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NYTimes Speculates On the Next iPhone
Achromatic1978 writes "The NYT has a story on the next revision of the iPhone, and discusses what will become of the iPhone, now that the hype is starting to slow (Jobs goal for 2008 was ten million iPhones sold — as of the first quarter, only 1.7 million have left the shelves). The WWDC is the rumored release date for a next version, and Jobs has promised that this year will see a 3G iPhone released."
I can't wait until Steve Jobs pulls out the new iPhone and says something on the lines of "now....with THIS new iPhone, you can send Photos right from your Photo Gallery to any of your friends... via... text... message..." and the idiots will applaud and be like 'my god, he's a genius!!!' because, well you, know 99.5% of all phones could do this for the past few years (why the iPhone can't is well beyond my comprehension)
as much as the next guy. I also love my iPhone, and get quite fanboyish about it, but why is this news? People have been speculating about what the next iPhone will be since the last one came out of the gate. Just because the NY Times puts out pretty much the same story as everywhere else on the internet does not make it news. The article is just a nice concise retread of all the news stories out on the iPhone for the last few months.
Let's see... they tied their fortunes to a pretty unpopular company, AT&T, in exchange for kickbacks and didn't even try to get Verizon, the largest mobile phone service, to sell a version of their phone.
Genius, I tell you. Genius.
Most of the Apple fans I know didn't buy an iPhone because of the AT&T decision. Most of them are still not planning on getting one because they hate AT&T more than they like Apple.
One on 3G there is bandwidth to do video conferencing (fit a vga camera on the LCD screen side and off you go). I guess a whole new data plan from AT+T specific for video calls minutes, but punters will snap it up. Win for apple, Win for ATT.
I think that part of the reason for the greatly increased data usage is the fact that the iPhone rate plans (which are actually priced pretty well) have much more reasonably priced data plans than the competition.
The fact that Mobile Safari performs well helps, but my phone is easy enough to use online, I just can't see paying $50 for the data usage on top of my already exorbitant rate plan with AT&T...
10 million iphones? What makes him think that people with foreclosures & collapsing currency are going to give a shit about running out and buying a new gizmo? It's just a phone & my old one still works fine. Homeless people will not work for iphones.
Folks, once the 3g iphone is released, tons of markets will be opened opened up: Japan - big time! The Japanese *will* buy this. China SE Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand) All of these places had 3g networks in place well ahead of the US. There is a reason the iphone didn't land in those places yet, it didn't have 3g!
8.3 million people who expected a 3G iPhone in 2008 so didn't purchase one. I'm guessing he'll make up that 8.3 million over the summer with the new iPhone.
If they want to boost their numbers, they should hurry up with the darn release.
They aren't going to attract new buyers with hype like last time. Most people who really want one have one.
Their biggest untapped market are the people who are holding out for v2. I'm one of them.
The iPhone would serve me very well. But I generally don't buy version 1 of anything.
Especially when it's so crippled. Jail breaking stuff like pseudo-GPS, lack of Cut & Paste, printing, file transfer, heck it's on the network but it's almost a dumb terminal.
We version 2 holdouts are Apple's biggest iPhone 2 market. Let's go Apple, what are you waiting for?
Oh yeah, and it better be good.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Tying the hardware to CDMA doesn't make much sense if you're planning on selling the device in other parts of the world, in particular Europe. And note that the device was designed with a quad-band GSM radio, so it's possible they were thinking ahead to non-US sales.
There has been speculation about a higher-resolution camera, possible support for digital video recording, a slightly bulkier and more curved case, and the addition of a global positioning system receiver that would allow new Web services tied to a person's location.
These are all standard features on many Nokia and Windows Mobile phones.
Apple is still just trying to catch up. The only reason for strong US sales is that US carriers have been pushing such feature-poor phones that even the iPhone seems like an improvement.
You must include all the phones sold in 2007. At the launch, Jobs said they would sell ten million phones by the end of 2008. I believe they will have no problem exceeding the goal. The 3G phone will sell very well, and they have made agreements for it to be sold in many more countries.
Mike from www.myallo.com/blog
I disagree. Much as it is disappointing, I don't think an open platform phone will "blow" the iPhone out of the water any more than Linux is currently blowing Windows out of the water. Consumers choose style and functionality, and business choose features. The "open" platform will only be successful inasmuch as it is a means to those ends.
As for the article, I think it's obvious the iPhone hype is lessened, but that doesn't mean sales are bad. The way I see it, they've already sold 1.7 million phones this year without a major revision. 10 million seems attainable.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
I know you're joking, but Apple is in many ways the most successful PC manufacturer. By differentiating its products, it is able to charge higher margins, and hence earn higher profits, which has given the company a market capitalisation about as high as IBM's, and far higher than those of HP, Dell, et al.
