As a million bloggers soil themselves in excitement over the iPhone (yes, I’m only bitter because I can’t get one) there has been scant entertainment, except to watch industry commentators go through contortions to…

(i) say something that’s distinctive, and not just the bald truth of the matter: this is a pretty good-looking device, feature rich, expensive, attached to a poor US mobile network, but somewhat-to-much better than anything trundled out by incumbent mobile phone makers.

(ii) attempt to paint a suitably all-conquering, Jobs-esque strategic masterplan that’ll make them look jolly smart if, in five years, the iPhone does manage to conquer all.

Here’s a few choice quotes - feel free to add your own in comments…

First, saying something contrary is always good copy:

“International research conducted by media agency Universal McCann has
concluded that Apple’s goal of selling 10m iPhones by the end of 2008
is too ambitious.
[...]
Report author Tom Smith, Universal McCann’s research manager for
Europe, the Middle East and Asia, said the trend for multiple devices
were a serious barrier for converged devices because users would not be
motivated to replace their existing gadgets.
‘The simple truth:
convergence is a compromise driven by financial limitations, not
aspiration. In the markets where multiple devices are affordable, the
vast majority would prefer that to one device fits all,’ Mr Smith added.”

… but all this overlooks the fact that Apple’s strategy is built around
building aspiration, not around technical features. Few iPhone buyers will be making a rational judgement on feature set when they buy one - brand, design and wow factor come first.

Another flaw of the Universal McCann approach: they’re asking people
what they want. If someone asked me if I’d like a converged device, I’d
think of my rubbish Nokia phone, or some ubergadget with a Motorola
riddle of an interface, and say “no thanks”.

Next: Is Apple’s sales target really “too ambitious”? Maybe, if this is only just another mobile launch.

Apple got good at completely changing perceptions of a class of device with iPod. As this News.com story from 2001 shows,
back at the launch of iPod analysts said the company was following
Sony’s lead, and warned the iPod was priced too high to succeed. But
the dynamics of the MP3 player market - dogged, to that point, by poor
PC integration and dodgy software and hardware design (sound familiar?)
- were completely changed by iPod. The iPod’s huge success wasn’t just because it was a bit better than the competition; it redefined what that kind of gadget should be.

[I should add I'm not claiming to have got it right back then myself; in reporting on the iPod launch in 2001
I only noted that their aspiration to corner 5% of the MP3 player
market was "a small share of a very small market". With hindsight, I do
think Apple really knew what they were doing then - their success was no
accident, but they obviously weren't going to tell everyone they were after a huge slice of the market to then vertically integrate with iTunes. Which is all the more reason to pay attention with iPhone
now, which has a target of only 10% of the mobile market. And don't forget that Apple are near certain to try a variety of sizes and form factors with subsequent iPhone models].

Meanwhile, a pretty good Financial Times piece has some interesting stuff. Ben Wood - a mobile analyst of great experience and savvy - notes:

“‘If the chief executive of Nokia
had stood up and said he was launching a phone that was big and heavy,
had no keyboard, was only 2G and not available for six months, he would
have been crucified,” says Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight. ‘It is
unique that Apple have been able to get away with that.’

[...]

“The excitement around the iPhone stems from a simple fact: in spite of
their increasing importance in our day-to-day lives, most mobile phones
remain clunky, crammed with hard-to-use features, second-rate software
and awkward keypads.”

Indeed so. The mobile handset business has, in truth, not been going
anywhere fast for years now. Usability remains dire; music, pictures
and web might have arrived on handsets, but the experience is so poor -
from handset to network - that usage remains low.

Thus, the reason the Nokia CEO would have been “crucified” is, simply,
that we’d know what was coming from Nokia: another clunky handset with
some fatal flaw, like previous Nokia devices: shocking battery life, a
bug-strewn OS, or usability flaws. All of which exist in my Nokia N90, to
pick an example.

There may be flaws in the new iPhone - indeed, we can
count on it - but Apple have a history, at least with iPod, of
aggressive development which tends to iron out those flaws. I’d be
surprised if the version of iPhone launched in Europe later this year
isn’t a second iteration with 3G, for instance. Mobile phone makers
have had years to get it right, and consistently haven’t. We might have had converged, feature-rich devices for ages - but the iPhone may be the first such device to make us realise it’s all there, and then make us want to use it.

However, you can go too far in assessing Apple’s strategic nous. Scott
Karp of Publishing 2.0 is surely moving into conspiracy theory
territory when he implies AT&T was deliberately picked by Apple because of its
rubbish network. That said, I think how he sees this panning
out - Apple moving gradually towards selling iPhones independently of the networks - is reasonable. Other handset makers, especially Nokia,
have been trying to wrangle back power (and revenue) from networks for
some time, but without the hardware strength or force of fashion that
Apple can bring to bear.

If you wade through the strategywonk waffle, Umair Haque at Bubblegen is making broadly the same point:

“What’s Apple’s larger strategy behind the iPhone? Is there even one, or is the iPhone just a pretty face?
[...]
1) Pick an industry which sucks (ie, imposes significant nuisance costs/menu costs/externalities on consumers)
2) Redress the imbalance by making something consumers love
3) …Which disrupts the long-standing industry equilibrium, and shifts market power
4) Use said market power to redesign (a hyperefficient) value chain

Now,
note that this is a repeat of Apple’s iPod strategy writ large.
Conversely, if you don’t swallow the argument, consider the fact taht
the economic pressures created by the iPhone will most likely force
Apple to tread this path, whether they like it or not.”

Which is a similar outcome to Scott’s, but arrived at less
through strategic design, more through riding the wave that Apple
itself may start; less Bond villain cunning, more realistic.

That said, it’s worth noting they journey is not as simple as Umair makes out; redressing an imbalance “by making something consumers love” is something of a holy grail in real life, no?

Finally, I know Steve Jobs will be relieved to learn from an
earlier post that Umair has, “over the last couple of years [...]
developed a huge - and grudging - amount of respect for Steve Jobs.”

“From
my pov, he’s gone from simply being one of the very, very few people to
understand the value of design and marketing in a valley of the Geeks,
to learning from his numerous mistakes - and so becoming one of the
world’s true commercial visionaries.”

I’ve heard it said before.

• BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
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• » iPhone-ology in today’s Guardian