Apple iPhone: 8 Reasons to Believe (And 8 Reasons to Worry)
Here's an abbreviated version of Jordan's analysis, boiled down by The VAR Guy...
The iPhone could fail if:
- It proves to be too expensive
- The user interface/form factor is cumbersome
Will Apple’s iPhone live up to its hype and spark another technology revolution? The answer won’t be known until Apple ships the device in June. Still, a Penn State University tech guru (John Jordan) has developed an intriguing list of reasons the iPhone will either be a huge hit or a massive disappointment.
Here’s an abbreviated version of Jordan’s analysis, boiled down by The VAR Guy…
The iPhone could fail if:
- It proves to be too expensive
- The user interface/form factor is cumbersome
- It does too many things not so well, instead of one or two things really well
- It suffers from poor battery life, durability, voice quality or data security
- AT&T can’t hold up its end of the bargain
- Apple can’t match the power of the cell phone industry’s incumbents
- There’s a disconnect with demographics; 15-to-30-year-olds may be least able to afford the device
- Apple moves too far away of its comfort zone and can’t master telecom supply chains
Now, for the flipside of the arguement. The iPhone could succeed if:
- Apple has truly invented a new category of device and learned from the Motorola ROKR music player+phone
- Its user interface transcends everyhing else in the category, thanks to its simplicity
- Its industrial design once again delivers an unsurpassed “cool” factor
- Apple’s vast army of users races to sync the iPhone with their PCs
- It works within mobile broadband networks, including WiFi hotspots, WiMAX and other broadband systems
- The demographics align, and 20-somethings increasingly replace their landline phones with a tablet-phone-music player
- It finds a killer applications–such as visual voice mail (browsing and managing voice messages from the screen)
- Businesses treat it as a secure, wireless Unix terminal that can run mission-critical applications
Hmmm. For iPhone to fulfill points 7 and 8, The VAR Guy believes, Apple will need to partner with companies like Cisco on unified communications. In fact, Apple and Cisco have been discussing a relationship, but Cisco CEO John Chambers isn’t quite ready to announce any potential agreements just yet.
For the record, The VAR Guy believes the iPhone will be a hit, selling anywhere from 3.2 million to 7 million units in its first year.
And please note, once again: The lists above are simplified versions of John Jordan’s in-depth analysis. Be sure to check out his original post at http://earlyindications.blogspot.com/.
Great article
Neither of these lists is particularly insightful or new. The “Failures” list, in particular, is sort of ridiculous — when’s the last time Apple designed a cumbersome interface, or created a feature-bloated device? Those points are diametrically opposed to Apple’s foundation and philosophy.
Likewise, points 2-5 on the “success” list are more-or-less given.
Thanks for the boildown, but if this is an accurate distillation, I find the original author’s research to be an attention-seeking farce. Reminds me of Dvorak’s recent comments.
I think it’s more likely that iPhone 1.0 will be, for the most part, great, with a few bumps along the road that will be smoothed out by the time the Asian/European releases come along Apple is never one to leave a product line alone for very long, they consistently and frequently revise, update, and add-on.
Hmmm. Wasn’t point 7 in the success list demonstrated in Jobs’ Keynote speech?