The iPhone is poised to define the 21st century
By Triston McIntyre
With only short while remaining before the iPhone is available in AT&T and Apple retail locations nationwide, the iPhone is demanding an almost frighteningly high level of anticipation and respect out of the largest and most attentive potential buyer market in technology history. Though game console releases have collected the most extreme examples of fanboyism and dedication, the iPhone is only a few weeks away from becoming the greatest gadget of all time.
After all, what other product has truly commanded the attention of such a large group of interested onlookers? Admittedly, it would be ignorant to project any sales numbers for the iPhone; however, AT&T has reported that over 1 million people had requested notification when the iPhone was made ready.
That’s an easy million of overtly interested potential buyers; that number doesn’t even account for the numerous others who might switch networks once they try an iPhone. As much as it might pain users of other services, Apple made the right gamble by tying the 5 year exclusivity knot with AT&T; AT&T has really improved both the span of the company as well as the quality of its wireless networks.
The pact between Apple and AT&T can only benefit both companies; as the iPhone is the most anticipated phone in history, potentially stealing countless users of other services, it would not be much to say that AT&T could very well sit atop the cell phone market for a very, very long time.
This only accounts for the effect the iPhone will have on the cell phone market as an asset to AT&T; the second part of the two-part blow the iPhone will deal the market comes in the actual iPhone’s revolutionary technology.
The iPhone itself is truly a spectacular sight to behold; the level of seamlessness and fluid integration that is found within every iPhone will set the bar for future development staggeringly high. Of course, competitors and copy-cats will attempt to replicate the genius Apple has birthed, which will create a tidal wave of truly next generation development in the handheld industry.
What is also truly spectacular about the potential the iPhone has is how it isn’t a cell phone…it isn’t a smart phone…it isn’t an iPod. It is the iPhone. It is all of those things, and as such is attracting users of all three markets. As the best cell phone, smart phone, and iPod ever created, the iPhone will break the barrier norms of seperate markets to create a new market: iPhone followers.
This is evident weeks before the release; guessing gamse of exact numbers are pointless because the hype is real, and the following is even more real. Naysayers only have weeks before denying the crushing success of the iPhone is legitimate.
I can only guess it will be a few years before society looks back on June 29 as the date that really ushered in a new era of techology…not just as a gadget but as a next-generation lifestyle.
Related:
Entry was posted
on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
under
Read more entries by Triston McIntyre.
Stumble It!
June 8th, 2007
It’s sad to see such rabid fanboyism masquerading as serious journalism. The truth is that the iPhone is not the first device to combine the capability of a PDA, cell phone and media player. HP, Palm, O2 et al have been producing such devices for years, and in recent times they have been refined to work pretty well. So stop calling this yet-to-be-released device a technological breakthrough!
In reality, the iPhone gets a monstrous leg-up by virtue of the run-away success of the iPod; nothing more, nothing less. The simple truth is that none of the current hype would exist if the iPod had not become the phenomenon that it is.
And as for calling it the greatest gadget of all time, I’m sure there are just a few rational people with a balanced sense of history that might beg to differ.
June 8th, 2007
Wow, the greatest gadget of all time. That, I think, is a serious lack of perspective. The iPhone is nifty, but the hype surrounding it is becoming truly suffocating. Perhaps you might provid a beter definition of gadget, or a more limited time frame. As is, you are casting a very large net.
Please don’t get me wrong, the iPhone is certainly nice. It will likely be a modest success and it will garner Apple a nice revenue, but it is highly unlikely to define mobile computing for the next century. It’s current incarnation is far to limited for that.
So, with that in mind… Perhaps it might be good to compile a list of true contenders for the greatest, most important gadget of all time (in no particular order):
1.) The wheel
2.) The printing press
3.) The personal computer (of which the iPhone is merely a subtype)
4.) Discovery of digital encodng and sampling algorithms for music, picutres and movies.
In comparison to these (and dozens of others which I am probably spacing on at the moment), the iPhone is a poor “me too” product at best.
