360 Degrees on iPhone

Heavenly Creatures?

Here's the thing: Most of these whales are corporate accounts. The majority of leaks over the past 48 hours describe the iPhone text-input system as being just the mess that touch-display text input has always been. For security reasons, corporate IT people will battle against this device to the bitter end (or until a major software overhaul).

The apparently high reliance on Wi-Fi functionality makes the iPhone a unique concept: a portable phone that is not precisely a mobile phone. The lack of high-speed mobile browsing and MMS means that this device is meant for voice calls over GSM infrastructure and data usage over Wi-Fi.

It will be a difficult combination to explain to consumers. I find it interesting that Apple has not even tried to do so; its ad campaign deliberately blurs the details about browsing speeds over different modes. Even more interesting is the way the U.S. media and Wall Street analysts have agreed to play Apple's game; most comments about the iPhone carefully airbrush the browsing speed issue out of the big picture.

The fact is that the Edge technology will deliver literally 10 times slower data access than current top 3G phones; speed may regularly drop to below 100 kbps. The performance gap of this magnitude is headline material for most products. Yet Apple and its courtiers have mostly managed to sidestep the issue entirely. Most consumer backlashes breed in swamp ponds of unrealistic expectations. Blurring the difference between Edge and Wi-Fi access only works if consumers find getting Wi-Fi access easy. I don't think that is the case.

Apple can't tap into the current pool of American high-end phone users (who are mostly email-driven and corporate). It has to create an entirely new class of consumers. This novel iCreature likes to use a Wi-Fi phone, has a separate corporate phone but is still willing to pay high prices for a personal device, does not mind missing MMS and mobile IM functionality and does not need high data-transfer speeds when outside Wi-Fi hotspots.

Such a beast seems exotic and unlikely. But Apple did manage to breed a new category of consumers in the lush confines of the iPod/iTunes garden. We can't dismiss the idea that this feat can be repeated. However, creating a garden in the middle of the mobile-phone jungle in 2007 is very different from building one in the relatively empty steppes of the music-player market in 2001.

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iPhone Can't Lose
By Cody Willard
6/26/2007 5:08 p.m. EDT

I'm all about "flipping it" and supposedly trying to do exactly opposite of what the mainstream is doing. But I'm being bombarded by requests to join the hyping of the iPhone launch on Friday, with everyone from the old-media world and the new wanting commentary about what it all means and how it will all work.

Well, I feel like Bugs Bunny as I've decided that since I can't beat 'em, I've got to join 'em, especially given that I've personally gone through six smart phones and have tested out and/or trialed just about every high-end handset and major carrier service in the U.S. over the last few years.