“On April 9, 2007, Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple Inc. announced the sale of the 100 millionth iPod. To say that iPod sales have been anything less than dramatic would be an understatement, and to call the revolutionary iPod anything less than an entire product ecosystem wouldn’t be doing it justice. Between the more than 4,000 accessories to date and the billions in revenue generated by selling proprietary downloads of songs 99 cents at a time on iTunes (and now TV shows, movies, audio books, etc.), Apple has built a nearly flawless business model around the iPod that is the envy of big tech and big media companies alike, and as sales built to record numbers it seemed that the only thing that could slow the iPod’s ascent off the sales forecast charts would be Apple itself,” Brad Kenney writes for IndustryWeek.
“As unlikely as that may seem, it may have happened. Apple co-founder, CEO and chief evangelist Steve Jobs is a charismatic public presence by any account, and his theatrical unveiling of a prototype of the company’s new iPhone at Apple’s Macworld Expo consumer conference this past January was met with near-rapturous outpourings of desire for this new ‘it’ device. However, once the glow of the sneak peek at this new Apple product-to-be wore off, a more sober assessment of the situation revealed that the premature announcement wasn’t as well timed a move as industry watchers are accustomed to expecting from Apple,” Kenney writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Let’s look past Kenney’s transparently sarcastic use of the term “near-rapturous” for a moment; surely Kenney has good reasons why Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ iPhone announcement wasn’t “well-timed,” right?
Kenney continues, “First of all, consider the name. At the time of the Macworld announcement, San Jose-based Cisco Systems owned the exclusive rights to the term iPhone, and although there was no doubt that Apple (the originator of the iMac and iMovie, iPhoto and the rest of the iLife line) would acquire the rights by any means necessary, such a high-profile announcement surely put a strain on negotiations…”
MacDailyNews Take: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Apple and Cisco have agreed to use the name jointly. The “controversy” generated created much free publicity and helped get the name “iPhone” into the general public’s consciousness. This is not proof that iPhone announcement wasn’t “well-timed,” it’s proof that the announcement was “well-timed.” Surely Kenney has better reasons coming, right?
Kenney continues, “Secondly, consider the fact that the iPhone was nowhere near ready to ship when the prototype was unveiled. Again, Apple usually has all its ducks in a row (and boxed up and loaded into trucks) before sweeping aside the veil of secrecy surrounding any new product. By giving such a long (it’s been almost six months and still no iPhone) time lag, Apple has not only allowed excitement to dim but has also negatively impacted iPod sales in the interim.”
MacDailyNews Take: We’ll need more proof than Brad’s words that excitement has “dimmed” over iPhone. If anything, excitement has grown, with AT&T signing up over a million people interested in iPhone via their website and – this is the real reason for the timing of the iPhone announcement and demo – allowing people to let their contracts lapse, freezing the so-called “smartphone” market in its tracks. As for iPod sales: there is simply no proof of negative impact: Apple’s 10.549 million iPod sales last quarter were 24% over the year-ago quarter. Kennney is 0 for 2, so far.
Kenney continues, “Also, by giving the world an uncharacteristic pre-launch peek at the iPhone, Jobs put every reverse-engineering department in the grey market into a frenzy to produce a competitive knockoff and steal some market share from the real thing.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple spent years developing the iPhone. iPhone makes all other “smartphones” from even the reputable makers look stupid. Some Chinese knockoff outfit isn’t going to knockoff the iPhone in six months. And they’re certainly not going to steal any meaningful market share; just as cheap iPod knockoffs haven’t stolen any iPod market share. You’re 0-3, Brad.
Kenney continues, “To cap it all off, there was actually another very interesting, unique new product unveiled at Macworld — AppleTV — with a confirmed ship date and for which Apple was already taking pre-orders. The brightness of Jobs’ iPhone spotlight inevitably meant that quite a few consumers were left in the dark concerning this new media extension device…”
MacDailyNews Take: More meaningless blather from Brad. Any overshadowing of Apple TV by iPhone is not proof that the timing of the announcement will hurt the iPhone. The two are totally different products, targeted at different markets. 0-4.
Kenney continues, “Despite what was widely characterized as bad timing by Jobs, the iPhone’s unique intuitive interface, rich feature set and undeniable cool factor paired with Apple’s pre-loaded customer loyalty means that, so long as Apple’s product developers remain at the top of their game, no amount of marketing missteps can keep this new Apple product from getting eaten up by the market.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Twilightmoon” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: The iPhone announcement has not been “widely characterized as bad timing by Jobs.” One Brad Kenny has called it as “bad timing by Jobs” and offered no valid proof to support his characterization. The iPhone announcement was very well-timed. It gave customers time to prepare; letting them allow their current contracts to lapse and freezing the market as they put their next phone purchase on hold. With regard to the timing of the iPhone announcement, we’ll have to side with Steve Jobs, a man with a record of radically changing multiple industries and proven marketing acumen, over some no-name IndustryWeek hack who offers no valid evidence to support his goofy theories.
