The unrelenting iPhone hype meets reality Friday
Look, I think the iPhone is a cool tool, but it’s the only thing anybody’s talking about these days in the tech press, and that always makes me nervous. Just like the last iPhone, I have every faith in Apple to make a great product, but I have no faith in AT&T to be a part of something so innovative. As long as the iPhone is married to AT&T, it will be suspect in my mind. Sorry.
The Silicon Valley Insider has a great piece today on the 3G coverage problems that new iPhone owners are going to encounter right off the bat. Can we be honest and say that the thing was really made for non-U.S. markets, where 3G is (and has been) abundant? Take a look at the coverage map in the article and ask yourself if this is something you really want?
Of course the apps are cool and it’s ultra trendy, but in the end, the dead zones are a problem that I think are going to be a pretty big deal.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
talked to my son in japan today via skype, and he is NOT at all interested in replacing his original iphone with the new one.
sounds good to me as the school in nagoya charges some steep tuition.
July 10th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
The 3G phone is a red herring. The real revolution — and I use that term intentionally — is the 2.0 software which works just fine on the original iPhone. Its killer app is the app store and the ease of integration of those apps with the Google Maps.
For us it meant that with about two week’s effort, we created a location-aware mobile site that, for starters, allows us to deliver nearby events, tell you the closest restaurant open at 3 AM, find the nearest garage sales, the nearest drink specials and more. Granted, we’d done the data work for all of that on our main site. But we’re finally able to deliver on the promise I”ve been making ever since local digital started getting a lot of attention: Time-sensitive, location-based content and advertising.
The 2.0 software and the App store weren’t officially open today, but there were still over 250,000 downloads of some 500 pieces of software. By the end of the month, there will be more applications for the iPhone than are available for the BlackBerry.
A lot of those will use location-awareness, and will have a major impact on how people interact with local news and info.
The bigger deal about the hardware tomorrow is the perceived price drop, which will bring more users into the mix. All of this will further accelerate when Android becomes a force.
It took a long time to get from the birth of the interwebs to “Web 2.0,” but “Mobile 2.0″ started this morning and I predict it’ll hit “3.0″ before the desktop web does.
July 13th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I new that this time around was going to be more of the same. Huge line, no service, no inventory, horrible customer service, etc…AT&T couldn’t get it right the first time, what makes you think they would get it right the second time around ? I think if you never had an iPhone maybe go through the trouble, but if you already have one, why go through the headache for another one. Makes no sense. Apple always launches news products with very low inventory to create excitement and demand. I did it once with the mini me, and never again. I can wait, if I really want an Apple Anything.
petes2cents.com