Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Why will people buy the iPhone?

Avi Greengart in RCRnews writes the 3 reasons people will buy the iPhone:

  1. Apple huggers;
  2. Gadget People and people who have to have the newest toy. (Lots of those, since the MOTO Razr "sold 5 million of Razrs over the first nine months of availability under nearly identical terms as the iPhone: a $500 price point and exclusive availability at Cingular."
  3. "Some mainstream consumers—especially baby boomers—will buy the iPhone as well. There are a lot of people who just hate, hate, hate their phones. They're looking for simplicity, but won't purchase a product that makes them feel stupid. The iPhone walks you through a lot of basic phone tasks (making calls, browsing through contacts, etc.) in a clear manner with relatively large on-screen buttons and a certain flair (graphics are crisp and transitions are richly animated). Vodafone's Simply and Palm’s Treo 680 do this, at least to a certain extent, but the Simply is a dumbed-down product, and the Treo looks complicated and just isn’t all that fun to use. If the iPhone’s UI holds up under extensive use—I got to use it for all of 15 minutes and haven’t received a production unit yet—then this segment could be huge. ...... But then I used an iPhone, and the sticker shock wore off, replaced by a different kind of shock—that Apple had actually managed to build a product that lives up to the hype." [read the rest here]

It is this 3rd segment that is the key to everything in communications --- can you make it easy and useful? K.I.S.S. - keep it simple stupid is a great motto. Many things get bogged down with features; features that many can't use, don't need, or can't figure out.

This surprised me: "Nokia has sold well over 1 million 8800’s at ASPs north of $800." T-Mobile, Voce and Orange (in Europe) must be happy. BTW, Voce is $200 per month, no contract, unlimited usage.

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