I haven’t laid my own hands on an iPhone yet, and we’re off to Lost Wages for our anniversary, so unless I infest an Apple Store in Clark County, my own gratification will have to wait still longer. I’m assuming, if you were interested, you had your fill of iPhone news over the weekend. If not, Engadget has words, links and tons of killer video.
Here’s a fascinating take from Publishing 2.0:
Apple will significantly improve the already revolutionary iPhone in subsequent generations, and lower the price, as they did with the iPod. With each new release, more and more people will look at Verizon and Sprint, who don’t carry the iPhone, and say, WTF!?
The real battle for control is between Verizon, which has hands down the best network, and Apple, which now has hands down the best handset. The tide will turn when die hard Verizon customers start switching in significant numbers to AT&T to get an iPhone. People like me, who stood firm on the network is more important principle, will crack under the pressure. There will come a tipping point, then, when the cost to Verizon of refusing Apple’s terms will be greater than losing customers to the iPhone.
What Apple really wants is to sell unlocked iPhones that can be used on any network — and I believe they will pull it off. Thus, Apple will do to the wireless carriers and other cell phone makers what they did to the music industry and makers of digital music players — they will completely take over.
More: The contrary argument.
Still more: Half-a-million sold.
Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing
Aaron Fischer says:
The network will always be the most important. If you can’t make a call, your shiny little toy is worthless. That said the iPhone should help breath life into the more expensive pda type phones. but how much of the market is actually willing to pay for a phone. How many just want a free phone?
July 2, 2007 — 6:49 am
Chuchundra says:
More complaints about the iPhone here
July 2, 2007 — 10:30 am
Will Farnsworth says:
Greg – this is more realted to your previous post on ‘iPhone may hearld a whole new way to shop for homes’ and specifically this quote –
What this means in that someday soon, you will be able to drive from house to house in a neighborhood, visiting each home’s Web site and taking video virtual tours, all without getting out of the car.
While ‘drive-thru’ video tours of homes and MLS access may be nice, even more nice would be if the iPhone could support map-based websites that identify homes for sale. In this regard I would specifically point to the Safari browser which inexplicably does not support flash and therefore renders resources like trulia and zillow virtually worthless.
From the consumer’s perspective, isn’t it more imporatant to be able to locate homes for sale rather than watch home tour videos from it’s driveway?
July 2, 2007 — 10:45 am
Chris says:
I’m going to wait a year before buying one and let everything get sorted out.
I’m more interested in call quality then all the gee wiz features.
July 2, 2007 — 10:53 am
Michael Price says:
So far I have few complaints, however, the process of buying the phone was goofy at best. The ATT store had a person who gave a long list of rules before allowing me to proceed to the cash register. I laughed when they told me I could not open the sealed bag until departing the store, to which the “way uptight 20 something gatekeeper” gal scolded me and said she was very serious. My salesperson at the cash registered seemed very pissed off when I said I did not want to purchase any accessories and would decide which plan I wanted when I activated the phone at home. I really didn’t expect such arrogance when buying one of the most expensive item they sell in the store.
I Came home, plugged it in, it launched iTunes, it allowed me to set up an account and gave me a phone number, synced up all my stuff and was ready in 3 minutes. So far everything works as advertised, although I am finding surfing the web and listening to music at the same time has failed a couple of times. Videos look absolutely stunning on the phone. Call quality is better than my Sprint phone. So far, so good, but then again,I haven’t tried to make toast with it yet.
July 2, 2007 — 12:58 pm
Greg Swann says:
Mike, how about the issues Will Farnsworth raises — do Trulia and Zillow work in Safari?
July 2, 2007 — 2:22 pm
Chris says:
But can it open a beer?
July 2, 2007 — 3:55 pm
Will Farnsworth says:
The text portions of the sites do come up, but the mapping/satellite features are completely disabled. And although I have not tested all similar sites (it has become attached to my brother’s hand since Saturday) it is completely reasonable to think that other google-powered and location/map centric websites (Google Base, etc..) will be disabled as well.
Ironic, since the iPhone has a dedicated ‘maps’ icon.
I suppose you could simply copy/paste…nevermind, the iP doesn’t do that either. I suppose you could just write down the addresses from trulia and zillow and input them into the maps application, but isn’t avioding those types of hassles how Apple built their brand?
July 2, 2007 — 5:18 pm