Hi all,
just wanted to share what i think about the baby, relatively to the European market (im Italian).
POSITIVES:
1- Overall i think it will rock, even at a 5/600eur price point (Apple has this bad habitude of applying a 1to1 dollar to euro ratio...).
2- In this shape, the core target is the phone-geek, and we have zillions of them. Market is extremely developed...and there are many, many people changing phone every 4-6 months. This is going to be a must-have for A) People who want the coolest "status symbol" phone (and sadly we have many...), and B) People who are interested in the objective features that this thing have (and there are many indeed).
NEGATIVES:
1- MMS: its just unacceptable not to have them. I mean, people here are simply used to shoot a picture in a party and send it to friends. Its as common as it's to send an SMS. I believe that Apple won't launch here without that...and i hope there is no serious technical reason that makes this non-implementable on the first gen. If they launch without, it won't be a show-stopper, but it will impact sales in the range of 100s of thousands. Here it would a bit like a car manufacturer launching a car without ABS and Airbags. I believe it would sell around 60/70% of its potential.
2- Video: 40% less important than MMS...but phones that make videos are simply a given. And people use it...or better, the people that will be interested in the iphone. Sales impact in the range of 10% minimum.
3- 2.5/3g network: If it comes with Edge, i dont believe this would be a deal-breaker, but certainly quite a big miss. People (again...especially the iphone target) are used in making videocalls, watching digital TV on the phone, etc.
Interestingly, people certainly do more TV/Video calls than internet browsing...which is what the phone does better. One can argue that people dont browse too much exactly because there are no good phone browsers...
Net...i would estimate impact of old-gen network in the range of 15% of potential sales.
4- New ipods? Europe will get the phone later, and thats bad...but relatively to the release of new ipods, it will be much closer (potenitally at the same time, who knows). Apple has a tricky one on this: i think that people here would overall love the super-high "coolness" factor of the thing as it's now: but what if you deliver the same coolness factor into something that basically, in the eyes of a euro consumer, lacks only phone capability/internet browsing (forget about calendar, yahoo mail, etc. Those are not the big selling points here)? Honestly, it's an hard choice. Me, that are posting in this forum and are obviously a super-easy sell for Apple, would have a hard time in deciding wether to buy the iphone or not (the touch ipods will be out of stock for 6 months i believe...). In the end i think i would buy the iphone AND a new ipod only if points 1-2-3 were solved. If not, i sincerely tell you that i'd go/wait 2-3 months for the high capacity ipod(especially as this thing is seriously good for video).
By the way, i think that Apple is going to have some serious issues with the Iphone after the first (6 months?) grace-period without touch ipods...after they are in the market, the iphone will have lost its real uniqueness factor (the touchy etc.). And they will launch the touch ipods, as those will sell in the range of billions i think...
All in all, i would buy Apple stock...
Byez.
Vanni
PS
Ok, i will buy the iphone AND the ipod...
just wanted to share what i think about the baby, relatively to the European market (im Italian).
POSITIVES:
1- Overall i think it will rock, even at a 5/600eur price point (Apple has this bad habitude of applying a 1to1 dollar to euro ratio...).
2- In this shape, the core target is the phone-geek, and we have zillions of them. Market is extremely developed...and there are many, many people changing phone every 4-6 months. This is going to be a must-have for A) People who want the coolest "status symbol" phone (and sadly we have many...), and B) People who are interested in the objective features that this thing have (and there are many indeed).
NEGATIVES:
1- MMS: its just unacceptable not to have them. I mean, people here are simply used to shoot a picture in a party and send it to friends. Its as common as it's to send an SMS. I believe that Apple won't launch here without that...and i hope there is no serious technical reason that makes this non-implementable on the first gen. If they launch without, it won't be a show-stopper, but it will impact sales in the range of 100s of thousands. Here it would a bit like a car manufacturer launching a car without ABS and Airbags. I believe it would sell around 60/70% of its potential.
2- Video: 40% less important than MMS...but phones that make videos are simply a given. And people use it...or better, the people that will be interested in the iphone. Sales impact in the range of 10% minimum.
3- 2.5/3g network: If it comes with Edge, i dont believe this would be a deal-breaker, but certainly quite a big miss. People (again...especially the iphone target) are used in making videocalls, watching digital TV on the phone, etc.
Interestingly, people certainly do more TV/Video calls than internet browsing...which is what the phone does better. One can argue that people dont browse too much exactly because there are no good phone browsers...
Net...i would estimate impact of old-gen network in the range of 15% of potential sales.
4- New ipods? Europe will get the phone later, and thats bad...but relatively to the release of new ipods, it will be much closer (potenitally at the same time, who knows). Apple has a tricky one on this: i think that people here would overall love the super-high "coolness" factor of the thing as it's now: but what if you deliver the same coolness factor into something that basically, in the eyes of a euro consumer, lacks only phone capability/internet browsing (forget about calendar, yahoo mail, etc. Those are not the big selling points here)? Honestly, it's an hard choice. Me, that are posting in this forum and are obviously a super-easy sell for Apple, would have a hard time in deciding wether to buy the iphone or not (the touch ipods will be out of stock for 6 months i believe...). In the end i think i would buy the iphone AND a new ipod only if points 1-2-3 were solved. If not, i sincerely tell you that i'd go/wait 2-3 months for the high capacity ipod(especially as this thing is seriously good for video).
By the way, i think that Apple is going to have some serious issues with the Iphone after the first (6 months?) grace-period without touch ipods...after they are in the market, the iphone will have lost its real uniqueness factor (the touchy etc.). And they will launch the touch ipods, as those will sell in the range of billions i think...
All in all, i would buy Apple stock...
Byez.
Vanni
PS
Ok, i will buy the iphone AND the ipod...