By SteveJack
As I fully expected, the Apple iPhone hit pieces have begun. These articles will attempt to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) for the next six months leading up to Apple’s first shipment of iPhones and well beyond that date.
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.
You can call me conspiratorial. You can call me a crackpot. Call me whatever you like, but I will be proven right soon enough.
You will see articles that go way beyond legitimate reviews that will attempt to call into question every aspect of Apple’s iPhone, attacking everything from battery life, the type of battery, fingerprints on the screen, its Mac OS X operating system, and the type of network technology the first iPhone will employ (quad-band GSM) while failing to mention that Jobs stated that Apple plans 3G iPhones in the future. These articles will harp on the prices Apple plans to charge for the iPhone. They’ll claim the soft keyboard is difficult to use. They’ll make up even more things and they’ll find quotes from people who are supposedly not impressed with the device. I guarantee it.
Apple’s target of selling 10 million iPhones, or 1% of the total market, in the first year is too low, far too conservative. Apple’s iPhone user interface (UI) is far too advanced and too well-protected by patents (granted and under review) to be ripped off successfully. It will change the mobile device market in radical ways. I am, if anything, understating the havoc iPhone will cause.
The other phone makers, the other mobile device makers, and the other makers of so-called “smartphone” software understand the massive threat Apple’s iPhone poses. They have no recourse but to start up the FUD campaign, desperately hoping to slow Apple’s assault on the market. There is so much money at stake that things will get very nasty, very quickly.
The chits will be called in and the articles will get written. It’s already started.
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 yesterday. They are very scared and rightfully so.
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
Related articles:
FUD Alert: Analyst – I am pretty skeptical Apple’s iPhone can succeed – January 11, 2007
eWeek: Apple iPhone fallout: ‘They must be crying in Nokia-ville and other telephony towns today’ – January 10, 2007
The only thing really wrong with Apple’s iPhone is its name – January 09, 2007
Is Apple building ‘The Device?’ [revisited] – January 09, 2007
Apple debuts iPhone: touchscreen mobile phone + widescreen iPod + Internet communicator – January 09, 2007
When the next generation of Macs and MacOS come out there may be very little to spread FUD about. When a multi-point touchscreen Mac is announced…
The iPhone is only the beginning. Someday Windows will be relegated to POS status. Point of sale. Windows will be used like a dumb terminal.
You can count on this because those companies really hate change epecially when it’s for the better and when it forces them to give the consumer a better product.
First?
Okay. Conspiratorial crackpot!
Seriously, the press has been reasonable, so far.
Less is More,
Oh, yeah? Read this hit piece from CNET and then see if you can call SteveJack a conspiratorial crackpot.
Okay, I’ll start:
“[…] its Mac OS X operating system […]”
You show me where, in the video of the keynote or where on Apple’s website it says Mac OS X. It is not running Mac OS X. There is no Aqua, for example, in OS X.
yeah, i’ve read some really nuts shit on this.. from.. the usual suspects..
here’s a real gem, Apple leaving the PC industry?
*rolls eyes
Yo Judge:
Read further on your link from CNET hit piece: http://news.com.com/Mac+Views+Does+iPhone+hit+the+spot/2009-1042_3-6148638.html
cmon peter, you didnt even try!?!
http://www.apple.com/iphone/technology/specs.html
4th spec down
WHAT?! Here’s an executive summary: Anybody out there who says anything negative in any way, shape, or form about the Apple iPod is being paid by other smartphone manufacturers, is anti-Apple, wants Apple to go out of business, and is spreading FUD.
WHAT?!
Face it SteveJack… People are allowed to find FLAWS in Apple products. Yes, they exist.
Sure they might eventually come out with a 3G phone, but this doesn’t have it, so it’s a little inferior. Yes, there might be fingerprints on the screen and that actually is annoying. Yes, the battery life may be lower, and you can’t replace it.
I, personally, have had two phones in the past few years and have kept TWO batteries for each of them. When one dies while I’m out, I can plug in the new one and keey going, then use my cradle back home to charge the one not in use. No-can-do with the iPhone. That’s a problem. And I’m NOT trying to spread FUD.
Critiques will happen. No product is perfect. Otherwise there wouldn’t be such thing as a SECOND-generation iPhone. So please, it’s YOU that is starting the FUD. Against the people with opinions.
