Maybe this post is sour grapes on my part; I certainly can’t afford one. But the iPhone wasn’t exactly the runaway smash that Steve Jobs, objective observer that he is, claimed it would be. Even Brian doesn’t want one 🙂
Who said mobs were dumb? The iPhone is a beautiful piece of electronics, so much so that Apple can’t allow you to do things with it you’d normally be able to do with a SIM-card GSM device, like swap cards out, even intra-carrier.
and this is just wrong:
Steve opened up with how he believes that the iPhone will change the mobile space forever…. The iPhone was driven by the fact that everyone hates their phones, and it’s all about “core competence”—making all of the features easy-to-use and self-discoverable.
No. Most people love their phones; what they hate is their cell phone plan and provider. Why? Because of all the restrictions, contract termination fees, high prices… things that Apple does precisely nothing to ameliorate, and in fact exacerbates. Besides, anyone who’s ever seen the latest phones out of Japan knows that it’s not ease of use, but sexy features, that are what consumers want. Apple’s view that the phone features need to be “easy to use” suggest both a total lack of awareness of modern cell phones and a certain condescension towards the user.
I think that in some ways the iPhone represents the epitome of Apple’s embrace of “cool”, which necessarily carries connotations of elitism. This contrast starkly with Nintendo, which aims for a kind of mass appeal – but not in the shoddy sense, more of a family vibe.
4 responses to “shoulda named it the Wiiphone”
I have suspected that a lot of those people standing in line were buying so that they could immediately resell on eBay.
And those people who bought them to resell on Ebay found that their stunt backfired, because, well:
iPhone Not Quite the Cash Cow eBay Sellers Were Hoping
Check out those numbers, though. 700,00 sold over the weekend. Feel free to snicker, but the iPod’s launch was nowhere near this auspicious, and look how we view the doubters from when that came out.
The reason I don’t want one is because I don’t want ANY phone, by the way. The day I get a cell phone is the day I kill myself.
I mean, hey, maybe Apple just estimated demand better than Nintendo did. That would make it NOT an analog to the Wii, like all those Ebayers thought it would be. Egg’s on THEIR faces, not Apple’s.
actually, several outlets polled people in line and found that unlike the PS3, the vast majority were buying with intent to keep, not eBay. I think that the hype and the enthusiasm was real; but just not as widespread as Jobs wanted everyone to think, because on the face of it the iPhone just doesn’t make a lot of sense for anyone other than the techno-elite.
The user interface is sexy but its hardly enough to justify the cost for the average consumer – in other words, the person that Apple claims to love but secretly hates. 🙂 I can get a Blackberry 8830 for much less on both the phone and the data plan, via either Verizon OR Sprint, and with the latter an unlocked SIM card for truly global posrtability. The 8830 is a significantly more flexible device – and don’t try and tell me Blackberry doesn’t know how to do interfaces. Sure, multi-touch is clearly superior as an interface but the interface isn’t the barrier here – its services. Look at Japan for an example.
I dont see the comparison to the iPod as relevant; the ipod marked the entry of Apple into the consumer electronics space, and their brand cachet was far lower then.