“Less than three months remain until AT&T is expected to launch the iPhone in the U.S. Both Apple and AT&T have opted to remain mum about crucial price and performance details — even as they ramp up the hype. It’s a strategy that risks a backlash, particularly since the iPhone does not fit comfortably into either the business or luxury phone categories,” Tero Kuittinen writes for RealMoney.com.
Kuittinen writes, “Tellingly, this week’s big news item about the iPhone wasn’t about the device. It was about the hype around it, as AT&T announced that more than a million people have already inquired about the phone. This is an impressive number, but consumers are in an information vacuum. Unusually, AT&T has not revealed either key pricing information or key performance figures that would enable consumers to make an informed decision about the device.”
Kuittinen writes, “Let me give an example: With AT&T, you can get a reasonably hot new smartphone, such as the Samsung Blackjack…”
MacDailyNews Take: Blah, blah, blah… Kuittinen goes into the usual uninformed, ill-advised, and just plain stupid feature checklist comparison, thereby missing the point entirely: Apple’s iPhone is a usable whole, designed for the user, not the carrier, with Apple’s typical meticulous attention to detail; iPhone is designed to be intuitive and actually work (hint: the UI matters, Treo… er, Tero). It’s iPod all over again, stupid.
Kuittinen continues, “Without question, there is an army of Apple fans so fervent that they will not care about the iPhone’s price or performance. But how large is it? Surely it is millions in America and millions outside the core U.S. market. But I don’t think it is 10 million buyers within 12 months of the launch, the figure largely mooted over the past few months… The iPhone is not a smartphone. It has the advanced display and weight of a smartphone, but it lacks an open operating system and vast application library. This does not fit the ‘business phone’ market, which makes up most of the high-end phone sales globally.”
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s clearly-stated goal is 10 million iPhone units by the end of 2008, not “within 12 months of the launch.” So much for moving the goal posts, Tero.
“The people now inquiring about the iPhone don’t know the key details about the model. Apple and AT&T apparently want it that way. I don’t think this is a bright idea,” Kuittinen writes.
Full article (subscription required) here.
Kuittinen complains that nobody knows enough about Apple iPhone to want to buy it and then illogically proceeds to predict how iPhone will fare in the marketplace. The only ones really in an information vacuum are Kuittinen’s poor readers. We’ve iCal’ed Kuittinen’s prognostications for future review. Not only can’t Kuittinen see the future, he can’t grasp the concept of hundreds of millions of dollars in free publicity, either.
Oh, by the way, according to RealMoney, “Tero Kuittinen is a senior product specialist for Nordic Partners, Inc., a pan-Nordic brokerage firm. Before that, he worked in the telecom equity research groups of Sanford C. Bernstein (NYC) and Opstock (Helsinki), as well as a strategist for various Finnish mobile content start-ups.”
With apologies to Paul Harvey, “And now you know… the rest of the story.”
Contact RealMoney.com / Tero Kuittinen here.
Related iPhone naysayers, hacks, FUDmeisters, future golden parachutists, one dancing monkey boy who hopefully isn’t going anywhere except down with the ship, and the usual bloated windbag named John C. Dvorak:
Dvorak trolls: ‘Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone’ – March 28, 2007
Ballmer: Apple not a hot brand, our partners will make look-alike iPhones, I gotta go – March 27, 2007
Analyst: ‘Apple iPhone is little more than another handset to operators’ – March 14, 2007
Microsoft’s Mundie: Windows Mobile does more than Apple’s iPhone does today – March 10, 2007
How Steve Jobs blew his iPhone keynote: premature announcement hurts Apple – March 09, 2007
Computerworld’s Haskin: Apple seems to be repeating Newton mistakes with iPhone – February 26, 2007
Palm CEO can’t stop talking about Apple iPhone – February 19, 2007
Telstra exec tells Apple to ‘stick to its knitting’ as iPhone looms – February 15, 2007
Palm CEO: ‘We don’t want to follow design fads’; Nokia CEO challenges Apple over iPhone – February 13, 2007
RIM co-CEO doesn’t see threat from Apple’s iPhone – February 12, 2007
Microsoft’s Bach talks Apple iPhone, DRM, Zune, and more – February 09, 2007
FUD Alert: Apple iPhone ‘isn’t very practical’ and a ‘security risk’ for business – January 24, 2007
New Zealand Herald scribe: Apple iPhone ‘the most over-designed device in the history of humanity’ – January 22, 2007
The amount of iPhone FUD is truly stunning – January 22, 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
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
Related articles:
The massive FUD campaign against Apple’s iPhone ramps up – January 10, 2007
The only thing really wrong with Apple’s iPhone is its name – January 09, 2007
So…tired…of…hearing…about…iPhone…
I had a blackberry once. It only worked with enterprise e-mail. It only ran the applications that came with it.
