iPhone Reaction: Slick but Unwanted?
Apple Computer Incorporated revealed the iPhone, an unoriginal name for a very original product, just minutes ago at Macworld ‘07. The reaction of the crowd was enthusiastic after all the entire auditorium was bathed in the invisible but nearly palpable Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field.
The iPhone not only exudes the slickness that Apple is so well known for, but surpasses any previous iteration of any Apple device. What appears to be a solitary button mated to a screen is in really a very large button (the screen) and a home key. The most immediately useful thing about the button that is also a screen is the near infinite configurability for the future. This is a product that takes a long-term view and does not limit the ability of the product to grow with time. An interesting departure for a company who many feel actively discourage upgrades to ensure sales of a never ending stream of new Macs.
Unbelievably cool design aside the iPhone is at its heart a smart phone, replicating the functions of the current crop of smart phones (an ever-changing-never-satisfying lineup). In the past phones have balanced bulk and usability against a desire for svelte size and easy portability and the result was a constant battle of tradeoff. Reading emails was easier on the bulkier models, talking more convenient on smaller models. They were trade offs users had to accept if they wanted to play in the smart phone game.
The iPhone is still a thing of compromises, but these are beautiful compromises. Seeing the iPhone and comparing it to a current smart phone is like comparing the first amphibian that crawled from the primordial muck to Aphrodite. The interesting thing is that it took evolution hundreds of millions of years to go from barely land capable creature to the Greek ideal of beauty while Apple pulled it off in just 2 and a half years.
That said the iPhone has some non-trivial problems, not with the software, not with the GUI (Steve calls one way of manipulating images “pinching.” Not as bad as “squirt” but not great) but with the concept. Apple wants the iPhone to go huge, Steve argued that cell phones sold almost a billion units last year which dwarfs the market for iPods or even computers. Thing is that the iPhone won’t, at a $499 price point, be competing in the cell phone market. The iPhone will be competing in the smart phone market, a much smaller market indeed.
The numbers that quick Google search turns up are a market at about 1.3 million units. Apple is hoping for 10 million iPhones out the door in 2008 which means the company is counting on grabbing over 5% of the smart phone market (assuming projections are correct and the smartphone market continues to increase). Not impossible, in fact likely, but one is forced to wonder if the iPhone, unless changed, will forever to be tied to smart phone market.
And it is a problem if the iPhone is always a smart phone. To get an iPhone you’ll be forced to make a two-year commitment to Cingular (which is how long Cingular’s CEO seemed to talk without ever saying anything). That means iPod fiends that want a better movie watching experience are left out in the cold, if you desire to show your pictures in a larger format it is back to the TV for you and finally if you want the functions without the connectivity, no way brother.
A problem, but not a big as the biggest problem: the iPhone does a whole bunch of stuff no one wants to do. If one lament surfaces time and time gain about the cell phone it is that people want just a frickin cell phone. They don’t want to do anything but make calls. The iPhone is an elegant solution for calling but the battery sapping baggage that comes with it might chill the appeal for people who aren’t already on the smart phone bandwagon.
All that said, the only viable outcome for the phone is to at least rule the smart phone market with more than likely bleed over to the cell phone market. As the price drops and the phone is bundled with service contracts for an ever decreasing amount of cash, iPod sales will start being impacted but they will take the sales of the Zune popular .mp3 players along for the ride. In short, Apple seems to have pulled off iPod 2.0. All hail the new gadget masters!
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But this is a much more concise argument than I would have made, and one which will require a proper rebuttal, not just a barrage of insults and accusations in response…
It’s pretty sad what passes for a “proper argument” around here. Blind praise of all things Apple and a non-sequitur attacking MS (which I never defended) seem to qualify.
I would personally say that any well-designed phone, without all the extra garbage, would be sincerely revolutionary just for being GOOD. This would be a low-end iPhone without bells and whistles, without DAP cabailities: one that would complement an iPod, not compete with it.
I agree. But in Scott’s “proper argument” Apple simply is incapable of creating such a product.
I disagree with him. I think if ANY company is capable, it’s Apple.
I don’t believe Scott is saying they’re incapable of it, (Scott, are you saying they’re incabaple of it?) he’s just casting doubt on the idea that they’re releasing this current iPhone merely to appeal to brainwashed mac zombies, grabbing their easily filched round flat moneycoins, as it were, before moving in on the big mass market space.
I don’t think this is right, and I don’t think it’s right that apple has a history of doing this.
Apple came out with the bigger, more expensive iPods first, yes, but these have remained popular and it is evidently not true that they are designed to fleece apple’s most faithful followers, having become arguably *the* pop culture electronics icon of the early 21st century.
