iPhone-what is the fuss about?

I must say Mr. Jobs is a very good public speaker, if I were there at SF listen to his pitch, I’d buy the cleverly marketed iPhone immediately, but luckily I was not there… Obviously the investors don’t think taht way, they are getting crazy about the new phone and thinking it is the next big thing, at least as big as the original iPod that saved Apple (Computer) Inc.

Maybe I am dumb, but how big deal is this phone? Is it really that big that can push the stock value 8%? Let’s look at the reality, the mobile phone market is a very mature market, most consumers still use phones for talking only or sending SMS, except business men who really have their life count on push-IMAP email (normally managed by Exchange server).  how many consumer users will like to pay $599 for a really-looking-cool phone?  I’d highly doubt this phone can have over 2M units sold in the first year, assuming each unit 200 profilt, that is about $400M profits, this alone is not sufficient to support the current stock price level. 

let’s checking the features of this phone:

• google map… I don’t think it is that useful if the phone doesn’t have built in gps chipset.
• mac os X software… yeah it is nice, but I doubt I’d really spend time to read html on the device because afterall, it is still too small, plus, I don’t think you can install any software on this phone (unlike smartphone)
• no wifi? how can a mobile computer without wifi? I am sure you will have to pay big bill if you rely on cingular to read html  
• as usual, you cannot change battery, you cannot add memory, it is closed, I cannot agree on this given now the entire world is moving toward open…

Regardless of the shortcomings, I believe Apple has made a leap toward creating innovation, I’d like to see iPhone 2 before I jump on it…

(be careful with Steve’s presentation, sometimes his chart is misleading, e.g. one page showing 200+ patents for iPhone, here the fine print is 200+ patents filed, a patent filed and issued are very different)

Add comment January 9th, 2007