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iPhone Faces Uncertain Market
48 hours have passed since Steve Jobs's MacWorld keynote and the reality distortion field is beginning to wear off. Lists of the drawbacks of the announced iPhone are sprouting all over the Net (and there is the occasional defense by true believers). Now narramissic writes, "The iPhone may be poised to take over the high-end cell phone market, but is it a market worth taking? Not if an InStat survey from July is any indication: Of 1,800 consumers surveyed, just 21 had spent more than $400 for a cell phone. Prices for the iPhone, admittedly more of a handheld computer than a cell phone, start at $499 for the 4G-byte version with a required two-year contract with Cingular. So, is Apple pricing it right? Analysts quoted in this article seem to think Apple's going to have a hard time getting the 1% of market share that Jobs called for."
...and the iPhone is exactly what I want. But I'm not buying it. It's cool, but it's not $500 cool.
I'll probably buy a cheap-o model and wait. Someone let me know when there's an unlocked model for $250.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
People know about the iPhone now, and that it will be a widescreen ipod + phone and widgets and all, but they're disappointed about the 4GB or 8GB limited capacity.
A couple months from now, Apple will release a new video iPod with widescreen and touchscreen and no phone or widgets, with 60GB - 120GB capacities, and people will eat it up like candy.
I would.
Apple tend to launch a product and then fork it into a product family that covers a nice price range. This format could expand to include a hard drive and become a real portable hand-held, the new Newton. It could also shrink to become a simpler phone. Expect the actual release model in June to have much more memory, and better battery life.
The biggest problem with all smartphones today is that UI design is generally terrible. If Apple can get this right, and make a family of phones that react quickly and are fun to use, they will sell a lot of them.
Further, it seems to me, phone or not, that this is what the iPod will look like in 2 years time. The wheel is no longer needed, and this format makes video a pleasant reality.
So it's quite possible that the "phone" part of this product is less significant than the large-screen, no-button, Apple-inside format.
My blog
-b.
The iPod line needed a reboot, and the iPhone was splashiest way to do it. In fact, this device is the logical evolution of the Newton MessagePad. Think about it. Apple realized that boring contact lists, calendars and handwriting recognition won't encourage the Unwashed Masses to adopt portable computers. People are far more media-centric than that.
The rejuvenated iPod lineup will tempt you with music, movies and games, while offering an addictive combination of go-anywhere Wi-Fi browsing and email. And you can bet that Apple is planning to open up third-party development as quickly as possible.
As for the iPhone device, the bleak reality is that it is slightly larger than a 5G iPod. Too big to slip into the pocket of my jeans, which means it's too large to use as my everyday phone. My hard drive-equipped iPod usually lives in a messenger bag on my shoulder or in a jacket pocket, simply because it's too bulky to function as an "everywhere" communications accessory. I wouldn't be willing to carry something as large or expensive as the iPhone with me everywhere I go. I'd look like a dork with my calculator on a belt clip. Besides, mobile phones are expensive enough to begin with and many people (especially students) will balk at the idea of committing to a 2 year $1000+ mobile voice/data/voicemail contract after shelling out $599 for the iPhone itself.
No, the real magic will happen when Apple releases a $299 version of this device - the next generation iPod - that retains everything but the GSM + EDGE phone technology. At that point, the iPod will be perfectly positioned to become everyone's favorite teeny-tiny ultraportable computer.
Seriously! If Cingular is the culprit, then iPhone will die after Cingular dies and that ain't gonna happen soon. Besides, your point of $2500 for service proves that iPhone is even more worth it. What is $500 extra on top of $2500 (which you would anyway pay with Cingular)? Just 20% extra, and you get wifi, 4 G ipod.
My wife bought me a Palm LifeDrive for our tenth wedding av, and it is *very* close to a perfect handheld device.
There are a few quirks (what device doesn't have those?) but it is most of the way down the road.
The screen size and general form factor is about perfect; any bigger and it'd be too clunky, any smaller and it'd be too small to read - this is my biggest complaint with smartphones like the Treo family.
I've mated it to a Garmin GPS 10 BlueTooth GPS Reciever, and it makes a great driving GPS.
Here's what I think makes for a killer handheld device:
1) Same form factor as the LifeDrive; the LD screen is awesome.
2) Lots of storage, like ~80Gb, plus the SD slot;
3) BlueTooth connectivity, especially for headsets/headphones, but the device should act as a BlueTooth hub and be able to talk to anything;
4) Wireless G;
5) A multi-band GSM phone;
6) GPS;
7) A good MP3/Media player (should be able to play all reasonable media formats)
8) Enough processor power so it can play movies without skipping, redraw GPS maps seamlessly, and remain responsive to use input at all time.
