iPhone Responses

Being a complete tech nerd/geek, I spent about 12 hours yesterday reading the live-action blogs during MacWorld. Then I wrote more about the events and introductions. Then I watched Steve Jobs’ keynote address as soon as it was up on Apple’s site (mind you, that’s two, two-hour investments.) (Obsessed?) Then, as I usually do, (via my DVR, so, around midnight,) I watched both CBS’s Evening News with Katie Couric, and NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. I like to see how each anchor handles the day’s news, and what they deem important. NBC chose the iPhone story as second to last, making it seem more important than CBS’s placement of the story: right in the middle. (Although, Katie did seem more positive than Brian on the iPhone.)

Overall, response seems pretty good. Apple’s stock jumped 7%. There are skeptics, sure, decrying the Cingular partnership, concerned the iPhone’s screen will scratch – a big deal as it covers the face of the entire device, and reminiscent of Apple’s Nano initial release.

The bigger questions will include:

• What happens to Palm? Their market share has been shrinking.

• What happens to Blackberry? Most of Blackberry’s business is corporate customers. While I can’t imagine corporate boards – or IT depasrtments – making an immediate switch, there will be a portion of the corporate market – small caps, most likely – that will consider the iPhone. But the "push email" is via Yahoo!, and, while reportedly free (at least for a year,) a Yahoo! email address will not work for corporations. (The option is to have your corporate/exchange email forwarded to your IPhone/Yahoo! address.) Both Palm and RIM shares fell about 5%.

MacWorld’s Jason Snell asks, "Will Mac developers be able to develop programs that will run on the iPhone? What about the iPhone’s “widgets” — are those essentially Dashboard widgets, or something else? Why does the iPhone’s SMS messaging program look like iChat, but not let you use the phone’s networking features to connect to the real AIM network?"

The New York Times quotes Rob Glaser, chief executive of Real Networks saying, “At $499 and $599, it’s a pretty expensive deal…" “… Steve is more focused on not cannibalizing iPod sales than on driving volume of phones. Those are not high-volume prices.”

ZDNet seems to be the biggest nay-sayer,   almost as a corporate directive, since all their analysis is on the negative side, focusing on the iPhone’s lack of 3G roaming (it is coming, but questionable as to how international it will make the iPhone.) And noting the glass screen’s unknown durability. They also focus on "non-corporate-grade e-mail functionality,"and belie the close partnership with Cingular. Personally, Apple has been smart in controlling who has access to their combined hardware-software model. Steve has always been about partnership. The comment from Google’s Eric Schmidt ("AppleGoo") sums it up best. And Apple has always introduced new products at a somewhat pricey tier at first, and then back-fill with additional capabilities as their technology allows. The iPod’s history is the best example.
iLounge’s Senior Editor, LC Angell posted a great composite of reactions from Press, analysts, competitors and bloggers.

I have to agree with macdailynews: The name "iPhone" is wrong, and expensive, considering Cisco owns the name and probably made a fortune from Apple, whatever the agreement ends up looking like. But "iPhone" does not describe it. (You’ll remember, yesterday I called the iPhone a "new species.") More appropriate? Newton 2.0.