Apple seen following iPod expansion strategy with iPhone

why is every one so upset that apple went with cingular. is there network so much worse than any other. people say that the price is high but it is mostley just sticker shock. if you lumped together a ipod nano cellphone and blackberry like device combined their prices is about the same as apples iphone.

The iPhone is priced too high for most people. It will be very hard to achieve the stated goal of 1% market share (mind you, the smart phone market is much smaller) unless cheaper phones are on their way and/or the phones will be subsidized by Cingular (like all other phones) along with a 2 year contract.

iPhone is tab worthy!
I think this is what we will see in 2008
iPhone Phone + iPod + Internet $399 & $499 (MWSF Jan 2008)
iPhone nano Phone + iPod (no video) $299 (MWSF Jan 2008)
iPhone hello Phone + iPod shuffle $199 (Oct 2008)

Steve had to get the iPhone name because it makes it easy for people who are already familiar with the iPod line up to understand the iPhone line up.

I think the Apple TV and iPhone are both great products, but is there another conference coming up where they might introduce an iWork and iLife upgrade? I would love to see some Blu-Ray burning capabilities on iDVD and could use an EXCELish app on my iWork.

Would they release those silently?

The price for the phones is the subsidized price with a 2 year contract. Also, the price is high, but then again, Grandma doesn't need the iPhone, but someone who carries a Palm, a cell phone and an iPod nano is probably going to pay it without blinking because it combines the three devices into one. I expect we'll see a lot more advancement in the software as the months go by. They have me sold ... come on Apple, only 9,999,999 more people to go!!!!

On another note, I was kinda irked by the name change. I understand why they're doing it, but I hope Apple continues to devote its LARGER focus to the Mac and OS X....

Expect a special event before the end of the month.
Also Vista's launch date is Jan 30, 2007 which is a Tuesday.
Since Apple likes to do their events on Tuesdays, it will most likely be on the 23rd.
I'm sure Steve would love to take the steam out of the Vista launch by announcing the other 5 super secret features of Leopard.
Also we will be seeing the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" "Peripherals" commercial that was shown yesterday a lot in the coming month.
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/ap...ry_480x376.mov

delete me

One aspect that will take some time for the unwashed to realize is the increased functionality this phone will have as software is made for it. The fact that its software driven makes it upgradeable in ways people haven't considered. Apple is very strategic in getting a foot in the door with users, only to expand usage in new ways over time. This is a platform, not just a phone etc. The fact that it does all these things right from the start is a sign of how sophisticated is has the potential of being. Now, imagine a few well-designed attachments-- say for a power adapter, usb plug, dvi/vga connector, flux capacitor-- all for presentations using a keynote, or powerpoint. This is a true all in one device. I'd love to teach my classes with this tiny thing instead of bringing a laptop.

The future is bright (and expandable).

Though the introductory price point of Apple's new iPhone device is a steep $499, an analyst for American Technology Research believes the company is likely to follow a similar strategy to the iPod, starting out with high-end units and then working its way down to more affordable models.

"We believe this is the first of many cell phones from AAPL with AAPL having the potential to revolutionize the space," analyst Shaw Wu told his clients following the company's iPhone unveiling on Tuesday. "While its $499 and $599 price points appear high, they are highly functional devices and best-in-class."

Wu said it would not come as a surprise to see simpler Apple-branded cell phones in the future at much more aggressive price points. "We believe AAPL will likely follow its iPod strategy, which is to start out at the high-end and then trickle down to mid-range and low-end," he said.

Overall, the analyst says he is "very impressed with iPhone and its minimalist touchscreen design," but finds the functionality much more ambitious and aggressive than we anticipated for a first phone.

Of all the analysts chiming in on Apple these days, Wu was one of the most vocal in his convictions that an Apple handset was growing increasingly near. However, as he conceded in his note to clients Wednesday morning, he did not foresee the initial product as a single device that would act as widescreen video iPod, a cell phone, and a mini Mac running Mac OS X.

