The funny thing is he was given an unlocked iPhone about 6 months ago – suddenly this guy is the biggest fanboy ever. He absolutely loves his iPhone – in a way I would never have predicted – this thing has totally changed his mobile experience.

There are a lot of unsubstantiated 'facts' through this thread – I mean, Nokia's can do 600 things an iPhone cannot?? Come on, please mate, get a grip. Fund managers know something the rest of us dont??? Yeah, right. With all due respect I think you are seriously overestimating their skills. I work with fund managers and in most cases they dont know anything at all about anything including, actually especially anything to do with investment. The stock keeps rising because in most cases they are BB fanboys – they will be the last people to spot a market trend in this context.

These complaints about the keyboard remind me of Grandad's degenerative disease and his TV remote – this is one for the old boys

petes2cents.com

… “Seriously Considering” and actually adopting are two separate things. Let's wait and see. Oh, and my money would have been on “if someone offered you a free phone that a whole bunch of people are going to be walking over their grannies to get in a month or two and would probably make you a fortune on eBay, would you turn it down?”

The US Military – why not? Touchscreens have a lot going for them in a military environment where space is often a consideration. I could see that.

“You can't turn a ship like Nokia or SEM around in 6 months.”

… SE, probably not. They're clueless, and are still trying to figure out how they used to own the portable music device market then all of a sudden… they didn't. SE is blighted by political infighting, and they cannibilise. Which is, in a way, a shame, because Ericsson (pre-Sony) was the cool and alternative Audi to the big and brassy Nokia BMW back in the '80s.

Nokia… we shall see. Their recent moves with Symbian suggest both a tightening of the grip and a loosening of the control. They're shitting themselves over Android basically, and know they have to get Symbian sorted out fast or Google are going to eat them for lunch. Nokia have had a life of luxury so far, because they're so enormous and dominant in the mobile industry (smartphones aside, but smartphones are a very small segment) that they could more or less do what they wanted. Now there's a new kid about to come and live on the block, and he's got a bit of a reputation. In 6 months? No, it won't happen that fast, but they know that they have to make Symbian something independent developers feel comfortable working on or they'll all just piss off and take Google's coin instead.

“And Blackberry? Please. Son of Niche of Niche. Just because a few 10's of millions of lawyers & traders live by them, big deal. The new iPhone plans will make a huge difference to uptake. For most people it was the price that put them off i2G.”

… there aren't that many lawyers and traders (if there's that many lawyers, we're all f*cked anyway). They have 43% of the smartphone market. Apple have 19% (based on the last published quarterly figures, Q1 08). Those figures will narrow dramatically in Q3 for reasons already stated, but will widen again in Q4. I always love hearing the anti-Blackberry rants from those who own other devices. It's hilarious. It's hilarious because they KNOW that RIM are doing something right, but they can't, for the life of them, figure out what it is! What is it? Don't ask me, I have no idea either, and I have one! Is it JUST Push Mail? Could be. But to me that says maybe Push mail is something that a lot of people actually want, and just because Steve Jobs doesn't think it's important won't change that, and maybe, for the first time in a decade, he misjudged something? (Damn, I've just committed Cupertino Heresy…) However, to dismiss pushmail as something unglamorous and not worthy of attention? Basille and Lazardis just hold up the market share chart and say “and…?” Actually, I'm surprised Jobs didn't get that one, he, above all, was meant to be the guy who understood consumer demands better than everyone else, yet when something that obvious was shone in his face, he decided he knew better? Weird.

“The ongoing BB price is prohibitive”

Factually untrue. Walk into a store and ask. By the way, Blackberries have a habit of lasting. I know guys who're still using c. 2004 models, because they still do everything they need them to do. How many of today's iPhones do you think will be around in 2012? Irrelevant? Not when you consider TCO based on how often you need to replace a device.

“What I do know is that Android as it stands is so bloated it only runs on 7200-series chipsets. Expensive.”

Today's expensive chipset is a mid-range at best 12 months from now, and as you said that's when we'd probably be looking at an Android based device, that'll be the case. Can't argue on the timescale, my guess is they'll launch Q3 2009, expecting Apple to launch a 3rd Gen iPhone iPhone by Christmas – get their retaliation in first and steal the thunder.

