Amazed? Sure.
Upgrade from my current phone? That’s debatable.
The iPhone may pack free data, but it doesn’t function as a USB modem which I’ve used my free service to log total of up/down of 10 GB.
Google Maps is cool but without GPS, it really limits its usefulness, anyone who’s used a Car GPS can attest to that. Places like LA, printing out directions is all wonderful and dandy but if you miss the exit, can’t make the lane change, etc you’re stuck trying to backtrack. The GPS units automatically just recalculate on the fly and give you the next logical course and with happy voice prompts. So if you’re in an area that really necessitates a GPS, google maps is inadequate and I have a mapquest feature using the crappy VZW service if I really need it. The only real draw is to have Safari on the go, as it’d be handy to check rotten tomatoes for a movie review score when at a theater. I’d like that quite a bit, but there are just too many other things I’d like more. One day, but not today.
I happened to be downtown yesterday so I went to the mall and wandered by Saks Fifth Avenue and the Louis Vuitton store—there were a couple teenage girls gushing over a $1500 purse in the window—to the Apple store to give the iPhone a test drive. I’ll admit, the touch screen was better than I expected. It was especially pleasurable for just navigating the menus and such. Part of this though was simply that it was larger than I expected. Yes, its quite thin, but its area makes me wonder if its something I’d want in my pocket when riding my bike. The touch keyboard was okay. I made a lot of errors, especially just using one hand, but I suppose with practice it’d be useable.
Once I felt like I had the keyboard figured out, I decided it was time to try some more exciting features. I pressed the home button to take me back to the main menu, and then something strange happened. There wasn’t anything I really wanted to try. SMS, calendar, camera… Nothing too revolutionary here. I could get a stock quote, but delayed quotes seem kinda lame when I can already get real-time quotes and even place orders through WAP. Maps, weather… Meh. YouTube just seems like a silly thing to have on a phone. I finally decided to try the web browser and make a post on Bork, but before I could get one entered the battery died and I didn’t feel like starting over.
After my little test drive, I wonder if maybe the comparisons to the original Mac are somewhat appropriate. Like the Mac, is this an impressive new technology lacking any killer app to fuel its adoption? What is the Lotus 1-2-3 of smartphones, and will Apple have it this time around?
Looks like Wall Street gave the iPhone a pretty lukewarm reception. The Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 were up today, 0.95%, 1.12% and 1.07%, led at least partly by the tech sector. Intel was up 2.23%, Microsoft up 0.92%, and Dell up 1.33%. But the real winner today was Research in Motion, makers of the Blackberry, up 7.14% today on top of their record highs from last week. Apple however was down 0.64%, closing up from earlier when they were down 1.08%.
Word has it they sold > 500,000 in the first day.
You may have better sources than the analysts, but the LA Times is reporting an estimated 525,000 iPhones over the entire weekend. Piper Jaffray and JP Morgan both essentially concur with that number.
People probably will jump the gun and call the iPhone unimpressive sales wise but as most products and especially Apple products, their appeal increases after a few good revisions. The original iPod was relatively unimpressive for the amount of hype it got. It wasn’t until they made the 3rd revision with USB + FW, Mac/PC without having separate versions, better controls and more reasonable sizes that the iPod became a beast.
The iPhone I assume will be the same, as it takes a few revisions to get a few more key features like either EVDO or GSM for data, possibly an AIM client, video capture and the outside chance of GPS (that’ll be more of a 3rd or 4th revision). Once you’re able to surf the interwebs at broadband on the go speeds, and especially with GPS, the iPhone will be become the standard of digital all-in-wonder convergence devices. For a first foray into the phone market, Apple sure has it right but it’ll take a beating with the unrealistic market expectations. One analyst predicted 45 Million iPhones in something like 3-4 years. The iPod right now after 6 years, and multiple models has sold 100 million. At the cost of the iPhone, the setbacks of multiple phone networks and contractual agreements I don’t where the analyst pulled that out of his ass. So Apple will take a beating as there’s no way for it to beat expectations. Anything compared the iPod will look like a dismal failure.
I think in 3 years, Motorola has some about 10 million Razrs making it the poster boy for cellphone success. If Apple hits that mark, and it should, then the iPhone is worthy of the hype. Especially when the phone retails for about 2-2.5 times the retail price.
Turns out Cellular One, what I use, is being bought by AT&T and the deal should go through by the end of the year. Which means I could get an iPhone and have it work in Alfred by Spring.
However, unless they add in IM and MMS, I’m not picking one up. Deal breakers for me.
iPhone has roughly $220 worth of hardware in it, excluding assembling costs. I imagine a large amount of the cost is the development. I remember when earlier iPods were disassembled, the $300 model had about $200 worth of hardware. Apparently the profit margins are much higher on the iPhone, and cost of development is higher. I imagine at the cost of hardware in time the iPhone could drop in price but Apple likes to put a gun to consumers heads with few options, like the Mac Pro. It all depends if they decide to keep $600 as their target price and continually update it or not.
What’d get me more excited is an iPod in the fashion of the iPhone, wifi + touch screen + OS X but with the ability to add Apps to it. iPhone = spiffy.
iPod = more practical.
The iPhone won’t go away…
Now its politics and the there’s a bit of a democrat vs republican attitude on the 5 year deal ATT struck with Apple for exclusivity, I gotta support the democrats on this one. Consumers need protection as phone companies have us by the short and curlies.
