iPhone 효과는 어느 정도일까?

apple에서 몇 달 전부터 사람들에게 기대감을 부풀리던 iphone이 오늘 정식 시판이 시작되었다.
각 주요도시마다 그걸 사려고 줄을 서고, 인터넷에 벌써 웃돈을 붙여 판다는 판매글이 나도는데...

CW (CBS와 warner bros가 합작한 케이블 네트웍) 뉴스에 소개된 달라스 지역 출시 풍경.

오후 6시부터 전국 AT&T (예전 cingular) 대리점에서 판매가 시작되길 기다리는 사람들이 빌딩 주위로 장사진을 이루고 있다. 첫 번째로 사기위해 줄의 첫자리에  8백불을 지불한 아줌마도 있다. 이미 ebay에서 구매자를 구해놨다고?
 
다양한 기능에 속도도 매우 빠르지만 user interface는 전문가들에 따르면 혁명적이라 한다.

뉴욕 타임즈의 제품 리뷰에서는 iphone을 구했으면 조용히 있으라고 충고한다.
왜냐면 사람들의 관심과 시기가 너무 심하니까...

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=caed76f16c6132710db58210df3940afb8a3f7c8&mkt=videophoto


오늘자 Dallas Morning News에 실린 기사.

휴대폰 하나가 새로 시판된다고 전체 산업계가 들썩인다?
APPLE이 만들면 그런일이 가능할 수도....

최소한 visual 한 면과 user interface 면에서는 누구도 따라갈 수 없는 혁신적인 창의성을 보유한 회사임은 확실하다.
이 칼럼니스트 말처럼 통신 사업자, 휴대폰 제작자들 모두에게 아주 큰 영향을 미칠지 잠시만의 화제로 그칠 지는 알 수 없으나, 이미 존재하던 제품을 전혀 새로운 발상으로 재창조하는 apple의 창의성은 어디에서 나오는 것인지 연구가 많이 필요하겠다.

Will iPhone shake up the industry?

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/062907dnbusphonefuture.39ccebf.html



Wireless's next b ig thing has industry scrambling to keep, lure customers

07:31 AM CDT on Friday, June 29, 2007

By ANDREW D. SMITH / The Dallas Morning News
asmith@dallasnews.com

You may never buy an iPhone, but you should still thank Apple for building it.

The frenzy surrounding Friday's release of Apple's user-friendly multimedia cellphone – 11,000 print articles, 1 million customer queries, 80 million mentions online – has forced the entire wireless industry to confront customer dissatisfaction and plot product improvement.

All buyers of smart phones should thus benefit, and soon.

"Expect to see more touch screens, more visual controls and a new focus on making everything easy to use," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of Jupiter Research in New York.

Existing smart phones can already do pretty much anything an iPhone can. They can take pictures, receive e-mail, browse the We b, play music and display videos.

Many phones actually do far more than the iPhone, such as receiving live television, providing GPS services, recording video and downloading entertainment from the Internet.

But they do much of this stuff terribly. Web pages look like abstract art. E-mails lose their formatting. Downloaded files disappear. Tiny hard drives struggle to store more than a few dozen pictures or songs.

Worst of all, users have to fight through various menus and folders just to find these lackluster features.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs summed up the problem when he told a Newsweek reviewer why Apple got into the wireless market: "Everyone we talk to hates their phones – it's universal."

Mr. Jobs promised something radically different. Something easy. Something elegant and fun.

Early reviews suggest Apple has delivered. The combination of touch screen and pictorial function icons seems to help people find and use the phone's features. IPhone users also say the phone's software and its huge screen offer the best Internet they've seen on a phone.

If time vindicates Apple's system, key elements will spread quickly.

Ideas spreading

Indeed, some elements spread before the iPhone even reached stores. Taiwanese handset maker HTC, for example, just hit the European market with a touch-screen phone that bears more than a passing resemblance to the iPhone.

The iPhone attitude is also spreading.

Sprint Nextel just announced an ad campaign that will show smart-phone users how to accomplish practical tasks. That's a subtle shift from traditional advertising, which focuses mostly on product specs, but analysts say it's a telling difference that shows the iPhone will be influential even if it flops.

"I'll bet now that all the carriers and handset makers increase their R&D spending," said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecom analyst. "The incredible excitement surrounding iPhone has demonstrated that a true breakthrough will be more profitable than anyone had thought. If iPhone is that breakthrough, the others will have to spend more to catch up. If not, they'll spend more in hopes of making the breakthrough. Either way, customers win."

The wireless industry has coll ectively committed to simplifying handsets, but different factions debate what else they should learn from iPhone.

Handset makers – and most analysts – say iPhone proves that carriers should ease their control over product design.

Carriers – but almost no other voices – say strict controls are needed to ensure product quality and network reliability.

Carriers now control handset design by refusing to sell any device they don't like. Research in Motion, for example, reportedly backed away from installing a free GPS program in one of its BlackBerry phones because of objections from AT&T, which sells its own GPS program for $10 a month.

Carriers have also fought to prevent handset makers from adding Wi-Fi receivers to their products. Wi-Fi can provide faster and better Internet connections than carrier data networks. Wi-Fi helps customers but hurts carriers that profit from network usage.

The balance of power began shifting slightly toward handset makers even before iPhone's introduction – Wi-Fi-enabled handsets have trickled to market, and Research in Motion convinced carriers to allow free instant messaging on some BlackBerries – but the shift should accelerate if iPhone sells big.

Apple's deal with AT&T allowed the computer maker almost complete control over iPhone's design, and Apple used that control to do things that carriers normally forbid. The iPhone has a Wi-Fi receiver and software that automatically chooses Wi-Fi over AT&T's network whenever it's available. The iPhone also lacks any built-in links to AT&T's Internet store for ring tones and other cellphone add-ons.

"Americans have traditionally chosen a carrier network first and then selected among whatever handset models that carrier offered," said Mike McGuire, an analyst at the research firm Gartner Inc. "The iPhone shows that it's possible to reverse that equation, to have consumers select a device first and then select among the carriers that offer it. ... That could create a considerable shift in power."

Pioneering record

Skeptics may ask how a single device can change an industry, particularly when even optimists peg iPhone's market share in the low single digits.

Believers counter such questions by pointing to Apple's track record, which goes far beyond the iPod.

Apple's computers have never accounted for more than a small percentage of that market, but its Macintosh operating system has shaped the way the way people interact with machines.

Lucky break, you say? Apple also popularized the desktop widget and the clam-shell design for laptop computers. Plus, in an odd example of a company coming full circle, Apple invented the handheld device that inspired today's gen

eration of smart phones.

The ill-fated Newton never did much for Apple, but it changed the world.

Analysts predict the iPhone will be much more like the Macintosh than like the iPod. It will never dominate cellphone sales – even when Apple introduces cheaper models – but it may well exert a huge influence on the industry.

It may also change how Americans think about cellphones, even the ones they have right now.

"Apple is teaching America that 'cellphones' are actually powerful computers," said Shawn Freeman, chief technology officer at Handango, a Hurst-based company that offers downloadable applications for mobile devices.

"We have programs that manage music libraries. We have programs that manage photos. We have a free application from Google Maps. If people take the time to explore what's out there, I think they'll love what they find."

So Mr. Freeman sees no need for an iPhone?

"Actually," he says sheepishly, "I'm still trying to talk my wife into letting me buy one."DigitalExtra

More info: Log on for a list of stores stocking the iPhone today in Dallas-Fort Worth.