“With the impending release of the iPhone, Apple is digging its heels into the forefront of a movement not simply to change the face of the cell phone market, but rather to continue radicalizing the digital consumer electronics industry as we know it,” Saabira Chaudhuri writes for FastCompany.
“While smart phones that allow consumers to listen to music, surf the Net and make phone calls already exist, Apple’s new venture aims to take the concept of user friendliness to levels that no other phone has achieved, by coupling a revolutionary multi-touch user interface with the convenience of consolidation,” Chaudhuri writes. “But is the iPhone going to be able to achieve the same success levels as the iPod?”
Chaudhuri writes, “The buzz preceding the upcoming iPhone rings similar to the hype that the iPod has whipped up around its slender frame since 2001, and in keeping with tradition, the hype is largely focused on the phone’s radical user interface. The iPhone boasts a patented ‘multi-touch’ keyboard technology that allows users to interact directly with the device using their fingers instead of conventional buttons.”
“The wide display area serves as both keyboard and control panel, and is one large luminous screen that changes according to the functions desired. If you’re checking your voicemail for instance, your message appears as a visual icon. Poke the message you want to listen to and you’ve got it,” Chaudhuri writes.
Chaudhuri writes, “The iPod set an impossibly high bar, one that the iPhone will not match or even come close to. But the new device could still be very successful, particularly in the long term. By combining a phone, a music player and an Internet device all in one, while coupling them with the most user friendly interface it could conceive of, Apple aims to embody one of the most fundamental ideals that underlies modern day consumerism: convenience.”
“For an increasing number of consumers, less has never been more than it is today: the smaller the better, the sleeker the better, the simpler the better, and the more consolidated the better. The iPhone is likely to emerge as a forerunner in this movement towards simplifying the digital media industry,” Chaudhuri writes.
Full article here.
Easily. 200 Million sold under 5 years.
“Can Apple’s iPhone achieve same success levels as iPod?”
Yes. Yes it can.
Define success.
70% of the market – no
100,000,000 in five years – very likely
The iPhone’s potential is greater than the iPod. It is almost (but not quite) a handheld computer. I already know several people who use computers mostly for web surfing and email and are considering getting an iPhone instead of a laptop. People talk about the iPhone cannibalizing iPods sales, but it is worth considering whether the iPhone will cannibalize MacBook sales for that category of consumers. Or more happily, people who can’t get their Dell laptops to boot up in less than 10 minutes may consider getting an iPhone to do their Web browsing and email.
numlock brings up a good point. I do not believe the iPhone will negatively impact MacBook sales but will certainly be used by many more as a hand held computer instead of their notebooks. It will also introduce Windows users who are not familiar with Macs to OSX. I think the halo effect of the iPhone will be far greater than the iPod.
What a bad article!
He rabbits on about how Apple won’t be able to dominate the cell phone market as they have the mp3 market.
What a load of drivel!
Who ever claimed that Apple was trying to ‘dominate’ this market?
Apple have about 70% of the mp3 market.
70% of the cell phone market would mean selling over 700,000,000 (yes, 700 million) iPhones per year.
That would make Apple the richest company in the history of the world! By far!
A tech writer who ‘invents’ such comparisons to make a very weak point shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Chaudhuri writes, “The iPod set an impossibly high bar, one that the iPhone will not match or even come close to.
I completely disagree. I think the iPhone not only leap frogs other phones, it leap frogs iPod as well.
In terms of user friendliness, existing phones are like boxes with things just slung into them at random. You’re not sure what’s in there and have little chance of finding anything since the lights are off.
The iPhone is part iPod.
It’s an iPod on steroids without the shrunken testicles and acne.
I agree with One Guy from Finland, Gandalf, and Roberto:
The iPhone will be as successful if not more so than the iPod as measured by total number of units sold in 5 years, but it won’t command a 70% share of the entire cell phone industry by units sold.
I can easily seeing it having an enormous impact on the state of the industry going 2-3 years out from now. What we see in the cell phone industry will likely (by being forced to adapt to the iPhone due to its coming popularity) be forced to make their phone sets DRAMATICALLY more user friendly.
Attention to end user experience and UI has largely been totally absent in the phone industry, but Apple will force this issue and we’ll likely see in the next few years some dramatic improvements in this area.
Whether Apple holds the market, we’ll all benefit from this.
The iPhone may or may not succeed, but either way it is likely to have to do so without Steve Jobs at the helm of Apple.
There is a comment I copied and pasted below from another post, and combined with what I am hearing about Microsoft and Apple’s other rivals banding together to “prevent Steve Jobs from getting away with murder”, it seems possible Jobs will be on his way out because of the iPhone. Because of the iPhone.
SEC regulations REQUIRE companies to disclose risk to their shareholders. Conspiring with big law firms to steal IP from former clients of such law firms, then conspiring to cause IRREPARABLE harm to other clients, i.e. Microsoft, and then banking the future of the company (Apple) on such ill-gotten goods — is a mammoth violation of SEC law!!!
Clearly, Apple is BANKING ITS FUTURE on the iPhone and very closely tied products.
