Before anybody starts telling you otherwise -- before fanboys start spinning the numbers (or better yet, "Wait for the quarterly numbers!" they may say), the Verizon iPhone launch failed to meet expectations. Apple, master of the supply chain, opened stores at 7am with full staff. The 24 hour NYC cube store was filled with employees (the blue-shirts) waiting for the crowds that never materialized. Coffee and water was set out for the non-existant customers. They massively overstaffed, expecting those summer crowds that marked past Apple launches. This is a sad video.
Eric S. Raymond gets to gloat it over ✪, as does Daniel Lyons who wrote that the Verizon iPhone was too late for which ✪ spent more effort on a rebuttal than he normally does. Joe Wilcox, who has become a target in the Apple circles as of late (and depending on what he writes, he gets it from Apple partisans and Microsoft partisans and Google partisans), writes of a tech press and investor class who are living within the Apple RDF. And while they were living in the force field, most have been blinded to the fact that Android came rushing right past Apple in sales and attention. Some were sure Verizon would turn the field around back to Apple, but day one went differently than expected.
You can see how differently the tale is unfolding today, as the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple is looking to the very downmarket customers it usually shuns to revive iPhone sales. (via Gizmodo) This is the same Apple who thought in 2007 they could blow up the carrier subsidy model and have people pay $500 retail for a web browsing feature phone. (There were no apps for that, then.) It is given that Apple would rather get people to pay up for the privilege of using an Apple product rather than chase after them with a cheaper model. But now that the blades (iOS/iTunes/the app store) is more important, Apple may be willing to turn (some of) the iPhone into razors. Especially when they need to convince everyone why they should get a 30% of all money that flows through iTunes/app store.
Comments