My favourite television character of all time holding my favourite device—for the time being.
If you don’t watch the show already, you should. It’s the best! ‘Nuff said.
As for the iPhone, I got to use one of these on my way back to Delhi for my holidays. Although severely crippled due to lack of services like wide area wi-fi spots and visual voice-mail in India, the phone itself made any other phone I had seen (and used) obsolete in a matter of seconds.
What’s great is that I see Apple promoting the iPhone in one of the smarter ways. And the fact that it’s now finally “advertising” the iPhone. More and more people should be introduced to this beautiful little thing. We, unfortunately, might not see an official launch anytime soon1. There are reports of a June date however.
With survey results showing the iPhone having taken second place in the US smart-phone market, it’s easy to see how the hype might permeate down to countries where it’s not there yet. Three visits to the local Apple reseller showed me that the first question people asked on entering was if they had the iPhone (I laughed to myself everytime someone confused the iPod Touch for the phone), which proves that people want to see it, try it out, most probably even own one; that they are intrigued.
Last year was awesome for Apple and the iPhone in many ways. Analysts are saying that that strong surge will not last, and we’ll see a drop in demand as competitors come out with their versions of iPhone-like smart-phones. I say those analysts are idiots. We know Apple has never been for numbers. They generate enough revenue from their current sales to sustain and turnover profits. They don’t need the numbers. And in a way, that’s how it should be. I might sound fanboy-ish, but I have and always will regard Apple as the luxury brand … products of which are best reserved for the ones who truly appreciate them. If you rather save money and get a third-rate phone, you deserve it. It just makes us Apple lovers and owners all the more elite.
Off-topic
“House” stars supporting Writer’s Guild strike
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Unlocked ones are already available, like the one I got to use, but they are so badly limited that it seems like a joke to even think of owning one in India at this point. ↩
6 Comments
I almost completely disagree with you in the last paragraph. The current mobile phone market is a very nascent one with new technologies coming every now and then. iPhone’s sales will definitely drop if they don’t come up with newer form factors and newer technologies at regular intervals. The mobile phone market has always been like that. Of course there is the hype, but hypes are meant to die. I know the hype that RAZR created in Japan in 2006 (having worked on exactly the same phone, called IZAR internally); it boosted the sales quite a lot. But it didn’t last long because the hype had died once they caught hold of it. IZAR was nowhere near in comparison with the Japanese phones of Sharp and NEC, although it was much superior to the original RAZR with features like Video Telephony.
If this doesn’t happen, only fanboys will remain running after the iPhone. I hope they come up with more capabilities soon. I definitely would like to see IMS capabilities in the next major version. I am not saying iPhone is not good. It is an amazing piece of technology. They have the Apple tag attached. What I’m saying is that, you should live up to your name way too often, in mobile phone market.
Sorry I forgot to add: House is the best show around. \nn/
@Deepak » Sorry, but comparing the RAZR to any other phone is a slap on the face of logic. RAZR just had the looks … nothing else. Non-expandable (12MB internal memory, you’re kidding me?), VGA camera, features which were considered a requirement in phones at that time, among the weak points. The reason RAZRs died, was because it was a bad phone, that looked good.
Apple has a solid product with the iPhone. The device has revolutionised the whole use-the-web-from-your-phone outlook of people. Apple took a (risk?) shot at trying to introduce a new form to an old concept. They succeeded, and in effect, changed how we look at phones today.
Will the iPhone sell based on hype 3 years down the line? Hell no! To suggest that would be being uneducated. Will Apple upgrade the phone, on which it has based so many hopes and ideas? Of course! If someone thinks a company as big as Apple doesn’t recognize the need to offer upgrades needs to look at their operating system and notebook upgrade cycles.
To make myself doubly clear … I never said Apple shouldn’t or won’t offer upgrades. I meant that the iPhone isn’t selling just on hype. It’s a solid product, and hence is selling on merit, after the initial ‘wow’ factor has faded out (It’s been more than half a year now!).
I am not comparing features here. I’m comparing the hype created by both brands. RAZR didn’t die very soon. It was a much sought after phone for almost 1.5 years. I wholeheartedly agree that it just sucked big time on the feature dept, but it held on for some time. The death of RAZR was a result of the slashing of its price. Then they came out with same phone-new features, which obviously didn’t click because there was nothing novel. RAZR lived because it had good looks albeit being a bad phone; and people saw something trend-setting in the form of it’s form factor. RAZR2 flopped because there was nothing new.
Same will happen with iPhone 2, if they don’t have some radically innovative phone. (And I’m not talking about upgrading software. Better technologies need to be provided. WiMAX and VoIP capabilities, for instance.) Laymen don’t understand “Solid”, they understand only “Trendsetting”. I still think that iPhone’s sales had more to do with trendsetting than being a good smart device.
You are talking about sales 3 years down the line. For mobile phones, the average lifetime is 1 year. Phones with mass appeal will last a little longer, but I doubt 3 years, with such a nascent market and stiff competition. Apple surely revolutionized the idea of a smartphone, but others are jumping into the bandwagon, and Apple will have to keep revolutionizing (which I know they will do). Don’t count from when the hype started. Count from when the phone started selling. In this case, iPhone has been there for only 9 months.
Apple is selling both on hype as well as merit. (Because there is no phone quite like it as of now) Hype will die out soon, and you will see the same merit in other phones soon. So Apple has to have better phones.
And just FYI, the version of RAZR I was talking about was shipped only in Japan. It had a 2MP camera, 2GB MMC support, HSDPA, Dual Mode (CDMA+GSM) with international roaming, Video Telephony, Video and Image Editing. They may sound passe now, but were not even present in many high-end phones of it’s time.
But, as I said, we are not comparing phones here. We are comparing the hype.
Hey, thanks for the tip about Yahoo web hosting. My site was reaching the limits and so, I upgraded to Unlimited storage! Don’t know how long this will last if Microsoft swallows Yahoo..
@Ramani » You’ll be better off going with S3. Much more cost efficient, and it scales your cost as and when your needs grow, not otherwise :)
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