Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
The world is beginning to lather over Apple’s planned unveiling of its latest iPhone iteration, expected to happen on Sept. 10. Rumors are swirling around faster than a hippie-pit at a Phish show, with all sorts of “sightings” clogging up the Internet airwaves.
Most “experts” on deciphering all-things iPhone seem to be expecting a modest upgrade for the newest model, modest enough that many are expecting the device to keep its “5” identifier with a mere “letter” upgrade. That would seem to be good for most folks as most consumers don’t care about tech specs. They just want their phone to do amazing things without them having to do much to make those amazing things happen. And if that phone happens to be in an “Apple” wrapper, well that will work.
What consumers do care about is color. And this is where Apple is going to slay the competition. Rumors are suggesting that the latest iPhone will sport some sort of champagne-ish tint that I am predicting will blow the socks off of anything else on the market.
I mean … champagne! Why has no one yet thought of jazzy-ing up their staid smartphone designs with a color that seems to make everyone salivate, or at least giggle? It seems so obvious now.
Apple’s move to rolling out a “white” iPhone back in 2010 was greeted with such hysteria that people mobbed stores like it was the second coming of the Cabbage Patch Kids.
Of course, with the rumor of a champagne-colored iPhone now out there, I would suspect that Samsung will have a similar colored version of its Galaxy S4 a day or two before Apple’s announcement, because that’s just how Samsung rolls. I would also figure that BlackBerry will have a champagne version of the current Z10 to show as well in about five years, because that’s just how BlackBerry rolls.
Even more galling from the success Apple will reap from its champagne-colored iPhone is that Nokia with its luxurious Vertu line spearheaded the push to glamorizing mobile devices, only to find little financial success and eventually shedding the Vertu line.
We can only hope that with Apple “bling-ing” up the color palette for its iPhones, perhaps those people that will inevitably lineup for days to be the first to get their dirty paws on the phones will at least dress up a bit in order to provide a true feeling of glamour and luxury that comes with a champagne-colored piece of consumer electronics.
Hey, a person can dream, right?
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–I have always cast a suspicious eye towards “surveys,” mostly because I can’t quite buy the conclusion that by asking .001% of a population what they think, you will come up with a legitimate answer. I know surveyors can back up these actions with statistical models using “math,” but I am also not a fan of math, so I ain’t buying those either.
Bolstering this feeling was a recent survey conducted by Nanos Research that found Canadians would rather spend more each month on wireless services as long as those services were from a Canadian-based carrier. Sure, I can see were people may have an inclination to spend a few more dollars if those dollars were to be going to a home carrier. And from my limited interactions with our Canadian neighbors, they seem to be as nationalistic as they come.
But, with this survey being conducted by Nanos on behalf of Canadian operators Bell Canada and Telus, and seeming to meet their end-goal of keeping Verizon Communications out of the Canada market, well, my skeptic meter is tickling the “red zone.” I don’t want to call into question Nanos’ methods, as I am sure they are solid, or at least as solid as surveys can be. But, with Bell Canada and Telus commissioning the survey, I would guess we can assume that those results should be taken with a teaspoon of maple syrup.
–Finally, mad props to The Wall Street Journal for putting together a sweet wireless service plan calculator that is super simple to use. I dare you too not waste valuable time going through various scenarios on this calculator. Sure, all of the results seem to show that T-Mobile US is more often than not the least expensive option, but it’s fun to cook up some incarnation where Sprint comes out ahead. Good times.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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