Searching for a bit of moderated perspective, I was pleased to see Tomi’s weighed in on the iPhone issue right away, citing texting as the killer app:
Link: Communities Dominate Brands: Open letter to Apple: The killer App is not voice nor music
Many will applaud it, others will doubt it. I want it to succeed. So please, Apple, make sure your SMS text messaging ability is as good as the current crop of top-end phones. Recognize that SMS is used by busy executives who carry a laptop briefcase in one hand and operate their phone in the other hand as they hussle from the elevator to the cab; and by college students who send secret messages to their friends in class, with the phone out of view. Your iPhone will need texting ability that can be used single-handed, and without looking at the phone.Make sure your iPhone is at least on par with top text messaging phones out there today. You have six more months to accomplish that. But please, Apple do it.
You know what’s really quite exciting here? Well, if you screw it up. If you send a device such as the iPhone to market with a UI or system that users hate….
.. change it. Release a patch. Provided we can live without a keypad and, well, I think we quite possibly can, then it’s ridiculously simple for Apple to update the UI on-demand. There are no complex phone hardware restrictions that you’d find commonplace in your average Sony Ericsson. You’re not constrained by Symbian. You don’t need to sod about with a stupidly complex firmware update. Just stick it in the charger and upgrade it like you do your iPod.
On the basis that Apple keep their ear to the ground in terms of reacting to user perspective, one would imagine they should be able to adapt and upgrade as needed.
Still, if they go anywhere near the iPod-Screen-Debacle of late, that’ll be a real turn off.
And if that 5 hour battery performance is ACTUALLY 1.2 hours in real life……………………. not good, not good at all.
Release and patch for phones – very true, this approach can work for every eventuality except the eventuality that the hardware is flawed. If using the touchscreen as a keyboard turns out to be terrible (and lets face it, in the past it always has) then they are sunk on the SMS/email front. The risks are there – no tactile feedback, no guides to allow you ton touchtype, poor reviews from a lot of previewers – but for many users it could be good enough. But the battery life is not sounding good, and could be fatal – Steve did very well to present middling battery life as if it was revolutionary.