Apple's iPhone: tough enough to take a hit and still pass bits

PC World has been brave and done several abuse and drop tests with the new iPhone. The good news: not only is the device extremely rugged and survived all the abuse they threw at it, but it's been surprising hard to mar the case or make it look anything other than brand new. No one is saying it's as rugged as the iPod nano yet, but that's because no one's been able to pull their attention away from their iPhone long enough to run it over with their car yet.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPhone launch, iPod nano

iDay+1 brings 16,000+ iPhone Buzz Index, brisk sales, and overloaded servers

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iDay has come and gone, yet the iPhone buzz keeps building. As we go into the weekend, we now have more than 15,000 stories in the last 24 hours, many of them covering the launch events at Apple and ATT stores last night.

Reviews of the phone have been overwhelming positive. I was surprised to see that even the Boston Globe, a newspaper with no great love for Apple products or enthusiasts, had a rather glowing "first-touch" review:

After the relentless buildup of the past six months, the temptation to trash Apple Inc.'s new iPhone is pretty much irresistible.

If only I could.

That pretty much says it all.

Sales of the iPhone, though, I would have to classify as surprisingly smooth. AT&T's activation system appears to be the big bottleneck at this point; it was down several times in the last 12 hours and is at best sluggish during peak loads. Waits in AT&T stores have also been long due to poor computer support. One fan waiting in line at the AT&T store in Manhattan, left the line, walked to the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, bought an iPhone, walked back to AT&T, and the line hadn't moved from where he was in it. Ouch.

On the other hand, Apple's decision to decouple phone activation from sales was a strategic move that, in hindsight, now appears to be genius incarnate. We clocked people walking out of Apple stores with new iPhones at rates of one to three a minute, which means anywhere from 50 to 200 phones are walking out of each of Apple's 162 stores each hour. Said another way, based upon what limited data we've been able to observe and get from others, we're looking at peak physical sales in Apple Stores on the order of 30,000 an hour. But even more surprising is the fact that Apple iPhone stocks seem to be holding up well. People reported last night that they could walk into Apple Stores at 9 pm and buy an iPhone with no line or wait whatsoever. It appears that Apple's bet big on manufacturing lots of phones.

Online Apple sales have suffered somewhat from overloaded servers; in fact both the online Apple Store and iTunes were down after 9 pm EDT as customers rushed to make purchases. Even so, we've heard data saying that online sales rates were also in the tens of thousands of sales per hour during the first few hours. Delivery times have been consistently reported at 2-4 weeks from the online store; that has not changed as of 9:45 am Sat. morning, but may change today as stocks become depleted over the weekend.

The bottom line: some analysts claimed that the iPhone launch would be a failure if Apple failed to sell 100,000 iPhones during the first weekend. Based upon the limited data we have, we believe that number was exceeded in just the first two to three hours. Blackfriars' prediction is that Apple will sell 500,000 iPhones this weekend, and based upon limited sales rates reported, that number now looks quite achievable. The only question is whether the demand and iPhone supply is great enough that they might push past the million unit mark this weekend.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple Store, at&t, iPhone, iPhone Buzz Index, Sales, Retail

First iPhones sold at Burlington MA

[The ATT line at the Burlington Mall]


[The Apple Store line at the Burlington Mall]


[More of the Apple Store line at the Burlington Mall]


[The Apple Store iPhone displays count down the minutes until 6 pm]


[Four seconds left]


[00:00 -- the night of the iPhone has begun]

We just watched both the ATT and Apple stores open. iPhone sales are obviously brisk, with three walking out the door in the first five minutes. Some buyers, however, are doing something inexplicable: they are actually trying iphones out at the in-store displays, much to the frustration to the few hundred people waiting in line.

