IN A GAHAN WILSON CARTOON several presidential campaigns ago, an alien steps from a flying saucer and a crowd of humans surge forward.
At the back of the crowd, one human confides to another, “I don’t know who he is, but I like him.”
The joke was on third-party candidates, then enjoying a momentary surge in popularity-largely due to dissatisfaction with major-party candidates in general and ignorance of an unknown-and-therefore-appealing third-party candidate in particular.
Wilson’s vision provides a rough analogy to the context of Apple Inc.’s announcement last week at MacWorld in San Francisco of its new, long-rumored, hotly anticipated iPhone destined for Cingular Wireless L.L.C. this coming June.
In a sense, the iPhone is the alien in Wilson’s cartoon: the device is unfinished, untested by public use and the launch is six months away. People like what they see, or think they see, though a few analysts and journalists got their hot little hands on the device itself.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, executives from Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications L.P., in a meeting with a reporter at the moment of Apple’s announcement, monitored the news via a Sony Ericsson handset with an outward show of calm.
After all, mobile phones equipped with music in general and Sony Ericsson’s Walkman-branded handsets in particular have out-sold Apple’s iPod by volume, and a question lingers
whether mobile music phones will overrun the portable digital media market embodied by iPod.
Conversely, Apple’s bid to blend an audio and video iPod into a communications device with smartphone capabilities-along with, some analysts said, a user interface vastly improved over today’s smartphone offerings-raises a reverse-angle question. Can Apple upend the mobile communications market through brand, technical prowess, design and ease-of-use?
Thus the intense interest in the alien from Silicon Valley. Apple also used the event to drop the word “computer” from its name, perhaps signaling its intent to throw its considerable brand strength at the mobile communications market-the hottest consumer electronics segment on this or any other planet.
Asked about the iPhone’s challenge to Walkman handsets, Najmi Jarwala, president for Sony Ericsson in North America, pointed to current U.S. market requirements for all handset vendors, no matter their planet of origin.
“Apple faces the same challenges as any OEM,” Jarwala said. “That includes form factor, functionality and operator support for an acceptable price point for mass adoption in the marketplace. If they don’t get operator support, it becomes a consumer electronics device that’s not competitive.”
Jarwala suggested, perhaps making a virtue out of the inevitable, that the iPhone would help his own company’s efforts by growing the music phone market.
“This will help drive adoption of mobile music,” Jarwala said.
A number of analysts and journalists sifted the pros and cons of the iPhone and its market impact (apart from the trademark infringement suit immediately launched by Cisco Systems Inc. over the name). The basic categories will be no surprise-form factor, input technology, user interface, network speed, content offerings, browser experience, carrier deal, price point, target market-lending credence to Jarwala’s idea that gravity still applies to Apple and its new offering.
The reviews
From a distance, based on Apple’s Web site and media reports, that checklist runs thus: the device gets good reviews for ergonomics and design, it follows the basic dimension of a smartphone, offering a large touch-screen as its essential input technology, the user interface is said to provide ease-of-use, it will run on Cingular’s GSM/GPRS/EDGE network, music can be accessed from the iTunes store, the browser offers imaginative new features, the carrier deal begins in June for an 18-month exclusive, units will sell for $500 (4 GB hard drive) and $600 (8 GB) and consumers (not enterprise) are targeted.
David Pogue, who covers mobile devices for The New York Times, played with the device while sitting alongside Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and reported placeholder graphics in areas where the device’s software was incomplete. Pogue called the form factor and feel “amazing,” but noted that an evaluation of the iPhone’s actual performance awaits its launch.
Avi Greengart, handset guru at Current Analysis, reported that the iPhone is “desirable, if extremely expensive” as a widescreen video iPod with a 480×320 screen and 4 GB or 8 GB of flash storage. Though the device contains many innovations already present on other devices, Greengart gave Apple points for integration and execution. In that sense, if consumers’ first experience with a smartphone is through the iPhone, Apple may take credit for functionality already on the market, Greengart wrote in a note to clients. The impact may be to Palm Inc. and Sony Ericsson, according to Greengart.
The cons most often mentioned by the pundits last week: the touchscreen offers no tactile feedback, the device doesn’t launch for six months, that window will see innovations from the established market leaders, the price is out-of-step in a heavily subsidized U.S. market, an 18-month exclusive may limit uptake, EDGE speeds don’t impress and Apple typically doesn’t discount (which makes comparisons with the Motorola Inc. Razr’s trajectory moot).
Upshot: give Apple points for buzz, but the game doesn’t really start until June.
