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How Big Will the iPhone Become?
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jun 07, 2007 10:08 AM
from the crushing-tokyo-big-or-just-andre-the-giant-big dept.
from the crushing-tokyo-big-or-just-andre-the-giant-big dept.
palewook writes "Combine the best elements of an iPod with a BlackBerry's addictive usefulness, and you may just get Apple's Next Big Thing. Around 2009, when the lower cost version of iPhone appears, Business Week believes the yearly market for iPhones could be over 10 billion dollars a year. Its an interesting prediction; if those numbers come to pass, iPhone could become a bigger source of revenue than the traditional iPod. 'The answer may not come until 2009. By then, Apple should have begun creating lower-cost iPhone variants to reach consumers scared off by the introductory $499 price. It also will probably have moved into overseas markets and cut deals with more carriers to utilize higher-speed wireless networks. So while most analysts look for Apple to sell around 3 million units this year and 10 to 12 million in 2008, many figure that 20 million will move in 2009.'"
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from Apple.com (Score:5, Funny)
Dimensions 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches / 115 x 61 x 11.6mm
I doubt it will get much bigger. Maybe a little to fit a 3G radio in a future revision.
Next question.
Re:from Apple.com (Score:5, Funny)
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A new step in /. evolution (Score:5, Funny)
Now that slashdotters never RTFA, we're ready for the next step: only read the title. You, sir, not only deserve a +5 Funny, you truly deserve a +5 Insightful for this discovery.
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Re:A new step in /. evolution (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:A new step in /. evolution (Score:5, Funny)
to which the poster replied:
"I don't think you're doing it right. Try rubbing it."
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Re:from Apple.com (Score:5, Insightful)
the iphone has one potential dealbreaker for me and that is the lack of buttons. texting outstrips voice by orders of magnitude - for a long time abroad (Europe, for example) and a bit more recently in the US. quick and effective texting on my motorola Q now means i can text without looking at the keys - as tactile response allows me to fly over the keypad. i don't have to wait for visual confirmation of a keystroke to continue texting.
the sidekick was popular with teens a couple of years ago for this very reason. It was one of the first phones to relatively inexpensively offer qwerty and seamless communications packages for texting, email, and IM. it didn't matter that the form factor was less than aesthetically pleasing, it mattered that the phone allowed you to communicate quickly and simply, and it also matter that providers soon offered a prepaid service that allowed teens to get the phone and buy minutes/data.
if this screen is somehow at least as tactile and responsive as keys are on a phone pad - then the iphone will dominate communications because apple understands how to woo consumers. this is clearly not a business device, so they need to dominate the consumer market. teens drive a lot of the consumer market and teens text more than they speak (let me expound: by teens i more aptly mean 13-24 market). at an unsubsidized $500, this might be a little high for this market, so apple might have to come downmarket fast. what's interesting here is that the fashion industry does this with runway lines - so called couture. those items are unrealistic for street wear and ridiculously priced - but that drives interest for the "ready to wear" stuff that shows up at your local department store.
the other issue that is interesting to me is that the phone can be used as a vanity phone. if usability is an issue - then people will want to have one, but have a more functional phone on hand for day to day and keep the iphone around when trolling for the ladies. so even if usability suffers you might see significant sales because it will be the it phone to have, even if for show. working in media, there are plenty of film execs who have blackberries but are totally unable to use them, but have them because this is the accessory a film producer is expected to have. so they carry it around and have an assistant check emails, etc.
-third part software is not an issue to the average user.
-battery life might be an issue to the average user, but it will not prevent him/her from buying the product.
-3g vs 2.5g, etc. this is also not an issue to the average user. they do not care about this. as long as it works - users are familiar with and expect slower bandwidth time on a handheld.
the average user is concerned with the following more than likely:
-does it look hot? will this make me look cooler? (CHECK)
-does it work? (?????) this is where the texting comes in. Your average user might say: "It's cool but texting on it makes me frustrated because i have to get used to doing it a new way" (this is important because at $500 you don't get downmarket uptake by the people most likely not to bristle at the new interface - kids/tweens/teens) - or - "It's too slow to text on this thing."
the ipod function will not get used because it will kill battery life. i don't think the average user wants all/a portion of his music collection on his phone anyway. the audience is simply not that interested in that kind of convergence. it increases complexity and the market doesn't want that.
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haptic feedback, tactile response from touchscreen (Score:5, Informative)
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Predictions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Predictions (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a good point. I really like Apple and have never been let down by their hardware but it's way too early to be making crazy predictions about the Iphone saving the world. Competitors are genuinely scared though, Microsoft had that FUD piece a while back about the Iphone being useless for business. I found that funny given the fact that the ipod is useless for business as well yet was still a success.
Overall I have no doubt the Iphone will do well but it's too early to make predictions 2 years down the road.
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Re:Predictions (Score:5, Insightful)
If the iPhone can't do that, ultimately it will be relegated to a vanity toy.
Think about it - I know a bunch of people who are totally addicted their crackberries, will they really switch to the iPhone? Does the iPhone provide enough value to convince them to ditch their crackberry given that they'll lose 24x7 access to their email?
