This is what confuses me. Your Motorola V276 is the motorhome, and the *iPhone* is the $300 electric scooter? You’re talking about a phone that literally costs more than the car in your analogy.

I never suggested the iPhone has to have “everything from the get go.” This is a common, and I think disingenuous, Apple argument – that PCs / non-Apple products are feature-laden and only for the tech-savvy, but Apple only gives you what you need. Jan, if all you want is a phone with contacts and a calendar that synch with your mac, why would you spend $600 to be on Apple’s bleeding-edge? You can get phones that do that for free. The only reason to pay that much for a phone is if it provides something extra; my point, though, was that for that much money I would expect more “extra” from the phone.

So yes, Jan, I agree that Apple must have some “smart marketing” to convince you that the iPhone is ideal precisely because it has fewer features.

Iphone = $ 600

ULTMATE COOL FACTOR COST $ 150

U THINK TOO MUCH, U TALK TOO MUCH, U NOT HAPPY WITH THIS, THEN UDON’T BUY

OTHERS WILL IN DROVES – TO BOYS THIS LIKE MAKING PHONECALLS WITH CAMERON DIAZ’S LEFTHAND, FOR GIRLS LIKE TALKING INTO JUSTIN’S

IPHONE WILL BE BIGGER THAN IPOD ULTIMATELY

Since I’m within reach of Wi-Fi 95% of the time, the lack of 3G means nothing. Besides 3G coverage is pretty much non-existent where I live and will be for at least another 2 years or so. Similarly GPS just isn’t mainstream enough yet for the majority of consumers to care that it’s missing.

I think Apple has cast a pretty wide net in terms of the market segments addressed by the feature set of the 1st generation iPhone. As others have said, with the mass market it’s sometimes less about packing the features in than making them actually useable by the average end user. The vast majority of my friends–people who are young and intelligent, if not geeks–don’t use the features their existing phones have. The trick will be for Apple to convince people like that (most of whom have already been sold on the iPod part) to cough up $500–on the premise that they’ll actually want to us–and be able to use–the features the iPhone does have. It not so much what it does as how it does it.

Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if the lack of IM and VOIP was to pacify AT&T. They’re already losing revenue on account of the Wi-Fi and no music/media sales over their network … so Apple may have had to throw them a bone or two.

By “cost essentially nothing”, I assume you are implying that these features can be implemented in osftware. Apple promised two years of updates, and even changed their accounting method accordingly. That’s the opposite of planned obsolescence.

What would make the iPhone obsolete?

1) Its 1GHz Pentium is not powerful enough to run tomorrow’s applications; not enough ram; &c.

2) GSM becomes obsolete tomorrow; new frequencies added making quad band obsolete; &c.

3) The end of DRM puts iTunes out of business. Legislation or market factors demand all music files use the WMA format.

4) Web 3.0 debuts. HTML and Javascript are deprecated as Flash and Java move to the fore.

5) Videophones become the rage. The iPhone’s camera is on the wrong side to be a videophone.

6) IBM introduces a phone with the holographic monocle they advertised years ago.

An iPhone with longer battery life doesn’t make an iPhone with shorter battery life obsolete. A smaller iPhone doesn’t make the larger iPhone obsolete. An iPhone with 80GB storage doesn’t make an iPhone with 8GB obsolete. Obsolescence occurs when the phone can no longer perform it’s intended functions, or the functions themselves become obsolete.

Don’t say that Apple has obsolescence planned or built into the iPhone without explaning why it will be obsolete. A newer better version 2 doesn’t make version 1 obsolete.

Apple has mentioned that they will be doing the accounting for the iPhone over time so that they can release new features for existing iPhones without having to play the accounting games they’ve had to do in the past.

So if your concern about buying the iPhone lives in the realm of software (no iChat, unable to connect to corporate networks), fear not. I would imagine that there will be updates which give new functionality–their accounting department pretty much confirmed it.

Missing hardware (HSDPA, GPS, etc.) though, you’re spot on. I’ll wait around for an iPhone which supports these things. Actually, I’ll wait around until I can develop applications for it…

First, every feature your respondents want to add will increase the cost of manufacture and this might price the iPhone out of the market.

Next, I’m unsure that enough people actually want the features that your respondents listed. After all, 90% of mobile phone users do not buy Smart Phones now and could. If these features are needed, Apple will add them.

This is planned obsolescence only if you assume that these features ARE necessary. That may not be so. There must be a reason, beside cost, that is keeping people from buying Smart Phones. It could be that Smart Phones are hard to use. Apple may be enticing the people who now own free “feature phones” into the Smart Phone market. That is, growing the market rather than taking market share away– just like it did with the iPod.

And every feature adds complexity to the product, thus taking the risk of confusing people. Unless Apple can find a way to easily and transparently add a feature it will not.

Apple does not try to be all things to all people. It seems that you are caught up in the Microsoft mentality.

You’re dead-on. Though at the heart of my comment I meant more that “Apple Knows.” rather than “Who Cares?,” I completely agree with you. This isn’t the first parallel drawn between the iPhone and the Zune, but I think what changes matters most here is that Apple has LEGIONS of to-the-death fans that will be lining up behind the iPhone for a significant amount of time, whereas the Zune (and Microsoft) was dealing with a much smaller niche of fan type.

As such, the misleading marketing does, indeed, stand to create a number of frustrations from this latter geek set (i.e., the people who understand and use all of the features of the iPhone), the “mainstream’ soccer mom / college student set of peoplre aren’t going to notice the difference of not having 3G or integrated GPS. They may notice the lack of IM, but like in SO many other instances, (I can actually picture the face they’ll make when they do this), they will simply resign themselves to the fact that their iPhone doesn’t IM, rather than not purchase it at all. Even if a few people do decline to purchase for this reason, you can bet your butt there’ll be a next person in line happy to grab up the pretty phone they saw in the commercials.