When Apple tried to compete for market share in the 90s, it did make some gains, but almost went bankrupt in the process, because margins collapsed. Steve Jobs, in contrast to the Apple management of the 90s, has always followed a strategy of selling high-priced, differentiated products, and that's why Apple never went the way of Commodore or Atari in the 80s (even though Commodore had much higher market share), and managed to recover from near death in the 90s, under market-share-driven management, after Jobs returned.
The fact is, Apple may only have 3 pc or so of the market, but as long as that 3 pc prefer Macs enough over other PCs that they're willing to pay a premium for them, Apple can earn a higher profit. It doesn't matter if the other 97 pc prefer PCs (and it's probably less than 97 pc who actually do), because they have so many choices (Dell, HP, Fujitsu-Siemens, etc) that it's difficult for any of the manufacturers serving that 97 pc to earn margins anywhere close to Apple's.
Incidentally, I'm not in the 3 pc (or 5 pc, 10 pc, whatever) who prefer Macs to Windows PCs, so I would only buy a Mac if it was the same price or less for equivalent hardware, including warranty, expected maintenance costs over the life cycle (eg new batteries, upgrades) and so on. So, Steve Jobs would be stupid to try to sell to people like me when he can sell to the ones willing to pay more.
I sometimes wonder what a company with Bill Gates running the management/technical side and Steve Jobs running the marketing/design side would have produced. Microsoft may be more successful overall, but both of those guys are the top entrepreneurs of their generation by far, and have been extremely successful with different business models (with a focus on market share for Microsoft, versus product differentiation for Apple).
As for the objections to getting stuck in a contract, all I have to say is WTF? If I'm going to spend $400 for a phone, I'm doing it with the intention of using that phone for at least a few years. And since we've already established that ALL of the carriers suck, I don't really see the advantage in being able to switch to a different one.
I pretty much agree with everything else you wrote, but there's one advantage in being able to switch: the carrier will be slightly less inclined to treat you like dogcrap in order to keep you from leaving.
Tweet, tweet.
Or it could possibly be that you can't even buy an iPhone from Apple [store.apple.com] at the moment.
I know I am one of them. Then again I know all too well on why not to by revision A apple hardware.
Then again I just wish people would use the real numbers. While only 2 million units had been sold in the first 5 months Apple gave themselves 18 months to hit 10 million.
With the fact you haven't been able to buy an iPhone for the past month, as thy are sold out EVERYWHERE and most of Europe can't use Edge massively limiting marketshare.
I won't be surprised that the 3G iPhone sells two million units in the first month.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Not really a logic response.
It would be better to point out that they are focused on a different market... and have 95% of that market.
Not to mention how well that have done since his return.
Best case is to ignore the troll.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A quote from the article... "Nokia sells more phones in a week than Apple has sold since it started". Of course it's not a fair comparison, but it also shows that the iPhone has not been the "OMG REVOLUTION" that some claim it has.
Yeah, Linux on desktops was a tough sell too, since it isn't in stores. Don't underestimate "it's got Linux and I can hack it".
I'll buy a FreeRunner (despite the dumb name) as soon as it's available, which sounds like it will be pretty soon. Steve says he might get phones as soon as June 1, which is only 3 days from now.
$400 (or 10% less, in 10-packs) is no big deal, considering the absolute cheapest service plans seem to run about $30/month. People complained about the iPhone's upfront cost, too, but most failed to note that the minimum service plan (2 years) cost about $2000. The hardware cost is peanuts compared to the service.
I don't see the big appeal of Android. It's a software platform, the few hardware devices for it (which are not available yet) look like ass, it uses a special JVM, and development for it looks like a pain. That said, I'm all for more free-software phones (though it seems unclear if all of Android is really open-source). I just don't see what's innovative about Android. What exactly is the benefit of a Linux-based phone if you can only run Java code on it?
Consumers choose style and functionality, and business choose features. The "open" platform will only be successful inasmuch as it is a means to those ends.
Which is why I think an open platform can displace iPhone.
It takes a major bump in functionality to displace an entrenched market player. If the iPhone weren't crippled an open phone platform would have much the same adoption dynamics as Linux vs. Microsoft/Apple desktops: A sliver and gradual growth.
But the iPhone IS massively crippled, and attempts to un-cripple it are met with update-to-brick attacks as Apple tries to protect its revenue model and that of its carrier partner(s). And it seems likely that competition could lead them to uncripple it broadly and rapidly enough to prevent a market shift.
This leaves the open platform with an opportunity to make massive functionality improvements and additions that Apple/AT&T-etc. can't or won't match. And that could driver the shift.
