Business Advice

is your arsenal for developing and maintaining sound financial plans and business strategy.

Inside: Budgeting | Compensation | Valuation

Free Trial: Intuit QuickBooks

Simple Start Free Edition 2009 for Windows

Departments

Fresh Inc.

Inc.com Featured Blogs

January 9, 2007

iPhone Envy

Posted by Max Chafkin at 7:46 PM

The world’s gadget manufactures are in Las Vegas this week, hawking their wares at the annual Consumer Electronics Show. This event always includes some drool-inducing product announcements, and this year has been no exception. We’ve seen a satellite dish that you carry can around in a briefcase, a new gadget from the makers of the Slingbox for watching YouTube videos in your living room, and, of course, a giant flat screen TV. But so far the showstopper at CES isn’t at CES. It’s at MacWorld.

Apple’s Steve Jobs once again proved he knows how to launch a product today, announcing the release of a new portable device that will “reinvent the phone” (read a minute by minute account , or go with this sober summary from the New York Times). Although it’s unclear whether the phone will live up to Jobs's lofty promise, a quick look at the specs on Apple’s website makes me look askance at my brand new BlackBerry Pearl (and every other cell phone, for that matter). The iPhone has a touch screen keyboard, Wi-Fi and cellular Internet access, the Mac OS X operating system, and can play MP3s and widescreen videos just like an iPod.

How could you not love this thing?

Well for starters, the phone, which is to be offered exclusively by Cingular, will be priced at about $500—well above the cost of a typical BlackBerry (I only paid $50 for my Pearl, after rebates). Moreover, the iPhone represents the latest incarnation of a gadget that has long been hyped, but has yet to be adopted on a mass scale: the phone-cum-PDA-cum-laptop-cum-music player. I wonder if business users are ready to trade in their trusted Treos and BlackBerries for a new, unproven system, even if it means carrying their iPods in another pocket. And yes, the iPhone blows away my BlackBerry in terms of looks, but it seems almost too stylish for some users—dare I say, unbusinesslike.

What do you think? Why is Apple so good at creating and launching new products? Is there anyone who gives a better dog and pony show that Steve Jobs?