HypePhone
Reuters: With hype high, iPhone may have to fight a flop.
Oh, no!
Platt, author of "Why Software Sucks...And What You Can Do About It," says the iPhone will likely miss the mark despite its cool look in TV commercials, because it was designed more to please engineers than a regular consumer.
Huh?
OK, again, the horned one does not profess to know with absolute certainty that the iPhone will be a hit. But does this sound anything like any Apple product ever released? No. The criticism of Apple has always been the opposite, that it focuses so much on Platt's "consumer" (a word you'll rarely see Apple use -- they usually use the less condescending term "customer", thank you very much) and makes products that are all nice and touchy-feely but don't do anything.
The Macalope doesn't think that's valid, but that's the criticism.
"You can imagine iPhone will be the miracle box that solves all problems ... but when you actually have your hands on it and realize it takes five or six button presses to get something, then you start to get annoyed," he said.
This also seems exactly backwards. There are many outstanding questions about the iPhone, but they're largely related to the speed, the price of the plan and the usefulness of the on-screen keyboard. Even with the questions about the keyboard, the one thing the iPhone has the best shot at solving is the cell phone's poor reputation for ease-of-use.
This is an analyst who his talking out of parts of his body that were not designed for such purposes.
Let's see what another analyst has to say.
"Once you've experienced something good like this, you won't accept something bad. It'd be like going back to DOS after using Windows."
That's Jupiter Research's Michael Gartenberg the Nielsen Norman Group's Jakob Nielsen [Oops. Right article, wrong analyst]. Is he right? It remains to be seen, but the Macalope thinks he is.
One thing's for certain, though. Platt just doesn't know what he's talking about. It almost makes the Macalope long for the days when Apple product announcements weren't considered the purview of the members of the general press who apparently don't care who they ask for an opinion, so long as they get one (and too often the opinion they already have in mind).
And about that hype, MacJournals News has a humorous post about "Apple's iPhone hype", noting:
There is something about this phone that makes people absolutely lose their reason.
Indeed.
UPDATE 6/26: Tom Krazit also has a good piece up on iPhone hype.
The iPhone will finally arrive on Friday after six months of up-to-the-second coverage from even local television types who think the EDGE network is the channel next to VH1.
Mythical beast and rumormonger extraordinaire, the Macalope writes about all things Apple for the CNET Blog Network. Read more at The Macalope: An Apple blog. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
bad. It'd be like going back to DOS after using Windows."
Unless my bleary eyes are mistaken, that quote in the article is from Jakob
Nielsen, our overlord of usability.
However, Macenstein brings up an interesting point: So why haven?t we seen the iPhone?s camera? (http://macenstein.com/default/archives/683)
He has a pretty valid point. With all the commercials and the 20 minute intro video, there has been no "demo" of the camera at all. Surely the iPhone's camera will be the best camera that has ever been on a cell phone and will be as easy to use as the rest of the iPhone. Yet, no publicity for it.
It makes you wonder a little bit...
for such purposes."
Perhaps they read his title wrong then. Maybe he is actually an anal cyst...
- small correction
- by fuzzygerdes June 26, 2007 12:12 PM PDT
- > There are many outstanding questions about the iPod
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(4 Comments)I think you mean iPhone in this sentence.