“The hype is reaching fever-pitch, and the odds are still stacked that Apple will announce a device combining the functionality of an iPod and a mobile phone in January next year, but whether such a device will actually sell is another question,” Bill Ray writes for The Register.
Ray writes, “There seems little question that an Apple phone product will be launched in 2007, and that it will work with the iTunes service and have a very pretty industrial design and a smooth interface. Strapping an iPod to a mobile phone is not a great technical challenge, which makes it all the more remarkable that Motorola did it so badly with their ROKR handset. Maintaining the features which made the iPod so popular in a mobile phone will be much more of a challenge.”
Ray writes, “The iPod brought with it amazing industrial design, a well designed interface, and a new usage paradigm. Portable music players already existed, but the iPod was better looking and easier to use. It also came with the promise that you didn’t just carry music with you, you carried all your music with you. That factor alone changed the way portable music was perceived, and was central to the adoption of the iPod.”
“The iPod has moved away from that paradigm, with the Nano and Shuffle only able to store the most diminutive music collection, and recent rumours suggest that an Apple phone will have 8GB of flash-based storage; comparable with the Nano. But it was that function which sold the concept to many people, with the style and simplicity of use keeping them hooked,” Ray writes.
Ray writes, “It is important not to underestimate the importance of the iPod industrial design, or its scope. I recently had to sit in a pub as two iPod fans reminisced about feelings when opening their first iPod box, and their overwhelming admiration not for the product, but for the box in which it came. It was sickening, but demonstrated the loyalty iPod fans feel, and the expectations that will need to be met.”
MacDailyNews Take: Ray’s use of the adjective “sickening” speaks volumes about his underlying feelings. Just because people like Bill Ray want an Apple product to fail doesn’t mean it will.
Ray continues, “Apple will launch a mobile phone in January, and it will become available during 2007. It will be a lovely bit of kit, a pleasure to behold, and its limited functionality will be easy to access and use. The Apple phone will be exclusive to one of the major networks in each territory and some customers will switch networks just to get it, but not as many as had been hoped. As customers start to realise that the competition offers better functionality at a lower price, by negotiating a better subsidy, sales will stagnate. After a year a new version will be launched, but it will lack the innovation of the first and quickly vanish. The only question remaining is if, when the iPod phone fails, it will take the iPod with it.”
Full article here.
Ray makes a lot of assumptions to arrive at his seemingly deeply-desired failure scenario. What if the “iPhone” is sold simply as iPod – just like the “video” iPod was marketed? Are people going to stop buying iPods just because Apple decides to include phone capability? Of course not. That’s just one possibility. Obviously, it’s far too soon to proclaim Apple’s “iPhone” a success or failure (we’d wait for the actual product/service release, at least), but we’ve iCal’ed Ray’s comments for future reference, that much is sure.
Related articles:
Analyst: Apple iPhone economics aren’t that compelling – December 08, 2006
CNET editor Kanellos: ‘Apple iPhone will largely fail’ – December 07, 2006
I’ve been looking at getting a new phone after the first of the year — here’s how Apple could succeed:
Offer a seamless syncing utility with the iPhone. Something similar to iTunes that works on both Mac and Windows.
The problem with many of the phones out there is that, as a Mac user, I’ll either have to download or purchase additional software to use many of the cooler features — either Missing Sync or something else (there’s one for the Blackberry but I forget what it is). I want to be able to use it right out of the box.
I’d like a phone that has:
* a calendar that I can sync to iCal
* a contact list
* a web browser so I can check news and sports stuff
* and of course can make and receive phone calls
Camera and other stuff is optional — I’m not too concerned about the storage issue, as I’d likely just put my top favorites and the daily podcasts on the device, and use the iPod in places where the phone is supposed to be turned off (like on planes and at the doctor’s office).
Hmmm…wonder how many of these same people predicting that the iPhone will fail are the same ones predicting the iPod would fail…or who ten years ago were writing articles entitled, “The Death of Apple”…
AMENDMENT:
“As Steve Jobs noted when the Intel processor switch occured, the Mac is not about the hardware, it is about the software – aka Mac OS X. Same here Mr Ray, the iPod is not about the hardware it is about the software, in this case iTunes (Quicktime)!”
SHOULD READ:
As Steve Jobs noted when the Intel processor switch occured, the Mac is not about the hardware, it is about the software – aka Mac OS X. Same here Mr Ray, the iPod and hence the iPhone is not about the hardware it is about the software, in this case iTunes (Quicktime)!
Daniel — If you look at the “drawer” on the side of the iCal, there’s room to type all sorts of information; at the top you enter the specific information for the event (time, location, whatever), then at the bottom there’s an area called “Notes” where you can list reminders (like if you’re going to a potluck, what you’re on the hook to bring) or other information. And supposedly things are going to be even more robust in the new version of iCal — maybe enough so that I can ditch Entourage once and for all…
Masa, I didn’t say that all those papers were owned by the same people for the simple reason that they’re not. I did point out that The Times and The Sun were owned by the same company ( I used the word ‘both’ to imply two of them ), who also have considerable UK and US TV interests, but all the other outfits I mentioned are separate, although some do have links to other media.
The only common factor is that they are essentially UK sources which I offered as an example to John C. Randolph, who said that he was unaware of any Apple bashing in the UK. Some of the more blatant examples have previously been highlighted here and elsewhere.
HMFAP,
Microsoft bought what became MS-DOS. All they did was polish it up a bit.