"We had picked up from our supply chain sources a candy bar form factor, widescreen technology, and Bluetooth, however, we did not anticipate it to be just one device," he said.

Attendees stare in astonishment at Apple's iPhone device at Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

In terms of functionality, Wu said the iPhone's multi-touch interface, full-page web browsing, free Yahoo e-mail access, widescreen digital media player, and tight integration with iTunes are some of its most compelling and competitive differentiators. He sees such features delivering success over similar but now less capable alternatives in the Sony Walkman phone, LG Chocolate, and Samsung BlackJack.

And while the analyst admits that choosing Cingular as its exclusive wireless carrier in the US reduces Apple's control over the iPhone experience, he believes it "is the right move and a less risky strategy" than forming its own mobile virtual network operator (MVNO).

"Arguably, AAPL has less control over the experience, but it will stick with its core competencies which is making and marketing the best hardware and software while Cingular will handle the service and billing," he wrote.

Wu maintained his Buy rating on shares of Apple with a price target of $99.

I totally agree. I just bought my first Mac at the end of December and was holding off getting iWork until the 2007 version appeared. Now I'm left wondering if/when that will happen. I'd be really mad if I bought the '06 version and then a week later the '07 version was announced considering I wouldn't be given any credit for my purchase of '06.

Am I the only one left a little bit annoyed after the keynote yesterday? The Apple TV basically turns your TV into an iPod screen with a Front Row interface. The 40GB HD is too small to actually be useful as a media center (if I synced all my media to it today, it would already be full). There's been no talk of it allowing external drives to attach to it for additional storage. The Apple thinking seems to be you'd only put videos on it and stream music to it. And it's only for widescreen TV's so I'm left out in the cold regardless. For those that aren't it only has lowly 720p output (with possible 1080i upconverting). So for real high-def TV downloads, you're left turning to Microsoft and the XBox 360; Good job on that one, Steve. Even if there's an iTunes update it would probably only be up to the 720p max of the AppleTV and whatever shows you'd already bought would still be stuck at the lower quality, plus the fear that maybe this time next year AppleTV 2 will roll out with true 1080p and another update to video quality in the iTunes store so you could once again buy the same shows or movies again. And there's not a chance in Hell I'll ever dowload a movie from iTunes so long as I can buy a DVD for just about the same price.

The iPhone is really cool, but where is the true video iPod? The phone looks like an amazing piece of technology but am I asking too much to wish it had a 30 or 80 HD inside? Comparing the prices of the Nano and current video iPod, it clearly isn't that much of a price difference to swap out the flash RAM for a HD, so why not give consumers that choice. I'm fine with it being a .25" or even .5" thicker because of it.

It is apparently for now taking the place of the true video iPod yet even the more expensive model will only allow you to put maybe 20 1-hour length iTunes TV episodes on it. On the 8GB model, I could either put 1/3 of my music collection or 1/2 of my video collection. Just give me a version without the phone portions and a 30 or 80GB hard drive and I'd be happy; I'd even be willing to pay the $500 or $600 for it. Heck with wi-fi and a VoIP app, I could pretty much do everything the phone does without being tied to Cingular for 2 years.

There's a part of me that really wants the iPhone (since my Verizon contract is nearly up), but there's that other part that is just left annoyed.

Natan....

It's all about the numbers....

Market Share:

Cingular apx 59.8 million (US)
Verizon apx 57 million (US)
Sprint 53.7 million (US)
T-Mobile 27.5 million (US / 99 mill worldwide)

No matter what Apple did they would have had a TON of people mad at this *INITIAL* announcement.

The fact is. to get the level of integration that the iPhone provides they HAD TO get special support from the a cellular network provider. The only way a cellular network provider would ever make changes to their network just to support a series of cell phone features is:

1 - Be 'wowed' by the mockup demos of the cell phone in action
(sorry but I just don't buy the 'we signed a deal sight unseen crap that the Cingular CEO was talkin)
2 - Insist on some type of EXCLUSIVE deal to use/sell the phone.