They came out with consumer-end intel macs before pro-end ones. (There being other good reasons to do so, of course.)
Can you give a clear example, borne out by history, with the benefit of hindsight, of apple having pursued such a strategy?
In my view it is simply the case that without infinite resources, and with the obsessional attention to detail of the company’s leadership, it would be difficult to come out with a whole range of really good phones simultaneously.
Certainly I can imagine Jobs deciding that they would create better products by focusing obsessively on one at a time. For whatever we may think of him, Steve really does believe in refining products to the max.
Unless we think the evidence from his career suggests that his apparent enthusiasm for what he does is false. (and I know the royal we doesn’t)
I don’t believe Scott is saying they’re incapable of it
Posted for the third time: “Do you have any idea what it takes to bring even a single product like the iPhone to market - let alone two or three of them? The Mini was released over two years after the original iPod - the Nano 21 months later. By selling millions and millions of iPods, Apple’s literally helps drive down the cost and size of components in the market. This doesn’t happen overnight. And we’re not talking about an incremental improvement to the iPod, the iPhone is a whole new platform that’s running a mobile version of Mac OS X.”
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Apple came out with the bigger, more expensive iPods first, yes, but these have remained popular and it is evidently not true that they are designed to fleece apple’s most faithful followers, having become arguably *the* pop culture electronics icon of the early 21st century.
Again, they fleece the followers FIRST, then release products that appeal to the masses.
Tell me, Ben, when the first iPods came out, what is the only platform that was supported?
For whatever we may think of him, Steve really does believe in refining products to the max.
No argument there. And the iPhone is a fine high-end product. If it lives up to the hype, it might even be the best phone in the American market (Japanese phones I think are having sex with their users by now).
But it’s still incredibly expensive and out of reach of most consumers, who could really use a nice low-end version of the iPhone.
We desire the same thing, for Apple to release a considerably less expensive version for the rest of us. I’d rather they do it sooner rather than later.
Btw, I should probably rephrase. “Fleece” probably isn’t the right word, as the Mac fans voluntarily and happily shell out top dollar for whatever Jobs is peddling. He could sell a fishbowl and they’d praise it as the Second Coming.
So “rely on” is probably a better phrase. Apple relies on the gullibility and unquestioning loyalty of its base to kick start any new product launch and then follows up with releases for the masses.
Actually, my initial word was “exploit,” which is probably as accurate as any other. “Fleece” implies a scam of some kind and I don’t think that’s the case.
We desire the same thing, for Apple to release a considerably less expensive version for the rest of us. I’d rather they do it sooner rather than later.
So do I, but I’m won’t accept that their bringing it out later rather than sooner is good evidence for the slightly suspect business practice you posit.
I won’t accept that
Okay, then you don’t accept it. Color me shocked.
Frankly, I wouldn’t even call it a “suspect” business practice (unless you’re referring to my theory as suspect). It’s no slam against Apple that Jobs can literally shit a brick and sell to his gullible minions for hundreds of bucks. Hell, I wish I had that kind of mind-control power.
Btw, I will add that the practice is not unique to Apple. There are lots of companies who rely on their user base (or fan base as the case may be) to generate initial sales. This is true of the industry I work in as well.
It’s just that Apple fans are particularly loyal and particularly susceptible to talking points. In fact, I’ve never seen a group of people absorb press releases and regurgitate them as their own thoughts so proficiently in my life (with the exception of politics). It’s really quite remarkable.
Do you think if apple released a iphone and an iphone nano today, they wouldn’t both sell like free crack?
“You don’t think it is possible for them to do what every other cell phone company in the world has managed to accomplish.”
Exactly my point. If consumers think a Dell running Windows is good enough for their PC, why would they buy a standard platform phone from Apple instead of Sony Ericsson, Nokia Motorola or LG? I’ve asked this question several times, but have yet to receive an answer.
Why are you blaming Apple when these companies have had over a decade to create a decent low end phone? The iPhone is a computer, not a dedicated device.
“Tell me, Ben, when the first iPods came out, what is the only platform that was supported?”
Remember, Apple wasn’t selling a stand-alone MP3 player. It sold a complete hardware and software solution, which included iTunes. This is what helped make the iPod successful in the first place. So your suggesting that Apple should have…
- Taken the financial risk of developing a Windows version of iTunes, for a product that might not even sell.
- Delay the release the iPod until it wrote a version of iTunes for Windows, which is a completely different platform and might not even be a viable market.
- Let Windows users “eat cake” by forcing them to copy files over by hand - just as every other manufacture did at the time.
- Force Windows users to add hardware / upgrade their computer since USB 2.0 had yet to be adopted and most PCs didn’t come with firewire at that time.
