Another Look at the iPhone

As if the world really needs even more coverage of the iPhone (the frenzy within the blogosphere yesterday, including my “contribution” was fascinating to watch), it is a good exercise to take a sober day-after look at Steve Jobs’ latest “gift” to the world. Jupiter’s Michael Gartenberg leads off with a post looking at some the iPhone’s shortcomings (yes Virginia, the iPhone is not everything to all people), including the fact it’s a closed environment. Mapping the Web makes some excellent points about the extreme level of enthusiasm for the iPhone, highlighted by this sweet quote; “Yes, it is sexy as hell, but I’d still take Jessica Alba any day.”
Don’t get me wrong, I think the iPhone is super-cool, albeit somewhat expensive for the regular guy on the street. That said, I don’t think it’s the Blackberry-killer because the two devices will play in different markets. The iPhone’s launch and expected success could, however, cause Research in Motion to either temper its enthusiasm for the pro-sumer market where the Pearl has made a huge impact, and/or prompt it to strengthen its position in the enterprise market where it has been actively getting third-party applications into the Blackberry mix.
Merrill Lynch analyst Vivek Ayra believes the sell-off of RIM yesterday is over done because the he sees the iPhone as being better for multimedia, and RIM better for messaging”. “In our view there are two distinct segments in the smartphone market: multimedia and messaging. The iPhone has a strong multimedia suite that will appeal to consumers, but we believe RIM’s Blackberry smartphones with hardware keyboards have superior messaging (secure email) features targeted at prosumers and enterprises.”
Update: Tom Keating has a good post on how Apple managed to keep the iPhone under wraps until Steve Jobs walked on the stage at MacWorld. For that matter, I’ve always been amazed that large deals are kept secret until they’re actually announced.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Blackberry, iPhone