Asking Questions on Apple's iPhone

This column was originally published on Street Insight on Jan. 16 at 10:06 a.m. EST. It's being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com readers. For more information about subscribing to Street Insight, please click here.

Neither a Luddite nor a technophile am I. Rather I pride myself on common sense, logic of argument and a historical perspective.

That said, what follows are not more "oohs and aahs" such as those that emanated from the reverential Mac heads when Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple iPhone during his MacWorld keynote speech last Tuesday.

What follows is a critical and variant review of both the stock market's response to the iPhone's introduction and a series of questions regarding the virtues of the product that could ultimately lead to a more muted reception by the consumer market.

Getting Past the Buzz

My assessment is positive, but with some real reservations about the lack of certain features. It is less optimistic -- especially when viewed in the context of the amount of additional market capitalization that has already been attributed to the iPhone -- than the near-unanimous optimism expressed by many industry analysts, commentators in the media or, with almost certainty, current holders of shares in Apple common (none of whom have ever used the iPhone in practice). There is no doubt that the phone has numerous innovative features, and time will tell how the product and extensions of the product will fare in the marketplace.

My observations are based not only on my own analysis but, more importantly, on actual product reviews in PC Magazine, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Information Week and The Gartner Group, among others.