So this means that Apple NEEDED to partner with one of them to get the job done...

Now, before anyone pops up with 'I want an open...' we can drop that idea right now.... as much as we'd all like an 'open phone' neither the cell phone makers nor the cell service providers want us to have it so it ain't gonna happen - we live in a world where the companies are exerting more and more control over our very lives and it's only getting worse...

- They control how/where we watch moves (region code crap)
- They control the ability to record time-shift shows (broadcast flag)
- They control the level of quality you get to see and/or the ability to see the content at all when watching a new hidef dvd - used as generic term (via HDCP or whatever its called)
- They control how we use almost every aspect of using the cell phone and have the ability to charge monthly fees for features that were built into the phone and don't need any 'support' from the provider.

The list goes on and on.... Like I said it's only going to get worse as more companies / industries realize they too can impose a MUCH tighter grip on its customers and at the same time profit more from doing so...

If we 'the citizens of the WORLD' don't put a stop to it soon it'll snowball.

Dave

It's not Cingular's network that sucksit's fairly good as cell networks goit's their business practices. Cingular is popular and they are milking it; nickel and dimeing their customers every chance they can get. T-Mobile treats their customers much better in this regard.

I can't find hard numbers for 2006, but it looks like that smart phones should have accounted for 10% or more of the entire mobile phone market. Apple's number would be 10% of that. At least they are admitting that they aren't going to take over any segment of the market yet.

Mac users tend to be very creative so they will come up with uses we can't imagine.
I'm also thinking business uses.
Mobile Point of Sale device?
Inventory tracking (barcode scanning with camera)
Network administrators(terminal, ssh, monitoring apps)
Sales force presentations from the phone + micro projector(use the phone as remote/note cards

True... but the fact is - All things being not so equal... people go for quality of signal first and foremost. Followed very closely by cost of service (perhaps price is a tad above quality for many) almost never does customer service enter the picture.

Example - in my area 30 miles outside of NYC here's how things shook out for me.

- Verizon excellent signal just about everywhere - priced high
- Cingular fairly good signal both at home and in NYC priced middle of the road
- T-Mobile signal okay in NYC but TOTALLY dead at home - price middle to low

Guess who I settled on... Cingular since the cell phone was never a huge part of my existence (I'm not a kid and not in sales etc) and I just wasn't gonna pay premium prices to Verizon no matter how good their signal was. Fast forward to today and now Verizon and Cingular are pretty darn close in price but Cingular still wins out since Verizon has the WORST cell phone choices...Hey anyone verizon people here??? Did they EVER come out with a phone that had bluetooth built in? Sorry and I know the answer to that but it was a eternally long time before they re-adopted it (they did have it as an addon to one of their phones but then they dropped it and it was YEARS before another bluetooth phone was made available to its subscribers)

Dave

I have cingular already so that's no problem for me, I like them fine. Most of my family has cingular as well. So I rarely use my minutes since cingular to cingular is free. But, I agree I would rather have the same device without the cell phone.

Another thing regarding what Wu said. Suppose they do release an iPhone nano. same size and all (maybe a little wider) but with touchscreen. What would that do to existing nano's? Who would buy a nano with a click wheel when there's the iPhone?

The big question I have is, if they take this multi-touch interface into the iPod line, will that mean the death of the click wheel? I don't think everybody would prefer using the touchscreen over the click wheel.

To all of you who are annoyed ... I'm a Verizon person and so I'm disappointed too, but you are all forgetting a few things that ARE important:

1. Verizon in its own announcements this week has already set up to compete with Apple in music and video downloads. Maybe Apple wanted Verizon and Verizon decided to compete with Apple rather than partner. Whatever happened back in the board rooms, We know have the beginnings of a two-sided war (like DVD-HD and Blue Ray). Check out the studios going with Verizon. No way did they want to help Apple in any of this. I don't like it, but we all now - at least in 6 months - have to pick sides!

