iPhone Faces Uncertain Market

48 hours have passed since Steve Jobs's MacWorld keynote and the reality distortion field is beginning to wear off. Lists of the drawbacks of the announced iPhone are sprouting all over the Net (and there is the occasional defense by true believers). Now narramissic writes, "The iPhone may be poised to take over the high-end cell phone market, but is it a market worth taking? Not if an InStat survey from July is any indication: Of 1,800 consumers surveyed, just 21 had spent more than $400 for a cell phone. Prices for the iPhone, admittedly more of a handheld computer than a cell phone, start at $499 for the 4G-byte version with a required two-year contract with Cingular. So, is Apple pricing it right? Analysts quoted in this article seem to think Apple's going to have a hard time getting the 1% of market share that Jobs called for."

Not enough information

[ivan256]

Quite honestly, we don't know enough about the device yet to make any informed commentary. We're going to have to deal with six months of analysts talking out of their ass about it, and Apple fanboys/haters blathering on about how wonderful/awful it is without more than a basic overview of its functionality and no hands on UI experience. The 'specs' from Apple are a joke, and don't reveal the most basic of needed information. The details of the restrictions that will be placed on the device by Cingular are completely unknown. Until those things are known, it could go in any direction.

Anybody who talks about what is going to happen with the iPhone in certain terms at this point is an idiot.

Re:Is it just me

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me give a summary of what's missing
* No downloading of songs
* No 3g
* Not possible to install external software
* Cingular only for 2 years
* No battery Replacement
* No GPS
* No finger-feel to it, can't use it under a table or without looking at it
* No MS exchange (do they want the corporate user?)

Not exactly.... Steve lied on stage

[everphilski]

According to Gizmodo and Apple VP's: [tuaw.com]

The OS isn't going to be "OS X for real." It's more like a pseudo-OS X and, like the iPod, it will not have a public API and open development.

Unlike the Pocket PC which has open API's for development by third party people (like you and me ...)

One more thing...

[earnest murderer]

If you've been considering upgrading to the new Treo 750, you're going to spend $500 with a two year contract. And it only comes with 64 MB of ram and a best case expansion of 2 gig which puts the price at $550 and is obviously inferior on paper.

I'm just saying Apple isn't breaking ground on cell phone price points in this category.

Re:Is it just me

[gb506]

If the email client is based on Mail.app it will work w/ Exchange.

Re:Wireless, More Space Than Nomad...

[sobiloff]

Huh? Apple owns the "low-margin, commodity business" of flash-based MP3 players, as well as disk-based MP3 players. And, they seem to be doing quite well selling those "low-margin, commodity business" Intel-based PCs at competitive prices with good margins (c.f. record profits for Apple).

The original iPod was also quite expensive compared to everything else out in the market when it was introduced, but it offered a superior way to listen to music. It broke open the market and now eight year-olds are running around with $200 nanos. (Just think what Apple can do to co-brand a kid's iPhone with Disney?)

Apple has a superior device on a customized network that provides a better user experience--protected by over 200 patents--and has legs like you wouldn't believe (different form factors/capabilities, plus future function expansion with custom apps, games, and more). There's going to be a long line for these things assuming Apple continues to execute well.

Re:Is it possible...

[simscitizen]

No, of course you don't have to press 7 four times to get an S. Do you pay attention to the smartphone industry? The whole point of a Treo is that is has a thumboard--that's one thing the iPhone doesn't. For heavy e-mail users, the Treo and Blackberry are probably sticking around; there's no replacing a real tactile keyboard for heavy use. And yes, every smartphone (even cellphone) on the market has predictive typing capabilities, not just the iPhone. Of course, Apple probably doesn't care; they're going after the high-end consumer market.

Re:Is it possible...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you've used it then?

Or are you just talking out your ass?

Re:Is it possible...

[isaac]

The PalmOS Treos (650, 680, 700p) are pretty much feature-complete (I have push-IMAP, web, google maps, pim, music player, etc etc) and more importantly are usable one-handed. They have full qwerty keyboards that are touch-typable. YOU CANNOT TOUCH-TYPE ON A VIRTUAL KEYBOARD.

The iPhone looks great, but what it offers are incremental improvements to some things (it's certainly prettier, has better graphics, a multi-touch screen instead of a plain touchscreen, a better web browser, is probably a better media player, and has wifi+bluetooth instead of just bluetooth) that force other hardware tradeoffs (no keyboard, not usable one-handed, expensive) - and worse, the software tradeoffs, like a closed platform and, notably, NO ICHAT (Cingular wants to nickle you for SMS). Add to that a mandatory 2-year contract that's sure to require the $40/mo ass-reaming "smartphone" data plan and no unlocked availability and the iPhone loses a lot of its "revolutionary" appeal and becomes a really expensive Sidekick that doesn't even allow IM.

Don't get me wrong - I don't love Palm. I think Palm is where apple was before they acquired NeXT - floundering hopelessly with an OS dying of old age. But a Treo at half the price seems like the better deal from where I sit.

