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kornyboy

macrumors 68000
Sep 27, 2004
1,529
0
Knoxville, TN (USA)
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

I think that it would have to be feature set combined with implementation and ease of use. It would also have to have something completely revolutionary to spark interest.

All in all I think the iPhone killer will be the next iPhone.
 

Small White Car

macrumors G4
Aug 29, 2006
10,966
1,463
Washington DC
Surely, it can't be features alone, as many phones have far more impressive feature sets on paper.

An "iPhone Killer" would be something that causes a fair number of iPhone owners, (let's say 15%) to decide to upgrade to that phone rather than the next version of the iPhone.

If that were to happen, I would conisder that device to be "killing" the iPhone.

Don't hold your breath, though. Right now the Smartphone market is growing, and everyone is fighting over people who don't have smartphones at all. In that section of the population, some phones will succeed, and some will fail, but they'll all gain SOME amount of new customers.

But that's like shooting fish in a barrel. I don't think it matters in this discusion. I think that winning over other smartphone users matter, and I don't see anything out there that's going to take a large number of iPhone customers AWAY from the iPhone.
 

rdowns

macrumors Penryn
Jul 11, 2003
27,397
12,521
Any phone being written about will be classified an iPhone killer to get people to read it. :rolleyes:
 

bobfitz14

macrumors 65816
Oct 14, 2008
1,265
2
Massachusetts
i think your own opinion matters a little bit when it comes to labeling a phone as an iPhone killer, because not everyone is going to agree if a phone will convert people to other carriers.
 

IJ Reilly

macrumors P6
Jul 16, 2002
17,909
1,496
Palookaville
I dunno. That says "destroyer" more than "killer" to me.

Point taken. Or perhaps "iPhone psychopath," though you'd probably have to make a habit of it to qualify, but then you'd also be an "iPhone serial killer," which would be a distinction. What if you just tortured your iPhone, would that make you an "iPhone sadist?"
 

kdarling

macrumors P6
There's no RIM killer, or iPhone killer, or WM killer, or whatever device. The murderer is more often the product / company itself, by not moving forward. (Witness Motorola.)

Apple originally limited their overseas sales by not having 3G.

Apple has continued to hobble itself in the USA with its ATT contract. Heck, you can't even buy an iPhone in one third of the country. That alone has made most of the US market go buy other devices.

HTC and RIM, WinMo and Android, have all benefited from that exclusivity, and from general smartphone media coverage caused by the iPhone.

The iPhone will continue to sell, even if it does less and less compared to what other phones can do. It just won't sell as well as it could.
 

svndmvn

Guest
Nov 6, 2007
1,301
0
Italy
Most recent touchscreen smartphones have been labeled as such by media or regular people. It is of course subjective which phone is better than others. A phone's features that are appealing to me could not be cared less by someone else. Until now some killer features are only available by Apple. 2009 looks like it's going to be very interesting but we'll probably have to wait till 2010 for Apple's response (if needed) and that should make it all even better. Who says there can only be one awesome device at the table?
 

Rat-Boy

macrumors 65816
Jul 28, 2008
1,184
15
Georgia
Hammer_4926f26d96402.jpg
 

Knowlege Bomb

macrumors G4
Feb 14, 2008
10,194
8,833
US
How's this for a scenario?

Apple taking this year off on the "revolutionary" side and letting all these other companies think they've got their hooks deep in the market by surpassing the original and 3G versions of the iPhone.

Once that happens, 2010 rolls around and there's Apple with a complete revision of what the iPhone was. At this point, along with how amazing this new phone is there's going to be the previous iPhone enthusiasts diving at this new device for the nostalgic aspect as well.

Sneaky little fruits, they are.... Of course I could be completely wrong too. :D
 

basesloaded190

macrumors 68030
Oct 16, 2007
2,693
5
Wisconsin
How's this for a scenario?

Apple taking this year off on the "revolutionary" side and letting all these other companies think they've got their hooks deep in the market by surpassing the original and 3G versions of the iPhone.

Once that happens, 2010 rolls around and there's Apple with a complete revision of what the iPhone was. At this point, along with how amazing this new phone is there's going to be the previous iPhone enthusiasts diving at this new device for the nostalgic aspect as well.

Sneaky little fruits, they are.... Of course I could be completely wrong too. :D

For my sake i hope you are because I have been waiting for the next generation iphone for about a year now and if they take this year off and don't do anything exciting i will be pissed!
 

Knowlege Bomb

macrumors G4
Feb 14, 2008
10,194
8,833
US
For my sake i hope you are because I have been waiting for the next generation iphone for about a year now and if they take this year off and don't do anything exciting i will be pissed!

Well as we all know this site is mostly rumors. But...

There has been a lot of speculation that this will be the case. Most people believe this year will be basically firmware revisions (3.0 release) and very small hardware revisions like an improved battery.

Personally, I'd be completely content if all we got was a nice firmware update.
 

basesloaded190

macrumors 68030
Oct 16, 2007
2,693
5
Wisconsin
Well as we all know this site is mostly rumors. But...

There has been a lot of speculation that this will be the case. Most people believe this year will be basically firmware revisions (3.0 release) and very small hardware revisions like an improved battery.

Personally, I'd be completely content if all we got was a nice firmware update.

Funny because i have heard the complete opposite. Especially with the 2,1 news we got, i think we are due for something new from apple. Without some hardware updates, i don't think it could be considered a new generation. But like you said this is a rumor site and we know nothing, so i guess we need sit and wait for summer/fall to come around until we know for sure.
 

App1€

macrumors regular
Jun 27, 2008
212
0
Well as we all know this site is mostly rumors. But...

There has been a lot of speculation that this will be the case. Most people believe this year will be basically firmware revisions (3.0 release) and very small hardware revisions like an improved battery.

Personally, I'd be completely content if all we got was a nice firmware update.

Isn't that what the iPhone 3G was? Maybe I just don't see a slightly improved internet speed, and GPS as major upgrades, but the 3G upgrade wasn't significant enough to make me upgrade from my original iPhone and I know I am not alone there.
 

Michael CM1

macrumors 603
Feb 4, 2008
5,681
276
Think something along the lines of how the smart phone killed the PDA. Palm used to rule the PDA market, but then got slammed when someone decided to throw a PDA into a phone and make it better. The iPhone has been eating away at the smart phone market share of everybody but RIM, so it's technically a Palm killa.

I think the term is really just to draw readers. It would take a lot to "kill" the iPhone. I'm sure that *most* of us use iPhones because of the iPod functionality, and nobody has tackled that yet. If someone made a decent iPod competitor, then maybe they have a chance. Personally, that's why i got an iPhone. I wanted a phone and an iPod in one device. I've been spectacularly surprised by all the other stuff that I never really contemplated before. "Mobile e-mail and Internet? Um, cool!" The apps have made owning a Nintendo DS mostly pointless since I rarely used it before and now VERY rarely use it.

Someone is also going to have to figure out how to improve on the "keyboard." I love the virtual keyboard. I'm going to be slowed down on any itty bitty keyboard no matter what, so I prefer the virtual keyboard to any physical keyboard by far. I think I hardly even use it since most of my use is reading RSS feeds and using the news apps.
 
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