Technorati Tags: Apple, at&t, iPhone, iPhone launch

iPhone Buzz breaks 11,000 for iDay; let the consumer revolution begin

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The number of stories over the last 24 hours about the iPhone has boomed to 11,690, but what stories they are. Today's New York Times has three iPhone articles and boasts an iPhone editorial titled "Eat the iPhone" (note: subscription may be required to read editorials). The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has no fewer than four different articles referencing the iPhone launch, including an excellent one by Paul Kedrosky titled, "The Jesus Phone" in which he notes Apple's amazing lack of traditional publicity relations:

So, how has Apple done it? Some people argue it has cleverly drip-dripped product information to the market, tantalizing consumers and journalists alike, everyone hanging on to learn about the next nifty feature. A big, bright touch screen! A real Web browser! A finger-flickable interface! I gotta get one!

But this theory is wrong. Apple hasn't steadily dripped product information. As a matter of fact, the iPhone that Steve Jobs described and demonstrated back in January, when he first announced the product, is pretty much the same as what is being launched today. I am hard-pressed to think of a single material feature in the product that wasn't announced six months ago, right down to the nifty new way you can scroll through songs.

So if Apple hasn't teased and tantalized its way to iPhone ubiquity, another theory goes, surely it has been the company's massive, multibillion-dollar marketing campaign that has done the deed. The trouble is, there is no such multibillion-dollar Apple campaign. Apple simply announced the product, and then did nothing. It has only been in the last month that there have been some television advertisements, and those were merely product demonstrations set to music. Granted, it was nice music, but it was also just an iPhone being put through its paces, hardly the recipe for hype.

We noted nearly a year go that Apple's quest for excellent consumer experiences and secrecy are two ingredients of the secret sauce for its remarkable public awareness. But is it really worth all that effort?

Here's a quick way to put a dollar value on Apple's remarkable non-marketing. We've been tracking the number of articles on the iPhone for the last 11 days. During that period, more than 86,740 news articles have appeared referencing the iPhone, none of which Apple paid for. If we were to substitute paid advertisements at $2,500 each for those news articles, it would have cost Apple $217 million to buy that amount of publicity. Yet, because Apple focused on what customers wanted and addressed a true consumer need for a simple and powerful cell phone, it never spent a penny of that money. Said another way, Apple garnered $217 million in ad savings -- which falls to its bottom line as pure profit -- over 11 days by being a smart marketer. And that number is probably more like a billion dollars in advertising savings over the past six months.

Kedrosky makes the same point about Apple giving consumers what they wanted in a different but equally powerful way to close his article:

If it's not the marketing campaign, nor the cult of Apple, nor the showmanship of the charismatic Steve Jobs, then how has the iPhone succeeded in getting millions of people interested in buying something so expensive that hasn't even been launched?

I'll tell you. First, people hate their cell phones. Other than making phone calls -- a downright dreary bit of business -- using phones for Internet, entertainment and pretty much anything else has been abysmal. Cell phones are best characterized as crippled, paternalistic devices best suited for people who think straitjackets are comfortable evening wear. They have horrible Web browsers, crummy screens, and obscure-to-the point-of-opacity interfaces. (After all, some of the iPhone's most hyped features, like maps, are on traditional cell phones as well. You just can't find the feature.)

But in addition to hating their phones, people hate their cell phone carriers. Hate, hate, hate, hate. The major cellular providers -- with their ham-handed "support" and fascist control of software that can run on phones directly -- are right up there with the IRS in terms of inspiring your average mobile phone user's disgust and loathing.

To such consumers, Apple's iPhone seems like a cool drink of water. These people want to be liberated either from bad phones or from bad phone companies. They want to choose a device that does all the things they want to do -- calling, being entertained, consuming information -- not all the things their phone company thinks they should do (and then be charged $5 a month per feature for the privilege). They want phones that make it possible to do calls over wi-fi, to the point that cellular companies could potentially become irrelevant.

The massive upwelling of grassroots support for the iPhone shows that a revolution has been building for some time. Now it's here. Cell phone carriers are going to have to respond by cutting the length of contracts and eliminating exclusivity, and most important, by finally being responsive to their market. If not, iPhones (or their successors) will finish them off.

iDay is here. Let the consumer revolution against the mobile phone business begin.