Everything since has been based on that purchase. Some of that original code is still in Vista. Since that initial purchase, Microsoft has acquired other parts of their OS through licensing, purchasing software companies and outright code theft. To say that Apple is not capable of making a modern OS and Microsoft is is just ludicrous. Microsoft does not yet have a modern OS.
Apple purchased Next and got back Jobs as a bonus. Both Next and Apple engineers have contributed greatly to the open source BSD Unix underpinnings of OS X. Apple and Next have done more work on the entire Mac OS X as it is today than Microsoft has actually done on that bloated code base now known as Vista.
“To say that Apple is not capable of making a modern OS and Microsoft is is just ludicrous. Microsoft does not yet have a modern OS.”
The evidence is basically there. Unix, while ahead of it’s time 40 years ago, can hardly been described as a Modern OS. More like an OS from the dawn of the minicomputing age (which is over by the way). The guys from Next didn’t write the OS, and Apple sure hasn’t enhanced it much.
Now if you said that Apple spent significant time on the GUI, I’d buy that, but significant time on the OS? No way.
And as to open source contributions, Apple has taken more from Open Source projects than it’s ever given back. They try to do the minimum thay can do to use other people’s stuff and not violate the licensing terms while actively making sure what they contribute back as useless as possible for any practical purpose.
But then, there’s a reason Linux is more popular than Mac OS X.
Fact: there are too many morons online for the Register to fail. It IS too bad they havnt yet.. what a bunch of hyped up wanna be journalists.
FAKE NEWS ALERT FAKE NEWS ALERT
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So far it’s all just rumors, anyway, until they officially announce it. Leave it to the Register to keep the excitement going over this vaporware. Thanks for the free advertising, though, Ray.
I can’t wait to see what this proposed new iPhone will do. If Apple has anything to do with it, I can see some new innovations and designs that might just change the whole mobile phone industry. I’m really hoping that Apple will actually develop a PDA OS based on the Mac OS X. But, that’s just me. I’m still holding out for a Mac smartphone. We’ll see.
This idiot is why I hate “writers” and “analysts”. Firstly, he makes the assumption that the “iPhone” actually exists. It may or may not exist, but his assumption that is based on nothing more than speculation and rumors is dangerous to Apple as a company. Secondly, he assumes that it will be released in January, at MWSF. How many times must I repeat that if Apple DOES have a telephony device of some kind in the works, that it will NOT be released at MACworld San Francisco. If it is released at all, (which is now highly likely, because if Apple were not developing a phone their stock price will tank after each announcement that does not contain an “iPhone”, and they know it…) it will be released at a special media event so that all the “analysts” can show up and gloat about how they can see the future and predict what Apple will do. Bullshit.
</rant>
–mAc
The iphone was finally revealed today and judging from the response all my friends gave it, it looks like Apple has another clear winner on it’s hands. So much for Bill Ray’s views, maybe he can get a job writing for the National Enquirer or The Star.
Matty, you got that right.
I use both Mac and PC products, both have their pros and cons, PCs more so though. But here is why I won’t buy, or even want to use, the iphone.
1. It’s too large and unconventional for me to want to use it as a phone. I might be a prude, but I don’t even like talking on a Blackberry, and this shape looks even less comfortable to hold and talk with. Where do you grasp it at, the sides? Ergonomically it seems to be lacking in this case.
2. Touch screens are nice, futuristic, and in some applications even beneficial. I don’t believe cell phones is one of those instances. I make a lot of calls, many of those calls I make without looking at the keypad by finding the tactile “5” key raised bump as a reference point. With this phone I would have to look at it first, and to say one would get used to it is not entirely true. I’ve used a phone that did not have a bump on the “5” key, it was not nearly as efficient as ones that do.
3. itunes. I don’t know how anyone could possible like using this product, I really don’t. There are so many things wrong with itunes I don’t know where to begin. Let me just say that for anyone who likes to be able to just drag and drop their music into their player that itunes will only give you headaches. The insipid insistence of itunes synching everything is utterly ridiculous. If I OWN two ipods, or four in my case, why can I not just plug one in and drop music into it? Maybe I’m missing something here, but I own the cd, I ripped the music, I wish to listen to the music on my car’s ipod and my workout ipod…what’s the problem? I DON’T wish to synch anything, just put music on the player that I bought. For this reason I downloaded Yamipod (freeware) and have been in heaven ever since. Never again will I play with itunes and their ridiculous control-freakish software.
3. I like the fact that currently when a battery dies or a unit becomes defective it’s just ONE thing. If my ipod dies, I don’t have music. If my phone dies, I don’t have a phone. PDA, Laptop, PSP: same thing. The convenience for combining everything (which is debatable because we don’t know how well it will handle pc based apps yet, if at all) will quickly be erased once the thing farks up, and we all know this happens, even to Macs. I would NEVER trust this machine for work, never, it’s too much riding on one small device.
4. For $599, 8 Gigs of storage is a joke. Yes, some of us DO use the whole 80 Gigs of storage on our ipods. See, I have a 300 Gig Maxtor external FULL of mp3’s, avi/mpeg/quicktime files, and photos. I need drive space, and I use my ipod as a storage device when I travel or need to transport large files. The limited storage of this device would require me to carry my ipod, external drive, or laptop anyway. 8 Gigs, i thought they were joking; I don’t care if it’s flash memory, they should’ve stuck at least five flash cards in the thing then, especially for that ridiculous price.
I hope Apple comes back with something I find more useful and practical, I really do. I’ve never been one to second guess Apple before, but I just don’t see myself using this device in the future. Good luck to those who buy it, I hope you find it great and then some.