The iPhone Debate
It was only a matter of time until I posted about the iPhone. I’m one of the biggest Apple supporters in the world, having written my college paper on the 1984 ad-campaign, had every line of Mac growing up (IIe, LC, Centris, Quadra, PowerPC, G3, G4, Intel), and even had Macworld official posters mounted on the walls of my bedroom at my folks house.
Now that the company is transitioning from a computer company to an entertainment/hardware company, they are going to be going through some unforeseen difficulties. They have been the baby of Wall Street of late and are in the press everyday about the upcoming launch of the Apple iPhone which is labeled by some as the greatest thing to happen to mobile since the original cell phones were released.
The question I find asking myself is… am I going to buy an iPhone? I have ample reason to do so: my Razor is acting strange and my Blackberry is getting sick (turning off every now and again).
But I do not think I will buy one yet. The reason for this is exactly what my brother tells me about cars. If you’re going to buy a high-end car, never buy the first model year. There are times that it doesn’t hold true, but for the most part, the first model year of most products has faults. It’s impossible for the engineers and testers to predict all the problems and only the masses could help fix the bugs by crowdsourced testing.
The issue with releasing the iPhone is that everyone has such high hopes for it. Apple has done a terrific job marketing this phone and the hype surrounding it is incredible. However, is this hype unattainable by Apple? Have they set the bar too high?
Another interesting issue is that the launch of this phone is so important to Apple (an analyst said that it would possible even be a $10B business for them) but they are leaving it in the hands of another company, AT&T to get it to the market? That’s fascinating… no? Yes, you can buy an iPhone in one of the Official Apple stores in your city, but the phone is located at the many AT&T locations throughout the world. It’s also AT&T who will be doing the brunt of the support around the phone.
I just find it fascinating that with such an important product launch, Apple is trusting AT&T with the sales and support of their device. Lets see if AT&T can live up to the bar… it’s the highest I’ve seen raised in a long time. Did you know the first lines in Manhattan have already formed… 4 days early?!
Just released this morning: The iPhone activiation is really cool – you do it at home. That will cut down on the lines tremendously! The rate plans are also fairly priced and seem to be custom for Apple.
And once the kinks have been ironed out of the phone, you will probably find one in my possession.