Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon John Cox
This is interesting. The iPhone has exploded onto the mobile phone market precisely because it offers a million different uses - not just telephone and SMS (which itself was an unexpected additional function that has ballooned far beyond anyone's predictions). It's an electronic Swiss Army Knife, and that's why people want it.
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What is interesting to me is that, at least according to an analisys made in Italy on a national newspaper (can't find a link to the online version but will post it as soon as I find it) half of the iPhone owners have
also another mobile phone, and most of them admit that
the main phone number is NOT on their iPhone, but on the other device, and also that
they have also another MP3 player, be it an iPod or another device.
Which is unique among smartphones: usually, those who buy smartphones use them to replace their regular mobile AND have dozens of other functions (think blackberry, windows mobile, android...).
If whay I wrote is not limited to Italy (it may well be), it means that people do not buy the iPhone to use it for its two main purposes (it's i-PHONE: it makes calls, and it's the son of the iPod, so it's also a great mp3 player), but for... what? for everything else. It's a pretty toy.
It does a little of everything, and not as good as a dedicated device, BUT is pocket-sized and for the normal people that's enough. Oddly enough, the "normal people" end up buying also dedicated devices (at least for phone calls and mp3).
What I expect from the iPad is that:
people who need powerful computers (like me - I'm a programmer) will stick with PCs and Notebooks: I found the idea of a Netbook a great idea, for example, but I never bought one and will never buy one because it lacks the power and capability to run either Eclipse or Visual Studio, and I need them for work, and the iPad is the same;
People who REALLY need a multi-capable device, though, will not buy it and instead buy a Laptop or MacBook. I mean, I know the iPad has a pretty and shiny photogallery application but... ehrm... how do I put my camera's pictures in that? It doesn't have neither a USB port nor a card reader! On the other hand, people who really need multi-capable transportable device are already sticking to laptops (including MacBooks), because those are still the only devices which can do everything, and have everything embedded (I'm speaking of webcams, CD readers, Card readers, wifi et al).
People who need a device that does only a few things while sitting on their armchair, will probably buy it. I see it as a good device to kill some time: it will play nice games (not graphics-intensive ones but nice games nonetheless), it will play music, it will play movies, it will let you read books, it will browse the web and it will show you your holiday's pictures. Essentially, what people buy netbooks for, without the extra-parts of netbooks.
People who
just want an ebook-reader probably won't buy it, otherwise they would have bought already a non-dedicated device.
And then there are fanboys who will buy anything from their favourite brand
But every brand has at least a few fanboys (even Microsoft, you know) so I do not analize them.
In the end, I believe that the iPad will cause netbook sales to drop; it won't cause ebook readers sales to drop,
but it will make
ebook sales grow. It won't "steal" customers from Amazon and Sony, instead it will create its own new customers base. The same way the iPhone did NOT steal customers to Blackberry, but made its own new, larger customer base.