“Q: has Dave seen/played with one, actually used some apps/ visited some sites?”

Actually, he has, kinda – he's played with my Touch hooked up via the office WLAN. A couple of “that's quite cool”, but no, no real “gimme, gimme, gimme”. The issue here isn't the device, it's the content. Back to Ewan's rant the other day – the mobile web just sucks. But that's not surprising, as the WWW itself hasn't seen any significant innovations in about 5 years. That's a different discussion for another day though. GMaps? Hardly a compelling reason to have an iPhone (it's available on every platform). Pushr – now who's talking about apps/facilities no-one in normob land gives a hoot about? I don't know a single normob user who utilises Flickr or anything like it. You know how they share their photos with their friends? They email them to them. The technorati hold their noses in disgust – email atttachments! How 1999!!

1. It was created by a company with huge brand loyalty amongst it's customers. A small community, but highly evangelical. Few other firms customers embrace their product so enthusiastically and uniformly.

2. Of all the phones I've used and reviewed it's the only one I can hand to my normob girlfriend and have her plot a route on Google Maps when I'm driving without any explanation from me at all. Loads of my other devices can do it, but this is the only handset requiring zero intervention from me.

3. Apple have manufactured an event around the launch – it is only PR and marketing, but it is fun. Who else puts on such a show for a product launch?

4. It's cool – smart looking and well designed. No need to apologise for that – I bought my last car and newest suit because I liked the way they looked too (not the only reason, but a reason).

At launch the only barrier to significant normob take-up was the ridiculous price. Now, in the UK at least, the pricing looks about right for a model of this spec.

A corporate deciding to roll with RIM means sod all to their IT strategy. A PC's a PC. It's different with i3G. Apple are using the i3G as a way in to business changing to Mac's, not because they make money off selling iPhones. There's a good reason why 1/5th of Fortune 500 co's were prepared to participate in the i3G trials – they are seriously considering adopting it. Including the US military, FFS! This is a fundamental point.

“Today. Let's wait and see what RIM bring with the Thunder and other manufacturers bring with their efforts”

You'll excuse me if I don't hold my breath. You can't turn a ship like Nokia or SEM around in 6 months. And Blackberry? Please. Son of Niche of Niche. Just because a few 10's of millions of lawyers & traders live by them, big deal. The new iPhone plans will make a huge difference to uptake. For most people it was the price that put them off i2G. The ongoing BB price is prohibitive, and all they really offer to consumers is push email. If you don't care about push email, a BB is back in the herd of devices vying for your attention.

“Further, in the wings we have the spectre of Android looming, and it's a huge wildcard no-one knows what to make of”

What I do know is that Android as it stands is so bloated it only runs on 7200-series chipsets. Expensive. Not mass-market at all. I don't know anyone expecting an android handset in the next 12 months, but with $15Bn in loose change who knows what Google could do?

“The “inherently better overall experience” I would dispute. It depends on the individual user experience. “

Yup. But I've yet to meet anyone normal who says less than “Wow! I want one, at the right price”

“Case in point – mate of mine. Let's call him Dave…. Now, with i-Day approaching, I asked him about this last week. Was he excited about the iPhone? …Couldn't care less.”

Q: has Dave seen/played with one, actually used some apps/ visited some sites? I agree, if your previous experience was crap you will be unlikely to believe the hype. But again, my experience with Normobs is that after a few minutes of gentle advice and demo (“Gmaps can do THIS, Pushr can do THIS” etc) they are off, running and want one.

With ref to the pictures – you're semi-correct. If you consider that even a full hi-def image comprises not much more than 2 million pixels (1920×1080), then yep. Why even bother with anything over 2M pixels then? One word: “Zoom”. Another word: “Crop”.

With ref to “warez” – so you're saying that anything not produced and approved by Oberfuhrer Jobs must be warez? Better tell Google that, 'cause they're producing stuff that Steve hasn't approved yet. Case in point – I use GooSync to two-way sync my Google Calendar with my BB Calendar. Doesn't work in iPhone. Only program that does (as far as I know) costs you $30 and you have to jailbreak your iPhone to install it 'cause it ain't on Apple Apps Store. Must mean Steve's not managed to force whoever makes it into passing $29 per download to him.