This is NOT about stealing inventions. It’s not about inventions at all.
This crime is about brazen violation of SEC law and conspiracy to engage others to do so.
If the iPhone harms the business of its competitors as the press predicts it will: e.g. Verizonwireless, Sprint, Palm, RIM, etc.
and if this resounding success of the iPhone is based on Steve Jobs having pulled off an ingenius crime, even against the brilliant Bill Gates, and if Steve Jobs “gets away with it”, then the US Justice system has clearly failed.
The references cited in the comment pasted below (from another site) are highly credible. We checked them out as can anyone with doubts. Every question regarding them raises questions, and the answers and the further questions which arise are all “highly troubling” vis-a-vis Steve Jobs.
Will the iPhone surpass even the Ipod?
I hope so. But it cannot do so with Steve Jobs at the helm of Apple.
=====pasted Comment from: “Fred & Nancy are scapegoats”=====
Fred Anderson & Nancy Heinen were DEFINITELY scapegoats!!!!!
Steve Jobs, with the help of Larry Ellison and American law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges, conspired together to steal the inventions of MIT engineer Irving Tsai; and it was precisely those stolen inventions that formed the core of Apple’s current redirection into consumer electronics, with the dropping of the “Computer” from “Apple Computer”.
As a monument to Ellison & Jobs “brilliant” plan and conspiracy, Apple opened its flagship NYC store right in the plaza of the Manhattan offices of Weil Gotshal & Manges.
Steve Jobs is banking the bulk of Apple’s future on stolen technologies, and in so doing, he’s committing mammoth SEC fraud, as well as perjuring himself and orchestrating a conspiracy to involve others in committing perjury and fraud in order to carry out his plan. The iPhone, portions of AppleTV, and Apple’s roadmap for future products can be seen in the Tsai patents. The iPhone is a legally INDEFENSIBLE product because it is based on stolen inventions and perjured patent filings. That is why foreign “clone-makers” have been able to replicate the iPhone without fear of legal consequences. It is also why Apple has made no comment about any of the clones, whereas in sharp contrast, was sued within 24 hours by Cisco merely for the use of the name “iPhone”.
Bill Gates is also a victim of Steve Jobs’ conspiracy. Weil Gotshal & Manges duped Bill into using Weil in 2000, both for legal work and to test the Microsoft Tablet PC. What Weil was doing was setting up Bill Gates and Microsoft so that they would be legally incapacitated from retaliating against Apple, once Apple initiated its own attack on Microsoft, spearheaded by the release of the iPhone and using the previous switch to Intel to provide the foundation for pulling Microsoft customers over to the Apple side. Bill Gates was duped into doing things he regrets, by Weil Gotshal & Manges, working all along as an agent for Steve Jobs, and his and Larry Ellison’s plan to “kill Microsoft once and for all”.
One can easily pull up the Tsai patents and find within the pages the basis for the iPhone, future Apple Tablets, and what Steve has fraudulently been referring to “other amazing products” in the pipeline. Even yesterday’s “backside touch input” patent application published by the USPTO, and filed by Apple with the outrageous filing date of January 2007, can find its genesis in the Tsai patents — which were, get this: filed by Weil Gotshal & Manges for Irving Tsai in the early 1990’s. Weil kicked Tsai out as a client in 2000-2001, lured Bill Gates in as a client to set Bill Gates up, then proceeded to conspire with Ellison and Steve Jobs to “screw Bill Gates” using the stolen Tsai inventions which both Bill and Steve Jobs were fascinated with.
Bash Bil Gates. Bash Microsoft, if you like. But Bill gates is a victim of probably the largest corporate crime of the past 50 years — orchestrated by Steve Jobs, conveniently former Apple Board member Larry Ellison, and Weil Gotshal & Manges.
Fred Anderson and Nancy are SCAPEGOATS!!!
DOJ is not stupid, Steve..
You already spammed your tin foil hat conspiracy theory on another thread.
If you do not have anything meaningful to add to this discussion then go away. Cross posting long blog style articles on multiple articles is SPAM.
MDN please remove this spam, thanks.
MDN “gone” as in SPAM should be GONE.
“The iPhone is likely to emerge as a forerunner…”
Complete crap. Zune 2.0’s will be pouring out of China in a few short months and the Apple lemmings who blew $600—$600! on a soon-to-be also-ran Zune wannabe iPhone piece of crap won’t know what hit ’em. Have you iPod dorks ever heard of a little thing called FM Radio? FM Radio, bitch, with a Microsoft interface! Awesome!
Your potential. Our passion.™
Uh… get out your tinfoil hats everyone…
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/13580/
Post under “Fred & Nancy are scapegoats
” at May 12, 07 – 03:46 am
Is essentially the same post as “DOJ is not stupid, Steve..” Both posts are off topic and both are excessively long.
Please stop posting this nonsense. Go start your own blog if you want to write about this fascinating subject. MDN is not your own personal blog.
Zune Tang:
“Zune 2.0’s will be pouring out of China in a few short months”
Awesome, can’t wait.