As Ubuntu has shown, you no longer have to be a geek to use the advanced feature set of an open platform. The same could be true of an open phone platform: Out of the box already far more functional than iPhone (or whatever), download new whiz-bangs with a few touches as it is developed and you decide you want it - or get your retailer's service department to do it for you for a very nominal fee (or the techie in the next cube or your internet-savvy kid to do it for nothing).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
One of the key things that has made the iPhone a non option for people in the market for a $400 phone (outside of gadget geeks) is its lack of Exchange support. The primary market for smart phones is still business users and the primary platform for email/scheduling in business is Exchange (I'm sure many of you have examples where this is not the case and I'm sure many of you get by with IMAP forwarding of your Exchange email, but in the vast majority of organizations Exchange = email/calendar). Most business users don't want to fiddle and hack. They want it to work. Now.
Version 2 of the iPhone software (which will be released to v1 iPhones, too) is supposed to have great Exchange integration. I think this will be a HUGE selling point for iPhones as it will become a viable tool in the market that it is priced in.
(I for one won't hook up Exchange to my iPhone unless my company wants to help pay the bill... but that's just me)
Steal my band's record! Seriously,
...I can think of two reasons:...2) Steve Jobs is a control freak
I'm not at all sure I agree with this, but I do see a lot of advantages in Apple's "control freak" theory. Basically, in the iPhone model, the phone and the carrier are a single integrated structure. The exclusive agreement gives them the ability to dictate exactly what the service provides and how. So the customers are buying a system, not a set of parts that they assemble into their own system.
Having been part of a lot of situations in which each vendor says that the problem isn't in their part of the system, it's in the other guy's part, I can see a lot of advantage to them in keeping tight control (so the pieces do play well together), and even some advantage to the customer (in that when things fail, they don't get run around in circles trying to figure out which vendor to go to,)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I've become quite frustrated and disillusioned about the iPhone. Once the bells and whistles wore off, I've seen the obvious: it's essentially a featureless, fancy phone.
Apple's apparent apathy toward consumer feedback and requests for functionality is a serious turn off. Irregardless of whether it's a first-generation device or not, it seems they spend more time and effort trying to keep this phone "locked down" than in pursuing more useful functionality.
I'm sick of having to visit viewmymessage.com (which doesn't always work well) every time someone sends an MMS. The iPhone is devoid of basic document viewing capabilities, the camera is average.
At this stage, after a slightly buggy 1.1.4 release, the fact that I must "jailbreak" my phone to make it more useful is rather sad. This little phone is capable of so much more.
I'm not alone in this feeling; several of my friends and co-workers who have the phone are growing tired of it.
Conversely, RIM/Blackberry seems to have done it right when it comes to useful phones. Their Blackberry Bold (due in July for AT&T) will be 3G, can do iTunes, the screen size is the same as the iPhone, a real QWERTY keyboard, etc.
That will be my new phone. The iPhone will very likely become an overpriced, featureless paperweight (unless I sell it).
I love Apple computer systems, they are top notch, but I feel they messed up with the iPhone. From what I've heard of the 3G phone, there's no motivation for me to hang out and spend more money on the product line.
What I found very disappointing recently was when I posted a politely critical message about the slow development cycle of iPhone features on discussions.apple.com that got "moderated" (read: deleted) with a private response saying I wasn't allowed to be critical of Apple's internal processes.
Not only was that generally petty, I think it speaks volumes (image control, etc).
Goodbye, iPhone...
Good point. Apple's market share for computers is currently about 6.5% of the computer market, putting it at about one third that of the largest computer vendor, Dell, at 17%. Apple's strategy seems to have worked a lot better than most of the other companies that were manufacturing computers in 1984-- IBM dominated the market back then, and they tanked.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
There's no evidence of this. Only one firmware update has bricked phones, and this was found to be due to an *improper unlock procedure* that overwrote some data, but not others, resulting in a very confused updater and hence, the bricking. You cannot seriously expect Apple to bend over backwards to make sure they're not bricking hacked phones.
And if you look back into interwebnet history, you will see that the iPhone Dev Team released a patcher that "fixed" the broken unlock, and from that point forward no Apple update has ever bricked a phone. It just restores it to its locked, factory state, which is perfectly reasonable.
This leaves the open platform with an opportunity to make massive functionality improvements and additions that Apple/AT&T-etc. can't or won't match. And that could driver the shift.You're missing the main reason the iPhone is popular - usability. It has an incredibly unified UI that most phones simply do not have, and its inter-app integration is impressive as well (though can be improved). Camera tied into email, maps tied into web searches, a unified contact-management database that spans calendars, phonebooks, and even websites...
