Even newer details

[Kupe#WP]

Perhaps you've convinced yourself that the devices are direct comparison in the Enterprise space, but clearly they're not.

Thanks for playing though

Even when faced with irrefutable proof, you remain steadfastly in kool-aid drinking mode. Are you yet-another-06/07 registrant sent to add to the Apple buzz machine? Why doesn't this crowd just share a common user name like: AAPLApologist0607?

 

[HowardH]

Way to go ignoring the quote in the WSJ from Apple saying they are going after that market. Just ignore those other comparisons, convenient.

You really are full of yourself and are clearly overcompensating.

Don't be such a hypocrite. One of us read the entire article and was able to understand the message of the article. One of us decided to start with personal insults.

Go back and read even the small excerpt of what you quoted.
Read these words:

According to a person close to Apple

So we're taking an article from a third party, which quotes an unnamed source who very possibly doesn't even work for Apple. And we're basing out interpretation of Apple's marketing strategy on that, as opposed looking at the ACTUAL marketing that is happening in front of our eyes, in the public domain. Or even the rest of the article.

 

[HowardH]

Even when faced with irrefutable proof, you remain steadfastly in kool-aid drinking mode. Are you yet-another-06/07 registrant sent to add to the Apple buzz machine? Why doesn't this crowd just share a common user name like: AAPLApologist0607?

WHAT irrefutable proof?

No, I registered within the last few weeks to resolve a Treo issue.

 

[Malatesta]

And we're basing out interpretation of Apple's marketing strategy on that, as opposed looking at the ACTUAL marketing that is happening in front of our eyes, in the public domain. Or even the rest of the article.

I have a feeling you are convincing no one except yourself.

 

[HowardH]

I have a feeling you are convincing no one except yourself.

You could well be right. You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink. I can't teach my cat French.

 

[Kupe#WP]

WHAT irrefutable proof?

Navigate your way to this Apple URL and scroll to the bottom. iPhone compared to (drum roll) business enterprise devices. Apple (the host of th web page) is directly comparing the iPhone (their non-business device by your description) to four other classes of "business" phones (Nokia, WM Smartphone, Blackberry, Palm Treo). Get it?

Of course, they very carefully limit the features in the comparison to entertainment capabilities. Lame.

 

[braj]

You could well be right. You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink. I can't teach my cat French.

You can't convince a cat that whitewash is milk either.

 

[HowardH]

Navigate your way to this Apple URL and scroll to the bottom. iPhone compared to (drum roll) business enterprise devices. Apple (the host of th web page) is directly comparing the iPhone (their non-business device by your description) to four other classes of "business" phones (Nokia, WM Smartphone, Blackberry, Palm Treo). Get it?

Of course, they very carefully limit the features in the comparison to entertainment capabilities. Lame.

That's my point.

Look at the Treo for example. In the Enterprise space it's a fantastic device. It supports full Outlook integration (well, almost). It supports Push email. It has great application support. These are things that are important to the Enterprise space.

It's also a usable device in the consumer space too, the two are not mutually exclusive, but the two markets are different. How many people who use the phone as an exclusively consumer device use Excel?

The Treo is a device that crosses over to both markets (and does it pretty well) and Palm's marketing reflects that.

 

[Kupe#WP]

That's my point.

So to better align with "you point" shouldn't Apple compare the iPhone's entertainment features to the LG Chocolate, Sidekick, or the Motorola iTunes capable Razor? Shouldn't they perceive these phones (and others like them) as their competition? Or are you giving Apple a pass - allowing them to selectively compare orthogonally related features to devices with different purposes in order to pad their limited capabilities and hide their real weaknesses? That's seems about as honest as claiming iPhone is the first phone with internet capability. Oh wait - that could be interpreted as something different - not. :shake:

 

[HowardH]

So to better align with "you point" shouldn't Apple compare the iPhone's entertainment features to the LG Chocolate, Sidekick, or the Motorola iTunes capable Razor? Shouldn't they perceive these phones (and others like them) as their competition? Or are you giving Apple a pass - allowing them to selectively compare orthogonally related features to devices with different purposes in order to pad their limited capabilities and hide their real weaknesses? That's seems about as honest as claiming iPhone is the first phone with internet capability. Oh wait - that could be interpreted as something different - not. :shake:

I suspect that the reason that they haven't, is because the iPhone is a significant superset of the RAZR type devices. So yeah, I was somewhat surprised that they didn't, but I can understand why. It's considerably more expensive than those kinds of devices, but with a much larger feature set so to target those devices as comparison would not be as favourable as doing a comparison to the WM devices, despite the lack of "business" features. And this is represented in the lack of business marketing that we see for the iPhone.

Marketing is not about black and white honesty, it's about selling products. When did we see Microsoft advertise XP by saying "it'll only crash once a week."

If the iPhone bombs, perhaps one of the significant factors might be the "jack of all trades" type approach that is clearly confusing (a segment of) the market.