2. Cingular will have to change its system to support this phone. It won't remain the slowest network by year's end. I won't be in the market for a new phone until 2008 anyway, so I'm happy to let early adopters carry the load for awhile and work out the kinks.

3. The tech for communications may be "old" but everything is about the interface and Apple needed to get this out into the market with patents to protect to stake its innovations in UI - not in 3-way calling. Just as with Intel, Apple will change Cingular's DNA a bit.

4. This friggin thing runs OSX!!! Have you no clue what that means? This is a proof of concept for tablets and pda's of the future. Apple just needed to enter a stable market, with partners in the telecom industry to get the thing going. I predict in 3 years (Cingular keeps saying "multi-year" but not how many) Apple will have more than Cingular and more then one iPhone for all of your choices. It just probably won't have Verizon (see #1). A 10" tablet with multi-touch is probably only one year away!!

5. This thing will be firmware upgradeable!! The multi-touch will allow any kind of virtual buttons to be configured. If Apple has made the widgets run on a dashboard like layer, then 3rd parties may be easily able to run all of those other widgets and any new mini-apps on it.

6. No one carrier is THAT much better than any other carrier. Verizon is good, and I've was disappointed with T-Mobile, but anyone who is solely going to make a decision about this phone based upon the carrier is probably not going to buy it anyway. The iPhone finally makes the device more important than the carrier. I just don't know how Cingular does in the rural West where I do need coverage.

7. How quickly do you think it will take for games to be run on this thing 'a la PSP? Like the steering wheel accessory to the Wii controller, I bet we'll have a game controller that accepts the iPhone with handles and lets us play with buttons and the accelerometers!!! BTW, does anyone know how the screen compares to the PSP?

So complain all you want, but crimeny, realize that a few things are going to change in 6 months and realize that Verizon and friends are in it for a long war.

Then buy an iPod next year.


People who don't have $500 on a phone. Simple enough.


Why can't iPods continue to have clickwheels and iPhones and iTablets (future) have multi-touch? Why can't Apple keep both in production as long as they both sell and make money? Why do people hear try to act like marketing managers and assume the most simplistic future?

I'll try.

My business partner has already committed to buying our team iPhones when they come out. That's 6 people right here... Outstanding.

There wouldn't have been any point of Apple negotiating with Verizon on this. Verizon wants to control and profit from every possible money-making point in the business. They don't let phones onto their network that haven't gone through an excruciating "blessing" process, don't let them have points of sale that aren't Verizon's services (so forget iTunes), and in general do their best to make sure you can't install your own ringtones, software, etc. I'm just a subscriber, but it's brutally obvious even to consumers what their business model is and how they treat the companies that make mobile phones.

The only way the iPhone shows up on Verizon is if it sells so well that Verizon has to cave in and accept it, and even then, I'm sure it'll be at least a year or more before they'd give it their blessing. If Cingular has some kind of 2 year exclusive deal, it probably doesn't matter anyway, plus a CDMA iPhone would have to go through FCC approval as well.

Off the top of my head, I don't see how they can cost-reduce this much. Getting rid of the WiFi chip and dropping the camera might same you a few of dollars. Cut the storage to less than 4GB??? A cheaper, lower resolution screen if the user interface software can handle it??? I mean the great part to the iPhone is that it runs OS X and has all this integrated software with a slick gesture interface. You can't exactly get rid of much of the hardware and still have it work. I mean sure, a year plus from now, they may be be able to sell this model for less (you have to remember it won't even be available at the current prices till June/July).

Does anyone ever hold this Shaw Wu character up against his wrong predictions??? How much could I get paid to be wrong 75% of the time?

I don't think Wu is wrong on this one, steve essentially guaranteed more phones and varried price points in the future.

Remember flash prices drop and higher capacities are always on the one way so maybe once 16 and 32 go mainstream 4 and 8 can be on the low end.

