As lithium:heroin, is iPhone:Crackberry?
Posted May 10, 2007
By The Macalope
Listening to this week’s MacBreak Weekly, the Macalope found himself shouting “iPod! iPod!” at the lovely Merlin Mann and the talented Scott Bourne.
Discussing why a Blackberry user would be inclined give Apple the benefit of the doubt on the iPhone, the suggestion was that they’d only do it if they were also Mac users.
Well, the Macalope suspects not many are going to because they’re so thoroughly entrenched in the platform, but they don’t necessarily have to be Mac users.
They could just really like their iPods.
The Macalope knows some Trojan horses and, frankly, they’re kind of pissed that the iPod stole their shtick.
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Heroin? Why would a heroine need lithium, particularly?
Well, if she were addicted to heroin, of course! Sheesh!
(Fixed! Damned homonyms.)
So what you’re saying is that the iPod is a gateway product? Careful kids, today it’s an iPod, tomorrow it may be a quad dual-core Xserve with 8gb of RAM……
I think what Merlin meant was, why would a *business user* consider iPhone as their *business phone*? By “business user”, what’s presumably meant is, a beige-and-navy Office jockey constantly in “pre-meetings” – a PC, in short. Those may come around somewhat begrudgingly, but I don’t think they’re the key demo Steve is hoping to lasso in.
That demo is difficult to describe, but it should be somewhat obvious: people who bought an iPod for themselves with their own money. This eliminates kids (iPhone is too expensive for most of those), grandma (she thinks it’s too complicated for her) and Joe Business (he bought one because, darn it, everyone else had it.) II think there are plenty of knowledgeable young people for whom iPhone is something close to the Singularity product that would really simplify their life, while making it more fun at the same time. When they (I mean “we”!) buy the “critical mass” of iPhones, we won’t be able to walk into a room without attracting attention – simply because the phone is so cool. I think Joe Business will have a mocking grin on his face – “hah, those crazy kids – I got my office to pay for my Blackberry!” – but he will soon sigh and get one anyway.
I expect the iPhone’s exact demographic is going to be hard to pin down. I’m a good example — I’m on my fourth Mac, my second iPod, I even have a Daring Fireball t-shirt — in short, if anybody was going to buy an iPhone on the basis of the Apple name alone, it would be me. But I have no plans to buy an iPhone, even though the purchase is within my means and my current wireless contract is up in July. I’m in the camp of people who just want a phone. I don’t want a camera, the wireless web, MP3 functions, etc. It doesn’t matter how slick the interface is, or how sexy it looks — I just don’t need an electronic Swiss army knife.
I’m actually eyeing the Motorola Fone F3 (aka Motofone) as my new phone. It’s a pretty stripped-down phone, but what it does it does well, and fairly oozes a sleek approach to design that clearly is influenced by the good folks in Cupertino.
i listened to the show today too, and feel like such a geek when i laugh my ass off at their banter (this week and many others too). that merlin doing the old timey radio announcer voice. damn, that’s funny stuff.
The Macalope: “(Fixed! Damned homonyms.)”
Don’t you mean “dammed hominems”?
I applied for a job as a Trojan horse once, but they just looked at me funny. For a real long time.
Misanthrope: I’ve heard a lot from you and your kin. Are you sure you’re not also a mythical Mac user? 😉
(Yeah, I know, I held out on iPods until the nano … but lets face it, we’re owned!)