Oh, and customer satisfaction surveys? Not worth the paper they're written on. Self-Justification made the whole concept of customer satisfaction surveys obsolete years ago.

*sigh*

A couple of minor caveats, then a big one.

>> “Many love the touchscreen. Some hate it. They are in the minority. Apple could do a QWERTY device that solves this problem, but if enterprise take-up of the i3G proves it not to be the barrier many thought they probably won't bother” <<

I don't know if they are the minority. There's not enough data to suggest one way or another so far. RIM are still outselling Apple by 30-40%, let's not forget that. The gap will no doubt narrow on Q2 figures because Apple have a new device out in this quarter (you'd never have guessed, would you?) and RIM don't. But it'll equally no doubt widen again in Q3 when RIM make their new releases. Make no mistake, it's RIM that Apple are after, because the corporate market is where money's made, not Joe Public who wants to fight for every penny discount he can get. Problem with RIM of course is that every time they're written off, every time someone says “this is the end for them, they've been outmaneouvered now”… it's weird, their stock seems to go up. Something tells me the fund managers know something we don't.

Enterprise take-up of the i3G – we shall see. However, don't know if you saw this, but there was a story floating around the other day that Mr Jobs has been active on this already, and has been visiting a whole raft of CTOs at Fortune 500 companies. And with him, allegedly, is a semi-working prototype of what might be iPhone 3. Featuring a slide-out keyboard alongside the touchscreen. Now, if that's true, and knowing that Jobs has a sense for what people want, ever get the impression that maybe he's already been told “if you want us to stop using Blackberries, then you'd better give us a real keyboard?” That would, I admit, be the ideal scenario – hard QWERTY for heavy duty messaging, touchscreen for pinch, poke and swipe consumer functions. BUT… does he then risk alienating a group of people who DON'T want to see a hard QWERTY 'cause it isn't cool enough?

>> “It is far easier for Apple to do a QWERTY keypad than it is for existing QWERTY manufacturers to do a multi-touch screen, browser and overall UI.”

Today. Let's wait and see what RIM bring with the Thunder and other manufacturers bring with their efforts. Further, in the wings we have the spectre of Android looming, and it's a huge wildcard no-one knows what to make of. It could, on one hand, be the mobile equivalent of Linux (actually, think it's Linux based) – beloved by geeks because they can tweak to their hearts' content, but rejected by everyone else because it isn't slick enough for Joe Average to use (the “Anti iPhone”, if you will). Geeks don't tend to care too much about UIs, they're more concerned with the technomasturbation. Then again… Android might be the rest of the mobile industry's worst nightmare, something that blows everything else out of the water. The reality? Probably somewhere inbetween the two. But I'd lay money that the first Android-based devices will be touchscreens, Google can't afford to be seen as doing anything less than being innovative, and with recession dead ahead, and them currently 90% reliant on advertising for revenues (discretionary spend being the first thing that gets slashed to the bone when everything goes tits up), Android isn't a toy they can afford to mess around with and who cares if it all goes wrong – they desparately need an alternative monetized product for the bad times ahead.

OK, now the BIG caveat.

“But this doesn't detract from the device's inherently better overall experience compared to other devices.”

The “inherently better overall experience” I would dispute. It depends on the individual user experience. Speaking for myself (as that's the only person I'm indisputably qualified to speak for!), and yes, having used an iPhone, it didn't give me that. Why? Maybe because my needs are in areas where the iPhone's “way of doing things” doesn't exhibit any better overall experience. Biggest thing I use my device for? Calls, Messaging and Organizer functions. OK, calls are a wash. Messaging and Organizer functions? Sorry, Blackberry kicks the iPhone's butt there, and only a fool would claim otherwise. Of course, the 'berry can't come remotely close to the iPhone as a Media Manager/Player or as a web-browsing device, and for someone to whom those things are more important, yes, the iPhone is definitely a better choice.

