CEO Ed Colligan was interviewed by Swiss newspaper Sonntagszeitung at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona regarding Apple’s upcoming (June 2007) iPhone.
Our best translation from German:
“In my opinion it looks rather like a highly developed media player, which happens to include a phone,” Colligan said.
“The iPhone could be interesting for people who like music and films with occasional phone use, but for businesspeople the touch-sensitive screen without a physical button keyboard will be a challenge.”
Apple has supplied “nothing at all” regarding iPhone to date, according to Colligan. There’s a huge difference between giving a keynote speech and actually developing and shipping the devices, Colligan said.
Colligan said, ” I have great respect for Apple, but won’t be easy to create a good smartphone that will functions on networks worldwide. Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung have worked on this for for 25 years and have only partially succeeded today. Our Palm Treo already has 90% of Apple’s iPhone features at a much lower price… By the way, if this is an interview about the iPhone, you should talk with the Apple people instead.”
Full article (in German) here.
Yes, the iPhone will be interesting for people who like music and films and occasionally use the phone. Keep telling yourself that, Ed. Maybe it’ll just go away (along with some other things).
In regard to Colligan’s use of one of the anti-iPhone FUD camapign’s major talking points: The Chicago Sun-Times’ Andy Ihnatko – who has actually touched and used the Apple iPhone – reports, “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… After 30 seconds, I was already typing faster with the iPhone than I ever have with any other phone.”
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