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Time will tell!!

Initially, I thought the iPhone was really cool, but that ended quickly after I added up how much I would have to spend to get into bed with Cingular (now AT&T;). No thanks, Apple.

The iPhone is way too expensive IMO. All I need is a cell phone to make the odd phone call. I don't need an iPod on a cell phone- that's what I bought a fscking iPod for.

Get ready to dig up that iCal in a few months MDN!

I'm glad that "iCal'ed" isn't just a word me and my mac friends use.

James needs to chill out

Jeez, I dont even post that often on here and somebody already thinks I'm a legend
I think it all depends on how quickly they are gonna be able to reduce the price. I would love one but I know I wont be able to afford one when it first comes out.
Mdn Word: Hope, as in hopefully it wont be this expensive for too long.

Sorry David Haskin, you are in a different time zone. We are in a New World Order. Computer savvy people have increased tremendously.

Boy its cold in here...and I have gas.

iPhone
Therefor I am...

...not wasting my time on articles and FUD like this!

The iPhone will be a success because it copied the amazing Windows Vista ad but using the word "Hello" instead.

Apple sure knows how to copy ideas from successful companies dont they?

My take:

The Newton was a product way ahead of its time, where technology was expensive and the demand for a PDA was inexistent.

So, the Newton was aiming for a consumer segment which was inexistent - so to create the product AND the consumer segment were challenges.

The iPhone, on the other hand, has a very well defined consumer segment: smartphone users. And from there it will spread to phone users. So, yes, the iPhone is a smartphone (too), but it's a revolutionary kind of smartphone, with technology not seen before in a single device.

This can be reflected on the demand. Nobody was saying "I can't wait for the Newton to come out to buy one", but I see a lot of "I can't wait for the iPhone to come out".

Plus, as I mentioned before, Apple is aiming for only 1% marketshare. If they achieve that goal (and I believe they will surpass it), then the iPhone will be a success.

Dang! I should start writing tech columns instead of Enderle, Dvorak and all those losers!

James,

Even though I think the new technology introduced with the iPhone is great, I don't plan to buy one either (right away) because I, too, use my cell phone for making calls. Others, however, can't live without their "smart phone." I think the iPhone will exceed Apple's conservative sales expectations, even at $500-600 each. The price will eventually come down with the introduction of newer models with different functional capabilities. The deal-breaker for me is not the $500 startup cost, but the monthly AT&T;bill that will be required to use the phone. What will THAT be? Your guess is as good as mine!

Except that the iPhone is a phone and can use the internet. In other words it can connect with the outside world and find information for you. The Newton couldn't do that. That makes a huge difference. The Newton was just a fancy notepad.

1. The Treo cost over $500 when it came out.
2. The iPod cost $400 when it came out (at 5GB), and a few months later the 20GB iPod 1G was $500.

David Haskin is trolling for hit counts, ignore him

This is not for teenagers or moms.
This phone is for business users. They will drop $700 if it does what they say it does, and line up for it.

Look at it another way. How many teenagers do you see with a Palm Treo?

Exactly

He conveniently overlooks the fact that none of Apple's management (and probably few employees) was at Apple when the Newton was launched.

He also doesn't seem to understand the concepts inflation and the time value of money. $700 in 1993 was a lot more money than $500 today. The real value of that $700 would be $970 today. That is a faily big difference, ignoring completely the higher value of the iPhone based on functionality.

What he didn't say was what he thought the Newton should have been priced at. The iPhones $500 price today is equivelent to $355 in 1993, or HALF the cost of the Newton.

Besides a falling price—which will obviously help ANY product (duh!)—the iPhone is still very much cheaper than the Newton was in it's day. If the interface is intuitive as the iPod's (compared to the competition) it will blow everything else away. All Apple has to do is create a nice price spectrum like it did with the iPod.
The other thing is that the iPhone might become secondary to the OS and the interface introduced in the iPhone. Mac OS X in a 4 gig footprint could easily revolutionize many different product catagories—audio systems (pro and consumer), gaming systems, video systems, autos, security systems, etc.

