TechCrunch video parody of iPhone.

Interesting, although I drink the apple flavored koolaide, I would have to say the iphone is over hyped. I still want one though.

There are far too many people hoping to be "first on board" for what they hope will be the next iPod.  Still a great marketing campain by Apple has ensured the iPhone has reached the tipping point before it has even hit the market

bleh @ iPhone

yup, bleh sums me up on the iPhone too

Apples hype machine doesn't seem to work on me - I don't have any of their stuff 

Same here!

We're immune eh?

I just don't buy stuff very often (and when I do I tend to go for "best for the job" instead of "smoothest and whitest")

Has anyone gotten wind on how much the iPhone will be with the 2 year agreement tagged on

Just say no to Apple.  Barf!

the iphone is not as good as apple are trying to make it be

I think it will improve through iterations 

there is no way that you can hype a product this much and not have a whole lot of people disapointed in the result.  Watch the 100,000 blog posts in the 1st july saying how it doesnt work as well as people had hoped...

Well bad pr is good pr. People will buy the iPhone because of the hype, and then after the hype dies down, they will still buy it. Hype and negative hype are both positive because they involve the subject at hand.

i agree with you to a point, but im sure if Leo Leporte, Veronica Bellmont and the like tear shreads off the iPhone or digg gets jammed up with posts about security flaws or batters problems then they could have a bomb on their hands.  It doesn't take much for the tide of consumer interest to turn these days... It might end up being the apple version of the Zune

Actually, it's an Apple product.  They always overhype their products.  But somehow, people don't complain much even about how much they got overcharged for their iPods.

The ipod has a super high failure rate and lots of known issues, but it still is the most popular music player out there. I honestly dont think any bad press with phase the iphone. The ipod crowd will be trying to get them and the early adopters will too.

There's some new ads appearing on the apple site about the iphone, very impressive stuff

http://www.apple.com/iphone/ads/

From the Onion

heheh

I'm sold on the light sabre effects

a self-replicating iPhone.... totally sweet!, but only if the data plans are not self-replicated with it.

The Coming War Over the iPhone

Gartner analyst advises IT executives to avoid Apple's iPhone like the plague and to actively keep it away from their company networks.

Might as well ban USB Flash drives as well.  That's a huge security hole.

I used to work in a place that banned all forms of devices.... it was top secret
shhhhh

I've seen the USB ports on PCs disabled at some particularly anal companies.

One of the IT mags I used to read took a few thumb drives, infected them with a 'benign' virus, and dropped them in company car parks.  Amazing how many people picked them up and put them in their machines at work.  Would you?

Nah, I'd probably give it to lost and found or something, so looks like I'm safe.

I heard about that little human-error security hole

How to make things look smaller?

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/06/21/apple_uses_bighanded.html

So I guess we can all stop talking about iPhone buzz now yeah?  They wasted a whole episode of TWiT on it this week

i cannot believe the amount of iphones that have been sold, so many people want 1 they are not that good

Still, they didn't manage too sell out on release day, so in comparison to other much-hyped techy products you could count it as a failure 

Either that or they just estimated supply correctly, and decided not to do the bullshitty thing of deliberately restricting supply to make it more "sought after" 

I don't remember where I saw it but one story on the wires a couple months back stated that one of their expressed goals was to make sure they didn't get the unfavourable press that they got on some of  the iPod releases by not having enough for the inital crunch.  Even with that as they came closer to the release date I saw something indicating that their projections had them probably running into some spot supply problems about two weeks after initial day of sale... perhaps we'll see how close they came at that time...

no spot shortages = probable global overestimate of sales potential

spot shortages only = unbelievable good demand estimation

major shortages wide spread across major geographical regions = unbelievable sales success ( and further proof that forecasting is difficult especially when its about the future) 

ah, good on them then, actually making sure they have enough available to meet demand

(or near enough)

I'm amazed the price wasn't a factor....

Esp after reading an article yesterday where it said it was priced at least 50% over manufacturing costs or something like that

Mac disciples are not that price sensitive.  How can you put a price on worshiping your favourite icons?