-Isaac

Re:If Blackberry and Treo sales haven't gone to ze

[CodeArtisan]

The Blackberry and Treo are lousy phones, and only slightly better organizers/email platforms. iPhone makes them both look like something from the Soviet era.

Yeah, when I was listening to my streaming internet radio broadcast (via pTunes) on my stereo bluetooth headphones on my Treo this morning, I was thinking the same thing. Again, when I was watching the episode of House I had recorded (on the Neuros 2+) on the TCPMP video player. Once more, when I caught up on my work email (via Goodlink). And again when I had to make a quick edit on an MS Word document (with Documents 2 Go) someone had sent me. When I was using Verichat to IM my friends the same thoughts came to mind. Likewise when I was using it as a Bluetooth modem to let me connect my laptop to the internet. When I checked my personal email on Snapper someone mentioned 'iPhone' so I fired up the browser to see what all this hysteria was about. And all for a $10/month unlimited data connection. Oh, and the phone works too.

Re:Is it possible...

[aztracker1]

Honestly, my biggest concern with devices like this as a phone, is how well will it work in a leather case? ... I mean, my current phone has been dropped many, many times over the past 3 years, and still works fine, the edges are a bit scratched up, and one of the navigation buttons is starting to wear out, this is typical use. I wouldn't expect the iPhone to last 6 months of typical wear...

Do I want one? oh hell yeah, I was planning on getting a new phone, and I may just hold out another 5-6 months to see how it pans out. Changing providers concerns me more than the cost though. I've got 5 phones on a family plan with another provider, and it's worked out well. How will changing providers affect my monthly bill?

Other than that, I think it looks great, and may function great, but I need a case for this one, and how well will it work inside a case is my question.

Re:Is it possible...

[danigiri]

Here you have a glowing preview of hands-on 10-minute usage:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2082444,00.as p [pcmag.com]
And no, I wouldn't consider PCMag to be a 'fanboi' site at all...
Some excerpts:
"For the most, it was an absolute revelation. Seeing the device in action is one thing--but actually using it is another. Each application is impressive in its own right, from photo-management software to the Safari Web browser, but it's the overall touch-screen interface that takes the breath away."

"The rest of the interface requires no practice whatsoever." [everything except the virtual keyboard]

The first is a very positive comment, the second... a killer.

You know, when the original iPod was revealed, I was sorely disappointed and ruled out any possible success, too expensive, bulky, etc. Typical NW.LSTAN.L crowd.
Me, along with the /. folks, has been proven spectaculary wrong.

When the iPhone was revealed, I was quite impressed, but after the RDF faded and details, specs and price were digested upon, I have deja vu. I think the device too bulky, overpriced, no 3G support, crowded market, blah, blah, blah... Typical DIINAGT crowd (guess that one)

All my instincts tell me the iPhone is wrong... but reading previews such as this one... Um, think of how many PHBs are there that cannot configure his/her email client properly or many other 'simple' tasks that call techs to "fix their computers" again and again. They obviously cannot figure out SmartPhone apps or config that much. A phone that is instantly usable will be a success no matter what. Even if it's a 0.5% of the market.

Man, it's only a 0.9 version... 1.0 and 2.0 will come out and the iPhone Nano (as many have pointed out) as well, we'll see... Hell, even if its a Cube, they can always dumb it down and release an unlocked consumer $299 version... it's not that the know-how or the patents are going away.

Sorry, link here

[davecrusoe]

First article appearing on /, about the iPod: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257 [slashdot.org]

Re:Apples and oranges

[cens0r]

apple has confirmed no 3rd party apps [tuaw.com]

Re:Is it possible...

[rolfwind]

Have you ever heard of Fingerworks? I'm using a virtual keyboard to touchtype this right now - this is what Apple's multitouch is based on since they bought the company in 2005. This tech is not your simple touchscreen/trackpad stuff. Check it out on google.

Re:Apples and oranges

[Lazerf4rt]

Yes. Have you used recent models of iPods? They work *exactly* like this phone, save for the touch-wheel instead of the screen interface.

Nice quote. I have actually used a 30 GB iPod Video recently. And it didn't work "exactly like this phone, save for the touch-wheel instead of the screen interface". For example, there was no way to type anything at all into it. It didn't detect when I turned it sideways or adjust to ambient brightness. I didn't notice any digital camera, web browser or e-mail client, or wireless capability for that matter, either. But those are small things. I might have missed them. And, it didn't have a phone.

Here's some information [apple.com] about the iPhone, if you'd like to educate yourself about it.

Re:Cingular Service plan will kill it

[aussersterne]

Be careful, their "SmartPhone Connect" plan does NOT apply to devices they class as "PDAs." This includes things like the Treo and Blackberry (and, I would suspect, the iPhone). For "PDA" devices you must buy "PDA Connect" at a much heftier $44.99 a month (in addition to your actual calling minutes). There are stories all over the net (just search for these terms) of people getting sold "SmartPhone Connect" by a clueless in-store Cingular salesman only to find that they were billed by the kilobyte to the tune of $thousands on the first bill because their PDA class device (by Cingular's estimation) was not eligible for "unlimited" data under the mere "smartphone" plan.