I think he did it to show how ‘influential’ apple really is on everybody else’s products…
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One other advantage of an early announcement – 6 months of FREE publicity.
Jobs’ explaination: FCC registration needs.
My explaination: don’t end up announcing the product with immediate availability and the majority of your customer based locked into a contract….this allows contracts to expire gracfully.
Ehh? why guess. As Jobs himself stated – the timing was due to FCC compliance testing. Does there need to be any other nefarious reason? And why all the second guessing about what may or may not have happened since. It’ll be nice to see the product for real when we can all see how good it is. Until then we all have to be patient.
This is definately a No News Item and reflects poorly on the journalist in question.
what about the FCC approval process? Makes sense to unveil it yourself, as Jobs said, rather that let the FCC steal the thunder.
Did Steve Jobs unveil Apple’s iPhone too early?
Yes he did, I’m already tired about hearing about it and waiting for it, but..
…according to what I read, he really didn’t have a choice. It would have leaked and Apple would lose the marketing advantage.
So with that, I surly hope the iPhone has:
1: Some sort of ability to access content on .Mac or other sites to backup/add to it’s paltry 8GB.
2: GPS integration
3: 3G etc., advanced networking speeds for decent downloads.
4: Less “need” to be constantly hooked up to a computer. I travel a LOT.
5: Ability to use devices like a MyVue glasses for better TV/Movie viewing experience.
This whole subject about the announcement is so past tense it’s not even funny. The announcement timing was perfect as Steve Jobs has such a buzz about the upcoming iPhone release that he doesn’t even have to advertise it at all. Millions of people are drooling for it that they want to bid for it on Ebay knowing full well there isn’t a product out there to sell yet. All the other cell phone companies are all out there with there copy machines trying to immitate it and doing a poor job of it if I do say so myself. Without OSX no other phone on the market will be as easy to use and beautiful as the iPhone will period. No I’m sorry but his announcement timing was brillance and judging by the stock market close of 110 dollars a share it is paying off even before the product is released.
Not to mention that Apple didn’t want the product announced via required FCC filings.
If anything it’s amazing how hyped people still are about the iPhone. The steady stream of news articles, the running-scared quotes from industry competitors and the Cisco dispute have helped keep the product front and center in people’s minds.
Worked as advertised on me: our contract w/ Sprint is nearly up, and my wife’s phone is on its last leg (I’m currently using a Treo 650). If it weren’t for the iPhone announcement, we’d have bought her a new one and signed a new 2 year contract by now, I’m sure. As it is, we’re waiting for the iPhone to come out, when we’ll switch to AT&T and get that (plus a cheaper phone for her).
Definitely froze our market
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I swear I need to start writing and earn a living in journalism/blogs. The crap people put out for hits always wow’s me. Each and everyone of us can do this.
This no misstep. This has created so much free publicity that marketing would have had to spend a very large sum of money to match the exposure.
People are hungry for this device and as it enters the market, and hopefully Apple is getting good battery life, the feeding frenzy will be wild. Goodbye to verizon in 18 months.
How cool will it be when this phone hits it’s target in one years time?
Let’s see Gates spin that as bad news. Gates was right about one thing, he doesn’t get it!
This is the most idiotic attempt to ride on the iPhone press bandwagon. Was it released too early? No, dork– how else could you try to pull a buck or two out of Apple’s free advertising a month before it’s due for release?
Oh my God– someone should kill Kenney! You bastard!
MDN has a really good point about letting contracts expire. Sure, not everyone who has a long contract will expire within that six month time period, but mine did. I specifically have not renewed or purchased a new phone because of the pending release of the iPhone. If I had not known about it I might have just purchased a new phone.
Apple has recieved a good six months of publicity about the phone and most people I know who are not Apple fanatics have heard about it and are curious.
No, I think Jobs made the right decision by announcing early. Doesn’t matter anyway, Apple is going to sell a gazillion of these things and all the nay-sayers will look stupid.
I think this article was released too early.
If Kennedy has any balls, he will re-release it in two months.
I recently wrote an edition of our Leadership Insight e-newsletter about Apple’s upcoming iPhone launch that got picked up on tech discussion community Digg.com and I’ve been hearing about it ever since — if I didn’t already believe in the length and breadth of the internet community, this would be an unforgettable lesson.