Welcome to iDay, the biggest consumer electronics launch in history

[6:40 am line for Apple Macworld Keynote where the iPhone was announced, January 6 2007;
I don't have any iPhone store line photos yet]

The iDay has arrived. Today, Apple's iPhone goes on sale this evening in the United States at roughly 168 Apple Stores and almost 1,800 AT&T stores. Blackfriars estimates that Apple has approximately a million iPhones manufactured, and that it will likely sell 500,000 of them this first weekend. If Apple should achieve that goal, it will be the largest consumer electronics launch ever in terms of dollar amounts for the first weekend of sales, amassing $275 million in sales just one weekend.

For comparison, I've listed a few other important historical consumer electronics launches:

• Sony Betamax VCR: $58 million over seven months The original Sony BetaMax sold 15,000 units (according to Wikipedia), each selling for an average of about 230,000 yen in 1975. At the time, there were about 300 yen per dollar, so it was a roughly $900 device, meaning Sony made about $15 million in revenue that first year. Accounting for the fact that a 1975 dollar is worth $3.87 today, that makes the BetaMax launch worth about $58 million year one. Even if Apple should sell only 100,000 iPhones in the first weekend (I'm predicting 5 times that), its launch will equal the entire first year of BetaMax sales.


• Microsoft Windows 95: $122 million in the first four days Microsoft Windows 95, while not a consumer electronics product and also bolstered by OEM computer maker sales, sold a million copies of that software package at $90 a copy over four days in 1995. That's $90 million over those four days, and a 1995 dollar is worth $1.35 today. That means first four days of the Windows 95 launch was worth $121.5 million.


• Microsoft XBox 360: $128 million in the first weekend The XBox 360 sold roughly 345,000 units over its first weekend on sale in the US in 2005, at an average selling price of $370. The first weekend of sales generated $128 million in revenue.

I'm going to take pictures at the Burlington AT&T and Apple Stores this afternoon. Meanwhile, for anyone needing proof that today is going to be a circus, they have only to look at the pictures from AppleInsider of the line outside the San Francisco Apple store.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple Store, at&t, Consumer Electronics, Launches, Marketing, Microsoft, Betamax, Sony, Windows 95, XBox 360

Apple's iPhone has boosted other handset makers, not hurt them

Think that the incredible buzz around the Apple iPhone is hurting handset makers like Research in Motion and Nokia? Think again. Check out this chart of the stock prices since the beginning of the year:


[Click on the above image for a larger version]

While Apple's stock price is up 45%, Nokia's is up 34% and Research in Motion's, the maker of the Blackberry email phone, is up 27%. All this while the S&P 500 index is up 6% for the year to date. Only Motorola is down among this giant handset makers, and we'd argue that because of strategic errors from years past still haunting them. Of course, it doesn't help to have Carl Icahn wanting to take over your board and having your best phone designer defect either.

Our view: excitement about the iPhone is reviving the handset manufacturers because it has loosened the near dictatorial power wireless carriers have wielded over handset makers. Nokia, RIM, and Motorola all have good designers and engineers working for them, but carrier pay-by-the-drink business models were stifling their innovation and ability to actually get products to market. The flood of "iPhone-killers" coming can only improve the mobile phone consumer experience, which quite frankly, has ranged only between mediocre to abysmal to date. Imagine what will happen to all these stocks if the consumer experience were actually good.

Full disclosure: the author owns Apple stock at the time of writing.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry, Research In Motion

iPhone Buzz breaks 10,000 with more than 24 hours to go until launch

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In the last 24 hours, Google News has found 10,100 stories containing the iPhone, the highest value in the last two weeks. I fully expect those numbers to go higher as we go into the weekend.

Business 2.0 has a blog entry claiming that all this buzz has been a windfall for bloggers, generating millions of dollars in new ad revenue for sites writing about the iPhone. Based upon Blackfriars results, we're not seeing that claim in practice -- our Adsense and affiliate income is about what it was back in January before the iPhone launch, despite somewhat higher traffic. Go figure.

