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#!: Marketing. Think about it... If you go to buy a cell phone, you would have go to a provider directly, right? Like an AT&T store, or a Verizon store, or whatever store. Apple would not have had any presence there once the iPhone was released. The other option would be Best Buy, Circuit City, WalMart, (where iPods are sold), but mobile phone are sold at the booths setup from Verizon or AT&T or whoever and you select your phone and plan right there. Apple needed to penetrate this space and have the iPhone sitting side-by-side with the Motorolas/Nokias, so people can go to a mobile phone store, compare and choose.
You have a point there. Also it's easier for the user when 'it just works', look at the easy activation process!
However I stil think the prices are insane.
#2: Lack of time. Seems like Apple won't sell an iPhone in a country where they don't have at least a few brick and mortar stores (for servicing and support purposes - Genius Bar). They need to build more of those in India at least, from where they can sell other Apple products. So meanwhile, they'll use the stores from the service providers, i.e. have a tied contract.
I know that here in the Netherlands, there are Apple dealers pretty much all over the bigger cities (and 'big' here would be a 'town' in the USA). I counted 4 in Amsterdam, and 2 in Rotterdam where I work. One is just 7 floors away
My prediction - Macworld 2009 - Jobs: "Many of our customers have told us that they would like to choose their own carrier. We feel the same way. Today, we are announcing the next generation of the iPhone... it has 16GB memory, 3G, iChat, it's even thinner AND its unlocked!"
Yeah that sounds good! Especially the thinner and unlocked thing
. The phone isn't all that pretty compared to the touch imho.
By the way, ever seen Jobs get over a product announcement that fast? My guess would be more like:
"So that's it for Mac. Now let's talk about iPhone.
The iPhone is doing incredibly well. It has been released in 4 countries so far, and more will come soon. We've sold the first million iPhones in just 74 days after it was launched, and we're right on track for hitting the 10 million mark by the end of this year (2008). iPhone has changed the market.
*insert joke about iPhone clones*
We're pleased to tell you that the iPhone will hit other European an Asian countries in a few months. Among these are Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Japan.
But that's not all - today, we're introducing you to the next generation iPhone, and this is what it looks like. It's beautiful. Even thinner than before. Let's look at how it works.
*demo showing various additions such as copy-paste, a new widget or two, etc*
All these new features will be brought to v1 users also, via software updates. Now, what makes this new generation unique?
Phones have historically always been about talking and listening. We believe there's more to communication than that. Today, the technology is finally there to go a step further. This is unlike any other phone on the market today.
We're bringing iChat to the iPhone. Let me show how it works.
*demo calling Phil, or maybe some celebrities*
Look at the quality of the video, it's stunning. Everything we're showing here is a live feed from the new iPhone.
Now, you might be wondering how this works. I'm pleased to announce that the new iPhone has full support for 3G networks. Not only does this allow you to enjoy the web in more ways, but this also allows is to bring the iPhone to even more countries that had their networks upgraded to 3G already.
This is the new iPhone. It will have 16 GB of flash memory so you have even more storage space, iChat, and of course - 3G networking.
You're getting all this for exactly the same price as the previous iPhone.
But there is one more thing to the iPhone. We've got some awesome deals with several networks in the new countries, but we're also be selling it fully unlocked for just 599. We think a lot of people are going to like it."
