The date’s been cast in stone: June 29 is the day the already legendary Apple iPhone goes on sale in the US, but as the date of release draws closer, what problems can Apple expect?
<br>
If you haven’t already seen the new iPhone ads on US Primetime TV or from Apple’s website, the first thing you notice is just how cool the iPhone interface looks and high incredibly easy it appears to be to use, as easy as when Steve Jobs demonstrated it back at Macworld in January.
But despite Apple learning from the 1st-gen screen-scratch nano experience, simple questions remain. How will the iPhone’s screen stand up to coins, keys, being dropped or being handled by the kids?
Can you place a transparent plastic protective sheet on the face of the iPhone, or will that interfere with the touch controls?
Beyond concerns about the screen itself, the iPhone will be available on June 29. What quantities will the phone be available in? If the PS3, Wii and even Xbox 360 launches are anything to go by, lines will form outside Apple and AT&T stores, as people wait to be one of the very first to score an iPhone on launch day.
Just as PS3 and Wii units were stolen from stores before their official launch, iPhones will surely be the target of thieves, causing headaches and the need for extra security patrols around stores in the lead up to launch day.
Another question is exclusive carrier relationships. Carriers such as Vodafone have had the power to buy 2G and 3G Sharp phones exclusively for the global Vodafone network, leveraging the power of an order of 50 million units to get the best price from Sharp.
By and large this deal worked, but there is no real exclusivity in a Sharp phone. The iPhone is completely different, with an audience in theory much larger than that of the iPod – after all, hundreds of millions more own mobile phones than do Apple iPods.
Apple wants to offer its exclusivity to AT&T, which AT&T can then offer to its customers. But the risk that competitors come up with something clever of their own that captures the fickle attention of the mobile phone market, with tastes that vary far more widely than those of mp3 player owners.
By the numbers themselves mp3 player owners are in majority iPod users, and this could catch Apple off guard as a different phone becomes the new flavor of the month, unlikely though this would seem with the iPhone unlike anything anyone’s truly ever seen before, and seemingly 5 years ahead of the competition as Jobs has stated.
That ‘new flavor’ of the month would come from Apple’s established and very experienced cell phone makers, all of whom have now had inspiration from the Apple iPhone to try and come up with something better.
Nokia, Mototola, Samsung, RIM, Palm, Microsoft, LG, Sony Ericsson and others all throwing their money and resources at coming up with a product to compete, by raising their own bar at least as high as that set by Apple, if not higher, creating ever more powerful ‘multimedia computers’ ever more quickly as Moore’s Law works its magic in the cell phone world.
And then there’s the problem of price. The Nokia N95 can already be had for free with a contract in Australia and elsewhere around the world, although that might not be the case in the US. It does everything the iPhone does, and in fact more, combining phone, video phone, full HTML browser, 3G/3.5G HSDPA broadband wireless modem, FM radio, mp3/video player, GPS Map navigation, 5 megapixel camera, DVD-like video recorder and much, much more.
<br>
It doesn’t have the iPhone’s smooth control system, but is an evolution of Nokia’s already simple keypad layout and Symbian operating system, culminating in a very smooth Nokia experience all its own. Both phones outdo each other in different ways, with the N95 the iPhone’s best and possibly only true competitor right now, and one costs nothing on contract while the other is US $499 or US $599.
That’s a tough choice for consumers to make, and with the N95 so capable on its own, gives consumers $599 to spend on something else, like gas for the car, a new computer, a PS3, a Wii or some other device.
After all, the iPhone does look to be the ‘ultimate’ phone, mp3 and video player. But if you can get an N95 for free on contract, and either save that $599 or spend it on a PS3 or something else, you’re not going to walk away unhappy.
Of course if you want an iPhone, you’re going to get one, N95 or no. Heck, you might even get both.
The final concern so far for the iPhone is the inevitable problem it will face. Some manufacturing defect that affects only 0.0001% of iPhone owners but has blown up into a global news story with Apple not yet admitting to the problem, as with moo-ing batteries or scratching screens.
Something like that seems to pop up for a small percentage of users like clockwork with every Apple release – what will it be for the iPhone?
Whatever happens, an exciting time in computing and communications history is unfolding, with both the N95 and the iPhone marking a true change in the power of today’s handheld devices, giving us converged devices that offer a range of great features, and offer them well in a handheld device that was truly once the province of science fiction alone.
Who knows what’s next from the myriad of possibilities that exist? Bill Gates joked at his on-stage appearance with Steve Jobs that Apple’s next invention would be the transporter. We’re not quite there yet, but as we remember that the iPhone is only in its first incarnation, we rejoice in the fact that the best is yet to come.
Posted by curialfi 
Posted by curialfi 
Posted by curialfi 