Basically, I took Steve Jobs to task for what I perceived to be a flaw in strategy where the iPhone launch was concerned, and was then taken to task myself by a (growing) number of readers. Some of the emails I’ve gotten don’t deserve the dignity of a response, but others poked holes in my logic in such an insightful way that I’m tempted to believe that what I originally thought could be a mistake was actually a masterstroke.
And here I didn’t even go into the iPhone launch delaying the next Apple OS X release, or it not supporting Outlook…
My god! they’ve killed Kenny!!!
Like iPod, iPhone will be best experienced using a mac. More incentive to switch.
Apple does not seek to be M$– they don’t need to own the world. They would just like to control it.
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It’s not about the iPhone. It was to get other phone companies thinking hmmm, we could do that. And they will.
Hey, MDN, don’t hold back. Tell us how you really feel about Kenney.
@Brad Kennedy.
Thank you for clarifying your article on this forum, At least Kenny will be back in the next episode just in time for another killing:-)
Seriously though, I don’t think even Apple could have foreseen Cingular being taken over so quickly by a company with a Worldwide network. The unveiling of the iphone was demonstrated over Cingulars network which is USA centric.
I
believe that it is testing for this Worldwide network that has delayed Leopard. Tiger is still over the horizon in as far as Vista has to travel to catch up hence not many people are upset over Leopards delay.
I translate that as strength of conviction in their user satisfaction policy. I would not wish to be an unpaid beta-tester.
@ Brad Kennedy
For one thing, your article only serves to illustrate how much “homework” you didn’t do on Steve Jobs ..
Since he has been back at Apple .. every announcement has been a master stroke of genius ! … (ok, maybe with the exception of the Mac Cube) …
Steve seems to have the Midas Touch with every announcement he’s made ! ..
Instead of writing an article questioning Steves motives or methods .. maybe it would have been prudent to do a little research before writing such an article…right ?
Recently… I showed a friend ..this YouTube video.. Now.. this guy was just vaguely aware of Apple .. but after viewing the video.. he was positively drooling over the impending release of the iPhone !
Not only that… afterwards, he even mentioned he was considering a purchase of a Macintosh !
I’m quite sure stories like this are happening all over the place … which only goes to show .. Steve Jobs knew what he was doing back in January, when he unveiled the iPhone !
Brad .. hopefully, you will take this experience as a “lesson learned” and benefit from it…
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Is this really neccessary. iPhone is almost here and it is going to be an amazing success. Do we need to read this kind of rubbish?
Everything is well thought and everything will be on time.
And yes Leopard will finally kill Vista and Mico$oft.
Speculation, speculation, speculation – I am sick of reading these posts from people who have no idea what is going to happen in the future.
“The iPhone’s willful disregard of the global handset market will come back to haunt Apple.”___Tero Kuittinen, January, 2007
“Apple seems to be repeating Newton mistakes with iPhone.”___David Haskin, February, 2007
“I think Apple’s CEO made a big mistake. I think Jobs blew it.”___Mike Elgan, March, 2007
“I can’t think of anything to write so I’ve decided to plagiarize some of the most worthless crap so I can score some hits.___Brad Kenney, May, 2007
“It’s starting to get real easy to spot a hit whore.”___anti-creative cretin, May, 2007
I too agree with MDN’s take, my Verizon contract just expired this month and I would have renewed for at least another year if I didn’t know about the iPhone. Now I’m waiting, hoping the RAZR battery holds out long enough for me (it only lasts for 1hr of talk now).
I read this article yesterday, and it amazed me how it went on and on for so long and didn’t manage to say a damn thing.
More re-hashings of how competitors will be able to get the jump on Apple, killing intervening iPod sales, the damned Cisco patent, contributing to global terrorism… Jeebus. I could have written this article on January 10th and it would have had no more relevance than it does today.
We’ve all read the stories dealing with how the iPhone will carry the rest of the mobile industry along with it on a new boom ride, and it appears that tech writers everywhere are also clamoring for a ticket. At this point it’s all rather sad. Kennedy has given us absolutely nothing new with this article, other than an ad-hoc attempt to appear wise with theories proposed and discounted months ago. His last, slimy, backpedaling paragraph proves that even he thinks there is little chance his dire prognostications will come to fruition.
I’ve got a prediction of my own, so let me on the train:
The iPhone is going to change consumer electronics forever. Not just how the industry players are lined up, but how people think about and use technology. Until now, khaki-pantsed IT managers have been calling the shots for everyone from the board room on down to grandma.
The iPhone is going to turn that whole system around. You just watch.
-c