If the iPhone can't sync with corporate email systems seamlessly, then it's going to become a vanity toy and not the powerhouse that Apple (and the Apple fanboys) want it to be.
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I stand corrected (Score:5, Funny)
I now believe that the iPhone will sell 456 million units and will indeed Change the Face of Communications as We Know It.
Mmmmm... Kool-Aid....
How good are the others at playing catch up? (Score:5, Insightful)
It won't be the number sold that counts (Score:5, Insightful)
It will be reliability. This isn't an iPod; you're iPod breaks and so you can't listen to music or watch videos, that's a shame. But people are wedded to their mobile phones -- if these things can't stand up to the pounding that a normal mobile phone takes in the course of a day, you're going to see sales tail off pretty damned fast.
IMHO... (Score:5, Insightful)
...I don't think the iPhone is going to be big at all.
The ipod was/is huge becuase it was a relatively early entrant in a market that was just on the verge of exploding in size, and it was hugely advertised and hyped, and there wasn't any real competition for at least a couple of years. The tie-in with iTunes helped too.
The mobile phone market is completely different to this. Completely. There is an enormous existing market which has already been through most of its rapid-growth phase. There are huge, competent companies churning out amazingly sophisticated models of all types (just this quarter, the SonyEricsson W880 and the Nokia N95 are great examples), and they are refreshing those models at a furious pace.
The mobile markets differ around the world, but the Western European model essentially removes the purchase price from the end-user. I haven't paid more than $100 US for a new phone in eight years, and I'm a technophile who upgrades every year, ususally to a high-end just-released model.
Apple have no experience at making phones. They make stuff which can be good to use, but that's hard in the phone world. Above all, phones have to be good phones first, then be good ipods, then have other stuff they do well. My SonyEricsson W850 is a very good phone, a great walkman, and also lets me browse the Internet at broadband speeds in a decent way, has good Java games available, a decent-enough camera, a torch, alarm clock and so on. It's very hard to get right the phone bit, and nothign of what I've read about the iPhone tells me it'll be any good at that. It's not 3G which rules it out for many technophiles including myself, too.
Apple might talk about a low-cost verion in 2009, but the others will have cheaper phones that do far more in 2007, let alone 2008 or 2009.
They might be moderately successful in a niche in the USA, (and in the mobile pheon world, the US is a niche), but I cannot see it becoming widely successful elsewhere. I might be wrong - it might have a neat feature that'll make it a must-have - but I'll be very surprised if they do - and the second it's out, the competitors will be throwing together better competing phones.
Re:IMHO... (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazing how Apple just happened to jump into a market, just as it started to boom! Never mind that 80% of the boom was from devices Apple sold. It's not like Apple took a market that was growing at a snails pace and infused a breath of fresh air into it. No way can Apple be responsible for growth.
The mobile phone market is completely different to this. Completely. There is an enormous existing market which has already been through most of its rapid-growth phase.
How much of a percentage are smartphones to the general phone population today? Huh.
Apple have no experience at making phones. They make stuff which can be good to use, but that's hard in the phone world.
Why? Why is it that much harder in the phone world? The iPod today already can browse lists of things well. It can even review contacts. Why is it so much different to have an iPod you can hold to your head? Apple knows interface design very well, and knowing how to help people with complex tasks on small devices is really not that much of a different task from a music player to a phone.
Is Apple not familiar with radio equipment? Never mind every computer comes with Bluetooth and WiFi. Are they not good with power management? Never mind that iPods get pretty good battery life. I'm just not seeing what about phones is so much harder that APple cannot use the experience they have to do a very good job right out of the gate.
It's not 3G which rules it out for many technophiles including myself, too.
That might matter to me a little more if my very large metra area (Denver) even had 3G or was scheduled to have it anytime soon. But it doesn't matter, because I have used EDGE and it's OK. Mainly for any extended browsing I would be using the WiFi that is pretty much ubiquitous in my day to day life, far faster than 3G and with better battery usage. SO I hardly think this rules out technical users at all (and we already know Apple will use 3G in places it makes sense, like Europe later on).
They might be moderately successful in a niche in the USA, (and in the mobile pheon world, the US is a niche), but I cannot see it becoming widely successful elsewhere.
That's because you can't see a slight redesign for other markets coming. You can't even see the growth of the iPod for what it was, I guess it's little surprise you can't see the potential of the iPhone given what exists today.
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Re:IMHO... (Score:5, Insightful)
...I don't think the iPhone is going to be big at all. The ipod was/is huge becuase it was a relatively early entrant in a market that was just on the verge of exploding in size, and it was hugely advertised and hyped, and there wasn't any real competition for at least a couple of years. The tie-in with iTunes helped too.
You have to think about markets in terms of consumers and uses. When the iPod came out there were already a lot of people trying to sell digital players, but none of them were very well designed, none of them did a good job of accommodating the entire workflow, none of them were really easy to learn and use. There were players with better stats and more features, but the adoption was very limited. Most people were sticking with portable CD players as a result. The iPod changed that both by providing the right package and through good marketing.