The LifeDrive is ever so close, lacking primarily the phone, the storage space, and the processor power. The iPhone *almost* gets it right too.
Eventually, somebody will build one of these, and convergence will be complete.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
In order to meet their 1% goal they need to sell 10M phones in 2008 (the first full year they are available). That is directly paraphrased from Steve Jobs during the keynote. It may be hard to sell a $500 to $600 phone in those quantities. But Steve Jobs himself said they are going to continue developing iPhones (3G...). Does anyone really think that this is the only phone Apple will be selling for all of 2008?
I think Apple will sell a lot more than 10 million iPhones in 2008 when they add the iPhone nano to their lineup a year from now. I predict the iPhone nano will be physically smalelr and drop some of the pricey "smart phone" features of it's big brother. But it will still have the great interface and importantly, style, of it's big brother. Probably will come in colors too. $200-$300. That will fly off the shelves.
You heard it here first.
Spyky
I've been a Treo fan because I get phone and PDA in one package. I paid $499 for the 600 when I upgraded from a 170. My company did not pay for it; I did. Frankly, I couldn't care less about iPod capability, but I can see how it would add considerable value to the package for those whose lives revolve around music. What does it for me is cool phone with new features plus what I would call "near-robust" internet connectivity that goes way beyond Blackberry's push email technology. They've got three cool things in there, and I figure if they can get you to want two out of three, you can justify it financially and they've got a sale. They do not need to get you on all three. In terms of competing with Treo and Blackberry, they are way ahead on that point alone. They will own high end, end of story.
:-)
I hope they can get away from Cingular exclusivity as soon as possible, though I have had good luck with Cingular with a good plan, good price, and effectively unlimited minutes with rollover. It will be easy to remove the chip from my Treo and plug it into a iPhone. Given the infrastructure build on Cingular's part I understand why they did it, but I hope other carriers will make the changes necessary and find a way into this. To me it does not make marketing sense to go exclusive forever.
Given what they have done with Google Maps I think the iPhone is ripe for GPS. That would put it over the top for me. I don't use it very much, but when I do it is extremely handy. Plus it will knock the GPS-only systems out, or at least force them to reduce their sky-high prices. Navigation in a vehicle is $2K plus and the stand-alones push $1K easy.
In terms of "Apple arrogance," get over it. Around here that is the pot calling the kettle black.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
You know of a phone with a full-sized web browser? Pinch interface for resizing? Random access voicemail? The same ultra-thin form factor? A dock connector?
God, just thinking about the dock connector means I can plug this thing into my car for music, and continue to take phone calls during lunch, AND check my email and surf the web. All in the Subway parking lot.
"Sufferin' succotash."
If this fact remains true, then while the interface is a little clunkier, there are any number of things that my Treo can do that the iPhone will never, ever be able to, and believe me, I sincerely hope that the Apple VP who made that saddening statement is either very stupid, or very misinformed.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
I've heard stories of Cingular's bad service, but I go to a store in person and don't take any shit from them. I even had them unlock my old AT&T phone to work with a new cingular contract, though it did take a call to some sort of supervisor person.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
Yes, honestly, what worries me most about the iPhone is the rumors that it will be closed to third party developers. I can tell you that I really like what I'm seeing as far as the e-mail and web browsing, but what I'd really like is to be able to do some remote administration. If I could get SSH, VPN, and a terminal services client on an iPhone, I would consider it a near-perfect device. The only thing to make it perfect would be if, in a pinch, I could use it to provide internet access for my laptop, but I wouldn't really need that feature if I could get e-mail, VPN, SSH, and TS directly on the phone itself.
I understand being concerned about the lack of a keyboard, but the truth is, I probably wouldn't use my phone to compose e-mails or run any of the remote-admin software very often. Those things, for me, would be the sort of features I might only use once a months, executing a few commands in an emergency, but a couple of those emergencies might be important enough to justify the $500 purchase.
The fact is that phones with entirely touchscreen-driven interfaces have failed in the market so far
Not to mention that they're completely unusable by blind people.
Does it have a full-featured calendar and task management suite? Serious question, that's what I use my PDA for and I haven't spotted it in the feature list of the iPhone. How is the battery life? If it wants to replace my current phone it needs to go at least 3 days without a recharge. Finally, music and video. 4GB? 8GB? I like my iPod exactly because I can carry around my entire collection without needing to change playlists and resync. 8GB is nothing like enough for my music collection, let alone if I include my video as well.
