I’m more convinced than ever that, after an initial frenzy of publicity and sales to early adopters, iPhone sales will be unspectacular. If Apple doesn’t respond quickly by lowering the price and making nice to AT&T, which surely will be ticked off, iPhone may well become Apple’s next Newton.
It seems like forever ago now, but all the fun we had on iPhone 3G launch day comes back to me when I watch that video.
The “don’t-you-feel-bad” guys are T-Mobile reps, who had the bad luck of being stationed next to an Apple store at the Briarwood Mall. They had one customer the whole time I was there. T-Mobile shoppers were either too intimidated or too horrified at the gross consumerism to step foot at their home base.
The folks over at UnwiredView.com have posted mock-ups of a clamshell iPhone design that’s based on Apple’s own “dual-sided trackpad” patent drawings.
Says Unwired:
The main idea with this device is to separate capacitive touch sensor array and the phone display into two separate units. Then put the touch sensor array on a translucent (transparent) panel, make this panel touch sensitive on both sides – top and bottom and connect them with a hinge.
It’s a pretty cool idea – a smaller, multi-use hinged piece that swings down and serves as the main control.
What interested me was the part about drawing phone number digits with your finger and having the iPhone recognize them. Sound familiar? Instead of “handwriting recognition,” it would be “fingertip recognition.” And this wouldn’t be simple iPod or picture editing controls either. We’re talking about drawing a two with your index finger and a “2” coming up on-screen. Sounds an awful lot like our favorite green machine.
I like the clamshell idea because that’s how I like my cell phone. The Samsung model I currently carry is a flip phone. It folds up nicely into my pocket. Take that idea to the iPhone, and you’ve got what you see in the pictures at the top – sort of an idea for the iPhone Nano.
Even Unwired admits this is all speculation, and while their renderings are crafty, they probably have no relation to anything Apple would release. Few people get these kind of things right. Apple ends up blowing all the posturing away with a design so slick it beats whatever the Photoshop twerps come up with.
Still, drawing digits on an iPhone? The Newton idea keeps popping up.
It didn’t come yesterday. What did come, however, were some pretty cool features: the where-the-heck-am-I feature, the new homescreen capabilities, the multiple-person text messaging. It all sounds great.
It just doesn’t sound great enough. iTWire.com feels me – saying that Apple isn’t listening to its fans like it should be. And if it wants to hit that magic 10 million number…:
According to Apple, the company has sold 4 million iPhones in its first 200 days. For any other company, this would be a phenomenal figure. However, at Macworld 2007 Jobs envisioned sales of 10 million units in the first year, so Apple has some work to do over the next 165 days. It is beginning to look as though Apple has to release a 3G iPhone very soon in order to move 10 million units [by the end of 2008].
Right. Even if Cupertino wants to sell just one, to me, it better make the speed bump.
I have a cellphone, and a good cellphone carrier, that I like. I have my Newton. I have plenty of Macs. In reality, I don’t need an iPhone. But boy… I’ve already been in situations where, standing in the grocery line or waiting for someone, I can imagine whipping out the Jesus Phone and wasting a bit of time.
At work, we had an annual goal, and I reached it, and got a hefty bonus. I was going to use that money toward the purchase of an iPhone, pending the 3G announcement. But no 3G came.
Salon.com’s Farhad at the Machinist says that past and current iPhones are all created equal because they keep getting updates via free iTunes software. The phone is evolving, and it doesn’t cost any extra. But the actual hardware I’m waiting for can’t be downloaded via Software Update. I need a whole new phone.
So the wait continues. I’m thinking of putting a time limit on the 3G iPhone announcement – say, this spring. Maybe April, or before I head out on my New England driving tour at the end of May.
So there you go, Apple. You’ve got $400 sitting in the credit union with your name on it. All you have to do is deliver.