Tomorrow, the first iPhones will be available in the UK.
In its first 36 hours of availability in the U.S., iPhones were selling at a rate of 125 every minute, which is a record for any Apple product debut.
So… let’s see what happens in the first European market for the terrific iPhone.
Time magazine selects Apple’s iPhone as the best thing invented this year.
Why?
They list five reasons:
1. The iPhone is pretty.
2. It’s touchy-feely.
3. It will make other phones better.
4. It’s not a phone, it’s a platform.
5. It is but the ghost of iPhones yet to come.
They are right.
Just two and no cash.
Apple restricts the iPhone sales to two phones per customer and requires credit or debit card payment on those phones to discourage unauthorized resellers and maintain enough stock for the holidays.
As you can see on the Web site, you can buy the iPhone in the UK for $800 USD (twice what the price is in the USA).
“iPhoneAnywhere picks up the iPhone in the US for you, installs the necessary software, pops in a non-AT&T sim for testing then ships the iPhone straight to your doorstep!”
So … where are the experts who said that the iPhone was going to be a failure?
More than 1.4 million iPhones were sold in the three months that ended Sept. 29, topping Steve Jobs’ forecast of 730,000.
About 270,000 were sold in the first two days after the product’s June 29 debut.
Imagine the sales as soon as the iPhone is available outside the USA.
The UK is next in a few days.
Wait and see how the British go crazy.
These guys couldn’t wait!
And Steve Jobs has announced that the iPhone will be open to these external developments.
Once again, iPhone fever.
(Via Jean-Luc Grellier)
I told you a few days ago.
The analysts’ estimates from a few weeks ago were: 0.99 | 0.824 | 0.70 (High | Mean | Low).
So … again and again, these analysts (of what?) don’t have any clue about what’s going on in the market.
For the quarter that ended Sept. 30, Apple earned $904 million, or $1.01 per share, compared with $542 million, or 62 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.
Apple’s fourth-quarter revenue totaled $6.22 billion, compared with $4.84 billion in the same quarter last year.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected earnings of 86 cents per share on $6.07 billion in revenue for the period.
You just have to have an iPod, a Macintosh or an iPhone to know more than these poor experts.
As I said, the iPhone is one of the most dramatic developments for the future of journalism.
It’s the first multimedia tool that’s really handy all the time – all the news, in text, sound and video.
And it comes with no instruction manual!
You buy a toaster and you get a 50-page manual.
You buy an iPhone and you can use it in minutes with no problems and no manual.
Apple should give away some iPhones to these poor analysts, perhaps then they will get it!
I am leaving this Wednesday for Europe and I’ll have two iPhones in my suitcase for two of our European consultants who live in countries where the iPhone dosen’t work yet.
But they can’t wait, they can’t!
Amazing, amazing!
Now that Jeff Jarvis seems so impressed by his son’s iPhone, let me give you my first quarterly report about mine:
1. Yes, Jeff, it’s a marvelous tool.
2. I will buy it again, and again.
3. But, it needs longer batteries.
4. The screen has to be bigger.
5. The whole thing needs to be thinner.
6. And, for sure, it lacks a video camera.
7. There are many other technical issues that need improvements, but I am not worried: Apple will provide better and better versions of this terrific multimedia phone.
So, Jeff, buy one!
The shares of Apple are up 26% since iPhone launched.
So, the market has spoken.
Newspapers need to find a way to migrate content to this new multimedia platform.
Text, sound and video.
For our readers.
Our audiences.
Our communities.
I told you.
Fast reaction to a monumental crisis.
Trying to please hundreds of thounsands of early adopters.
Here is the full text of the apology posted a few minutes ago on the APPLE Web site:
To all iPhone customers:
I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale.
After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.
First, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, and that now is the right time to do it.
iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to ‘go for it’ this holiday season.
iPhone is so far ahead of the competition, and now it will be affordable by even more customers.
It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone ‘tent’.
We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season.
Second, being in technology for 30+ years I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy.
There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever.
This is life in the technology lane.
If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you’ll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon.
The good news is that if you buy products from companies that support them well, like Apple tries to do, you will receive years of useful and satisfying service from them even as newer models are introduced.
Third, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price.
Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.
Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store.
Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple’s website next week. Stay tuned.
We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers.
We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.
Steve Jobs
Apple CEO
The San Jose Mercury News says:
Jobs erred by dismissing the gripes of people who bought iPhones early, many of whom are Apple loyalists who felt insulted they were being overlooked in the company’s zeal to sell to a broader audience.
They say that Mr. Jobs is very sorry.
Well, don’t be sorry; just send us a $200 voucher.
If not, he is going to be in trouble.
And not only in the stock market.
Apple’s stock price fell 5 percent yesterday after the announcement, and was down further today, closing at 135.01, down $1.75, or 1.3 percent.
You don’t play with your most loyal costumers.
Just look at the first reactions on the Web.
A massive outcry is out there.
Just listen to them.
Listen… and send us the money.
(Illustration for TIME by Hanoch Piven)
UPDATE:
Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who was flooded with e-mails from angry customers after the company lopped $200 off the price of the iPhone just two months after its debut, on Thursday apologized to early buyers and offered them a $100 credit.
In an open letter on Apple’s Web site, Jobs said that even though price drops are a reality in the personal technology world, the company was going to make sure it took care of its existing customers, even as it pursued new users with the iPhone’s aggressive price reduction.
“We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers,” Jobs wrote.
“We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.”
iPhone buyers will be eligible for a $100 credit good toward the purchase of any product at any Apple store or at Apple’s online store.
Jobs said more details will be released next week.
I told you.
Well, $100 is better than nothing.
What a historical marketing mistake!
More news from Steve Jobs:
A new iPod Classic starting at $249 for 80GB – audio 30 hours, video 6 hours – with a new $349 model with 160GB for 40 hours of audio and 7 hours of video.
A new WiFi iPod Touch with the same size screen as the iPhone, but only 8mm thin – a phone-less iPhone – including a Safari web browser. The first touch product Apple’s going to ship outside the U.S. Battery life: 22 hours audio, 5 hours video playback.
A new free iPhone software update.
A new partnership with Starbucks.
More in a few minutes.
(Pictures from Engadget)