OK, take away the Media Manager/Player element ('cause you can get all that on an iPod already), and the iPhone's future fortunes rides, by and large, on the mobile web experience. That, as you agree, is the iPhone's “Killer App” (I hate that term). Take away those elements from the iPhone, and you'd be left with… well, an iPod with a bog-average cellular/comms module. But, it has that mobile web experience, and that's its differentiator. As you've said, the iPhone's triumph is that it, more than any other device, has the chance to convert the Normob masses, who so far care about nothing except phone calls, texts and the odd snapshot, to a much bigger “Mobile World”.

With me so far? Good.

Now… what if they still don't care? What if, after having seen what the iPhone can do, the normob masses just give it all a big collective shrug of the shoulders?

See, it seems to me that the iPhone is banking really hard on the Mobile Web being a massive success, and because it's now easy to access, courtesy of these new shiny black (or white, if you can find one) toys, it's going to explode. But what if it doesn't?

Case in point – mate of mine. Let's call him Dave (a good idea, as that's his name). Dave's a prototypical normob user (Nokia 63-something, I think). He makes calls, he texts and he takes the odd picture. That's it, nothing else. Now, with i-Day approaching, I asked him about this last week. Was he excited about the iPhone? Could he wait to experience the joys of the web while on the move?

Couldn't care less. It's not that he doesn't use the web. He does – I work with him, and I've passed his desk many times at lunchtimes and he's been reading the news, buying something off Amazon, booking a holiday, etc. But being able to do all that (and more) on a mobile device? Nope, no real interest. I asked him why, and he said something that would probably put a chill down the spine of anyone who's banking on the mobile web being their future way of life. As close as I can remember, it was “The web's fine and useful and all that stuff, but I just don't need it every minute of the day, and I don't WANT it every minute of the day. It's a tool I use when I need to, but I don't need it THAT often. I've got the rest of my life to get on with – my REAL life, where I can interact with REAL people face to face, and I'm not going to sacrifice that to be messing about on the web, 'cause that'd make me a sad geek like you”. I told him to f*ck off and start interacting with the bar staff as my glass was empty.

OK, now take Dave, and multiply him millions of times over, because I don't think he's atypical. The iPhone, and a lot of your argument, is banking on the only reason the Mobile Web hasn't gone ballistic is the lack of a practical device for Average Joe to use. But what if it isn't? What if they're all like Dave, and they're just apathetic regardless? What might be more worrying is that I can't entirely disagree with him – the mobile web doesn't keep me awake at night either, but whereas he's coming from a position of “not knowing and not caring”, I DO know what the mobile web feels like (on an iPhone) and it still doesn't have me breaking out in sweats.

Maybe that's the iPhone's biggest issue – ahead of its time? Yep, TOO far ahead of its time. Until there becomes a compelling reason for Dave and those like him to have to have web access 24/7 and wherever, why would they bother? The rest of the iPhone portfolio – like I said, take away the “already available on the iPod you already own” stuff, and what's left is pretty unappetising fare.

I meant to have said HANDSET, not device, as yes, dongles have been a huge success. But USB/Bluetooth tethering? Don't_wind_me_up. You managed to connect despite the industry's best efforts to stop you. Both Bluetooth and USB were/are horrific customer experiences, fraught with multiple failure points, software/driver issues, etc. The new breed of WiFi apps go a long way to removing this pain.

But I stand by my point that the iPhone has been the saviour of the mobile-internet-on-a-handset business case. All you need do is glance at the Google analytics results for incontrovertible proof that the internet works much better on the iPhone than on all other devices previously, in spades.

A queue does not a good or bad device make. People will queue for anything (especially in Britain). Don't let your judgement be warped by hype and a few desperate folks with spare time on their hands.

We hold the following truths to be self-evident:

The iPhone has the best mobile browser, and as browsing is what people do on the internet, the iPhone delivers the best mobile internet experience by far – particularly coupled with the multi-touch screen. Without the screen, it wouldn't be a nice experience.

The iPhone has shocked and scared other handset vendors into action, finally forced to admit that after 5 years they had failed to deliver a user-friendly mass-market internet device. We will all win as a result of this innovation.