June 8th, 2007
What is truly sad is all the people out there who look at the 3 primary functions of the iphone and say there are other devices out there that do the same thing. That’s like saying a Yugo does the same thing as a BMW….What’s attractive about the iphone is not the functions themselves, but HOW IT PERFORMS those functions. To say there is a PDA out there that even comes close to the web browsing capability or the media player interface of the iphone, is just plain silly..and those are just 2 of the many features that quite simply out-do the other devices you refer to.
I agree no iphone hype without the success of the ipod, but then again the success of the ipod isn’t just some fluke either. Since your sense of history is so keen, I shouldn’t have to tell you that there were plenty of other MP3 players out there before Apple decided to take a stab at it. It became a “breakthrough” because of its practicality, ease of use and downright clever design. So why is it so “irrational” to think that Apple couldn’t do it again, simply by the taking the same device all the other companies are producing, and making it better in every way (which is all they did with the ipod).
June 8th, 2007
The 5-year contract was a huge mistake. That means all other carriers not only have a reason to develop nice alternatives, but they’ll have the time to do it.
Also the iPhone, while great eye candy, unfortunately is not the best technical design. Poor internet speed. No hardware buttons to send/end your calls. Not enough memory to store more than a couple of videos.
As the polls say, it’ll sell mostly to metrosexuals looking for some glamour.
June 8th, 2007
What is truly sad is all the people out there who look at the 3 primary functions of the iphone and say there are other devices out there that do the same thing. That’s like saying a Yugo does the same thing as a BMW….What’s attractive about the iphone is not the functions themselves, but HOW IT PERFORMS those functions. To say there is a PDA out there that even comes close to the web browsing capability or the media player interface of the iphone is just plain silly..and those are just 2 of the many features that quite simply out-do the other devices you refer to.
I agree no iphone hype without the success of the ipod, but then again the success of the ipod isn’t just some fluke either. Since your sense of history is so keen, I shouldn’t have to tell you that there were plenty of other MP3 players out there before Apple decided to take a stab at it. It became a “breakthrough” because of its practicality, ease of use and downright clever design. So why is it so “irrational” to think that Apple couldn’t do it again, simply by the taking the same device all the other companies are producing, and making it better in every way (which is all they did with the ipod).
By the way, “Discovery of digital encoding…” is not a gadget.
June 8th, 2007
Apple is clever. Apple sees all. In addition to the obsolescence of DVDs, other technologies are also rapidly going the way of the buffalo. Of these, home-based TVs and plain old (wired) telephone service (or POTs) have a 90-100% market penetration, and, in the near future, mobiles devices will stop acting as supplementary devices to both of these old school technologies and start replacing them wholesale.
Cell phones already completely replace POTs for the youngest consumers. Young people simply don’t subscribe to wired phones anymore. In a year or so, mobile TVs will join them in replacing the living room set for a generation raised on handheld screen-devices like GameBoys.
The good news for Apple is that every American needs a phone and a TV. So although Apple will only say that they expect to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008, their consumer-base for handheld devices –the ‘third’ screen that cutting–edge marketers now drool over– might well e-x-p-a-n-d from 48 million American iPods currently in circulation to as many as 350 million units, each selling at either $499 for a 4GB model or $599 for the 8GB. The new TV market will also get a big nudge in 2009 when all current, working analog TVs in America –yes, all 300, 000, 000 of them– become garbage as the country shifts over to digital.
{More on this in ‘Hold the iPhone’ at HuffingtonPost.com}
June 8th, 2007
I’m withholding judgment until I can actually test one. It is nice to see the Apple Reality Distortion Field operates just as well in the 21st Century as the 20th. The condescending elitist Yugo-BMW metaphor still holds for at least one person. No one can dispute Apple has a very good record with innovation. What is interesting is the amount of rabid babbling and breathless pronouncements of humanity changing technology from people who have never held or even seen one. It would also bolster your case if you could backup your AT&T pronouncements with some kind of facts.
June 8th, 2007
I’m withholding judgment until I can actually test one. It is nice to see the Apple Reality Distortion Field operates just as well in the 21st Century as the 20th. The condescending elitist Yugo-BMW metaphor still holds for at least one person. No one can dispute Apple has a very good record with innovation. What is interesting is the amount of rabid babbling and breathless pronouncements of humanity changing technology from people who have never held or even seen one.