Letters to the Editor
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Yes
Yes, it's crazy to spend that much money on a cell phone.
Yes, I want one.
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"Masterpiece" sounds trite in these circumstances, but it is the most accurate term we've got.
Steve Jobs is nothing short of a modern-day Picasso. He (and his team) is a masterful artist of his trade, except that his craft is innovative technology, and it is changing our lives. The success or failure of the iPhone in and of itself is not the most relevant piece of this article. The key here is the vision, the creativity, the drive of one company to take technology past mere functionality and capult it to a thing of intrigue, beauty, awe, and most significantly, a divine symbiosis with an inanimate object.
With every Apple turnout, we are really being asked, "Do you want your technology to work FOR you, or do you want it to work WITH you?"
Apple's answer? "WITH you. WITH us. WITH us all."
Can you believe I'm talking about a phone this way?
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If Jobs really wanted to change things....
He would have made the iPhone a reasonable price, say $199 for the 4GB and no mor ethant $299 for the 8GB. It would have been unlocked so that you could use it with any carrier, as is done in Europe. Everyone would have bought one, and at the same time thumbed their noses at the mobile carriers. Until he's willing or able to change the economic structure of the business, instead of just the technology, it's just another fancy phone I would want but can't afford.
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Mmm
I'm an all-Apple fan. but. I think the phone is a) too big and b) too expensive and c) will scratch easily. version 2 might be a killer, but the stock will have taken a big hit before that comes out. hope I'm wrong.
joe
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More expensive junk?
Apple is good at convincing teenagers to buy easily-broken plastic things that cost more and do less than the competition. Viva advertising!
Teenagers are going to have a hard time convincing their parents to blow $500 on a cell phone. I don't have high expectations for this gizmo.
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Narrow Demographic
I wonder if this time, Steve was powering the ol' reality-distortion field with a bunch of refurbished iPod batteries. It sputtered in and out but never took me completely under its spell.
True, the iPhone looks incredibly cool, and it does things that nothing else can do...but it also does a lot of things I (or, I'm guessing, most users) won't ever need it to do. Not to mention, my experience to date with so-called "all-in-one" devices is that they end up doing NONE of their tasks very well.
And this is coming from me -- one of the Apple faithful -- a major tech geek. I really hope I'm wrong (Steve & Co. do tend to ultimately exceed my admittedly lofty expectations), but so far, I am seriously underwhelmed by this new direction Apple is taking.
It just seems odd to me that they are putting so much time, effort and money into a specialized device that such a small percentage of the public will be interested in (especially after their recent switch to Intel Chips and resulting successful growth in the home computer market).
In truth, that's what many people said about the original iPod. Of course, I think that's also what they said about the Newton.
Of course, my opinion may turn around 180% once I get my hands on one of those things to demo it. Why must June be so far away!?!?!
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Expensive?
Not really, if you consider
a) the price of an iPod currently
b) the price of other phone/mp3 player combos.
And this is the release price, like other technology, it will come down in price. iPods got much more in the way of storage, but the price stayed the same. My 1st generation iPod (10Gb) cost over $500 (and that wasn't when iPods were new)
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Cingular = death
Tying this thing to Cingular kills it for me. How many people want to sign a two-year contract with the worst carrier in the country just for the chance to overpay for the handset?
The iPhone does indeed look as revolutionary as the hype would have us believe - Apple's critics are almost invariably wrong when it comes to the technology itself. But by pursuing a bloated price point and pointlessly fortifying the old-school controls of carrier power rather than unlocking the phone for use on any service, Jobs shows himself to ultimately be looking backwards.
It's a shame.
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I hate posting this...
You suck, Farhad, and I hate your writing!
Generally.
Yet, this story did not suck. And you did a nice job with the lede.
And this sentence was masterful as a conclusion.
Yet working out the irrepressible burdens of innovation seems to be just what Apple was born to do; more than making computers, its purpose is to make technology a transcendent experience.
OK, you almost always suck and I almost always hate your writing.
Just not this time.
Cheers!
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iPhone v2?
Holly, I'm with you. My contract with Cingular ended two days ago (I drank a large beer in celebration) and I've been looking forward to fleeing that lame-ass company for months. Then...doh! I find out that Apple has roped their sexy new device to...the Evil Empire!
I'm a craven slave to all things Apple, I admit it. I would crawl on my lips over broken glass to hand Steve J. my $599 for the 8 GB iPhone, but with Cingular? Ugh. Tough choice.
Better yet, I could wait until version 2 or 3, when the screen will be smudge proof and the price will have come down $200.
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Explainning Steve's Mobile Deal
I am the Media director of a Mobile Content company in Europe. I have been working for a number of years in the industry and am totally awed by, what seems, trully a Motorola (best design)/ Nokia (best smart phone), Sony Ericsson (best camera phone) killer. What seems to puzzle most of the other people writing about this article is the pricing/operator deal made by Apple in bringing it's device to market. In order to understand this, one must be aware that most handsets are sold worldwide at cost, or at a loss y most carriers. This is because the cost of the handset is seen as marketing expense which is part of signing new subscribers that will use air time (the real profit maker of the celullar game). Even large operators receive almost no discounts (except for "marketing support") on the handsets themselves on brand phones... ie. selling handsets is not a profitable business for anyone other than the manufacturers themselves.
So, if you factor the fact that Apple's new iPhone would be expensive by definition (as all new products usually are), plus the lack of a distribution/ logistic set up to sell mobile phones (using Apple´s logistics is simply not workable, trust me on this... not only is the scale much larger from the logistic/economic side of the thing, but the target market to reach a volume which would make business sence you need to have in place inventor/delivery/sale/support and distribution which would be way too expensive for Apple to set-up from scratch) it makes perfect sence for Apple to start off this version of their mobile adventure as they have.
Let me explain further: by making a deal with Cingular Apple has received (and you'll have to trust me on this too) a substantial amount of money for the exclusivity to market the brand in the US; in addition they have minimized (if not completely errased) the logistics/inventory/ distribution costs and probably gotten a supporting marketing budget to promote their device (again, from Cingular). In addition, they are probably charging Cingular top-dolar for the handset, and insured a minimum unit purchase- advantages that are all too strong to ignore (and probably unatainable) without the deal that they have made with Cingular.
Apple did revolutionize the PC, and I am a big fan of the company and it's products (beleive me, after the iPhone this puppy I want to throw away my Nokia N93, the current "mother of all phones"- and my company produces products exclusivelly for Nokia), but transforming the celular business is a whole different story. Keep in mind, there are more Nokia handsets than all PC and Macs combined in the world today- and the number of users/markets for celular devices dwarf any of the company's achievements to date. In this game Nokia is the big bad bear, and it is so much bigger on it's neck of the woods than Microsoft ever was or will be. In addition celular use/services/handsets in the U.S. lags behind the European market in most parameters and Apple, though a global brand, is really as American a brand as apple pie.
In short; I applaud the re-invention of mobile devices by Steve and his wizards, and at the same time am impressed by the strategy he has chosen for, even if the iPhone flops on the market, this project will be profitable for the company, increase it's reputation as an innovator, strengthen the brand, and solidify the value of it's stock. And that alone, is reason enough for Jobs and his band of merry men to go out and keep on planning revolutions.