So, how are those Zune sales going? I’m still waiting for Microsoft to sell their first one million Zunes by June!
How close are they?
“The iPod set an impossibly high bar, one that the iPhone will not match or even come close to.”
Yes they will. I predict the iPhone will reach 100 million sold faster than the iPod did.
Cubert, I think the iPhone will be able to get below the $200 sweet spot in under 3 years. If I’m right, then the iPhone will exceed 100M units sold in less than 3 years.
Mark my words.
Zune Tang,
Even though there is noone for you to WiFi to, your WiFi argument still has much more credibility than your FM radio speil.
Wow, the Zune has FM radio built in…I’m throwing my video iPod in the trash to run out and get a Zune!!
Those few who need FM can go to target and buy a little
shuffle sized one that is appropriately attached to the headphones for easy accessability.
C’mon Tang…can’t you troll better than this?
You are dying and drooling over the iPhone and you don’t have to admit it ’cause we already know it. Meanwhile, you will purchase your Zune 2 maybe by Christmas for $249 and then your smartphone, etc. Your belt will then be more feature rich than Batman’s.
Looks like Fred (aka DOJ…) can’t get any press from the big networks so he has to spout off to us. Wow Fred, you really are a gigantic loser. Maybe you can get a cushy position with MicroSoft. After all, you fit their criteria: Corrupt, dishonorable, imbecilic, and you probably have severe halitosis. You are a major butthole.
The “DOJ is not stupid, Steve” may be partly right, but
I don’t think Steve Jobs and Ellison is that incredibly smart to gamble to do the thing you are describing, either. Seems to me he’s had alot of more important things on his mind to worry about.
Man, you’ve watched “Conspiracy Theory” a few too many times.
Hey, DOJnotStupisSteve,
Bill Gates a victim, what a laugh. Go ahead, tell that to the former screwed for sure usic partners… What a laugh.
Apples’ patents on the iPhone haven’t been challenged. Also, its no secret that some of the tech in iPhones, and everything in iPods were not invented from scratch by Apple. They just made the very best possible use of existing tech, added the easiest to use best of show world class UI, and surprise, everybody loved it.
Will the iPhone be as successful as the iPod? Depends on how you define success. 3-4% of the cel phone market in 2-3 years? It would seem to be a failure. Quadrupling Apple profit and doubling the stock price? Grand Slam Homerun, right out of the park. Apple doesn’t have to own 70+% of the mobile phone market to have the iPhone be a success
“Can Apple’s iPhone achieve same success levels as iPod?”
Why do writers keep thinking they need to ask this question? Even if it only achieve half the level, is it a failure? So, does it matter it if can achieve the same level or not? Though it’s nice for Apple and the shareholders if it can, Apple doesn’t have to repeat the success of iPod to be happy with iPhone’s performance. FWIW, you can bet that iPhone will NOT have the same success levels as iPod. It will NOT command 70% of mobile phone market for sure.
Besides, it is a very long term question anyway and it depends very much on what Apple plans to do with iPhone and the execution of the plan. It’s success does not depend solely on iPhone’s concept.
The amusing thing is that when Apple unveiled the iPod nobody thought it was gonna be the juggernaut it is today, either.
“So, how are those Zune sales going? I’m still waiting for Microsoft to sell their first one million Zunes by June!
How close are they?”
June is very close!
And only 999,998 more Zune sales to go to meet their forecast! I think the two which sold went to Ballmer’s uncle, and one to his kids (probably being punished for something.)
When a downsized iPhone is free with a 1 year subscription, iPhone will be bigger than the computer industry in units sold per year.
Buy more stock now.
Has anyone actually seen a Zune in use in the wild?
MDN “money” has MS made any money on the Zune?
@DOJ is not stupid, Steve
If Apple obtained 200 patents in regards to iPhone and multi-touch technology, it has obviously convinced the US Patent office that it accomplishes the feat differently than Tsai’s patents describe. There is often more than one way to skin a cat.
The digital music player was an amorphous market almost entirely without promise until Apple defined it with the iPod + iTunes. That’s why Apple has the lion’s share of the market.
Is a cell phone market, which is quite mature and well formed going to be overrun by the iPhone? No. It will do well for Apple, its shareholders and the consumers, but that’s all for now.
Unless everyone decides that they don’t need a cell phone which does some other stuff, but rather WANT an ultraportable computer that also makes phone calls. Then Apple will have succesfully defined a new market that it could dominate.
@ ‘DOJ is not stupid, Steve’
I think you are a nutcase. Needing help.
Bye bye.
@Zune tang
“Have you iPod dorks ever heard of a little thing called FM Radio?”
FM radio … let me see … Isn’t that what I used back in the 80’s ?
Hmmm, FM radio. I KNEW something was missing from my iPod, couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
@ DOJ
Steve: this conspiracy theory has been around since 2005.
Try something original…
http://p2pnet.net/index.php?page=comment&story=5185&comment=15123
Buy AAPL !
The iPhone’s iPod mode is actually iTunes. This thing runs OS X after all.
This article has been re-hashed again word for word!
Do you not have better researchers MDN?