Apple has announced that it will be keeping all Apple stores open until midnight on Friday and will provide free iPhone workshops and one-on-one iPhone training starting on Saturday. The release also notes that Apple retail stores in the US will open an hour earlier throughout the summer to accommodate increased traffic due to the iPhone. Somehow, it doesn't sound like Apple expects the iPhone boom to stop after this weekend.

ZDNet's Russell Shaw has a pretty good analysis of why Apple is requiring a few Apple Store employees to sleep over at each store overnight. It's not just for security; it's to accept those armed guard iPhone stock deliveries from FedEx in the middle of the night when the crowds will be lighter or at least asleep. Sounds like good attention to logistics detail to me, lining up nicely with the plans at some malls to bring in portable restrooms for the people waiting in line.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple Store, Blackfriars, Blogs, iPhone, iPhone Buzz Index

Interesting crowd control plans at Apple stores

Insanely Great Mac has some details on processes for managing iPhone crowds at mall Apple stores. I think it's smart of them to think of bringing in portable restrooms; I remember some retailers having big issues about that during the Playstation 3 launch craziness.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple Store, iPhone, Retail

iPhone buzz index climbs to 8,170 as viewers await this summer's blockbuster

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The iPhone Buzz index hit a new weekday high today, reaching 8,170 stories with the word iPhone in them in the last 24 hours on Google News. That's up more than 500 stories from yesterday. And the stories seem to have turned the tide -- yesterday, the meme was all about how unlikely it was that the iPhone would be a success and what a high bar it would have to clear to be successful But today, the reviews are in, and it's four thumbs-up from the major reviewers (although each has his own gripes too:

• Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal says that "...despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions." In his video review, he says that the iPhone "raises the bar for all other smartphones."


• David Pogue of the New York Times (my personal favorite. How can you not love a reviewer who used to be a Broadway musical rehearsal pianist?) says, "It’s fast, beautiful, menu-free, and dead simple to operate. You can’t get lost, because the solitary physical button below the screen always opens the Home page, arrayed with icons for the iPhone’s 16 functions." In his video review, Pogue says, "The Web functions make the Blackberry look like an amateur."


• Steven Levy of Newsweek says "...the bottom line is that the iPhone is a significant leap. It’s a superbly engineered, cleverly designed and imaginatively implemented approach to a problem that no one has cracked to date: merging a phone handset, an Internet navigator and a media player in a package where every component shines, and the features are welcoming rather than foreboding.  The iPhone is the rare convergence device where things actually converge."


• Edward C. Baig of USA Today reports "...the iPhone is a breeze to set up and fun to use, evident from the moment you slide your finger across the screen to unlock it. It's a wonderful widescreen iPod and fabulous picture viewer. Smart sensors change the orientation of the display from portrait to landscape mode, based on how you hold the device and what you are doing at the time. Once you get the hang of its "multitouch" interface — give it a few days — you won't have to schlep a separate iPod and cellphone in your pocket."

Now anyone who has read down to here is starting to think that the press is starting to sound like movie critics raving about the latest box office smash. And you know what? That's exactly the type of phenomenon we are looking at. After all, the iPhone faces its "opening weekend" starting Friday, and we'll get our first assessment of public, not paid critic, reaction then. And just as in movies, my guess is that the public reaction will be even more positive than the critics.

My projection is that Apple will sell nearly 500,000 iPhones this weekend, made possible by its six months of preparation and months of production stockpiling. At an average price of $550, that will make this opening weekend worth about $275 million, far exceeding any movie opening, and in fact putting Apple on track to the largest consumer electronics launch ever as measured by dollars (more on that in a subsequent post). And why not? With reviews like this, the iPhone is already looking like a blockbuster.

Technorati Tags: Apple, David Pogue, Edward Baig, iPhone, iPhone Buzz Index, Projections, Steven Levy, Walt Mossberg

iPhone Buzz Index climbs to 7,875

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It's Tuesday of iPhone week, so the iPhone Buzz Index, the measure of how many news stories contained the word "iPhone" in the last 24 hours, is climbing. The big news today is that Apple and AT&T have decided to do all iPhone activations electronically through iTunes, an initiative that is going to rock the US mobile phone world. That's not represented in today's buzz index, since the release came out only about half an hour ago, so I expect to see another bump up in the index tomorrow. We're expecting the number of stories to easily cross 10,000 by Friday when the iPhone actually goes on sale.

