Apple iPhone: Probably the most
controversial integrated communication
device ever announced. [ Photo:
Apple Inc. ]
Operation Gadget is probably the last gadget blog on the planet to report that Apple Inc. announced the iPhone on Tuesday at MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. We weren’t there, but I did take the time to watch a video stream of Steve Jobs’ entire keynote, and I’d like to make a few comments about what I saw.
I think the most under-reported aspect of the announcement is Jobs’ revelation that the iPhone will run Mac OS X natively. This is a huge development because it will clear the way for:
- Elegantly-implemented multitasking on a handheld device: Windows Mobile handhelds have this capability already, but none devices I’ve seen have a UI that comes close to what Jobs demonstrated. Treo handhelds from Palm running the PalmOS don’t do multitasking at all. It isn’t clear to me whether RIM or Nokia have true multitasking OSes on their smartphones, and I’ve used both quite extensively.
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Widespread deployment of OS X Dashboard Widgets: By making Dashboard Widgets an integral part of the iPhone UI, Apple may have changed the balance of power in this rapidly expanding area of software development.
A lot of developers have been creating HTML-based widgets for deployment to weblogs and similar types of sites on the Internet. For my RinkAtlas website, I’ve built rink information and search widgets that are syndicated through Widgetbox.com. Now I’m seriously investigating what it would take to implement similar widgets for the Mac OS X Dashboard. I think other developers will do the same.
- “High fidelity” handheld access to virtually all Internet sites: The inclusion of Safari on the iPhone is probably the single biggest boost to mobile use of the Internet since the development of the GPRS wireless data standard. Shipment of Safari on the iPhone device will coincide with a negative inflection point for more limited browsers in the marketplace. Yes, there will continue to be a need for browsers like Opera Mobile and The Blazer Web Browser such as the version that appears on my Treo 650, but these browsers will probably no longer be sufficient for high end handheld devices.
Other Issues with the iPhone
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Pricing: People who are fretting over the announced prices of the iPhone ($499 for four Gigabytes of on-board memory, $599 for eight Gigabytes) generally assume that potential customers will perceive the iPhone to be in the same class of devices with the Treo 700 and 600 series, Research in Motion’s BlackBerrys, smartphones with the Windows Mobile operating system, as well as devices like the Nokia E62. I don’t think any of these devices compare to the iPhone, so the negative price comparisons mean little to me. I have long argued on this site that carrier subsidies for handsets in the U.S. market are counter productive, so I don’t care if the net price of an iPhone with a new two-year Cingular contract is higher than the price charged for a Treo.
I also think that most of the people who will end up buying an iPhone wouldn’t settle for anything else.
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Market share estimates: The repercussion of the Apple announcement I least anticipated was the debate over how big Apple’s share of the mobile phone handset market will be after the iPhone ships worldwide. I think this all stems from Jobs’ observation that Apple could sell 10 million iPhones in 2008 if it only captured one percent of the worldwide mobile phone handset market.
This is the classic “one percent of the Chinese widget market” analysis that gets so many people in trouble in their first business plan for their Principles of Entrepreneurship class. Steve Jobs knows better than to seriously think in these terms.
After Jobs headfaked the world, Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal as saying, “cellphones priced above $300 account for only about 5% of the global market.” This is a plausable-sounding statistic, but would be hard to validate.
Let’s assume for the moment that Sacconaghi’s analysis is correct. In order for Apple to end 2008 with one percent marketshare, they either have to win 20 percent of the worldwide sales of mobile phones priced above $300, or they have to grow that segment of the market. I’m betting on Apple to make it based on growing the market for high end devices with mobile phone capabilities.
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Absense of tactile feedback: I thought the points that Jason Fried of 37signals brought up in iPhone: Not Touchy Feely were right on. The big risk that Apple took in making the iPhone a handheld screen phone is the absense of tactile feedback.
Lack of tactile feedback was an issue with integrated communicators as far back as the Treo 180 (see my review of the Treo 180 on Slashdot from April 2002), and this problem influenced the subsequent design of the Treo 600 and later devices.
I’m sure that Apple thoroughly tested the iPhone from a user experience standpoint before announcing it, I just don’t know how Apple’s senior leadership would factor in results that differ from their gut instincts on product design.
As an early adopter of the Apple Newton, the HP 95LX, the RIM BlackBerry, the Palm Treo 180 and 650, and someone who has tested practically every other handheld gadget known to man, I think I’m uniquely qualified to predict that the Apple iPhone will soon become the most controversial handheld device ever announced if it isn’t already. Having said that, I’m saving my money for the opportunity to purchase one.
Technorati Tags: iPhone, OS X, Windows Mobile, Palm Treo, Dashboard+widgets, Widgetbox, RinkAtlas, Opera Mobile, Safari browser, Nokia E62