[amazing]

You'll laugh your head off, so be sure to comply with all health and safety regulations regarding too much laughter:

The great iPhone death watch - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Brainstorm Tech

[shifuimam]

At the iPhone's initial release, it did have some major problems - lack of 3G, lack of third-party applications (hard to remember when there was no App Store, eh?), prohibitive cost with a two-year contract.

I doubt that the iPhone would be as big in the smartphone market today if Apple hadn't introduced the App Store and dropped the price to something a bit more palatable to the middle-class masses (especially in this economy!).

[Spheric Harlot]

Yes and no.

For one, it already did more than virtually every other phone on the market - because although it was missing major functionality, nobody ever actually USED it on any of the previously available phones.

The iPhone's limited functionality was actually USEFUL to human beings, even in its non-third-party-augmented state at 1.0.

Also "major problems" are things like failing to live up to promise by virtue of misrepresenting capabilities or sheer bugginess. Neither was the case - the damn thing was every bit as sleek and wonderful as Apple had demonstrated in January.

As for cost - everybody acts like Apple responded to market pressure. Bullshit.

Apple CREATED market pressure, and followed the completely normal tech sales path of high prices to keep demand exclusive while ramping up availability, and a planned drop soon after, creating ANOTHER huge worldwide publicity hype, followed by yet ANOTHER huge worldwide publicity hype when they played the Good Guy card and reimbursed people for something everybody KNEW was going to happen anyway!

All the while planning the next iteration in plastic for half the (subsidized) price.

One thing in common among most of those commentators is that they all fail to see that the product Apple has released represents where they've BEEN, and that they're already two years ahead of that in their planning.

All this bogus talk of "iXxx killers" completely neglects to take into account that Apple keeps moving forward.

[amazing]

everybody always conveniently forgets that Apple was simply following other mfgs' modus operandi: Moto charged $500 for its first intro of their oh-so-very-hyped flip phone. Can anybody even remember the model name of that phone now? Then they reduced it by $100, then it went way down, etc.

Meanwhile, even Apple's 1st gen phones revolutionized what people expected, right?

[zacharace]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I doubt that the iPhone would be as big in the smartphone market today if Apple hadn't introduced the App Store and dropped the price to something a bit more palatable to the middle-class masses (especially in this economy!).

I agree. Jack Gold had the only rational comment on that page: "Apple will likely have a tough time convincing application vendors to build specialized clients for the iPhone until the volumes are there, and the volumes could be limited by the lack of third-party applications – a Catch 22.”

It definitely would have been a "Catch-22" if Apple had not both lowered the price and added the App Store--brilliant marketing or an accident?

I always do love playing "What If?" though

[imitchellg5]

In some ways a few comments have a bit of logic. But it's ridiculous for someone to say that a product will fail, especially before it's been released.