... This is something that open source has not demonstrated so far. If Android will be anything like Linux, what you'll end up with is *many* disparate projects that are by themselves quite functional (and maybe even usable, but odds are most teams will not place that as a priority), but fail to integrate with each other. There will be some effort to unify these things, but like Linux what you'll simply end up with are several large camps, confused consumers, and not so much integration in anything.
Apple has a developer base that worships the ground it walks on, and this has proven to be a strength in both MacOS X and iPhone development. You've got guys that will emulate the look and feel of first-party iPhone apps to the T, and design apps with a UI-first perspective. This is what it will take to make a successful phone - a complete software suite that is integrated with each other, with consistent and logical UI. Apple is in a position to deliver this, is anyone else?
Even if you stay with AT&T, I can't imagine anyone wanting a non-jailbroken iPhone. It's all the third-party applications that makes the iPhone so awesome.
First, let's keep in mind that Apple pitched the iPhone to Verizon (I believe even before pitching it to AT&T). Verizon and Apple were unable to find an agreement.
It was obviously in AT&T's interest to secure an exclusivity agreement. Whether the iPhone deal would have fallen through without such an exclusivity clause, I don't know.
Now, let's remember that most of the world is GSM/HSDPA-based, and distributing a CDMA/EV-DO (Verizon) phone would require essentially the development of a new iPhone (to a certain extent).
Finally, let's remember that AT&T had to implement certain new network features for the iPhone, notably to support visual voicemail. I'm sure that Apple was happy to have an exclusive agreement in order to have more control over the services available.
In the end, distributing the iPhone through Verizon would certainly increase the addressable market (but if you consider the global market, only marginally). Nevertheless, I'm sure that AT&T compromised in order to obtain the exclusive deal and that both companies benefited from it.
This space up for sale.
Well, I may have misunderstood, but I thought that Apple demanded and received a cut of the service fees customers paid AT&T.
So, Apple's incentive was that they made more money.
Also, I think there is an element of long term strategy. Nobody knows better than Jobs that big, splashy product launches can be followed by more big splashy product launches.
I bet a lot of people switched to AT&T just to get an iPhone. I bet there aren't a lot of people who would be willing to spend the launch price for an iPhone on their carrier, who didn't eventually get one.
So, think of it this way: Apple probably sold as many iPhones as they could make at a price that was shocking, but not utterly insane. Naturally they could manufacture more at an insane price, but they probably wouldn't have made more profit, and certainly not as much of a splash. The way the whole iPod thing works is you've got to see somebody else with one, then want one for yourself.
Now notice that as soon as the demand slackened, they dropped the price, which means they're watching the adoption curve carefully. When they've milked the universe of people willing to switch to AT&T for everything they can (demonstrating their monster clout to all the other carriers at the same time), they'll have a new, really cool iPhone waiting. If they've calculated things right, this will be right around the time their exclusive deal with AT&T runs out.
Which means that a whole bunch of people who've been sitting on the fence because of AT&T will be able to get one with their current carrier -- for a hefty consideration. It'll be like the second coming of Beatlemania, or like Jobs was peddling an elixir that cured cancer and increased your sex appeal by 800%.
It will be like nothing you've ever seen before.
Anyways, that'd be Jobsian strategic thinking. He stays ahead by planning ahead.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'm buying a 3G one too. In Spain (hi from here) the 3G version will be marketed for the first time (no iPhone EDGE here since there are not EDGE networks) at july with the main carrier. I will be surprised if it doesn't sells half a million just here in the first month.
Apple isn't alone in this. You shouldn't buy revision A from anybody.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's very clear it means a cumulative number. Why would Apple set the bar so high?
In plain simple english, they want to hit 1% market share which is 10 million iPhones at some point in 2008.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
The problem is, most people won't find the iPhone crippled, and those that go with an open platform will quickly find out why the iPhone is crippled. Unless you are only talking about the same people who use Linux.
As Ubuntu has shown, you no longer have to be a geek to use the advanced feature set of an open platform.
But most people don't want the advanced feature set. They want a basic one that works well with everything, all the time.
The actual goal is to sell the 10 millionth iPhone before the end of 2008, not to sell 10 million during 2008. An iPhone odometer that started at zero at launch in June 2007 is going to click over to 10,000,000 at some point. Apple's sales goal states that will happen before 2008 is done.
I have an iPhone and it's a cool device. The phone part sucks. It drops more calls and gets worse reception than any other cell phone I've owned. Everything else on the phone is very nice though. Texting, internet, and email are easy to use. I find myself using my phone instead of my computer to check and respond to emails and check daily news websites. This part surprised me, since I originally though having the internet on your phone was more of a gimmick.