The iPhone is too expensive. Both MNO's and Apple have to date failed to set a price that reflects the true costs and therefore they are holding back customer satisfaction. For this we dislike them.

Some features are found in other smartphones but not in the iPhone. The general public don't care. Thus these omissions are irrelevant to the iPhone's success. They will no doubt be rectified in future software releases.

Many love the touchscreen. Some hate it. They are in the minority. Apple could do a QWERTY device that solves this problem, but if enterprise take-up of the i3G proves it not to be the barrier many thought they probably won't bother. It is far easier for Apple to do a QWERTY keypad than it is for existing QWERTY manufacturers to do a multi-touch screen, browser and overall UI.

Lazy journalists have ridden an ill-informed wave of self-inflating hype. Apple has carefully and cunningly managed this to maximise free promotion of its product. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, in free airtime and column inches. As a result, many are tired of watching/reading ill-informed hype and speculation. But this doesn't detract from the device's inherently better overall experience compared to other devices.

Apple's deep integration with iTunes and now MobileMe will continue to drive sales of Macs. An iPhone is the logical choice if you already have a Mac. The benefits are many, and probably outweigh the costs, particularly once the software is one-click unlockable for use on any network, any tariff.

Discuss. Suggest. Tweak. Edit.

Let's get hard facts / incontrovertible truths nailed, then we can discuss things clearly without going over old ground and restating flawed or proven arguments.

/m

You're not on your own. Really.

J.

You made a number of good points and deserve a response, but only got the Disqus thingy set up just now (Ewan, can you delete my original shorter response I did last night (when I was nearly asleep) out of the queue, it's redundant).

Mike – you may be surprised to know that I actually agree with you on a lot of that. My issue with the iPhone is the way it's being trumpeted as the be-all and end-all, because it's not. It never has been. You know it, I know it, and Jobs knows it too.

What Apple have done with the iPhone is the same thing they did with the iPod – it wasn't the first DMP, nor was/is it the best sounding. The reason for its massive success was rather that Apple made the first DMP that “Average Joe/Jill” felt absolutely comfortable with. Everything up to then had always required at least a small bit of geekery and awkwardness (mainly because everything up to then had “Sony” embossed on it, and they make the worst interfaces known to man. Still do, come to think about it).

I'm fully on board with what you're saying the Apple approach was. I get it, OK? Normob users care about three things – calls, texts and a bit of photography. The rest, they don't give a hoot about. Apple knew that, and made sure these elements were included. Then they added another couple of elements – organizer functions, email – that they knew they had to include to gain some level of comparability with smartphones already out there. The next group of functions were the easiest for them – media management – because they (Apple) already had that expertise in spades via the iPod, and given the new device was basically going to be an iPod with all the new stuff bolted onto the chassis, that didn't require more than 5 seconds thought. Finally, their ace card, the mobile internet. Normob users don't care about it right now, because it's a horrible experience, I agree. Apple have (and this is their biggest success) made it… OK, I won't say enjoyable, because mobile browsing is still a long way from being that… but they've made it at least practical and palatable.

Mix it all up in a big bowl, add some sexy touchscreen sugar, and you've just baked an iPhone. But wait? What about the other 600 functions you can do on a Nokia N95 or whatever? Steve? Steve says “Oh, them? No-one cares. Fuggedaboudit”. And, of course, he's right. There's more too – as you've rightly pointed out, they equally don't care about the “nuts and bolts” of it all. So he's told them “you don't need to worry about all that anymore – I'll make those decisions for you, one less thing for you to worry about, so you can get back to your carrot cake!” (Sorry, couldn't resist, I lived in Northern CA for six years, and the stereotypes actually do fit the reality).

So I understand the mix, right? I'm no Apple hater, in fact on a commercial level, I admire what they've achieved very much. They've taken smoke and mirrors to a whole new level, not in the least by still having a lot of people convinced that they're the noble, struggling Robin Hood types fighting the Evil Empire of Redmond when in fact, Jobs is such a control freak that he makes Steve Balmer look like a champion of open-source.