Apple and AT&T reshape US mobile phone selling with iTunes activation

[Click on the above for a larger version]

Today's press release confirms that iPhone customers
can activate their phones entirely via iTunes without ever talking to an AT&T store or representative. Blackfriars predicted this previously as the only way that made sense for Apple to serve the huge demand created by the iPhone; we're glad to see the facts out in public view.

This may seem like a little thing, but automated activation is a huge change for the mobile phone industry in the US (Europeans have not had any form of phone activation for years, because their accounts and credit are all tied to the Subscriber Identity Modules, not to the phones). It removes one more bit of friction to the phone purchase and allows the consumer to consider their phone plans in the comfort of their home instead of under the pressured eye of a salesperson. And AT&T, in exchange, gets a much lower cost -- and higher profit -- transaction. It's eCommerce all over again, except with mobile phones. And it's about time; the US has been in the mobile phone dark ages far too long.


As an aside, there's a great video showing exactly how the iTunes activation works on Apple's site (that's where the image above came from). And really astute viewers will get a sneak peak at the new 80 GByte iPhone about 6 minutes in when they show the capacity of the activated iPhone to be 74.40 GBytes. Don't we all wish it were true.

But with automated activation and data plans settled, let the Apple Store lines begin! Oh, wait, they already did....

Technorati Tags: Apple, at&t, eCommerce, iPhone, iTunes, Mobile phones

Late breaking news: iPhones AND SIMs locked to AT&T

You'll get this story tomorrow from AT&T, but word has it that iPhone subscriber identification cards -- those little chip-like cards that are standard throughout the GSM mobile phone world -- are NOT interchangeable with other carriers. So if you have a T-Mobile GSM account and somehow get an iPhone in your hands, you won't be able to swap in your SIM card and have your iPhone work on T-Mobile. Apple signed an exclusive deal with AT&T -- and they are using every technology in their arsenal to enforce that exclusivity. Sorry.

Technorati Tags: Apple, at&t, iPhone, SIM

The iPhone camp-out line has started outside the 5th Ave. NYC Apple Store

Vicarious Music has photos showing a couple people already in line for Friday's iPhone launch. We've been predicting there would be camp out lines for a while. Anyone got photos of someone camping out outside an AT&T store?

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple Store, iPhone, Retail

YouTube video of the Apple iPhone kiosk movie

For those not wanting to wait in line to get into their Apple Store on Friday or Saturday, someone has kindly put giant iPhone kiosk video up on YouTube. It doesn't really have anything you couldn't get from the Web site, but it's a nice way to see how Apple is marketing the device four minutes of animated pictures. Thanks to Macrumors.com for the heads-up.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, Marketing, Kiosk, YouTube

iPhone security tight -- and rightfully so

AppleInsider has, in my opinion, the best nugget of the day about iPhone logistics::

Awaiting the [iPhone shipment] freight at each location on Sunday were armored personnel, who were reportedly hired by Apple through its courier's ground handling agent and then cleared by the Transportation Security Administration. Armed guards are extremely unusual for freight coming out of the Asian sector, those familiar with the matter explained, and are typically reserved for shipments containing riches such as gold and diamonds.

Think that's over-reacting? Do the math. Word has it that the largest Apple and AT&T stores may receive stock of up to 10,000 iPhones. At an average selling price of $550, that comes out to a shipment valuation of -- $5.5 million. And given that we expect iPhones to be auctioned on eBay in the range of $800 to $2,000 for customers who don't want to pay their monthly cell dues to AT&T, it could be worth even more to the enterprising truck hijacker.

But the article goes on with another fun tidbit:

Apple management on Sunday began informing its retail personnel that beginning Monday, no cameras of any kind will be allowed in the back stockrooms of its retail outlets. The ban reportedly spans all cell phones -- regardless of whether they contain camera functionality -- and all personally owned Apple notebooks that feature built-in iSight video cameras.

