Eyet Blogs: Two Days to Apple iPhone Launch

"Apple Inc.'s iPhone won't hit stores until Friday, but the heavily hyped gadget already has unleashed a cottage industry of touch-screen protectors, leather hip carriers and car adapters.

Even the most enthusiastic manufacturers said creating formfitting iPhone accessories was an enormous challenge. A notoriously tightlipped Apple kept many partners in the dark on precise specifications, and some of the company's most trusted accessory manufacturers still have not touched a genuine iPhone.

To compensate, many cribbed size and weight specifications from Apple's Web site, then created models out of wood, cardboard or plastic. They shipped models to Apple for advice on whether headset and other outlets were placed correctly. They adjusted and resent revised versions to Apple." - Source: BusinessWeek

"Motorola, the world's second-largest mobile handset maker is coming off a $118 million dollar first calendar quarter loss, notes the Financial Times, where its strategy to increase market share resulted in crisis.

Padmasree Warrior, chief technology officer for Motorola, told the financial paper that her firm is basing a comeback on a new generation of handsets, but admits that iPhone is of particular concern.
"I do worry about [the iPhone] because [Apple] is a great competitor; a very respectable, credible, tough competitor to have in the industry," she said.

At the same time, the exec believes the Apple device will appeal only to a "small part of the market" and hold its share of weaknesses. For instance, she said the phone's web browsing capability could have "severe limitations" because it will run on AT&T's slower 2.5G network, rather than the carrier's high-speed 3G network.

Motorola, which saw a resurgence after the launch of its RAZR handset in 2004, plans to unleash the second-generation of the super-slim handset sometime this summer. Like the firm's Q9 smartphone, the RAZR2 will reportedly run on the faster 3G networks." - Source: Apple Insider

"Vodafone is in talks with Apple to launch the U.S. firm's iPhone combined music player and telephone in Europe, and talks partly hinge on volume guarantees and subsidies, a Dutch magazine reported.

Apple demanded a guaranteed sales volume for the iPhone, which the British mobile operator did not want to give, Dutch magazine Bright said on its web site late on Tuesday.

The magazine said Vodafone was pushing for more scope to subsidize the phone and did not want Apple to have control of the sale price." - Source: Reuters UK

"Apple Inc.'s iPhone won a strong endorsement from a key technology reviewer on Tuesday, June 26 when the Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg called it a beautiful, breakthrough device.

"Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer," Mossberg said in a review on WSJ.com.

New York Times technology writer David Pogue also weighed in with a largely positive review saying that the iPhone lived up to most of its considerable hype even if it did fall short in some areas." - Source: WSJ, New York Times

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is one of the top 20 innovators of The Innovation Index, and is the Number One Innovator for 2007 as per the rankings of the Top 50 Innovative Companies in the world by BusinessWeek.

Bottomline:

If iPhone is a huge success, the iPhone accessories market will be another big hit. Case in point: iPod accessory market. iPhone has competitors worried, both in the U.S. and outside. In order to succeed globally though, Apple must put together a solid win-win plan to expand in Europe and Asia soon - within the next two months. Finally, reviews of iPhone are coming in, and are mostly optimistic - either the reviewers don't want to emphasize the flaws, or there are limited flaws - also, do they really want to bet against a winning horse when there is so much hype, buzz, hysteria and more surrounding the launch? The consumers will soon find out whether the iPhone is for real on June 29.

Eyet Blogs

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Two Days to Apple iPhone Launch - June 29 Liftoff

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