Now I have a motorola phone with an e-mail client that can connect to one and only one POP account. I routinely use three different accounts. I’ve never even thought about adding applications to it, it would probably lock up and die a grisly death.
Cellphone industry, wake up and smell the toast burning – your devices suck.
That said, I’ll be waiting until Apple has an UMTS air interface; I’m not going to spend $600 on something and then find out it can’t roam in Japan, as is the case with the aforementioned Motorola phone – quad band GSM is nice, but it doesn’t get you everywhere.
Trust me, the iPhone will cell heaps. MW: “greater” than you might think.
Instead of being a fanboy for either the iPhone or for other phones, I’ll wait to see what happens when it comes out.
Here’s my take on advantages and disadvantages of the iPhone, at least with the info released by Apple so far:
Advantages:
-designed by Apple, great UI
-innovative controls in the touchscreen, hopefully translating into more sturdy device (fewer moving parts, fewer things to break)
-based on a version of OS X
-could for some people combine two devices into one (iPod and phone)
Disadvantages:
-limited to a single carrier per market
-expensive
-at least so far, not open to other apps being installed. I don’t care if the platform is “open” or not, but I won’t change phones if I lose capability.
-doesn’t look like it has a removable battery
-doesn’t look like it has any kind of expansion slot
I use a Treo 650, and there is software on it that I, at least from what Apple’s announced so far, wouldn’t have an equivalent to on an iPhone. Docs To Go and Acrobat are a few. There are *tons* of specialty apps available (at least for the Palm platform- don’t know much about Windows Mobile). I have a unit converter, for example, that I use quite often. I use an RPN calculator (I don’t know if the iPhone’s calculator has an RPN mode). I have a ballistics program for determining hold over, velocity, etc. I have a bartending app listing drink recipes. I have FileMaker Mobile, which allows me to connect to remote FileMaker databases easily. As nice as the interface on the iPhone is, until I can expand the software installed on it, it simply won’t do for me. I truly hope that Apple will open the iPhone up to 3rd party software, as most of the other features are quite nice.
@MDN –
Excellent lead-in to the related stories!
Why would any one WANT to run AutoCAD… the over-priced, bloated, byzantine kludge that it is. But since it’s Windows only, it emulates it’s “master” well.
This article seems yet another lame attempt to troll for hits. As we’ve all seen, accuracy and honesty in “reporting” aren’t necessary. Spew some unresearched partial-truths , fueled by speculation and a bit of vitriol and you’re off. Watch that hit ticker click.
Clearly our Finnish friend has taken his cues from our old buddies Enderle, Dvorak, etc.
cough… oh, yeah, Release the Zealots….
I’m convinced that the reason no one has been able to top the ipod is because most people don’t understand what makes Apple products so successful. Most anlysts only think about the features of a product. They can then perform their feature calculus and determine the better product very easily this way. They never consider the end-user experience of using a product because this is too hard to quantify. After all.. what is “fits comfortably in the palm of your hand” worth? Instead, they just throw their hands up and chalk it up to Apple fanboy zealotry.
The iPhone runs OS X, the operating system that can run the most software of any OS in the world. Therefore, it’s not limited to stripped-down apps typical of mobile phones and Palm-type devices. It’s closed only to the extent that Apple wants to control how an app interacts with the phone and other features.
If any analyst thinks that Apple won’t allow third parties to develop apps specifically for iPhone, they’re crazy. It’s a golden licensing opportunity, and Apple still retains control of all things iPhone. Developers will simply have to submit apps to Apple for testing and approval before they can be shipped.
Why is it that analysts think Apple is going to release iPhone with a certain set of apps and not allow any changes? Do they not understand that iPhone runs on OS X?
Finally, how do I get paid like these morons to write such stupid drivel?
The iPhone is a non-issue compared to the next insanely great Apple product:
Even as a Mac user all my life, I treat iPhone the same way I treated Vista:
It’s mere “vaporware” until it ships.
The author of this article also wrote one just a few days after the initial iPhone announcement, entitled “Apple’s Dangerous Contempt.” There the principal criticism was not making the phone 3G in its initial release, and not releasing it first in Asia and Europe. I mention this only because it reveals a pattern consistent with the current article: missing the forest for the trees. The iPhone is a game changer, redefining the category of pocket-size computing and communications, and so whether it’s a smartphone inside the cell phone category or not really doesn’t matter. It’s defining a new category. Similarly doing the apples to oranges comparisons of checking off how much flash, how much screen size, etc. and comparing it to “comparable” phones really is beside the point (as Falkirk and maclus et al. have pointed out). Turning the fact that 1 million people signing up for release information into part of an argument for why something is going to fail is truly “dangerous contempt.”