It’s a status symbol. Universally-appreciable and a helluva cheaper than a Ferrari — and it’s still likely to get you more compliments than the supercar. But that’s more an aside than my main argument here: Planned obsolescence is a very popular business model in this arena and is thus not much to complain about. What some may complain about is that Apple has planned for a little *more* obsolescene a little *sooner,* solely because they have stronger brand equity than the other guys fighting it out in the telecomm retail biz.

Regarding the “who cares?” message from Andy: the shortcomings Seth describes, and their being a result of planned obsolescence, matters because Apple is marketing the iPhone in a manner opposite of its reality. What Andy is accurately describing as a limited, foot-in-the-door product, is being billed as a revolutionary device – what Apple fans are calling “five years ahead of anything out there.” As Andy’s IM example makes clear, in many ways the iPhone is five years *behind* the other phones out in the market. Apple’s dishonesty – even if it’s no worse than what you’d expect from any other company making exaggerated claims and overhyping a product – deserves to be pointed out. This site regularly includes news, analysis, opinion, and advice – to suggest with well-written reason to CG readers that 6/29 is not quite as special as Apple would have you think it is, well, that’s the sort of thing Andy is here for.

Consider this description:
Big-brand tech company makes first effort to enter a consumer market with lots of competition. This company’s presence in the market at all is big news. Key partnerships are made. The new device has a bigger screen than most rival products, a well-reviewed UI, and some hardware features that don’t exist almost anywhere else in the market. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like this device really takes full advantage of that hardware, and worse, the new hardware is a potential battery-hog. There’s reason to believe this 1.0 is targeted mostly at fanboys of the company. Market-share targets for success are in the single-digits. Most neutral observers don’t feel the device offers much advantage over the market leader – certainly there’s potential there, but its not realized yet. Plus, it’s a closed system, making it hard to use the device and its content as part of an ecosystem. Finally, some pretty important features that you’d think would be easy to include are noticeably absent.

So what did I just describe? The iPhone? Or the Zune?

I’ll admit it’s not a perfect comparison, but I think any honest reader can see the parallels I’m making. If the iPhone was 3G, had a full SDK, included GPS, supported native IM, and had enterprise email support, don’t you think CG would be all about it? If the Zune allowed over-the-air synching and purchasing of songs, ditched the 3/3 sharing limits for zunepass subscribers, supported podcasts and OGG, and had 60/80GB versions that were no bigger/heavier, don’t you think it’d be more than just the anything-but-iPod” choice? These are both 1.0 releases, aimed at eager, early adopters – fans, not price-sensitive consumers. Though a larger vision is there in the background, this instance of each device sacrifices features for stability, time-to-market, and longer battery life. The Zune team has admitted as much (the interview with Paul Thurrott, explaining that podcasts and so much more didn’t make the final cut in favor of solid, sooner-than-later delivery of what was included). Apple can’t admit as much yet, because they haven’t released yet. And maybe they never will, because that’s not their style. It’s true nonetheless.

You’re welcome to disagree. But Andy is perfectly right to point out these flaws. That’s why I read CG, after all.

All good points, and solid evaluations of your facts, but I do have one correction to make to your complaint of lack of GPS.

Due to the e911 mandate of the FCC, all mobile devices sold in the United States need to have locational technology built in and enabled for use. According to the current state of the mandate’s policy, that locational information, at minimum, only ‘grabs’ the location and retransmits it up when a caller dials 911. Some do this by GPS, others, by tower triangulation.

In a nutshell, the iPhone doesn’t need GPS – it has something equivalent. The advantages of GPS only assert themselves if the user is outside of tower coverage. While one could still use the turn-by-turn, which is of course, useful, you couldn’t make a call anyway…

I’m tired of hearing people complain about 3G (not rolled out in t he US until 2009 sometime) and the 2 year contract. Most all carriers make you commit to a 2 year contract these days so why should this be any different. In addtion, the phone will be locked down six ways till Sunday so do you really want to spend 600.00 on a phone and leave AT&T six months later? The cell phone business has kind of peaked out, just about every human being has one.. so the way to grow business is to steal customes for other providers. This is EXACTLY what will happen.

As far as the price goes. I happily paid 450.00 for my IPOD and have spent way more then 150.00 for cell phones so past so I don’t think they are too far off the mark with the price.

I think people need to wait for the phone to come out before bashing it. Will the world stop on 6/29…. not hardly but this product may change the way we use phones / access the internet / and listen to and watch content.

When it comes to cellphones and what not, all manufacturers (save maybe Motorola, which tanked because it didn’t) have to follow the same business model of planned obsolescence and rapid production.

Cell phones are designed to recoup all their fixed and variable costs within the first 3 months of production (if not shorter, I heard Motorola is upping the ante in trying to re-jump start their company with a 60 day plan). After the first 3 months, any further phone development/production/support is slashed, and everything redirected to the next phone waiting to be released.

The same is with the iPhone, but more so I’d think. You want to release it ASAP to get the name and recognition out there, and then you take the next year to reform and refine it to something you’re happy with. The Motorola Razr is a prime example of these phone tactics coming to play. They released the phone, had surging sales for maybe a month. Then, they took the following year to release 3 more versions of the phone, each with more than the previous. I dunno if anyone remembers, the first Razr was terrible. Like terrible terrible. Horribly terrible. They had old and outdated hardware, bad UI, lackluster features, etc. But people bought it because it was new and it was small. The newest Razr (V3c or whatever) has a boatload more features.

So yeah the iPhone is gonna suck. But the first iPod wasn’t that special either, it just looked a lot nicer than the others. I’m hoping Apple doesn’t get too complacent,