“Although the recent unveiling of its iPhone was stunning, Apple Inc.’s radical mobile device is already generating a lot of questions as the company prepares for its big sales push in June, industry observers say,” Ryan Kim reports for The San Francisco Chronicle.
Kim reports, “Neil Strother, an analyst with the research company NPD Group, said customers last year paid, on average, $63 for a cell phone and $200 for a smartphone. He said that could be a problem for Apple as it tries to sell beyond its rabid fan base.”
MacDailyNews Note: We told you people to get your shots. Rabies is not a game.
Kim continues, “‘Consumers are not used to paying another couple hundred bucks more just because Apple makes a cool product,’ Strother said. ‘Some fans will buy it, but for the rest of us it’s a hard pill to swallow just to have the coolest thing.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, iPhone is just “cool.” That’s it; no UI that makes it possible for people to actually use their phone’s features or anything else, just cool. No wonder Strother can’t figure it out; he doesn’t understand the product very well at all.
Kim continues, “AT&T’s Glenn Lurie, president of wireless national distribution, acknowledged the iPhone will appeal to more high-end users, but he said consumers will find considerable value in the device. ‘It’s such a leap past other things; it will make innovations. That’s great for customers,’ Lurie said. ‘I think it has the opportunity to change the game.'”
Kim reports, “The iPhone has one battery that is not replaceable. It is designed to provide five hours of talk time, video playback or Internet browsing, or 16 hours of continuous music playback. Rob Enderle, a technology analyst, wondered if that’s enough for consumers who might not get enough juice in one day from Apple’s iPhone battery. ‘If you’re going to be doing a lot of stuff on this phone, you really have a five-hour window,’ he said. ‘But if you listen to music and then the phone doesn’t work, that’s serious. The phone always has to work.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Has the so-called, self-described “analyst” Rob Enderle ever heard of the TunePower Rechargeable Battery Pack for iPod from Belkin or any of a hundred other similar solutions already on the market? Such devices connect to iPod via the Dock connector and double, triple, or multiply even more the play time of iPods. iPhone features the same Dock connector as iPod. Extrapolate.
Kim continues, “Palm spokeswoman Marlene Somsak said the iPhone does not appear to be aimed at business and sophisticated customers because it lacks a physical QWERTY keyboard, which she said is essential for text entry.”
MacDailyNews Take: Now let’s hear from someone who’s actually used the iPhone’s keyboard instead of some FUD-spewing spokeswoman whose company is about to be steamrolled by Apple: “I have used the Apple iPhone. I had a private briefing the day after Steve Jobs’ keynote and spent about 45 minutes noodling around with the device. I think the iPhone’s virtual keyboard is a huge improvement over the mechanical thumbpads found on the Treo and any other smart phones of its size. The buttons are significantly larger, you don’t have to hit them dead-center, you lightly tap them instead of punching them down, and the software is smart enough to know that you meant to type ‘Tuesday’ instead of ‘Tudsday.’ After 30 seconds, I was already typing faster with the iPhone than I ever have with any other phone,” Andy Ihnatko reported for The Chicago Sun-Times last Thursday.
Kim continues, “Apple’s Steve Jobs, for his part, doesn’t look worried. He said at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco earlier this month that he feels he has the competition beat by five years, with all the software advances and design touches on the iPhone. ‘We’re going to enter a very competitive market, a lot of players,’ Jobs said. But, ‘we think we’re going to have the best product in the world.'”
Full article here.
“If you thought that iPod and iTunes was subject to FUD, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet, my friends. You’ll have to look to the Mac to find a threat of such magnitude that inspired such a FUD campaign. The reason for such a campaign against iPhone? Money. Lots and lots of money and the fear of losing a good portion of it to Apple,” SteveJack wrote in our opinion section on January 10th. “So, keep this in mind whenever you read about Apple’s iPhone and you see an article slanted against the iPhone: the real Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt is being felt by all of the companies that Apple just humiliated… They are very scared and rightfully so.”
Related articles:
Ihnatko: Hands-on with Apple’s iPhone (which runs Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) – January 18, 2007
Apple’s Phil Schiller gives CBS News hands-on tour of iPhone – January 12, 2007
David Pogue: hands on preview of Apple’s iPhone, ‘gorgeous and so packed with possibilities’ – January 11, 2007
PC Magazine hands-on test of Apple iPhone: multi-touch UI ‘takes the breath away’ – January 11, 2007
RealMoney: Apple just blew up the whole damn mobile-phone supply chain with its new iPhone – January 11, 2007
ZDNet: Hands on with Apple’s iPhone: ‘elegant, ravishing, simple, sleek; impeccable & intuitive UI’ – January 11, 2007
Hands-on with Apple’s iPhone – January 10, 2007
The massive FUD campaign against Apple’s iPhone ramps up – January 10, 2007
Analyst: ‘iPhone’s willful disregard of global handset market will come back to haunt Apple’ – January 18, 2007
Microsoft CEO Ballmer laughs at Apple iPhone – January 17, 2007
Street Insight: Apple iPhone faces a number of potential obstacles – January 16, 2007
IDG News Service: ‘Reality might tarnish iPhone’s shine’ – January 16, 2007
The Times: Apple’s brand of corporate hubris is almost always damaging in the long run – January 16, 2007
Hackers ‘salivating’ over Apple’s iPhone – January 15, 2007
Bloomberg writer: Apple iPhone won’t make long-term mark; will only appeal to a few gadget freaks – January 15, 2007
Dvorak on Apple iPhone: ‘I think Apple can do wrong and I think this is it’ – January 13, 2007
USA Today writer: Apple iPhone is an ‘ordinary, average product’ at heart – January 12, 2007
FUD Alert: Analyst – I am pretty skeptical Apple’s iPhone can succeed – January 11, 2007
The massive FUD campaign against Apple’s iPhone ramps up – January 10, 2007
The Register’s Ray: Apple ‘iPhone’ will fail – December 26, 2006
Analyst: Apple iPhone economics aren’t that compelling – December 08, 2006
CNET editor Kanellos: ‘Apple iPhone will largely fail’ – December 07, 2006
Palm CEO laughs off Apple ‘iPhone’ threat – November 20, 2006
