D-Day. How the Allies were able to fool Hitler with that many people running around the south of England (Operation Fortitude) has to be considered the best example of subterfuge in human history. However, you have to give Apple some credit for being able to hide so many details of the iPhone. Everyone on the planet knew it was coming, but people had to be surprised by the reality of the device (note the stock surge). Look at this article that shows the extent to which Apple hid details for the iPhone.

When you really think about it keeping the iPhone a secret is pretty impressive. Sure the stakes aren't what they were in D-Day (and I still think for the record that Operation Fortitude is still #1 all time), but keeping the iPhone a secret when that many people were trying to find out about it while at the same time you need to communicate to so many 3rd parties is amazing. Making it all the more amazing is that with all of that planning they chose a name that had already been taken! Today it was announced that Cisco is suing Apple for using the name iPhone which is apparently owned by Cisco through their Linksys acquisition. Apparently Apple was trying to hash out a deal with Cisco, but they never signed on the dotted line. Needless to say Jobs didn't like that stop his announcement yesterday, and why should he? What's IP (well, sort of IP) to a company that has tried to pioneer DRM?

My final comment on Apple's version of the iPhone (and it really is cool) is how is it not 3G capable? It's not like 3G isn't available on Cingular (check out the Samsung Blackjack). If you're making a completely cutting-edge phone with lots of really cool technology that is going to drive high speed data downloads wouldn't you want the latest technology for downloading data? This is 2007, not 2005. I wonder if the new models they release in AP and Europe add 3G functionality.