iPhone is simply stunning. We acquired a single unit for this review, but having worked with it for a weekend, we're already planning to get more. It's the best cell phone we've ever used; it gives us usable remote access to our email; and it has a great Web client. Some improvements are needed — to-do task list, voice dialing, custom ringtones, Bluetooth enhancements, a working headphone jack, etc. But even with these missing features, iPhone is a startlingly compelling product.
Apple wants to capture 1% of the global mobile phone market, and sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. Depending on how many 4GB vs 8GB models are sold, that's a potential $4 to $5 billion in new revenue, independent of Apple's Mac and iPod businesses.
If iPhone makes its target, it could grow Apple's 2008 revenue by 17-19%. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has repeatedly stated that iPhone will be the "third leg" of Apple's business. Clearly, Apple expects iPhone to succeed.
And based on what we've seen in the past two days, iPhone will not only succeed, it will revolutionize the mobile phone market. In order to complete, carriers and handset makers will have to produce better products with far better user experiences. It is no longer acceptable to turn out phone after phone that users essentially dislike. Apple has raised the bar. Everyone else has to catch up.
In terms of technology and personal computing, the iPhone is a feature-rich handheld Internet tool. It's a great mobile phone. It's a darned nice iPod, although we can't fit our whole digital music collection on it. But most significantly, it's a revolution in user interfaces. The now-traditional mouse is a proxy manipulator: you use the mouse, and the mouse manipulates symbolic objects. On iPhone, there is no proxy. You touch and manipulate the objects with your own hands. There hasn't been a user interface change this significant since 1984.
You stretch and squish photos like rubber, and flick through your music collection and emails as though they were physical objects. This makes iPhone more approachable and pleasurable to use than any other we've ever used. This well-conceived, direct-manipulation model of interaction is iPhone's secret weapon. The screen interface is beautiful, but that's merely the frosting on the cake. We believe that iPhone is just a taste of things to come. Proxy interaction is dead — Windows and Mac just don't know it yet.
iPhone is the sort of device that owners show off to their friends and strangers covet. Once you've used iPhone, you may find it hard to use anything else. And Apple's betting on that.
Posted by :
MJRewardz.com
06/03/2008