Many manufacturers aim for a 50% margin  (although this is very difficult in today's competitive marketplace)  -- that is selling price equal to twice the manufacturing costs.... as they still have to absorb general and admin, marketing, sales, warehousing and distribution etc. costs on top of the manufacturing costs.  This is before the item is marked up in processing thought the distribution chain (retail, wholesale etc.). So if the iPhone is selling at $500 and Apple's cost is about $345 as you heard suggested Dek, then it is being subsidized ....

In the phone area consumers have been somewhat spoiled as the telco's absorbed losses on the sales of phones to get you hooked on using their airtime...

That said Erik is right re Mac disciples and worship ... but I think this time (as with the iPOD) the group that is mesmorized goes far beyond just the MAC disciples 

I doubt that over time apple's margins will be a generous, as with most technology products, you generally have about 6 months to take margins before the sink to a more sustainable level.  Of course, Apple is the opiate of the masses, so they may to a bit better over time, but certainly not in the "super profit" area.

But all their stuff is just so expensive.... I'd be surprised if they weren't making a more than healthy profit

Apple Inc.: Highlights

Financial data in U.S. dollars

Financial Highlights

For comparison the numbers of Dell and industry averages:

Apple's Net Profit margin is slightly lower than the S&P 500

It's instructive to look at the gross margin % for AAPL, 29% vs. DELL, 18% for their fiscal years ending in 2006.  The difference is the premium the Mac disciples pay to worship at the shrine of Jobs.

Not quite that simple... there is, no doubt,  some kind of premium paid to the relative costs of advertising that is probably related to idolatry.

And Dell is likely putting themselves at some amount of increased risk over the long term  due to the pursing a stategy resulting in below industry standard results.... which perhaps means that over the long term the religious tax is somewhat less than it now appears...

Parts is parts, so if AAPL can get 11 more points in GM, a goodly portion is their customers' collective tithes to the Church of Overpriced Hardware.

 I don't think the output cannot be considered independent of the Design part... Presumably some of the extra costs of Apple (reflected in the two companies different expense ratios) are in design costs.  There are also questions of quality of materials and workmanship  of  the manufactured goods to be considered.

I don't disagree there is a premium -- just that its calcualtion is not at all straight forward.  

For example I would not have another Dell machine although other peoples milage may, and has varied.   As for  my wife's HP  I would simply refuse to use it ....as far as I'm concerned life is too short to fight as she has to (and  yet I am drawn into an undesired support role because of basic design flaws in the hardware and software combination). If I had to use it for a day it would succumb to the force of gravity. 

So any savings in the cost of her solution, as far as I'm concerned, is lost in time, mental anquish, esthetics and all kinds of other things.... In fact I'm getting so riled up I may go down stairs and test the damn thing's aerodynamic properties right now... 

She held on to it too tightly... must have been the maniacal look in my eye. 

ps she wouldn't have got a mac in replacement  (I refuse to pay that much more, or to support non-standard hardware and o/s)

LOL!!

Remember to take pics and share!!

D'oh!!

I promise if it does happen, I will report it here c/w photos of the wreck.

You're right, AAPL can charge more for the same box 'o'bits because the market perceives the increased 'value' of it's products.  Dell is a harsh comparison, but it does have a significant part of the PC market.  I'll bet that the GM% for DELL are closer to HP than AAPL.

I wouldn't buy a Dell laptop, although my wife has one, but the desktops are pretty solid, and have decent support for corporate customers.  I have 5 Dells on my personal networks both here and back in California and they have been absolutley rock solid.  I prefer Toshba for laptops, and have a few of the super-light R100s around.  Thy're kinda old, kinda slow, but super light and are not my primary machines so they're fantasic to lug around, weighing only 3 pounds or so with the standard battery. 

My best laptops have been Toshiba.... and yes you're right about Dell desktops... have made the  choice for corporate machines and found the support  better than decent.

What I would give for a light machine again... I sacrificed this time for an "everything" it is both my on the road and in the office machine  -- I've got the built in DVD 15" screen, tablet, which all add to weight ... so my next one is back to light, small screen and back to the docking station for peripherals...

But back to the iPhone .... does anyone out there have a first hand report of likes/dislikes ?

Most of the guys here also have a single computer, but I tend to like the ultra portables as I travel a lot and don't want the weight, plus I keep most of my files backed up on my server(s) so in case I lose my laptop it's not a disaster.  Of course, I have 3TB on my network in California, and 1.5TB here, but that's another story.  Storage is cheap.

LOL