I don't retract my criticisms of the iPhone though. MMS? OK, I'll give you that one, as it's not really widely used. The lack of copy and paste? No, I'm sure most normob users don't copy and paste – because their devices can't, end of story. But every WinMo, Palm or Blackberry user can. Would it have been too much to ask, Steve? Seriously? The crappy camera though is a real miss. This is, remember, one of the three core Normob demands. Actually, I forgot, it doesn't have a flash either. Come on Steve, what would putting a flash on it have cost you? $1 extra per unit? Hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Apple's market research said “the normob users only need 2Mpx because they never look at their pictures anywhere except on the device itself. Could be that. Maybe it also told them “and they don't take pictures at night either”, but I doubt it. Actually, there is a rumour that Apple originally really messed up here – that they literally forgot about the camera until something like two months before Jobs's keynote where he'd pull it out (insert Fnarr, Fnarr joke here) and the assembled acolytes would all go “oooo!!!!”, because they assumed it would be easy to do, something they could add at the last minute. It wasn't, and the result was a bargain-basement rush job.

I'm equally not going to retract my criticisms of Apple's distribution/pricing practises. They're a joke, and have been long before the iPhone. One of my pet peeves to this day regarding iTunes store is the pricing they apply to music downloads. 99c per track represents zero discount on buying the CD, and furthermore, it's an inferior product (128kbps AAC – try listening to that on anything other than the earbuds and if you can't spot the difference between that and the original, you're factually tone deaf). For 99c Steve, I want that track in Lossless format at least. But, I'm guessing that… yep, Apple's market research told them that hardly anyone ever does listen to these tracks via anything other than the earbuds.

All of which points to what Steve Jobs really is and what Apple has become – a popularist, and a very, very good one. He gives the people what they want. He doesn't give them the best, just what they want – and in some cases, he actually manages to convince them they want something they didn't actually KNOW they wanted before.

And if the iPhone had been described that way from the beginning, I wouldn't have had a problem with it. What is it? It's a smartphone for Normob users. It doesn't bother with every last function, just the important ones, and it's done them (with the camera exception) as well as anyone else has so far.

But it's NOT the “GodPhone”, so let's not describe it like it is. Instead of giving an honest forthright appraisal though (on both 2G and 3G releases), what we got was every tech writer in the world suddenly transformed into a dribbling fanboy who completely ignored all the iPhones faults and talked about it as if it was 110% perfect. It wasn't. Not then, not now. “Oh, it's got a touchscreen, that makes everything else look SO obsolete!” – no it doesn't, you cretin! Touchscreens have +s and -s, how about you discuss them instead of conducting your own personal experiment on how easy it is to… ahem… wipe down the touchscreen?

For me (and I may represent only a very small proportion of the market)… it just doesn't work. It has too many shortcomings. For the interests of disclosure, what's sitting next to me as I type this on my PC? Two devices – a Blackberry Curve and an iPod Touch. Best of both worlds as far as I'm concerned. The Touch does everything that's good about the iPhone, but lacks the phone/messaging/3G elements (still get the WiFi though). The Blackberry is my phone, my organizer, and my messaging device (for those functions, RIM still rule the waves). The Blackberry lacks badly in the media management and mobile internet departments, so I leave those to the Touch. Does that 1-2 punch have shortcomings? A few, but they're minor, and some of which will go away once the 8300 gets replaced with a BB Bold in the next month or two (hopefully), but not enough things will be eliminated to make it perfect. For that, I'm waiting for iPhone 3 (whenever that may be… in time for next Christmas), the BB Thunder (Q1 09?), and maybe (if they can make it semi-usable) the Sony X1. I doubt we're even within a year of seeing the ideal “all-in-one” device though, and it's certainly not the iPhone of today.

It's the interface. No tiny stick-pens to pull out (if you haven't lost it). No temperamental software Just turn it on and use your finger, oh and it works all the time not sometimes. It's easy and fun to use (swipe this, pinch that); I actually like interacting with a machine, and now I have my music, my videos, my phone, my pictures and the Internet in my pocket. And I'm very happy about that.

What is interesting is Colin's point about features. It isn't all about features you know. It iscabout usability.

I have a bberry and an iPhone. The bberry is quicker for emails. But the iPhone is a pleasure to use.