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THE
iPhone.
It’s the
most highly anticipated piece of digital hardware since
IBM unveiled the PCjr in 1983 to win over the masses to
home computing.
The
iPhone’s battleground is outside the home, where for
nearly a decade, digital alchemists have searched for
the ultimate handheld gizmo: a true all-in-one device
that will not only make phone calls, play music, e-mail,
manage an appointment calendar and take pictures but
also surf the Web.
That
device has been created several times over. But never
entirely well.
Apple
Inc.’s iPhone, set to go on sale on June 29, is the
latest aspirant in the portable arms race. It wants to
do all of the above, plus show video, update stocks,
give weather reports, display maps and flip through
photos at the touch of a finger.
For
$500, or $600 for a souped-up model. Add on the monthly
phone and data plan charges needed to fully operate the
iPhone, and the first year’s nut could sail past $1,500.
Is Steve
Jobs, Apple’s chief executive-guru-visionary-tyrant,
crazy to think anyone would pay that much for a phone?
The
collective wisdom of Wall Street is betting that Jobs
isn’t loony. Since January 9, when the iPhone was
announced, company shares have risen more than 40
percent.
It’s not
because the iPhone is offering any revolutionary new
functions for cell phones. The promise of iPhone is that
it will be the first to get the whole package right. Or
even near-right.
Other
phones can e-mail, but the iPhone ditches the standard
pixie-sized keyboard for one that is larger and on a
touch screen.
Other
phones show the Web as text. The iPhone is designed to
present it in all its graphics-rich glory. (This is not
just a nicety; a full-fledged Web is far easier to
navigate.)
Other
phones with loads of features are bulky enough to pass
for rapper bling. The iPhone is sleek.
And most
important, although there are phones that sport music
and video players, the player aboard the iPhone is an
iPod, the wildly successful device that was a watershed
for personal technology. And for Apple.
In fact,
without the advent of the iPod, it’s doubtful there
would be much interest in an Apple phone.
Pre-iPod,
new releases from Apple generally got a big “so what?”
from most computer aficionados and the business world.
Mac computers were easy to use and even elegant, but
they were seen largely as the province of elitist, artsy
types. PC fans regularly predicted, with thinly
disguised glee, that with less than 5 percent of the
computer market, Apple would eventually disappear.
Then in
2001 came the iPod—with its butter-smooth functionality
and seamless computer integration—and suddenly Apple was
no longer the object of derision. Even those who had
snickered at the company didn’t want to get stuck using
one of the klutzy players other companies were turning
out.
Since
its debut, more than 100 million iPods have been sold.
That’s nearly 1 for every 3 people in the nation.
The
prospect of a phone-iPod-Internet device seems like a
personal electronics dream come true despite the price.
But the
proof will be in how well the iPhone carries out its
tasks. The keyboard is, well, key. If it can’t be used
deftly, the iPhone could get a bad rap from the starting
gate.
The Web
might be beautiful to see on the phone’s screen, but
frustration could abound if it comes in too slowly. One
thing the iPhone has going in its favor is that it can
access not only the regular cell data network but also
WiFi signals. When in a WiFi hot spot, iPhone’s Web
reception should be especially solid.
On the
flip side: Although the iPhone can access the high-speed
Edge cell network, it can’t hook into the even faster 3G
cell network that some phones already on the market can
use.
E-mail
is also crucial to how the iPhone will be received. If
it’s not as good as the e-mailing phone standard, the
BlackBerry, bloggers will be merciless.
And two
ever-present questions for portables are yet to be
answered in real-world use: How long will a battery
charge truly last? How long before the batteries
entirely die?
Apple
has stumbled before in not fulfilling the promise of an
anticipated portable. That was the Newton Communicator,
the 1993 hand-held device best known for its handwriting
recognition—best known, because it didn’t much work. It
made so many mistakes in trying to read handwriting and
transform it into digitized text that the device was the
butt of jokes all over the country.
Subsequent models got better, but the
Newton
never recovered from its disastrous debut and died five
years later.
At the
time the Newton was introduced, Jobs wasn’t at Apple,
the company he cofounded. He was creating his own
company that turned out to be a disappointment: Next
Inc. It made highly regarded computers, but the venture
almost went broke.
The
damage was temporary, at least for Jobs. Apple bought
Next when it brought him back into the fold in 1996.
Jobs
would love for you to buy an iPhone—arguably his most
audacious product—a week from Friday. But there are
reasons for even true Apple believers to wait a bit.
There
are already indications that iPhone prices could come
down. The research company iSuppli (no relation to
Apple, despite the “i”) has estimated that the cost of
making an iPhone is less than half of its retail price.
Apple in
the past has updated products quickly after their debut.
The original iMac, introduced in August 1998, was
replaced only two months later with a model that had
minor but nifty enhancements. And three months after
that there was a more substantial update.
The
embedded music player has low storage, as iPods go—4
gigabytes in the $500 model and 8 gigabytes in the $600.
That’s a lot of music (iPods hold about 1,000 minutes of
audio per gigabyte), but paltry compared with the
standard iPod models that hold 30 and 80 gigabytes.
Those
who want to put their whole, hefty music collections—as
well as memory-hogging video—on an iPhone might want to
wait in hopes of a model with larger storage.
The
iPhone at first will be offered exclusively by AT&T’s
wireless service (formerly Cingular), but Apple hasn’t
said the exclusivity is permanent or even long lasting.
So if you like your non-AT&T provider, it might pay to
be patient.
Patient?
Gadget freaks?
No way.
The
“early adopters”—a polite industry term for geeks who
have to have the latest thing right away—probably will
be first in line.
If
nothing else, being the first on the block with an
iPhone will be a guaranteed conversation starter.
But
there is yet another sobering fact to keep in mind. That
PCjr back in 1983? The one people lined up for on its
first day? The one that had a magazine devoted to it
even before it went on sale?
It was a
legendary flop. Only about a year after PCjr came out,
IBM quietly discontinued it. The reasons were several,
including the fact that it didn’t work very well and its
features were disappointing.
The
iPhone, about to make its big debut, does not want to
hear that bit of history calling. |
