The iPhone review deluge has already begun. They are coming fast and furious at this point. The best one I have seen so far is a video demo from David Pogue at the New York Times. View it below:
Other Reviews:
New York Post - Found this one weird as he compared the iPhone to a laptop.
Wall Street Journal - Pretty complete review with pros and cons.
iTunes will be handling all of the activations for iTunes. This is seemingly good and bad. Good in that I will be able to get my iPhone and go home and activate. Bad because E-Bay Resellers will have nothing to keep them from hording the items.
Apple has a Video demonstrating the activation process here.
Apple has released the rate plans for the iPhone on their site here. Taking a look at it, it looks about what people expected. As an existing customer I am most concerned with those rates:
$20.00 gets you all service and 200 sms messages a month
$30.00 gets you all service and 1500 sms messages a month
$40.00 gets you all service and unlimited sms messages a month
The individual plans start at $59.99 a month and include phone service, and also start at $80 a month for family plan service. A family plan with 1400 shared minutes, and 200 sms messages and full iPhone access would be $100.00 a month. I consider that a pretty good deal.
Electronista is reporting that people may already be starting to line up to get their iPhones. From the picutres they show, it looks more like preparedness, rather than actual lines. Personally, I think pretty much anyone who wants to buy an iPhone will be able to buy one by the end of this upcoming weekend, so I could not really encourage anyone camping out for a day, let alone 4 days, to be the first in line. Of course some people want to do it for the sake of doing it.
Not much time left at all. Just a little over 100 hours from now and the iPhone will officially be on sale. One piece of information I would love to learn today is what the pricing plans are going to be. That would be a good gift for everyone.
In the meantime I will leave you with this most excellent quote that sums up why the iPhone will succeed:
““Other phones - even BlackBerrys - can do a million things but you can’t figure out how to do anything on them.”
That is exactly the reality. So when someone tells you their Blackberry or Treo can do that, ask them, “Yeah but can you do that on your Blackberry or Treo?”
A very good article about the hype on My Way News here. Thanks to TBM for bringing it to my attention.
Seth Godin put out a challenge on his blog to predict how many units Apple might sell of the iPhone in 2007, and 2008. I will take a stab at it. For now I will assume there will only be the first generation iPhone in 2007, and who knows in 2008. Some estimates have claimed up to 10 million being sold, but that sounds extreme. I will go significantly more conservative.
I will put 2007 sales at 1.1 million units, and 2008 sales at 2.9 million units.
Inevitably when I see people bashing the iPhone without having used it, they all seem to be cut from the same cloth. That cloth is one of an entrenched Smartphone/Blackberry user who is set in their ways. They are not open to a new take on a failed result. Why do I say this? Easy. I have been waiting for a worthwhile mobile handheld device since 1993/1994. That was the year when I first started using the internet and started up an ISP. It was also around the time I got my first generation Palm Pilot. In fact I still have an original Palm Pilot shrink wrapped from the factory sitting a few feet away from me. From there I later upgraded to the Palm VII, which if anyone knows was wireless, and worked on a limited cell network. All through then and to this day, I have been disappointed over and over again by the offerings of mobile devices. Most of the time they did not do what I wanted and in order to get anything useful out of them, I would have to jump through all kinds of hoops and machinations. I decided I was not going to do it. Instead I was simply going to wait for a better device to come along, that actually worked in a manner conducive to how I wanted to use it, and not force me to use it in some unorthodoxed and uncaring manner.
So for years I just avoided all the mobile and smartphone devices. Sure I would test them from time-to-time, but it was always the same old isuses with the same problems. Using the mobile devices available simply offered me no benefit. They were not saving me time or energy and were only creating more frustration. I was much better off just waiting to get to my desktop or laptop and doing what I needed to be done. Finally, though, with the iPhone, I think I might have a device that not only makes using all the functions of a cell phone easy, something never done before, but also allows me access to the internet, mail and other activities in a very simple and straight forward manner. So the fact that I can’t type fast with my two thumbs is not a negative to me, because I would never type with two thumbs in the first place. People only do that because of the horribly designed devices before the iPhone that essentially required you to use them in such an awkward manner.
So when it comes to who will like the iPhone, I say those people who like the current generation smartphones, and like the current generation blackberry, not just use them but actually enjoy using them, will not like the iPhone. I think the iPhone is for the rest of us, who were not tricked into awkwardly using those other devices. So let it be known, the iPhone is the phone for the rest of us.
So as the hype continues to grow, I become more and more reluctant to wait in-line for the iPhone. Come on, I am an adult. I should not be waiting in line for a cell phone, camping out over night, and sitting on the hard concrete.
With still no information on the hows and whys of online ordering, I am becoming more concerned that my desire for an iPhone might force me into the fray. As it stands right now my plan is to wait and see what happens with online ordering. (Rumors are that only Apple will allow online ordering initially.) If by the time it becomes 6:00pm on Friday, June 29th, and I have not secured an online order to be with me in a few days, I will likely go to my local AT&T Store and see what the scene looks like. If it is a mob scene, I will likely leave and come back the next day. At which time I would also check the only Apple Store in the area I live, serving over 1 million people. There are a few more stores 30-40 minutes away, but there is no way I am driving over there. So it will be online ordering, nearby AT&T Store, or relatively close Apple Store. That is as much of a committment as I am willing to make to get an iPhone on June 29th.
Ultimately I know that AT&T and Apple want to sell me an iPhone, and I know I want to buy an iPhone. With those two truths clearly evident, it will only be a matter of time before I am able to get an iPhone, and hopefully it will be without having to wait in line.
With less than a week to go, Apple unveiled a new 20 minute Guided Tour of the iPhone. All I can say is WOW. The interface for the phone alone seems worthwhile. It really does seem someone is finally going to get the interface right for a mobile device. Beyond that the integration with the iPod functionality, maps and more makes it look like a very worthwhile device.
You can check out more about it at Apple.
