(c) The OS/2 Guy (c) <os2guy@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Nov 23, 11:52 am, use...@alienrat.co.uk (Woody) wrote:
>
> > If the states is as bad as you imply, I can see why the iPhone has only
> > managed to sell 26,000 in its first few weeks (the estimate was
> > 100,000).
>
> Your points are well taken Woody and I do not know the European cell
> phone market.
>
> Many of your facts are a bit off - the iPhone holds a 27% share of the
> cell phone market in the U.S. today and should surpass 30% by year's
> end.


Wow - that is pretty major. Did you not have phones over there before?
A quick scout around the web says yes you did.

> It came out July 1st and the cell phone industry did everything
> they could to downplay the importance of such a product. To achieve
> nearly 30% within four short months is a spectacular accomplishment.

It is spectacular. In fact more than spectacular, completely
unbelievable.

So apple predict that they will sell 4.5 million iPhones by the end of
the year. So with your figures of a 27% share of the US market, that
means you are saying that the entire sales of mobile phones in the US is
4.5 x 6/12 months x 100/27%, or 33 million phones a year?

That really is low, as it is below the amount of phones that are sold in
the UK in a year, and your population is 5 times the population here.

Do you have a reference for these figures, as the figures apple are
quoting are 1.8% of the US cellphone market, and it seems odd that apple
would play down their figures that much.


> No other company, including Motorola or Nokia, has been able to pull
> off that feat and steal away 30% of the cell phone customer base.

Well, motorola do have 31% of the US phone base (it is their largest
market). Nokia have 11% of the US market, it is their third biggest
market after india and china.

> The cell phone marketplace in the U.S. was nearly
> impenetrable before the iPhone but with one little product Apple
> changed the face of the American phone industry.

I am sure they have made an impact. However, the market here is a lot
more developed, but they are using the same techniques from the american
market, which don't work as well here.

> And even tho' many of those features coming for the iPhone are already
> available on cell phones, there is no cell phone with an ability to
> play and download music, films and videos all with the touch of a
> finger on a mini-computer with full Internet browser and email
> capability that I'm aware of.

Most of the top phones from sony-ericsonn, nokia, LG can do this.

I am not saying that the user interface isn't great, I am saying that
the features already existed, and one of the problems all companies have
is that people don't do it much (the average sales from iTunes are
something like 2 songs per iPod).

> Unlike so many who want it all now, Apple knows to provide those
> features in a half-assed way would make their product less valued and
> would not endear their 1.4 million customer base.

Wasn't it 30% earlier?

> If you've seen one
> Razr then you've seen them all but the iPhone will keep on giving,
> again and again.

Once you have seen one razr you have seen about the worst example of a
user interface known to man. Well, apart from the other motorolla ones.

> It is the hacker who is harming the iPhone and making
> it less valuable and more vulnerable.

In what way?

> That has frustrated the loyal
> iPhone customer base, all of whom are heavily invested iPhone
> customers and they want Apple to secure the iPhone and to seek
> criminal penalties and civil judgments against those who insist on
> harming the product (and their investments) and to brick those hacked
> iPhones that are placing the iPhone community at risk.

I have never heard of anyone wanting that. Where are you coming from?
How does what someone else does with their technology affect you? I they
go and pay money for a device it is theirs. if they want to hack it and
stick whatever they want on, good luck to them - it is theirs, not
yours.

I have a hacked iPod. It is nothing to do with apple, it is my iPod, not
theirs.

> That may sound harsh but it is the reality of the situation.

It doesn't sound harsh, it sounds completely retarded!

> Many hackers believe it
> is Apple against them but it is a customer base of over one million
> iPhone owners who are not happy with them (and if that were not true
> then there would be one million hacked iPhones. There aren't, there
> are only 1.5 to 2.5 thousand that are not activated through their
> authorized providers.).

Just because someone didn't hack their iPhone, doesn't mean they hate
everyone that did! They just chose not to, as they were ok with what
they got.

> If Apple can do all of the above within a four month marketing window
> then we have a lot to look forward to over the next eight months.

I think they do have to bring it up to feature parity with other phones
before they are going to make much of a dent outside the US, but more
importantly in the UK, they need to realise that there is a limited
market for people who will pay that much for that little talktime and
messages and that all the time kids cant bluetooth their happy slapping
videos to eachother, it isn't going to be a big hit!


btw - I was refering to the UK market, where O2 have sold 26,500 (O2
being the prime supplier), where the prediction was 100,000

--
Woody

www.alienrat.com