"It's also becoming clear that Apple may be suffering from excessive hubris. That is evident by its strong demands on its partner in the U.S., Cingular/AT&T;. The demands, including a slice of the cellular revenues and control of the sales channel, were so strong that Verizon Wireless turned the deal down,"

How exactly are the strong demands from Apple going to stop consumers from buying the iPhone? Yes, I know some people do not like Cingular, but some people do not like Verizon, either. Apple seems to have wanted an exclusive contract with a carrier, so no matter what, some consumers were not going to be happy with the carrier.

I would say that Apple's "strong demands" are actually one of the drawing points. It is good to have hardware manufacturers that make demands on the carriers to get better features and more flexibility, eg visual voicemail. I, for one, am glad that a hardware manufacturer is not going to cripple their hardware and features so the telecos can make a few more dollars a year from me.

Sure, the pricepoint is high, but as many have pointed out, it is similar to most top end smartphones (but with more flash memory) and all such devices drop in price over time.

The Newton had revolutionary technology BUT it was notoriously buggy until it was just about phased out. (Remember the Doonesburry cartoons making fun of the Newton?

I doubt Steve Jobs will let that happen with the iPhone.

A phone with an intuitive interface will seem almost magical. (Just like the original Mac compared to the PC.)

Grifterus wrote:
...and the demand for a PDA was inexistent.....
"Dang! I should start writing tech columns instead of Enderle, Dvorak and all those losers!"
If you think "inexistent" is a word, perhaps you would do well in the PC world. - Remember: In real life "Spelling Counts"

...............
On the iphone issue; I'm waiting for the critter. I don't know if I'll be an "early adopter" but I'll certainly be in the pool by the time the second generation is introduced. I think it's a bargain at $500.00. Being able to have a single device synch my iAddress book, my iCalendar, and my iTunes is a pretty cool thing. The fact that it can make telephone calls is just magic.
Frankly, I think the iPhone will make huge money for Apple. I expect the preliminary 1% market share is simply their typical overly conservative approach to profit forcasting. We've seen it elsewhere in Apple.
Buy Apple stock!!! - no kidding. even at $88 it's a bargain.

Unbelievable...the so called experts are usually experts only at saying things will not work..

How many times have they said what Apple is doing will not work? When the iPod first came out, they wrote the same type of bullsh*t. They said the iPod was way too expensive. They never learn! Timing is more important than price. I think someone once said..."There is nothing like an idea whose time has come".

I think the timing is right for the iPod...I think Apple has made a few mistakes with the first device...but they will correct it later.

I would venture that Apple's plan would include having a high price to limit the adoption of the iPhone initially to better adapt the the dynamics of the celluar market...refine the strategy and then release a variety of iPhones at different price points like they did with the iPod.

For sure you will see prices in the 299 range and better contracts afterwards. They first round device is to learn from and refine the strategy.

I don't believe many of these experts have the talent to turn around a company like Apple...that's why they sit around pretending like they can.

Also, the Newton was not one of Job's projects, I hear he killed it when he came back to Apple...Job's is much more experienced than he was 10 years ago!

We should learn from the past....not re-live it.

For a guy who claims to have closely followed Apple's product, Hastin certainly sounds like one of the nay-sayers who panned the original iPod. "Who would pay $400 for an MP3 player?" Indeed. We all saw how that went. Turned out that quite a lot of people would pay a high price for an MP3 player - as long as it was done well.

There is no doubt that the 1st generation iPhone is an expensive bit of kit. But it would be remarkably short sighted and ignorant to claim that this will always be the case. Over time, features will mature, capacity will increase and the price will go down. I'd also bet the exclusive contract with Cingular will not be renewed once the cell phone service providers come crawling to Steve Jobs for a piece of the iPhone pie.

