3G iPhone : The Second Coming
At 1800 GMT on the 9th of June 2008, there was the word. And the word was “3G”. The word was good, but not quite what was expected. This word was met by the frantic tapping of a million keyboards by a million mobile phone fans, and then the internet broke.
The sound of the internet breaking was only deafened by a million mobile phone manufacturers breathing a sigh of relief. No video calls. No new TFT screen. No improved camera. No radical new design to literally send them back to the drawing board. Again.
“Apple messed up, focusing on software solutions and iPhone 2.0, attracting the business user,” they thought. “Where’s the big revolution? Where’s the paradigm shift?”
Oh, but there was. This is why the 3G iPhone launch has been so much less than expected on the surface, and yet so much more.
Apple is no longer looking to change the market. They already did that in under a year. The entire industry has followed suit, and even the behemoth Nokia who claimed to be unfazed by their ‘quirky’ touch based design for the iPhone, promptly proceeded to develop the Tube. The iPhone’s looks that have won them yet another D&AD Black Pencil (imagine a more prestigious Oscars for design) were not going to be thrown out overnight. Less reinventing the wheel, more putting shiny new rims on it.
Attracting the business sector with faster broadband, expanded e-mail server support, attachment viewing for all Microsoft Office’s favourite formats and Exchange for instant push mail was sure to wipe a smile off RIM’s face, and a whole bunch of points off their stock. Apple is already third in the smartphone sector with this handset, and to tackle the Blackberry’s superiority in such an overt manner illustrates their game plan in crystal clarity. A hostile takeover.
Combining this factor with the changes in price, and this new 3G iPhone is suddenly the kind of handset where equally Johnny Salaryman can feel smug that work has replaced his 8310 with a snazzy new iPhone, and his kids can have one too at the knockdown price of $199. Except it’s actually much cheaper than that.
A quick perusal of o2’s UK site (still smelling of a fresh lick of 3G iPhone paint) tells an interesting story. In a move sure to get the other networks hyperventilating, Apple is being a lot more flexible with regards to how o2 can pitch this time around, and they’re playing hardball come 11th July.
Still an o2 exclusive, the 8GB iPhone is free on £45 and £75 a month tariffs, and £99 on the less free minutes/text-heavy £30 and £35 tariffs. Existing customers? They’ve got love for you too…early upgrade! Providing you want to stick with them for another 18 months, they’ll happily give you the new one for the same costs as above. No waiting till the end of your current contract, so you can make the switch with everyone else! The 16GB flavour comes in at a still tasty £159 (on the cheapest tariff), much more palatable than the £329 some people shelled out a mere 4 months ago. Hey, they’re still Apple, and the price cuts for their products often sting early adopters.
This two-pronged attack of the business sector and the mass market is exactly how Apple can turn their phone into a slightly pricey handset for gadget lovers into a phone for everyone. Steve Jobs waxing lyrical about how easy it is to develop software and how readily companies are accepting the iPhone is exactly why all other phone manufacturers should be worried.
It will become modular, a platform which can be modified and have software added via services like the App Store. Eschewing the need for annual handset upgrades, Apple has taken the method that Installer has used for jailbroken handsets, offering a bespoke set of applications and games that can be easily downloaded directly to your handset and for your own needs. Releasing the SDK early and letting people run riot has come home to roost, as they cherry-pick best developers and give them a secure platform to sell their wares.
Apple’s preoccupation with software-based development like iPhone 2.0 creates a constantly adapting and shifting mobile platform, the likes of which has not been seen before. The much-maligned iTunes updates have added much functionality that detractors complained was absent in v1.0. More robust text messaging options, a better keyboard, improved Google Maps, all were seamlessly integrated with previous software updates. What’s to say the iPhone 2.5 won’t offer video recording or Bluetooth with A2DP or a Foreman grill in a simple update? Okay, maybe not, but manufacturers with their hardware locked features will not be able to compete with such an amorphous handset, constantly moving with the demands of its users as well as the market. And if future hardware upgrades are necessary, but remain as quick and painless to the pocket as they are for o2/AT&T users this time around, then others will really start to panic.
Even relatively minor additions like foreign language support and tying the Phone Book into a company’s Global Address List are steps that are completely in sync with their worldwide rollout. Handsets designed by foreign manufacturers have traditionally been unpopular among Japan’s notoriously finicky consumers. However, Apple enjoys a high brand awareness there thanks to the popularity of its iPod, and Softbank hopes to use that to drive sales of the iPhone in the Far East on July 11th.
And so, as the word of Steve Jobs at the WWDC becomes deed, the realisation dawns that the 3G iPhone is not just a phone but aspiring to be the phone. The second coming of the iPhone is not one of an earthquake but ripples becoming tidal waves, just as the first. And the industry will have to change to keep up. Again.
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