The sneezers are singing the praises of the iPhone today:
- Om Malik (communication and telecom blog) here on the end of an era (or mark of a new era) and here on form factor and packaging
- Mark Evans (Canadian telecom blogger) here
- Paul Kedrosky (finance, VC, and tech blogger) here on capital market reactions of Apple, Nokia, Motorola, Palm, and RIM/Blackberry to iPhone showing
- Matt Marshall (at VentureBeat) here
- Esme Vos (Muniwireless blog specializing in municipal wireless coverage) says here that we need more muni WiFi just for the iPhone
- Kottke (uber independent blogger) here
Some of the competitors are shrugging or more lukewarm:
- Microsoft’s pre-emptive pooh-pooh
- Nokia VP’s statements that the iPhone confirms convergence but that 2G device slant (versus 3G device) was a surprise
Other notes:
- Cingular has 58.7 million subscribers (see here)
- "iPhone will be available in the U.S. beginning in June 2007 in a 4GB model for $499 and an 8GB model for $599, and will work in combination with Apple’s iTunes running on either a PC or Mac." (Cingular news release)
- Note that I am not clear whether the prices above are retail or inclusive/net of typical handset subsidies that are borne by carrier as part of subscriber acquisition costs. There have been reports that a 2-year contract is required, but it is still not clear whether the prices mentioned are net of subsidy.
- Apple wants to sell 10 million in 2008 (here). (Note: That’s a lot of subscribers and/or channel pumping given my first bullet point above in this section and given an exclusive carrier relationship)
- Random history on iPod pricing (post includes graphs)
It will be interesting to see what the mavens of the world uncover about the iPhone specs. It looks like a cool device presentation-wise for sure. I am curious how the battery life will be though. I am used to running my iPod down on power, but I don’t like running my cell phone down on power.
Updates (1/11/07):
- Paul Kedrosky on the stock market the day after and on the five biggest issues with iPhone
- How iPhone was kept a secret (article also answers the question about why they disclosed so early)
- Comments by Orange (an international operator)
- Tom Evslin on how Apple failed to reinvent telecom
- LG lookalike
The numbers given by jobs is about 1 percent of the current annual mobile phone market.BTW, did you read that Cisco is suing Apple as it already has a phone with the name ‘iphone’. I think the phone would be a hit with the youth market but the corporate world will still want a phone with a buttons.After all, you want to answer emails with a keyboard !
Yes. I was aware of the 1 percent claim. I suppose that the aspiration numbers may also implicitly cover a presumption that other markets are addressed running into 2008. Just as additional context, Cingular added 1.5 million customers in a quarter (granted it is a net number reported here – http://telephonyonline.com/wireless/news/cingular_customers_profits_072006. If Apple wants to sell 10 million phones in a year and they have an exclusive with Cingular (or anyone for that matter), unless people are buying Apple phones exclusively, one has to think about how the numbers get built up as opposed to just looking at 1% of a large market.
Yes, read about cisco sueing apple for using ‘i’ in iphone. Isnt it funny, i hope they dont sue us for using i.