The irony here should be apparent: for those Apple employees who actually fork out their own hard-earned dollars for an iPhone, they'll have to leave those iPhones with someone when they go into the back room to check on stock. They'll then know who their true friends are; they'll be the ones that they can trust with their iPhone while they are working and not have them sell it for a quick kilobuck on eBay.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, AppleInsider, Security

iPhone buzz returns to work-week levels at 5,736

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The iPhone buzz index fell back to a more routine 5,736 stories on Google News in the last 24 hours as we enter the home stretch to the iPhone launch. There's no real new news because we just came off the weekend, but opinion pieces continue to split between 1) iPhone is going to completely change the industry (as articled by the Seattle times), and 2) iPhone is going to be a disappointment and here's why (courtesy of Bloomberg). The good news: by this time next week, we should have a pretty good read one way or the other.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPhone Buzz Index

New Blackfriars research: Waiting For The iPhone

I'm pleased to report that our new Analyzing Apple product goes on sale today at The Blackfriars products store (you can read a longer description here). This report contains our new iPhones sales forecast, updates of our earnings forecasts, and new target prices for Apple Stock based upon current and future earnings. To make sure that new customers don't just jump into the middle of our analysis, we're bundling in our April report with this package as well, along with the forecast spreadsheets and Keynote and PowerPoint presentations that come with both reports.

I think every Apple investor (or prospective investor) can use some thoughtful outside opinions backed by hard facts on which to base their investment decisions. This is particularly true as investors face the very volatile swings we can expect from the iPhone launch, which may be the largest consumer electronics product launch in history. Our new report will give you both the facts and the analysis that will help you both make better decisions and sleep better at night. And better still, you'll get presentation slides and spreadsheets containing the data and graphics you can use to convince others of your own personal analysis.

Investors who invested according to our targets in April made more than 30% on their money in two months. So don't delay; order your copy today!

Oh, one more thing. We have added automatic report fulfillment with this report, meaning you should get download instructions for your order within minutes of purchase. However, we continue to have problems with Google blacklisting our Verizon-supplied static IP address and blocking our email responses. If you're ordering from a Gmail.com address, please be patient -- we'll get your instructions to you within 24 hours, but we'll have to do it manually from a different email address. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Technorati Tags: Analyzing Apple, Apple, Blackfriars, Gmail.com

iPhone buzz approaches 10,000 stories in 24 hours

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Who said weekends were slow? Google News found 9,973 iPhone stories in the last 24 hours. That presumably includes the Sunday editions of the newspapers (which tend to publish early), so this may be the peak up until Wednesday or Thursday next week.

The big meme about iPhone now is that this is a make-or-break launch for Apple. That sounds interesting until you think about it. Apple has been growing earnings nearly 90% year over year without the iPhone, and we could reasonably expect comparable growth going forward in its traditional music and computer lines. So 90% growth is the "break scenario." Imagine what it will be like if the iPhone is a success and we see the "make" scenario. Oh my.

Well, actually tomorrow, you won't have to imagine. We'll be releasing our new Analyzing Apple: Waiting For The iPhone report on Monday, so check back at the Blackfriars Store to get our latest Apple financial analysis and forecast. We've raised our projection for upcoming iPhone sales as well as some new revenue sources we see coming in the fall. The result: we're bumping up our target price for Apple stock. Oh, and customers who bought April's Analyzing Apple report should check their emails for a special offer for that report tonight too.

Technorati Tags: Analyzing Apple, Apple, Blackfriars, iPhone, iPhone Buzz Index

iPhone buzz approaches 10,000 stories in 24 hours

[Click the above image for a larger version of the graph]



Who said weekends were slow? Google News found 9,919 iPhone stories in the last 24 hours. That presumably includes the Sunday editions of the newspapers (which tend to publish early), so this may be the peak up until Wednesday or Thursday next week.