Now take a look at the market the iPod is targeting. It is aimed at the smartphone market, which has a lot of existing products, but fairly small adoption of those products. Most people are sticking with cheap, low end cell phones and a lot of people are not happy with those either. For the iPhone to be huge they need to repeat what they did with the iPod. Apple needs to provide the entire workflow and they need to do it so it is learnable and easy and they need to market it right. I think the marketing is working so far. The question is, can Apple provide a good user experience and will AT&T hold up their end of that experience?
The mobile phone market is completely different to this.
Apple is aiming at the smartphone market, not just the phone market. As with the iPod they hope to take a significant chunk of that market and they hope to pull people in from the lower end phone market, much as the iPod pulled in people from the Discman market.
I haven't paid more than $100 US for a new phone in eight years, and I'm a technophile who upgrades every year, ususally to a high-end just-released model.
In 2001, how many people had paid more than $100 for their portable music player (usually a CD player)? I'm guessing less than 1% of the market.
Apple have no experience at making phones.
They had no experience at making portable music players.
They make stuff which can be good to use, but that's hard in the phone world.
It is hard in the music player market too, which is why it is still really hard to find an iPod competitor that is as easy or nice to use. I don't even own an iPod, but I've used them without a problem. Apple is good at UIs and usability testing to create a polished user experience.
Above all, phones have to be good phones first, then be good ipods, then have other stuff they do well.
To not be a flop, they need to be a better phone. That shouldn't be hard. It takes a minimum of 5 key presses to call a number in my phonebook using my very "simple, just a phone" cell phone. To do well they need to be as good an iPod as the iPod with a permissible slightly larger learning curve. To revolutionize the market, they need to perform a few other functions just as well and just as easily and they need to keep the user experience clean and easy (AT&T may be a problem here).
My SonyEricsson W850 is a very good phone, a great walkman, and also lets me browse the Internet at broadband speeds in a decent way, has good Java games available, a decent-enough camera, a torch, alarm clock and so on.
The W850 is maybe a bit better than par for the course, which is to say 99% of all people do not want to spend the time messing around with it even enough to learn to use the browser, e-mail, or alarm clock. 50% of people probably do not even want to take the time to learn to use SMS or the camera on it and most people just buy a cheaper phone or ignore all those features you talk about. This is
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Eliminating Schlepping the MacBook (Score:5, Interesting)
Answer: It will be gone by 2009 (Score:5, Insightful)
But without corporations pushing their email to these devices you won't get the blackberry user base, and lets face it most big corporations haven't liked anything else Apple up to this point so why change for this product?
Now the home user? The reason most don't have a smart phone is that they just don't need it. Most of the regular phones on the market already do far more and are alot more complicated than people want them to be. The average person is going to ask why they need to upgrade to this expensive phone when their normal phone does far more than they ever wanted it to do.
So there will be a bunch of apple fans and tech geeks that buy this initially then it's sales will plummet and Apple will can the project.
Ok I'm done burning my karma now.
Why mod you down? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do that? Why not mod you up and up and up... to make it easier to find your post later. There is a large difference between being a troll, and being wrong. I'm sure you sincerely believe what you say.
But without corporations pushing their email to these devices you won't get the blackberry user base, and lets face it most big corporations haven't liked anything else Apple up to this point so why change for this product?
On the other hand, what if consumer push is more interesting to more people than business email push? The Yahoo push mail is an interesting option. Does everyone on earth really have more interest in their business email than the personal stuff?
Now the home user? The reason most don't have a smart phone is that they just don't need it. Most of the regular phones on the market already do far more and are alot more complicated than people want them to be.
Sounds like a a great idea then is to take a complicated device and make it much simpler. I'm not sure I know any company that has any experience at that.
The average person is going to ask why they need to upgrade to this expensive phone when their normal phone does far more than they ever wanted it to do.
Does the average person really like the phone they have?
So there will be a bunch of apple fans and tech geeks that buy this initially then it's sales will plummet and Apple will can the project.
Ok I'm done burning my karma now.
You misspelled "credibility". Brave of you to post where we can all read your thoughts in a year.
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I can already see the rants (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Don't see the allure.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please get a bluetooth headset and a phone with good voice dialing if and only if you must talk on the phone while driving.
Heck if the IPhone stops people from using their cell while driving it may save thousands of lives!
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Re:Big enough for Mum to use? (Score:5, Insightful)
I see the target for the IPhone to be the Treo and Blackberry crowd. I really want to see one and the SDK. I hate AT&T and I am still trying to figure out why Apple went with them. The only thing I can figure out is that Apple made a deal about using AT&Ts pipes if net neutrality goes south.
I am going ready for a new phone in November and the IPhone is tempting if I can do development on it. It could be a great market to get into.
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Re:Big enough for Mum to use? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Big enough for Mum to use? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Big enough for Mum to use? (Score:5, Informative)
Their bullet points are:
Managing the phone number list is via the operator by talking to them or sending them an email or fax (or manage it yourself online soon).
They even have a "simple" phone where you just have the list of numbers, no dial buttons.
Its only available in the U.S. right now, but its a great idea for a service, and I believe Samsung makes the phones.
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