Asking Questions on Apple's iPhone

Apple's iPhone might be too U.S.-centric The iPhone is only 2.5g. That's a fascinating but risky choice. It is hard to understand why the choice was made. Does Apple think WiFi is adequate for high-speed connectivity? If 3g takes off and some killer applications are developed around it, this will be a reasonably big negative for the coolest phone sitting on the shelves, even though it's not 3g and it can't do all the high-data-rate stuff a portable device is meant to do, including simple Web surfing with reasonable speed. (And it seems like Apple has a great Web browser on the handset, making the decision even stranger.)

6. A June introduction might be challenging. It is interesting to note that reviewers, at most, were given less than an hour with the iPhone. I suspect that in certain cases the cell-phone service was not even enabled, because the product is not yet FCC-certified, so reviewers have limited feeling on how it works in practice under real-life conditions.

The question of whether or not the device is ready for prime time has to be asked, and I wonder whether Apple felt so much pressure to be innovative that it innovated a lot of stuff that could end up less than it was cracked up to be.

For now, Apple plans to produce about one million units per month beginning in April 2007. I am told the product is about five weeks away from completing the FCC approvals process and then will enter the Cingular testing queue at that time. Software glitches and usage quirks during the testing process could develop, even though Apple has tested the product internally. This testing phase is rigorous, and almost half of higher-end models require changes that result in product delays.