Again, you seem to think that Apple should magically overcome technical limitations, ignore unreasonable financial risks and make bad business decisions, just because *you* want them to. Wanting an inexpensive iPhone is one thing, but blaming Apple for not releasing one in June is another.
My points are..
- Just as Microsoft only released on model of the Zune, Apple would have exposed itself to an unreasonable amount of financial risk by releasing a whole family of an unproven product.
- Launching even one new product in a completely new market is a huge undertaking. Instead of focusing on building a better low-end model, Apple chose to focus on a next generation phone platform.
- Apple’s strength is creating hardware and software solutions. The current low-end phones don’t have enough CPU and screen space for Apple to significantly differentiate itself in the existing billion handset market.
If by “can’t”, you mean that Apple couldn’t make a low-end phone and release the iPhone, as displayed at Macworld, then I would agree. However, by doing so, Apple would be foolishly throwing away it’s chance to leap frog the rest of the industry to release a phone that - based on the current US cell phone market - wouldn’t be revolutionary enough to sell.
I would add that when you consider the amount of revenue apple achieved from the initial, mac-only ipod release, compared to the amount of revenue apple has made in total from the ipod since, the revenue model in no way suggests that apple has made any significant gain in the way beeb suggests.
It is to me amply clear that this belief as to why apple is doing what it’s doing is wholly unsubtantiated. It stands among the most unsubstantiated claims I have ever seen anyone make on this site, actually.
Do you think if apple released a iphone and an iphone nano today, they wouldn’t both sell like free crack?
They both would sell well, but the iPhone Nano would sell much better, as does the iPod Nano now.
I would add that when you consider the amount of revenue apple achieved from the initial, mac-only ipod release, compared to the amount of revenue apple has made in total from the ipod since
Well no shit. How exactly does that prove my assertion incorrect? I’m making exactly the same claim about the iPhone - that they would do better to release a low-end phone NOW as opposed to two years down the road.
It stands among the most unsubstantiated claims I have ever seen anyone make on this site, actually.
Really? Because Scott just said that a low-end iPhone wouldn’t sell at all, which would be precisely the opposite of your “selling like free crack” remark that I happen to agree with.
But then this isn’t really about “unsubstantiated” is it, so much as it is your feelings about me personally and my lack of fervent religious devotion to Apple. For that, I get my fair share of isolated and hypocritical criticism on this site (like how I get called out for calling people Mac-tards but the Apple fans can call Windows users “drones” and “sheep” or anything they want). It goes with the territory I guess.
why would they buy a standard platform phone from Apple instead of Sony Ericsson, Nokia Motorola or LG? I’ve asked this question several times, but have yet to receive an answer.
You have received an answer but since it falls outside of what you want to hear, it’s as if it doesn’t exist. That’s how the reality distortion field works.
They would buy it because it’s easy to use and inexpensive (relatively), stylish, and it works. They would buy it for the same reason they buy the Nano.
Why are you blaming Apple when these companies have had over a decade to create a decent low end phone?
I’m not blaming Apple for anything. I’m saying that they can and should release a less expensive version of the iPhone, a feat that you apparently think impossible.
Just as Microsoft only released on model of the Zune, Apple would have exposed itself to an unreasonable amount of financial risk by releasing a whole family of an unproven product.
Your counter-arguments are all fantastical apologist rhetoric mixed up inside the preposterous distortion field. Cell phones are not an “unproven” market. They are quite proven, which is why Apple wanted to get into that market at all. As Jobs pointed out in his keynote, sales of cell phones dwarf gaming platforms and portable mp3 players.
Second, are you seriously comparing them to Microsoft? Microsoft’s problem with the Zune was that it wasn’t ANY different. Even a low-end iPhone would differ enough from existing cell phones, but still work like a cell phone, to fill a need in the market.
Third, the model I describe has also been proven, releasing both a high-end feature-filled product and a low-end less expensive model. Apple does this all across its product line. And if it weren’t a proven model before the iPod, it certainly is now.
Apple spent 2 1/2 years and untold billions on designing and building the iPhone, and they didn’t do it because they didn’t think it would sell.
In fact, Cingular’s recent comments suggest that Apple will do the impossible and release various models of the iPhone, including a lower-end model, at some point in the future.
I’m simply saying that they should have done it sooner rather than later.
If by “can’t”, you mean that Apple couldn’t make a low-end phone and release the iPhone, as displayed at Macworld, then I would agree.
Well duh. I’ve repeatedly said that you’ve made this claim, you’ve denied it and Ben has defended you. Now you “agree” that you’ve been saying all along what I’ve claimed you said.
Glad we got that straight.