Comments on: iPhone 2.0 FUD-o-rama

Rob Enderle and the fools who quote him.

[bkaus]

I thought everyone already knew that Enderle was just a quote machine. In every MS article I read that quotes him, he gives some completely obvious "content-free" quote that adds absolute nothing to the story nor its validity (or lack thereof).

[netsquire]

Well said Macalope. My favorite item of FUD concerns all the analysts who say the iPhone is not a true smartphone. Before another analyst makes that claim, can we please have a definition of smartphone?

[puiz_andras]

So was Fake Steve lying when he said that Obama already had a 3G iPhone? Can you trust anyone these days?!

[Bill Scott 122]

Hey! In an article on Yahoo News about Napster offering downloads that will work on iPods, Rob Enderle didn't say anything negative about Apple!

The Yahoo article says, "Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, said he can't picture many iPod and iTunes users shifting to Napster, since iTunes software is so integrated with Apple music players. The exception may be someone looking for a track that Apple doesn't offer, he said. Napster might have a better shot competing against Amazon, which isn't solely focused on selling music downloads. "Napster's brand and focus on the medium should give it an advantage," Enderle said.

This could be a first for Enderle!

[mattyohe]

(The "Enderle Group" is really more of a "Enderle Couple" consisting of Rob and his wife.)

Zeman sez: "Reports suggest that both RIM and Nokia will have their own touch phones available by the end of the summer. If you prefer BlackBerry OS and S60 to what Apple has, these may by worth waiting for."

Who is he talking to? Current Blackberry and Nokia owners? His recommendation boils down to: "Don't buy something you aren't using now."

Zeman sez: "Once people started upgrading from 10.4.x to 10.5, problems cropped up. Apple issued 10.5.1 in response about a month later."

It was actually about 16 days, but that is beside the point... Is Zeman saying that is a good or bad response time?

Zeman sez: "Then there's the new hardware angle. Whenever Apple redesigns something, such as its MacBooks, there are those that run out and upgrade right away, and there are those who wait until a few months pass..."

This isn't an "angle" at all, nor is it a reason to shy away from the first release. Yeah, we get it, there are people out there who don't by the first release of anything, and then they die, happy that they never risked anything. Great.

Zeman sez: "I don't remember reading mass media news stories about this issue [LG firmware issue] like those reporting the iPhone ibricking incidents. And no one certainly suggested ahead of time that people wait to get one."

You can't compare LG's issue to Apple's non-issue. The 'iBricking' was user inflicted and not a fault of Apple's.

The reason no one suggested waiting to get any other phone is because nobody was interested in iPhone copy-cats.

[hypermark]

What the meme, "others will do the same soon" seems to forget is that executing on workflow, UI, usability is hard. Integrating device level goodness with PC level synchronicity is complex, to say the least. Nailing the services layer across these domains requires a level of orchestration that few in our business have mastered.

Layer on top of that figuring out the logistics of app creation, the tools that enable same, distribution, purchasing and marketplace functions and you have the truism that only a handful of companies in the history of computing have proven adept at building platform based businesses that simultaneously win the hearts and minds of developers, enterprises and ordinary consumers.

I think that Apple has put itself in a tremendous position to realize a halo effect across multiple lines of its business, and have blogged on topic in a post called:

Holy Sh-t! Apple's Halo Effect
http://thenetworkgarden.com/weblog/2008/04/holy-****-apple.html

Check it out if interested.

Mark

[hypermark]

Ps, CNET's blogging software mucked my URL. If interested in post just go to:

Holy Sh-t! Apple's Halo Effect
www.thenetworkgarden.com

[Felstatsu]

Beyond all of what you covered mattyohe, in respect to the statement about hardware and the updating, it's not likely Apple will suddenly release yet another version of the iPhone soon enough to make this one obsolete, nor is it likely any of its competitors will either. As for the software, it's not like you can't update your iPhone when the updated version comes out, sure your phone might be buggy for a few days if you are a first day buyer; however, even this assumes that Apple has learned nothing about mobile phones since releasing the first iPhone which I find hard to believe.

In short these problems, along with everything else show both Zeman and Rob have no clue what they're talking about, and are both completely jacktastic. Rob's a proven idiot when it comes to Apple, but Zeman blindly followed him even though some things Rob said clearly made no sense, hence they tie by maxing out my jackism meter. One might be more jacktastic than the other, but I can't tell with my current meter.

[digiprod--2008]

Why give this idiot Rob Enderle any ink. I never do! Oh gee, I just did.

[raafman]

Actually, Barack Obama is running for president AND using an iPhone. Phh. There goes that theory 'lope. Back to the drawing board.

I love this comment - "Computers bring with them more complexity, more issues, more places for things to go "wrong"."

Is there anything better on the market? Ask anyone who has a Treo or even the current Windows Mobile 6 devices about how often they have the 'reboot' their phones. My Symbian phone even has to be reset every now and then.

Sure more can go wrong, but in the case of Apple, a hell of a lot more can go right.

[ssteve1]

Yeah, my Treo 650 crashes every now and then when it tries to ring. But I guess that's understandable. After all, why would a smartphone developer think to debug something as obscure as ringing? But I'm going to live with it until I can buy an 80 gig iPhone.