This is from the “iconic” Steve Jobs who has a master stragetist behind marketing Apple’s products. In the recently concluded Mac Expo, this phone was unveiled. It is hoped that it would be shipped by mid of this year in an exclusive tie up with Cingular. Apple plans to support more protocols in future.
Apart from the “oh-so” design, what is so special about the phone and why has it been featured on this blog? I believe that Apple wants to get to the fast expanding world of Wireless. These guys could have manufactured this beaut earlier on. They didn’t. They were waiting for a perfect roll out of their iTunes store with music videos and songs so that it becomes a compelling proposition for Apple to sell a device which could play their wares on their hardware.
It is a win win for the telecom companies and Apple. Telecom companies can drive up the sales for their horrible tech called as EDGE/ 3G and have a reason to lobby for extra spectrum. Apple can crow about it’s iTunes and it’s phone. People would be willing to either show off their new tech toy or get hooked on to watching streaming video (in my opinion it gets boring after a while unless the people in question are stone dead morons watching reruns of “Friends”). It is this critical mass of idiots that Apple wants to target. And it is the same mass that is more comfortable with mobiles than computers.
iPod has become critical to Apple’s soaring stock market and it’s fortunes. Till recently, the only innovation has been in increasing the hard disc size or adding a tiny screen to it. For the same reason, iPhone would be so called “iconic” and “ahead of it’s time”.
Why is it important for India? I believe that value added services mean a lot to the telecom companies for their cash generation. And morons are to be found everywhere 
It took a company like Apple to design something different and market it as if there is no tomorrow. What would stop a company like Reliance/ Airtel/ Hutch to get this in India? However, since we don’t have a portal like iTunes specifically for Indian market, it would take a long time to fructify it’s plans to make things happen here. Still, I wouldn’t like to discount any development of this sort here in Indian market.
Picture taken from the Apple website.
Update: Robert Cringely has written on his blogechoing my own thoughts. He obviously makes much better sense than I do.
I take the liberty of quoting him from his write up.(Emphasis mine)
Cisco’s trademark infringement lawsuit, as well as its recent introduction of new iPhone models, shows the company has no intention of giving up the iPhone trademark to Apple. And since Cisco has a prior claim, just as many lawyers, and more money than Apple, one can only guess that Cisco will prevail. So why did Apple start this fight in the first place? Publicity.
Further, Robert asserts :
This leaves us with the mystery of why Apple deliberately hobbled the cellular Internet capability of its iPhone, Apple Phone, whatever. As described this week, when the iPhone ships it will only work with Cingular’s EDGE network, which is its 2G Internet service that maxes out at 170 kilobits per second on not just a good day but on a day that is so good it never happens. I’ve used the EDGE network and it feels like dial-up to me.
The iPhone is this amazing connectivity quad-mode device that can probably make use of as much bandwidth as it can get, so making it suck through the little straw that is EDGE makes no sense from a user perspective. But remember that the parties involved here are Apple and Cingular, neither of which is 100 percent allied with user interests. Cingular has a 3G network called BroadbandConnect or “MediaNet” if you buy Cingular’s associated Cingular Video service….It comes down to an accommodation. Cingular wants an iPhone exclusive and is probably paying Apple money for that privilege. Mobile phone carriers are eager for video to succeed on their 3G and 4G platforms because it represents a major new source of revenue. Apple’s iPhone is the best handset yet for displaying that video. But Apple isn’t going to allow this to happen without Cupertino gaining a substantial piece of the action.
Apple doesn’t intend simply to enter the mobile phone market, they intend to dominate it, and ultimately to gain service revenue through iTunes, no matter whose phone you buy.
This content is published under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Related posts:
- Apple- Mobile phones? Now this is one of the hottest topics across the Internet. Of course, I wanted to comment on the same....
- Update on Apple Mobiles Apple Insider reports the imminent launch of Apple iTunes enabled mobile. I had earlier mentioned about the same as to...
- VSNL upsets the apple cart In a clear indication that smacks of abuse of monopoly, VSNL has refused to cut down its bandwidth rates. It...
- Future Trends in Telecom in India Future Trends in Telecom in India Over the past few months that I have been contributing to this tech portal,...
- Convergence at cross roads One of the most promising applications of broadband is convergence. Basically it’s the voice and data in one pipe. There...
- Year 2006 forecast It’s difficult to forecast anything for the new year. Specially at the rate at which the technology is changing. In...
- Reliance Infocomm Reliance Infocomm Reliance started a virtual war when it entered. With the largest user base in the country in mobile...
- Content Services Telecom “revolution” needs mobile phone instruments. It appears to be a lop sided growth because worldwide trends appear to be...
- India Broadband and Telecom Update There is a lot of noise in the media without anything major happening on ground. BSNL has finally started its...
- The influence of Reliance Infocomm on the Indian Telecom Scenery The influence of Reliance Infocomm on the Indian Telecom Scenery Reliance industries have straddled the Indian economy like a giant....
[...] I got an email from Vijay Times (Bangalore) who required my permission to publish the write up on Apple iPhone. Well, I did grant them the permission and it remains to be seen as to when they would revert back to me on the same. I really hope that the mainstream media picks up the story on the present Broadband mess. [...]