I would also expect that such an astute student of Apple product history as Hastin claims to be would have noticed that the Newton enjoys a fan club that continues to support Newton software long after Apple abandoned the project. Originally released in 1993, the newton lives on:
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,54580,00.html

I don't think Mr. Haskin did much research on the subject of the Newton. More likely he's just trolling for hits. I hear lots of tech journalists bait MacHeads to get more site traffic.

And, no, I didn't click the link!

upcoming product...

compared to failure product...

could upcoming product = failure...?

lets speculate!

add a dash of pessimism... yay!

Please, David Haskin, in the name of Apple bashing...flush and get the hell out of there..
..and for the love of God turn the fan on.

I am going to buy one, and i didnt buy a newton, so in my eyes, its not a repeat of the newton.

Haskins is a bufoon, and I have just two words for him..

iPhone, bitch!

The Newton was never a mistake, maybe Sculley's folley!? Prescients of Sculley were egotistically didained by Jobs. That doesn't diminish the magnitude of the Newton's futuristic PDA qualities. Besides the fact that it wasn't his baby, Jobs made a descision not to continue in a field that for a time became a commodity market. Maybe he's now ready to claim the field as his own.........

People paid $400 for an iPod when it first came out, and it didn't do anything but play music (and iTMS wasn't in existence then, either).

I carry a Palm ($250 w/TomTom GPS), Razr (~$150 18 months ago), and sometimes my iPod Nano ($250 for 8GB). That is $650, for those who are counting. I would LOVE to have one device, like the iPhone.

It would be PERFECT if Steve would add GPS capability.

I suspect GPS will come once 3G is more widespread in the U.S., rather than trying to have a lot of people trying to access the web, e-mail, and GPS navigation over Cingular's 2.5G EDGE. The bandwidth just may not be there yet for GPS.

BTW, you don't have to get an iPhone right when it comes out. Simply wait until your current mobile phone contract expires, then switch.

The main difference here is that even if the iPhone tanks (which I don't think it will), they can still pull the phone part out of it and sell an amazing iPod music/video/photo player. Which they will most likely do shortly after the iPhone premieres.

I will purchase an iPhone when my contract is up with Sprint is up and they fix some of iPhone's limitations(most likely in the 2nd generation). I might have to purchase two...my kids really like it too. We all recently converted from Windows....and bought a MacBook Pro....

I am a graduate computer science student writing my Thesis on OS security...and have seen many recent converts in our department by many Professors and students...with is Unix capabilities and Ease of use...My kids and I keep fighting over who gets to use it.

I am buying another Mac, most likely the Mac Mini in March when leopard is released for my kids and wife to use....Then I can have my MacBook Pro all to myself.

The only NEWTON mistake was not having an modem to connect to the internet or other computers.

Newton... Newton.... Newton...
Can you find one on eBay that has all of the goodies to buy - NOW?

Nope. why???
Demand... Demand... Demand...

Such a schite product is stilll in demand. Hmmmmmmmm...

iPhone... everyone complains about expensive...
Reality... any other "phone plus PDA plus almost music player plus internet connectivity (as in BS)" is going for $900 to $1500. CASH...
With a contract - half that. YEP - Apple is way out of the ballpark on this one. Yep...

Haskin is so good at finding the shite in the pile - maybe he needs to go to Iraq and find the missing WMDs...

My review of this article - he must have had a wild M$ hair up his ar_se to sit down and write this one. Cheech...

IPhone = kicking Palm in the huevos before it even started and it ain't even close to over... Who else will double over?

MDN = hair

Nothing to see here. Move along.

"Rest assured, Haskin's opinion has been duly iCal'ed for future reference."

I love this MDN, great quote. Love the new verb..."to iCal" or "iCal'ed"....maybe the spanish version could be..."iCalar"...i.e. "asegurense que la opinión de Haskin ha sido debidamente iCalado."

Love it.

What does Apple Steve Jobs and friends and Apple 1993 have in common? Nothing!

What does David Haskin of back then and David Haskin of now have in common? Everything, still the same moron.