Bulk out the PDA functionality, include at least a 30GB hard disk, improve the battery, and put in some 3G functionality. Then wait until it's up to 2nd generation so all the launch bugs and quirks are worked out. Then you've got yourself something worth $499. Not $499 with contract, just $499. If I'm paying over-the-odds monthly for it then I want it cheaper.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Several points you make are valid. I don't think that these points will add up to enough to make the iPhone fail. I do think that they will be addressed in future versions of the iPhone.
It is like the original iPod: A good friend ran out and bought the 5GB 1st Gen iPod right when it was released. When the 10GB model was released he ran out and bought that one because he had a music collection much larger than the 5GB (and also much larger than 10GB...) Then, shortly after Apple shipped the 20GB model and he was kicking himself for not waiting - especially after I bought the 20GB model. Although, I am pretty happy with my timing because right after I bought mine they changed over to an iPod with the dock connector and I prefer the standard FireWire connector.
I'm just guessing, but I think there will probably be an improved iPhone that has 3G support and much larger strorage space sometime in 2008 if not sooner. I could see them adding GPS and coming out with an SDK for developers, etc. (I expect Apple to announce some kind of SDK for iPhone at WWDC - even if it just Dashcode 2.0.)
My advice is that unless you just have to have the iPhone as soon as possible, wait at least three months. Typically new Apple hardware has a few annoying glitches that show up in the field and are addressed in approximately that timespan. For example, the original iMac was revised a couple months after it shipped to have much more VRAM and as I recall the Rev B. iMac was much more stable than the Rev. A iMac. Another example is the MacBook Pro. I just bought a MacBook Pro a few days ago. So far, it is rock solid. And it doesn't run hot like the first ones did. Recently I found out that the ones like mine that have the Core 2 Duo also have 802.11n radios just waiting to be activated via software update. So, frankly I am thrilled with my timing on this purchase. Another friend (different guy) in my office bought one of the first MacBook Pro models and it had a lot of problems. He had to have the motherboard replaced and it runs really hot. Well, that's what you get with brand new hardware designs.
I think the same thing could be true with the iPhone. I may get one because I develop for the Mac and my company will probably buy me one to develop for - or maybe I'll get prototype hardware (one of our execs is at MacWorld trying to talk to Apple Developer Relations about letting us develop for iPhone). I have no idea what the policy will be for third party developers. From what I've heard, its a closed system, but third parties can contact Apple if they want to write for it. So, we'll see - I had prototype hardware for the Newton 2000 before it came out. But if for some reason this doen't happen and I have to shell out my own cash for an iPhone, I'll probably wait a couple of months and see what the reader reports on Macintouch say before I buy one.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
This wasn't in the blog itself (http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2007/01/10/the_ five_bigges.html), but in one of the replies to them:
"I have zero interest in this cell phone. But I would love some version of this phone on my business desktop. Current business phones are atrocious. How to do conference calling, holding, transferring is just impossible to remember. Voicemail is a disaster. If they built something to work with PBX and the ability input contacts from Exchange then a $600 business desktop phone is probably cheap. I could see them making a lot more money in that space."
All of the disadvantages of using the iPhone as a cell phone disappear if it is targeted instead as a desk phone. Like the poster in that blog comment, while I have zero interest in the iPhone as a mobile phone (too fragile, too many cases where I need to "blind dial"), I would KILL to have that interface on my desk phone.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Apple, manufacturer of the most popular mp3 player ever made, with over 60% market share, develops a device which delivers the sales-proven features of an 8GB ipod Nano, adds widescreen video and image support, sales-proven features such as email, chat, a calendar, a fully-functional web browser, and numerous UI bells and whistles like a touch screen with smooth scrolling and zoom. Then, to ensure familiar performance for their current customers and reliable compatibility with their other hardware and software offerings, they build it around the OSX platform--one of the top two home-consumer operating systems on the market. To top it off, they integrate a quad-band GSM cell phone that will run on most international networks. Then, to ensure their desired 1% market share, they partner with one of the largest cellular service providers in the US, pricing the device at a point comparable with other bleeding-edge smartphones. An early survey shows that 1.16% of consumers (21 out of 1800) have paid over $400 for a phone. No mention of how many of these consumers also own ipods. Days after its introduction, Cingular reports being flooded with calls about the phone. This is an uncertain market?
Let's see:
Apple iPod Demand Iffy
Pundits compliment, criticize iPod
Favorite excerpts from that second one:
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M