The big meme about iPhone now is that this is a make-or-break launch for Apple. That sounds interesting until you think about it. Apple has been growing earnings nearly 90% year over year without the iPhone, and we could reasonably expect comparable growth going forward in its traditional music and computer lines. So 90% growth is the "break scenario." Imagine what it will be like if the iPhone is a success and we see the "make" scenario. Oh my.

Well, actually tomorrow, you won't have to imagine. We'll be releasing our new Analyzing Apple: Waiting For The iPhone report on Monday, so check back at the Blackfriars Store to get our latest Apple financial analysis and forecast. We've raised our projection for upcoming iPhone sales as well as some new revenue sources we see coming in the fall. The result: we're bumping up our target price for Apple stock. Oh, and customers who bought April's Analyzing Apple report should check their emails for a special offer for that report tonight too.

Technorati Tags: Analyzing Apple, Apple, Blackfriars, iPhone, iPhone Buzz Index

iPhone buzz index booms to 8,225 going into the weekend

[Click the above image for a larger version of the graph]

Today's iPhone buzz has risen to 8,225 over the last 24 hours, I suspect because we're going into the last weekend before availability. Next weekend, I expect the index to be well over 10,000 as reporters show pictures of people standing in lines and actually buying the devices. Further, I intend to be one of those; I'm planning a trip to shoot photos at the local Apple and AT&T stores on Friday myself.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the iPhone is the top choice among people planning to buy a new smart phone in the next three months. The New York Times notes that AT&T is hoping that the iPhone has coattails in terms of subscribers and buyers of AT&T services. And the Washington Post says that the iPhone promises to change the way the wireless industry plays. But my favorite lede was from the San Diego Union Tribune that said that "the Apple iPhone will create a consumer frenzy previously limited to such products as video game consoles and Cabbage Patch dolls."

Fellow analyst Maribel Lopez and I were talking about this yesterday, and we wondered if this might be the biggest launch of a consumer electronics product ever made. If nothing else, the press coverage certainly suggests that now.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple Store, at&t, iPhone, iPhone Buzz Index

Apple iPhone Guided Tour may be the iPhone's user manual

Apple both emailed and put on its home page a 20-minute video guided tour to the iPhone. It provides more details about iPhone operation than any document or video I've seen before. It demonstrates all the major features such as how to make calls, how to use video voice mail, how to use the Web browser, use the iPod and much more.

It's done so professionally that I don't think it is just a marketing piece. I suspect this very video will actually be pre-loaded on the phone itself, thereby providing a virtual user manual. We'll see next Friday.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, User manual

iPhone Buzz falls to 6,213, down 325 stories from Thursday

[Click the above image for a larger version of the graph]

The number of news stories covering the iPhone fell slightly today over Thursday, we assume because we're heading into a weekend when the iPhone won't be available. We're starting to graph the iPhone Buzz Index starting today so that people can see the overall trend.

iPhone displays are starting to appear in both Apple and AT&T stores overnight. Particularly interesting are the giant iPhone displays running demos. Since the displays are probably just standard LCDs, I wonder if Apple built those by loading real iPhone software onto a Mac mini and running demo code similar to that used in the actual iPhones. Ah, the advantages of having a common OS between desktops and phones; it makes creating kiosks SO much easier.

Perhaps the most interesting article I saw this morning was one where a Wine Director in a prominent restaurant actually got to play with one of the about 100 iPhones currently in the wild prior to launch. His summary I think captures the essence of the iPhone phenomenon well:

Overall impression of my 5 minute trial... The Apple iPhone is a magical device that for the first time seemlessly blends art, architecture and electronics into a brilliantly designed... I don't know what to call it. Calling it a phone is like defining Natalie Portman as a "Homo Sapien Female Humanoid" There is so much more to it than that.