Maybe apple can also find another way of doing the phone without a touchscreen for the low end, after all it probably won't be a smart phone but a phone+ipod, there's no real need for two that do the same thing.
So right there that's wifi gone, multitouch potentially gone, a different size and different face. Maybe steve realizes that keyboards actually aren't that bad if you don't need a smartphone (which it true) so they can add it back.

I'm picturing a flip phone with a nano sized screen on the outside and click wheel below it and on the inside maybe a 2.2inch screen and a regular number type keyboard inside. And that joystick all phones have can be more free moving to whipe across screens as if it were a thumb, it could cost 250 and subsidization could make that type of phone 100+plus contract easily I imagine. White 4gb and black 8gb.

No. I too am disappointed. I was hoping for the iPhone but it is a little pricey plus I am not a fan of Cingular to say the least, so it is out for me.

I was also waiting to hear about an OS upgrade as well as iLife and iWork upgrades. Instead I heard about iTV. While so people may really dig iTV as of today I have no real use for it so I didn't really care.

Where are the updated iPods? In the last year the unit costs have surely dropped so I was hoping to hear about either more memory or lower prices.

So to me, it was a disappointment.

I doubt a future iPhone nano would cost 500 bucks



Because Apple has a very simple lineup of products. Besides, they're already talking about the iPhone cannibalizing sales of the iPod. Unless they update the current iPod to the same touchscreen interface, I don't see how it can survive.

sorry, but that sounds totally anti-apple. They just released a phone with only one button. And steve jobs calls the keypad "old fashioned". I don't think there's any way we'll ever see a non-touchscreen apple phone. Multi-touch is clearly the direction that Apple is taking.

The iPhone does not run Mac OS X. It runs OS X.

There is a difference, or else Apple would not have chosen to call it "OS X" while every instance of their computer OS is called "Mac OS X."

See for details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X

--
And have a drink too.

Good point.

OS X to be a new 'core' on which they can run multiple platforms, at varying levels of scale, is my bet. Same code, ala Linux, but with a rich consumer orientation, ala MS.

The desktop version will stay MacOS X. The phone version... MobileOS X? Or heck, why bother differentiating?

Hmm, perhaps we'll see MacOS X get rebranded OS X in 10.5. Instead of MacOS X, you'll have a Mac, running OS X. It's how we all tend to talk about it anyway, informally.

I just don't understand this concern about what the iPhone (and appletv) portends for Apple's focus, although I've seen it expressed by a number of individuals, in a number of variations.

The iPhone runs OS X! And, right out of the gate, it hosts several key applications that are either taken fairly directly from (e.g., Safari), or are at least similar to (e.g., Mail & Widgets), those we're already used to on the traditional Macs.

The iPhone and "the Mac and OS X" aren't antithetical or even divergent topics! This is an expansion of the Mac and OS X universe!

I guess this commonality will get clearer as we start to see things like additional (Mac) applications added to the iPhone, and a multi-touch OS X tablet computer. Whatever the particular sequence and details of populating this expanding ecosystem, it's just that ... one ecosystem, grounded in a common body of software, shaped by common design precepts, and sheparded (channeled? ) by the Steve and the Apple we know and love! So it's time to rejoice, not worry!

They're going to sell a TON of these things. Everyone I talk to wants one and only 1 or 2 people have complained about the price point.

For what it does it's worth the money. It also makes everyone's "smart" phone seem crappy and thrown together now. It's so well thought out.

Call me an Apple fan boy, but they've got a winner here folks and every phone manufacturer should be shaking in their boots because Apple's instantly become a major player in the mobile phone market.

I'm leaning heavily towards one as well. But, I'm with cingular already. It would totally suck if I weren't.

EDIT: But I'll be asking some good questions before I buy though. Like can I chat normally with iChat without wasting loads of cash on that lousy SMS junk?

I think it's more than an expansion, it is a major shift (in a good way).

Since the original TRS-80 and Apple II and IBM-PC, a computer has been a box that sits on your desk and runs whatever software you can get loaded onto it.

