January 23rd, 2007
10 reasons why pre-announcing the iPhone was brilliant
In Focus » See more posts on: iPhone
Yesterday I posted a story by Mike Elgan at Computerworld who listed six reasons why it was a mistake to make the iPhone keynote at Macworld. Although pre-announcing a new product is a radical departure for Apple, there is some logic to it in this case. Here are 10 reasons why announcing the iPhone six months early was a stroke of genius by Steve Jobs:
- It gets us salivating. The anticipation of waiting until June for iPhone has been compared to those old Heinz ketchup commercials from the 70s, featuring the Carly Simon song "anticipation."
- Six months of free R&D by a rabid, foaming at the mouth, customer base. I've never seen so much press and feature suggestions for a product in my life. Why hire more QA people when you can simply pre-announce something and let the blogosphere do your research for you? (Although it baffles me why Apple hasn't added a "suggestion" link to their iPhone pages.)
- It virtually freezes the market. I don't know of a single Mac user that would buy a smartphone, or any phone for that matter, until June. It would be like buying a fully loaded new Mac the month before Macworld Expo. In fact, almost anyone looking to buy a smartphone will probably wait.
- Mobile phone contract renewals will also drop significantly. Why would anyone renew a multi-year or annual contract with their current carrier? I can see a lot of people going month-to-month as their contracts lapse and I can see the contract wars getting pretty ugly. Expect the other carriers (Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint) to begin offering mega-incentives to get you into a contract.
- It gives accessory manufactures six months to come up with cases, skins, lanyards and 30-pin dock connector accessories that will work with iPhone.
- It gives you six months to save up the US$500-$600 needed to buy an iPhone.
- It gives you six months to sell your current rubbish phone (or donate it to WillItBlend.com).
- It gives you six months to swap your existing mobile phone contract with some unsuspecting nincompoop.
- It gives you six months to justify iPhone to your boss or significant other.
- It gives you six months to adopt Apple's Reality Distortion Field.
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Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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