The iPhone has enjoyed a strong run, leapfrogging RIM to claim second place in the smartphone market with 17.3 market share, as reported in Ars Technica. But will Apple be able to hold or grow its iPhone market position in 2009?
I polled a group of 17-year old neighbors yesterday, asking them what gadgets they crave. Most would love an iPhone but, barring that (due to cost or carrier reasons), one phone that got a lot of praise is the Samsung Glyde. While CNET didn't give it much love, these teens loved the slide-out keyboard. (Giving how often some of them bathe, it's probably ideal to keep touchscreens away from them.)
Samsung and others will likely give the iPhone a run for its money, but I would guess that the primary competition to Apple in 2009 will actually be spending inertia. I've wanted the 3G iPhone for months, but I simply can't justify the purchase: my old iPhone works just fine, and this economy isn't the time to be spending on nice-to-haves.
While the iPhone is better positioned than RIM to win over both businesses and consumers, in a recession the best option may be to buy nothing at all. Even Apple can't compete with that.
In case you were looking for another place to fritter away hours in the day, you will soon be able to stand in line at Best Buy for the iPhone 3G. Lucky you.
Starting Sept. 7, both the eight- and 16-gigabyte models of the 3G phone will be available at all Best Buy stores, except for a handful located in areas where AT&T's wireless service isn't available, Best Buy said.
Let's hope that Best Buy manages the activation process better than the Apple Store has. Only AT&T seems to be able to consistently get the iPhone 3G registered, and even it takes up to 20 minutes. Maybe Best Buy will do better, but more likely it's simply a way to spread the pain around.
So, after waiting three hours in line at the Apple store, Apple was unable to activate my iPhone. The reason? There was a "PLU" on my account. Except that when we called AT&T, there wasn't a PLU on my account. Verdict? I'm out-of-luck.
What's a PLU? It is basically a corporate discount code that indicates that the user is on a "foundation" account.
In my case, there is no PLU because there is no foundation account. Apple told me I'd have to get the phone at the AT&T store, which was fruitless since AT&T was out of the iPhone 3G by 9:30 a.m. I walked over to the AT&T store to ask if I could buy the phone at the Apple store then walk the two minutes to AT&T to activate it. Nope.
This is one of the clumsiest product launches ever. Apple knows hardware and software--it knows nothing about telecommunications, and the lack of an effective hand-off relationship with AT&T makes for problems like this one. (I wasn't alone in having the PLU problem. There were dozens at the Salt Lake City Apple store who had the same problem, and I've read online that huge numbers of people are having trouble activating their iPhone 3Gs and getting their iPhones updated to the 2.0 software. While I was in line, Apple's activation system went down three times (apparently nationwide).
Apple, you wasted three hours of my time this morning. At the end of it, I have two bureaucrats sitting in your store and in AT&T's telling me that while there's absolutely nothing wrong with my account, I can't get an iPhone 3G. AT&T's system is telling Apple that there's a problem...the same system that the AT&T people looked at and said there's not even the shadow of a problem.
Try again, Apple. For a company that makes as excellent products as you do, the buying experience couldn't be worse.
(As an aside, it's "ironic" that Apple has huge quantities of iPhone 3Gs at its stores, but has rationed out the phones to the AT&T stores. So, the party best able to activate the phones is least likely to be able to do so, thanks to Apple's desire to make as much margin on the iPhone 3G hardware as possible. It wouldn't seem like such a nefarious plan if activation actually worked.)
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