With the iPod, Apple began the shift away from the PC and toward the appliance. But the iPod was really just testing the waters, and was a pretty simple appliance. The iPhone is clearly a new paradigm.

It isn't really a full personal computer (I don't think you'd want to do page layout on it), but it does replace the PC in a number of ways. And more importantly, it transforms the PC into something much more useful (in a limited number of ways). The more Apple produces appliances like iPhone and Apple TV, the less useful the PC-on-your-desk becomes.

P.S. But to be clear, it is OS X, not Mac OS X... see my post above.

No, I think there are 4 or 5 of you, overall.


Open a fresh Textedit window and type one-hundred times: "The appletv is NOT a media center."


If by "real high-def TV" you mean "genuine", then 720p is "real" high-def. OTOH, if by "real" you mean "the most extreme, high-end flavor of (and which consequently is barely even in use yet)", then no, 720p isn't quite there yet.


Check back in time for Christmas! I bet we'll have a multi-touch, "true video" HDD iPod (or two) by then. Or early '08, at the latest.


Now that opens up some interesting future possibilities! Just imagine ... Apple makes (and delivers on) this "exclusive" deal with Cingular, and then, shortly after it's underway (and also via mobile operators in Europe and Asia), Apple introduces a non-cellular version along the lines of what you describe. Maybe even with Skype and iChat both (and an eBay deal?), maybe just iChat. Blam!! Another leg gets pulled out from under the traditional telecom mobile phone cartel!

This has all just gotten very interesting!

Keep in mind that Apple has "secret features" in Leopard that they still aren't talking about. Now... Leopard is supposed to be released in the Spring, and the iPhone ships in June... the last month of Spring. So it is likely the two will ship together, or close.

So, speculating wildly... couldn't a hidden feature of Leopard be that iChat is a VOIP client? Then if that's the case, the iPhone could also be a VOIP phone, but Apple didn't talk about it because they're still trying to keep that part of Leopard under wraps.

Again, just wild speculation, but... not at all difficult to imagine.

I agree, although I think it then helps to note at least two additional major steps that we (the industry) have already taken: First, we added networking to the initial isolated PC box model ... and could run programs and access data and use peripherals from other "computers" on the network. Second, computers (still recognizable as such) went mobile, in the form of notebook/laptop machines.

With these (and maybe other) key steps also in mind, it gets clearer that this is an ongoing progression. So the iPhone marks another major step in that progression, but is still part of a progression that was already part of the history and nature of "personal" computing.


Yes, but here I think we also need to factor in the separate (and begun earlier) progression of the emergence (and evolution) of the PDA, as well as yet another thread of the mobile-phone-turned-smart-phone.


So, as I see it, we have three appliance threads of interest, each of which began separately: mobile phones, PDAs, and iPods (well, personal digital media players (DMP), to name the category rather than its foremost exemplar). About the time that the iPod thread started, the other two were already starting to fuse, creating the category of "smart phones". And now the iPod/DMP thread begins to fuse with the other two. (The lame music-playing abilities of the ROKR, Treo and various other phones notwithstanding ... they were just foreshadowing something that hadn't truly happened yet. )


Hmm. That PC-on-the-desk hasn't really become less useful ... I've just become less dependent on it, as it becomes less and less the end-all and be-all of my computing universe. And, somewhat perversely, perhaps, the appearance of these other appliance computers introduces a new role for that computer-on-the-desk ... it now becomes more and more of a media/household server, hosting backups, media libraries of various sorts, etc. and putting them at the service of the appliance critters. [Ha. Kind of like the evolution of the corporate mainframe vis-á-vis desktop computers.]


Yes, I did see that. Frankly, I'd never considered the trademark to be "Mac OS X", but simply "OS X", but it seems you do have a point about how Apple actually uses the terms. None the less, I'm inclined to agree with Kickaha, as s/he said in #29:


That is, we tend to talk about the OS software as simply "OS X", and the traditional computers as "Macs", so the combo can be glossed as having a Mac that runs OS X. For the nineteen of us who care about such esoterica, it wll be interesting to watch how Apple's branding evolves on this point.