This analyst is not what we call in the investment community “smart money.”
Being the biggest Apple fanboy I was none the less the biggest naysayer of the iPhone prior to it’s official announcement. I now think it’s going to be huge. Inspite of these now positive vibes from the iPhone potential I’m still mindful of the fact that Apple has had to team up with a corp. that has no real interest or investment in Apple, and in fact, are most likely very Windows CE oriented and etc. It is possible that the iPhone will fail on this account. I think Apple had to essentially beg a cellular provider to support their product, which is a damn shame considering that it will be a boon not only for Apple, but for the provider as well. The reality is that the cellular world has, up to now, been very MS centric (make that very very), and its going to show, I have very little doubt of that. However, Apple is covering it’s butt by selling the iPhone from Apple stores, and it will only take, IMHO, about 12 months for the iPhone to really get going, and once it gets going it will immediately be able to start expanding it product into other carriers – this time without begging.
I’m counting on it being a rugged beginning, but as with the iPod, I have little doubt that the consumer will have the last word when it comes to the iPhone.
I still think Apple should go with Skype and/or Jah Jah – I don’t understand why they made themselves so vulnerable – but then I know there’s a lot about what goes on behind the cellular seen that I’m clueless about. I’ve heard the audio quality of Skype isn’t great, but I talked to my wife on her cell phone from a home Skype connection using a $500 dollar microphone and she said it sounded great. And from my standpoint her cell phone sounded as good as any Verizon cell phone audio I’ve ever heard.
Anyway, Go Apple! The iPhone is going to rock!
Hey Jedi Mustard, why don’t you use your real name?
People will be lining up and killing each other for the iPhone when it comes out, like no other device in history.
People won’t be able to use them in public for a year without getting mugged for them. Schools will ban them because of violence that will ensue over them.
BUT IT WON’T BE A FAILURE.
The only iPhone related failures will be 1. they can’t make enough of them fast enough and 2. the pundits and analysts that are to be proven oh-so-wrong will all get fired and jump out of their skyscrapers.
It will be raining so-called experts and their blood will flow through the streets.
@Shiva – I enjoyed your post very much. Objective. Analytical. Very well done.
I wanted to take issue with you on one point becasue I think it is much misunderstood and that is the issue of the iphone’s pricing.
If you tke ecomomics you quickly learn that price is determined by supply and demand. If you take marketing you spend the rest of your life trying to unlearn what you learned in economics.
A commodity (two things that are exactly alike) can only be distinguished by price. Once your product becomes a commodity it is difficult to make any money off of it.
The way to keep your product (or your business or your service) from becoming a commodity is to have a unique value. It’s easy to see the unique value that the iphone brings to the market.
In economics we’ve been taught that a lower price will increase demand. But in marketing we’re taught that price communicates value.
Apple has purposely priced the iphone as a premium product. They could lower the price, but theat would just put them in competition with the “mid-range” products. They want to be viewed as high end. That’s why a laugh when I read analysts say that the iphone will not be a business phone. Who do you think is going to be the first to buy an iphone? People who can afford it and people who want to be seen owning it. Every CEO and business owner worth his salt will want one. And it’ll lose it’s star power if too many of the “little people” are seen using it.
No, price is not a weakness of the iphone, it is a strength. You can only command a preimium price like that if you provide a uniqely valuable product. The iphone can do that. Owning the premium end of the market is extemely valuable becasue the margins are high and much of the advertising is done thorugh reputation, branding and word of mouth. When you’re the premium product you don’t have to deal with the coupon clippers.
I know this is all counter intuitive. Belieive me most of marketing will make your head spin. I just want people to pause before they echo the pundits who think that the iphone can only succed if it lowers its price. The price of the iphone is not a barrier – it’s a feature!
I don’t have a problem with a moronic viewpoint or ill-informed opinions but rather the problem is like all those critics of the ipod who were sure it would fail or the thousands (?) who were so sure as soon as MS snapped their two fingers, the ipod thing would collapse – where are all those people now?
Shouldn’t they be forced to have every page of the blog/report begin with with a blinking Apple icon:
I PREDICTED THE IPOD WOULD FAIL –
REMEMBER I PREDICTED THE IPOD WOULD FAIL