Duh! When yer competitors find themselves photographed drunk and lying in the alley with no clothes on waist down you bet they’re gonna cry foul. No doubt in the coming months they will strive to copy everything that Apple has done, too.
“You show me where, in the video of the keynote or where on Apple’s website it says Mac OS X. It is not running Mac OS X. There is no Aqua, for example, in OS X.”
Huh? The most sophisticated OS on the planet..? OS X?.. Take the bucket off your head and the earplugs out and watch the Keynote again..
Peter,
iPhone specs: Operating System: OS X
http://www.apple.com/iphone/technology/specs.html
Watch iPhone Introduction (at 8:38), Apple CEO Steve Jobs, “iPhone runs OS X.”
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d52oo/event/
@ Peter
Er. at timecode 34:59 in the keynote, Steve said, with a bit of a flourish, that “iPhone runs Oh… Ess… *Ten*.”
Make up stuff that harder to shoot down.
Uh, I think Peter is pointing out that it isn’t running MAC OS X but rather a stripped-down version of OS X. Have we verified that it’s the full operating system? He’s pointing out that we don’t see Aqua in the OS X on the device. Am I right?
Peter wrote:
“Okay, I’ll start:
“[…] its Mac OS X operating system […]”
You show me where, in the video of the keynote or where on Apple’s website it says Mac OS X. It is not running Mac OS X. There is no Aqua, for example, in OS X.”
Umm Peter you must have been asleep during the keynote mate!
Steve Jobs mentioned the fact that it ran OS X at least twice by my recollection.
Also even if he didn’t, next time you want to make such emphatic statements, it may be worth checking first.
You ask where on Apple’s web site it says OS X, so I went and looked, in about 30 secs I found it under “tech specs”
iPhone Tech Specs
Sorry buddy, but the egg is just dripping from your face.
Cheers,
Luke
Peter = slammed!
Mac OS X is not Aqua. Aqua is a UI for Mac OS X. You can have other UIs for Mac OS X. We already have them. For example, Dashboard. Another example is Time Machine. Expect to see more of new UIs and less of Aqua going forward in Mac OS X on full-sized Macs, too, not just on pint-sized Macs called “iPhone.”
I was with this piece, but I think there’s an unintended mis-statement at the end: “keep this in mind whenever you read about Apple’s iPhone and you see an article slanted against the iPhone”. . .
So anything slanted against the iPhone is FUD? That’s not right or fair, and in fact use of the term “slanted” is probably yellow journalism.
Let me hasten to add that I understand this is an opinion piece, and further that I agree with most of it. I think I agree with the intent of the last line, but I sure wish you hadn’t written it that way. There are going to be criticisms, many of which are valid (even if not shared by all).
Heh. MW: problem
OS X is modular. If they build a different UI layer for the mobile (and of course they would) why would this not just be OS X with an alternative UI? Isn’t that the whole point of building the systems the way they did?
@ Judge Bork
Uh yeah, the CNET piece does have some critiques. Most of them valid. What’s wrong with that? Why is it OK for tons of articles against the Zune, but not OK for ONE on the internet to find a flaw in the iPhone?
Because the Zune really does blow chunks. We all knew that ages ago.
And no one had any *CLUE* how cool the iPhone would turn out to be.
Step,
SteveJack obviously knows how to write very well.
From the Oxford Dictionary:
slanted: to present or view (information) from a particular angle, esp. in a biased or unfair way
SteveJack’s use of “slanted” is actually excellent. SteveJack also wrote above, “You will see articles that go way beyond legitimate reviews that will attempt to call into question every aspect of Apple’s iPhone…”
SteveJack was very clear. He’s talking about “articles that go way beyond legitimate reviews.”
So Steve Jack, Do you mean that people will start writing FUD pieces about the iPhone before it’s released?
Do you mean like MDN did to the ZUNE way before any details about it were eveb announced?
Huh. Interesting.
Your such a prophet Steve Jack.
Like most things from Britain. (why is that?)
@ Journo
What is a “legitimate review?” How far do you have to go before you’re no longer “legitimate?” Like someone above called that CNET article a hit piece. But it seems to raise some valid concerns, even though it’s not specifically a “review.” I’m sure you can find a Zune article out there that critiques it without being a “review.” So no, SteveJack wasn’t very clear, imho.
MW: present. I really do want an iPhone as a present. I just think this article is a little over the top.