iPhone 2.0 FUD-o-rama
An ancient Zen koan reads, "Who is the more jacktastic? The jackass, or the jackass who quotes him?"
Which brings us to this Information Week piece by Eric Zeman: Analyst: Don't Buy iPhone 2.0.
No guesses as to who the "analyst" is. Yep, it's Rob.
It's hard to argue with some of the advice given by Rob Enderle, principal analyst with Enderle Group, about iPhone 2.0.
Rob Enderle, in regards to anything Apple, is not an "analyst", Eric. He is a quote machine. And, thus, the horny one will not be linking to or bothering to dissect the source of Zeman's piece.
The Macalope, amongst others, has explained this ad nauseam, but when literally everything that comes out of your mouth is anti-Apple, it's clear there's no analysis going on, just cynical attempts to get quoted. That's Rob's shtick. That's his business model. Anyone who quotes him, therefore, is either lazy, ill-informed or willfully bashing Apple for no reason other than to bash Apple.
This is not to say that all Apple-bashers or Apple-bashing is wrong. It's to say that if you have a point to make about Apple, quoting Rob Enderle is simply detrimental to your case.
Not that Zeman has a case to be made. It's really just another spin on the "Why would you get the iPhone 2.0 when someone else might deliver something better months later?!" Zeman claims Enderle's sterling "analysis" indicates there's something different about the iPhone versus other smart phones.
So why the cautionary advice about the iPhone? Because it is more computer than phone. Computers bring with them more complexity, more issues, more places for things to go "wrong".
This is absurdly over-simplistic. And Enderle's complaints about the problems with the launch of the original iPhone are overwrought. Sure, there might be issues with the next iPhone when it first comes out. If you're risk-averse, if you use your phone for mission-critical purposes, if you're currently running for president, you might want to wait a little while. The amount of time being proportional to you level of risk aversion and/or the number of delegates you have.
What's more important here is process. Yes, Apple -- like all technology companies -- is willing to live with a certain amount of bugs in order to ship product. But its track record of shipping something with a high signal to noise ratio is solid.
Mythical beast and rumormonger extraordinaire, the Macalope writes about all things Apple for the CNET Blog Network. Read more at The Macalope: An Apple blog. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
The Yahoo article says, "Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, said he can't picture many iPod and iTunes users shifting to Napster, since iTunes software is so integrated with Apple music players. The exception may be someone looking for a track that Apple doesn't offer, he said. Napster might have a better shot competing against Amazon, which isn't solely focused on selling music downloads. "Napster's brand and focus on the medium should give it an advantage," Enderle said.
This could be a first for Enderle!
Zeman sez: "Reports suggest that both RIM and Nokia will have their own touch phones available by the end of the summer. If you prefer BlackBerry OS and S60 to what Apple has, these may by worth waiting for."
Who is he talking to? Current Blackberry and Nokia owners? His recommendation boils down to: "Don't buy something you aren't using now."
Zeman sez: "Once people started upgrading from 10.4.x to 10.5, problems cropped up. Apple issued 10.5.1 in response about a month later."
It was actually about 16 days, but that is beside the point... Is Zeman saying that is a good or bad response time?
Zeman sez: "Then there's the new hardware angle. Whenever Apple redesigns something, such as its MacBooks, there are those that run out and upgrade right away, and there are those who wait until a few months pass..."
This isn't an "angle" at all, nor is it a reason to shy away from the first release. Yeah, we get it, there are people out there who don't by the first release of anything, and then they die, happy that they never risked anything. Great.
Zeman sez: "I don't remember reading mass media news stories about this issue [LG firmware issue] like those reporting the iPhone ibricking incidents. And no one certainly suggested ahead of time that people wait to get one."
You can't compare LG's issue to Apple's non-issue. The 'iBricking' was user inflicted and not a fault of Apple's.
The reason no one suggested waiting to get any other phone is because nobody was interested in iPhone copy-cats.
Layer on top of that figuring out the logistics of app creation, the tools that enable same, distribution, purchasing and marketplace functions and you have the truism that only a handful of companies in the history of computing have proven adept at building platform based businesses that simultaneously win the hearts and minds of developers, enterprises and ordinary consumers.
I think that Apple has put itself in a tremendous position to realize a halo effect across multiple lines of its business, and have blogged on topic in a post called:
Holy Sh-t! Apple's Halo Effect
http://thenetworkgarden.com/weblog/2008/04/holy-****-apple.html
Check it out if interested.
Mark
Holy Sh-t! Apple's Halo Effect
www.thenetworkgarden.com
In short these problems, along with everything else show both Zeman and Rob have no clue what they're talking about, and are both completely jacktastic. Rob's a proven idiot when it comes to Apple, but Zeman blindly followed him even though some things Rob said clearly made no sense, hence they tie by maxing out my jackism meter. One might be more jacktastic than the other, but I can't tell with my current meter.
Is there anything better on the market? Ask anyone who has a Treo or even the current Windows Mobile 6 devices about how often they have the 'reboot' their phones. My Symbian phone even has to be reset every now and then.
Sure more can go wrong, but in the case of Apple, a hell of a lot more can go right.