 

[bruckwine]

What breakthrough? The sensor thing is nice, but the visual voicemail is already on the market via CallWave for the desktop, and I know Avaya is set to offer it on nearly any handset (via carriers). Apple is evolving already existing functionality from other devices, there is nothing revolutionary except the marketing. I'm saying this as a prospective customer, so I have no axe to grind. It just seems to be a more elegant but not really more functional phone. In many areas it is actually less functional so it is hard to give it that 'revolutionary' tag. It is no Fidel Castro.

How about RAUL Castro? I think it's good enough for Raul status *taps memo on qwerty hard keys ..iPhone = Raul*

Seriously once this sinks below the $400 unlocked category i'll be getting one to play with (circa 2008?) but otherwise I'll stick to what I have now....

 

[braj]

How about RAUL Castro? I think it's good enough for Raul status *taps memo on qwerty hard keys ..iPhone = Raul*

Thanks for that, made me laugh

 

[beachtrader]

Navigate your way to this Apple URL and scroll to the bottom. iPhone compared to (drum roll) business enterprise devices. Apple (the host of th web page) is directly comparing the iPhone (their non-business device by your description) to four other classes of "business" phones (Nokia, WM Smartphone, Blackberry, Palm Treo). Get it?

Of course, they very carefully limit the features in the comparison to entertainment capabilities. Lame.

I think you missed the point of this comparison. Apple is not comparing the iPhone to the others for the purpose of marketing the iPhone as an enterprise device but to the consumers who buy these other phones who use them as a hyped-up consumer device. They choose these features because those are the features the iPhone is after--not the enterprise support stuff.

Just look at the first phone, the N95,--surely this is not a business related phone. But why is it there? Because it has some of the features the iPhone does. So, you put it on the list. Same with the Treo. It has some of the same features (play music, surf net, etc.). So it goes on the list too. It may not be a direct competitor as the market is slightly different, but it is enough you need to address because of the overlap. A consumer is going to consider both, at least in passing. But to say Apple is now targeting the enterprise market and therefore because they are missing feature x the phone is a flop and will never hold up against a Treo is extremely far reaching. Frankly, right now for Apple, there is far more money to be made in the consumer market selling the iPhone to consumers than to be selling the iPhone as a business device.

 

[Dim-Ize]

Seems like some non-informed business users will get iPwnd.

 

[marcol]

Might I also add this "comparison" chart that was fought over a couple days ago, who was made by none-other: [URL="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/error.html#mn_p]Apple[/URL]?

Lets see, it's compared to a Blackjack, Treo 750, BlackBerry Curve (!), Nokia N95...

It's a comparison with three business phones (Blackjack, Treo, BB) and one consumer phone (the N95). It's part of a press about battery life and a new screen and I think the point it's trying to make is that the iPhone has better battery life than the four phones it's compared too despite having a bigger screen and being thinner. I rather suspect that the 'competitors' were chosen to cast a favourable light on the iPhone battery life specs - i.e. small(ish) batteries and high power consumption (fast processor, biggish screens etc) - rather than as statement of the intended target market.

 

[marcol]

Yes, its blatantly obvious Jobs did not mean for us to compare his device to current smartphones....

He did. That was in a section of the keynote about device design and his immediate and obvious point was that exposed keyboards take up space on the front of the device and are inflexible (you can't change the keys from app to app etc). Clearly of course there is an emphasis on text input in that slide and the iPhone has a requirement for text input - but if you look at the examples of when text input is used in the keynote (personal email, google maps, SMS etc) there's little indication of intended enterprise use.

 

[marcol]

^^That said I think there is at least one indication that Apple perhaps has at least an eye on some sort of business use: the inclusion of Word and pdf viewers.

As it stands though it's pretty hard to make the case that Apple really intends this as a serious player in the enterprise smartphone market. If they did wouldn't they have licensed corporate email (EAS etc), included Office compatibility beyond just Word viewing, added security features like remote device wiping, etc, etc? Perhaps they intend to go after this market down the road, but it seems very obvious that that's not the focus with this first gen device.

 

[surur]

Actual he continued to compare his phone to other smartphones, calling it:

What we want to do is make a leapfrog product that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been, and super-easy to use. This is what iPhone is. OK?

Wow! I did not know he was so grandiose. Has he not heard of laptops?

Surur

 

[marcol]

Anyway, let's not bury the lead. There aren't many reports of using the keyboard foe any length of time and this one finds that it really isn't very good. Sure it's just one person, an anonymous one at that, but it's the first report since Mossberg's. These are his less-than-thrilled first impressions:

“They are claiming that through clever software they have figured out a way for this to be actually far more accurate and efficient than you think it will be, and I’m testing that proposition,” he said. “And I can tell you that in the first hour it works a little better than I thought, but I’m still not sure it works as well as a regular keyboard — and the first hour is not a very fair test, so I’m going to keep going at it.”​

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2144/walt-mossberg-shows-college-leaders-his-new-iphone

The Newton was widely ridiculed for its predictive text capabilities (which were hopeless in the first models). I wonder if the iPhone will suffer a similar fate?

 

[marcol]

Wow! I did not know he was so grandiose. Has he not heard of laptops?

Perhaps you should replot the graph for him. I'm sort of surprised you haven't done that already