iThings to iPeople

June 29, 2007 — -- In the 17th Century, poet John Donne implored us not to ask for whom the bell tolls. But nearly everyone who hasn't been living in a cave is wondering whether the iPhone's ringtone will toll for them.

Those who have been living in a cave, on the other hand, probably have pretty spotty cellular service anyway.

The iPhone is often described as a smart phone, one that integrates the functions of other devices. But its novel "multitouch" input method and finger-based method at the expense of a keyboard aren't the only things that set it apart from other such devices.

It adds an advanced operating system previously reserved for PCs, complete with rich animation effects, to the media consumption tasks often associated with thin (in profile but also in capabilities) feature phones. For example, RIM's BlackBerry 8800 includes a GPS receiver for navigating, but it lacks a camera. The iPhone has a relatively high-resolution two-megapixel camera, but no GPS receiver.

Unlike with other Apple products, buying into the iPhone entails a two-year commitment with AT&T.

Looking at the iPhone's features compared to products that have similar features can help determine where it is likely to have the most impact. Apple is aiming the iPhone at three areas -- voice calling, digital media and Internet access.

The iPhone will be one of the slimmest smart phones on the market. In 2006, a wave of slim Windows Mobile devices were released from Motorola, Samsung and HTC, and the unit share of such smart phones in the first quarter of 2007 was more than double what it was in the same time period a year ago.

Unlike the iPhone, though, these products have been available for less than $150 or even less than $100 with a new contract -- a far cry from the iPhone's low-end $500. In fact, phones over $300 accounted for less than one-half percent of the handsets sold in the United States during the first quarter of 2007.

But for that price, one gets a mobile media experience that Apple describes as the best iPod it has ever created. Consumers are warming to such integrated devices. In the first quarter of this year, 38 percent of phones were music-enabled compared to just 15 percent in the first quarter of 2006.