Of course, this didn't stop the Boston Globe from noting that canceling your AT&T iPhone contract before the end of two years would cost a subscriber $175. The Globe claims that such fees are typically to reimburse the carrier for the cost of a subsidized handset and that therefore the unsubsidized iPhone shouldn't be subject to them. My understanding has always been otherwise. The real purpose of contract cancellation fees is to compensate the carrier for the discount they provide the subscriber for committing to two years worth of guaranteed revenue. If you take away the guaranteed revenue, they want their discount back. But on a slow news day, anything about the iPhone makes a publishable story, a fact I am sure Apple is quite happy about.

Technorati Tags: Apple, at&t, iPhone, iPhone Buzz Index

iPhone Buzz Index rises 439 to 6,538

Today, there are 6,538 articles from the last 24 hours on Google News. That's about 300 more than yesterday and about 650 more than when we started tracking on Wednesday. Clearly, we haven't peaked yet.

One of the items that generated news yesterday was the fact that iPhone buyers will be able to view YouTube videos on their iPhones. And Apple has already updated the iPhone photos on its Web site to include a YouTube icon on the front screen as you can see above.

Meanwhile, Gartner, IDC, and the Wall Street Journal are busy claiming that businesses should shun the iPhone, assuming that it can't sync with Microsoft Exchange (not true) and that it will be a security threat to their networks (also not true, especially if they are already running Microsoft Exchange). Common guys, get a clue. The real drivers behind these stories are not business leaders (who are undoubtedly trying to figure out ways to get one for themselves), but IT shops who, as Dilbert puts it, are the preventers of technology. Businesses will reject the iPhone just the same way that they rejected the PC originally -- yelling and screaming while executives bring them to work anyway.

Among those articles, though, is a particularly amusing one from the Onion that gives a new set of specifications for the iPhone. I'm particularly excited that every iPhone will come with an iPhone hat, so that others will know you own one during those brief periods when you aren't using it. Now that's marketing.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Gartner, IDC, iPhone, iPhone Buzz Index, The Onion

Shuttle-gazing on a midsummer night's eve

This has nothing to do with marketing or Apple. Instead, it's about seeing amazing things in your own back yard.

Few of us, other than Mark Shuttleworth, Richard Branson, or Bill Gates, have $20 million in disposable cash to visit the International Space Station (ISS). But you can see the ISS for free -- in fact, it probably is in your own back yard.

That's what my family and I have been doing this week. When we heard the Space Shuttle Atlantis was docking with the International Space Station, I visited heavens-above.com and looked up when the two vehicles would pass over our home in Stow, MA. And unlike some of the other missions lately, this one actually had nice high passes to see. So we caught our first glimpse of the two vehicles docked just after 10 pm on Sunday night. They appeared as a very bright, fast-moving planet rising to about 30 degrees above the horizon; they traversed our entire sky in less than five minutes. That sight combined with the newly appearing constellations of fireflies in our yard created a magical experience.

Of course, anyone who has been following this mission knows that Atlantis undocked from the Space Shuttle yesterday, so we went out last night to see what we could see during its last scheduled night in space. This pass was even better than the one on Sunday; it was scheduled to rise to 89 degrees. That's one degree away from directly overhead.

This time, a very bright speck appeared on the horizon, followed by a slightly dimmer one trailing it by about 5 degrees or so. They grew brighter and brighter until, when they were directly over our heads, they outshone nearby planets Venus and Jupiter and rivaled the brightness of the half moon. The brighter of the two vehicles was the space shuttle; it is usually the brightest object in the sky when visible, because it typically flies with its white side facing the sun for heat management purposes. The ISS was less bright, but had more colors in its image, largely due to the reflections off its solar panels. As they passed by our location, I told my family, "You're looking at two space vehicles, each traveling at nearly 18,000 miles an hour, and they both have people living on them." And after five minutes or so, they winked out as they passed into the earth's shadow.

There are many other space craft and satellites you can see on a summer evening (you can even see flashes from GPS satellite solar panels during the day, if you are sharp-eyed). And there are still two more space shuttle flights scheduled for this year . The next time you have a lovely cloudless summer's evening, turn off your TV, go to heavens-above.com for a schedule, and then go outside and look up. You may be amazed by the things you see.

Technorati Tags: Astronomy, International Space Station, ISS, Space Shuttle