Also, back to the issue of the OS software on the iPhone and how it relates to the, ahem, "Mac OS X" that we're familiar with (which I presume was your core point, rather than simply an observation about branding syntax) ... although the iPhone undoubtedly is constrained in its computing capabilites for now (re: battery, memory, processing power), I think we have just crossed over a critical threshold, in which these (converged) appliance doo-dads are now fully recogniziable as *computers*, and it's just a matter of time (and Moore's Law!) that the software (both OS and applications) will be more and more similar to that on our desktop and notebook computers.

Paul

I hope that when the iPhone comes to Europe... in a year from now or so... it won't be stuck to one operator only. I think it wouldn't work over here. I hope, hope, hope they'll leave it up to the consumer to choose its operator of choice. It'll stop a lot of potential customers from buying if they can't use the company's phone operator, or their personal phone operator of choice.

WOW... awesome phone, exceeded my expectations. I want one, buuuut...

... you just can't get me to switch to Cingular, not even with an electric cattleprod.

Cingular's network is bad in quite a lot of places (the SF Bay Area being one of them, ironically... I guess Steve has Verizon or he'd know this), and this is consistently confirmed by both JD Power and Consumer Reports, where Cingular always places either back of the mid-pack, or dead last, depending on what region of the country you're talking about. Personal experience and the experiences of family and friends seems to agree as well. No doubt Cingular does not suck EVERYWHERE, but they definitely seem to suck in more places than Verizon, that's for sure.

I do get WHY they had to go with Cingular, sure... Apple wanted to make a worldwide product, and that means the first release was always going to be GSM (Cingular), and not CDMA (Verizon). Still, its disappointing. I'm not going to put up with subpar network and bad customer service (Cingular consistently rates poorly here as well) just to have the iPhone. I shouldn't have to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... its also a nice marketing bullet point too to say that Apple partnered with the "#1 wireless carrier" in the US (in terms of total customers, courtesy the AT&T Wireless buyout 2 years ago). But even that's in jeopardy... Verizon consistently adds more customers every quarter than Cing, so Cingular may be the #2 carrier before the exclusivity period is even up. Ain't that a kick?

Steve, Steve, Steve... Apple is best of breed, try to team with partners who are too. If not at first, at least soon afterwards. Then the user experience is unparalleled, which is what Apple is all about, right? \

.

What would you call it then?

If I were to call it anything else it would be an iPod without a screen a cludgy, limited function remote. And in the case of a remote, having something that small is not a bonus. It's an annoyance when it becomes lost to ever find again.


I get your point, but it's sort of planned obsolesence. I have a 5G iPod and it might be obsolete tomorrow but I don't know that ahead of time. 720p has already been superceded by something superior so why would Apple pick 720p when there was a better standard already available? That's what annoys me about it. I already know it's not the best, and I can expect in a year to be replacing it with AppleTV that actually handles 1080p. It's pretty much the same reason others are annoyed that the AppleTV and new Airport Extreme don't have gigabit ethernet ports.



That's my fear is that Apple will hold off on the true video iPod to ensure it doesn't affect iPhone sales. I would be all over this phone if it had a larger storage capacity. As it is, I'd end up carrying the iPhone and my 5G iPod to have all my music and video. Hardly the solution that Apple was going for.

I agree, but there's not much Apple can do about it... they very likely went with the 4GB and 8GB iPhone storage capacities because power management and battery life concerns made flash memory the option they had to go with, as opposed to a hard drive. And battery technology is not improving very fast at all.

Main thing to hope for probably is that flash memory prices keep dropping, so the capacities get upped to 8GB and 16GB pretty soon. Either that, or Apple stops caring about thinness and puts one helluva a big honkin' battery on the thing.


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