A sure sign of a useless article is one that tries to make an analogy between the Apple of today and the Apple of yesterday. These two have virtually nothing in common anymore. This is a dead wringer for an out-of-touch writer, or a misleading one. The sins of the old Apple have been completely absolved, and any mistakes Apple is making today are new ones. Apple's current management pretty much holds the old Apple in contempt, and is definitely not going to emulate it.

Apple's competitors keep hoping that Apple will trip over itself as it consistently did in the past. But it is just not happening anymore. And those competitors are fearfully realizing that they will finally have to compete, something for which they are woefully ill-prepared.

Verizon???

The last thing Verizon is, IMO, is an early adopter of anything. Heck, my Razr can't even download ring tones from my new iMac.

Verizon will adopt and embrace the iPhone when it's five to ten years old.

Haskin's bias is so strong that I can see his head up his ass from 10 miles away.

Don't these people ever get tired of hearing themselves talk?

@John... I know, I had some cool ringtones I created and wanted to send to my razr with verizon also before I got my treo. You can email them to your phone though, and then save the file, then select it as a ringtone. I'm currently using "smooth" by Santana as my ringtone. (just the guitar solo)

Sorry to hear your income level doesn't enable you to say that the iPhone is perfectly affordable and 'great value' Bad luck you and others who would if they could but they can't... ...because it will be for millions of people.

And the writer of this article is just so wrong that he must have written just to be controversial.

Well, Apple said if we can get the iPhone 1%. . . . Apple should pay attention to their -dust allergic- Mighty Mouse. Much more than 1% have -not- scrolling troubles with it !

Exactly the same argument was put forward for the iPod. The prices consistently went down as the hard drive capacity went up. What crueled the Newton was the hand-writing software/technology…it was poor. Over time this was corrected but it was all too late. By that stage the Newton had become the butt of late night variety television shows.

The iPhone will drop in price and after a couple of price reductions I might (I repeat, I might) be interested in buying one. However, this product doesn't grab like it will many others because for me if I drop this sucker many applications go down the drain; or shatter on the ground, as the case may be. But that's just my preference. The iPhone as a Newton…NOT!

Two things killed the Newton -

1. The flawed handwriting recognition that was lampooned in the Doonesbury comic strip.

2. John Sculley wasting too much time sucking up to the Clintons when he should have been running the business.

American analysts/journalists commenting on mobile phone market is hilarious, as they seem to forget there is a wider world out there.

THE AMERICAN MOBILE PHONE MARKET IS FAR LESS MATURE THAN JAPAN OR EUROPE!

Just because some survey says Americans won't buy a $500 mobile doesn't mean the rest of the world won't. There are lots of mobile phone handsets for sale in Europe/Japan that cost more than $500.

@Swing Geezer.

If you think " forcasting " is a word, perhaps you would do well in the PC world. - Remember: In real life "Spelling Counts"

Game on.

Not a troll article though, more like a rectal spasm. Ffft...that she blows!

Well everyone I know (including windows user friends) want an iPhone.

As soon as it comes out in the UK im getting one for sure!

So what Apple's record for successful products isnt flawless? I dare anyone to name a company that hasnt had at least one unsucessful product out in the marketplace.

At least Apple isnt Micrsoft - who has based their whole business model on copying other peoples inventions (very badly!) and who has a product success record that I can count on one hand.

The iPhone will sell - that's a given!

here is some enterprises that continues to sell the newton:

http://www.jksalesinc.com/catalog/

and


http://www.gementerprises.com/newton.htm

now my question is: what is wrong with apple if the newton isn´t totally erased?

iphone it´s not going to have the same destiny has newton because its not a pda,now if newton was a cellphone that was a difrent history; in the future we still going to see the same things and some new things,like the apple television,witch is now possible.

If iPhone sales are unspectacular I suspect it will have more to do with its being locked to Cingular than anything to do with price or capability. I simply can't use Cingular, they don't service many of the areas I need to be on a daily basis, so as much as I'd like to buy an iPhone I won't until I can use a different carrier.