Marketing

Houston Texas is the home of the first of the proposed 11 new AT&T Experience Megastores. This 5,000 square foot phone playground sports XM Satellite phones, bluetooth headsets, high def screens, and game demos. Eventually the iPhone will, no doubt, take center stage in this new concept store.

Following the lead of the Sony Style stores or even the Apple Stores, the AT&T Experience seems to strive for capturing the lifestyle benefits of their products. It looks like the “New AT&T” is “new” after all.

[Via Monsters and Critics]

You’d think gracious blogs like ourselves would knock on Apple’s door for a bit of the cash in return, but it’s places such as Gizmondo, My iPhone and of course, us, that have (and continue to) generate $400 million plus in free advertising for Apple.

According to the source, Harvard Business School professor David Yoffie, “No other company has ever received that kind of attention for a product launch.”

Maybe this is what Steve Jobs had in mind all along when he announced the iPhone 6 months prior to launch, all the while others were slating his tactics and saying it’s a negative for Apple and their luxurious iPhone.

[Via Gizmondo]

As originally posted on Macworld, last night, during the Academy Awards (The Oscars), Apple aired a special teaser commercial for the iPhone. The 30 second commercial aired during the first 30 minutes of the broadcast and featured various clips from movies of people answering the phone asking, “Hello?”. The spot ends with the word “Hello.” and the glamour shot of the iPhone.

Simple. Elegant. Appropriate. Impactful.

If the trademarked name, “iPhone” is a gorgeous trophy wife, Cisco just pranced her around the party. Yesterday, Cisco put out a print advertisement for their iPhone in the New York Times. As if to say to Apple, “You may like what she looks like, but she belongs to me.”

This is a huge move by Cisco who has been criticized in the past for not doing a whole lot with their iPhone product. Perhaps just building a case for the upcoming legal proceedings, or maybe taking advantage of increased iPhone coverage to pimp their own product.

[Via Esato and NY Post]

E Marketer has posted up a couple of figures via iSuppli regarding telephone sales through 2006 that should get Apple fans a little concerned, that is until ABI Research drop by with a positive message for us all.

Last year, Nokia shipped 348 million handsets world wide, compared to a combined total of 335.5 million units shipped from Motorola and Samsung - I think you’ll agree that’s an awful lot of phones. But according to ABI Research, although the mobile phone market is booming, the general feeling among the public is that no phone currently has a “wow” factor, not like the old days of the first colour screen or the first phone to send a Media message when everyone wanted a piece of the action.

“Reviewing handset shipments for 2006, you would have to give a B+ for Effort but only C+ for Results,” said Jake Saunders of ABI. EMarketer suggests that this reason alone could result in major success for the iPhone as it looks to bring something new and different to the table that most people are going to enjoy. However it does seem that potential buyers are being put off as the… more...

So picture yourself as someone with a lot to gain by the success of the Blackberry Pearl, the first phone by Research in Motion aimed at the consumer market. Got a good picture? Are you all giddy inside? Or maybe you took the missus out for a steak dinner to celebrate? Of course you did because the Blackberry Pearl is gorgeous, functional, reasonably priced, and functions within the existing workplace culture.

But Needham’s John Lynch and Charlie Wolf said yesterday that Apple’s iPhone may put a little drizzle in RIM’s parade. They dropped RIM’s rating from Buy to Hold. Before you start freaking out, realize that this does not mean impending doom for RIMM nor does it mean phenomenal success for Apple. It is simply a thought that the iPhone may affect the huge projected success of RIM.

[Via Seeking Alpha]

An interesting article from Bloomberg News via STLtoday. In it, the writer Matthew Lynn offers up 3 reasons why “Apple is unlikely to make much of an impact on [the mobile] market.”

He cites, that Apple is late to the party, and that they need cooperation from more providers. But the most interesting point he makes is the notion that Apple released the iPhone as a defensive product. One in which they are trying to maintain their hold on the iPod market and may be threatened by the increase music capabilities with today’s phones.

This is the first time, I have heard of this argument and I am intrigued. I am not fully convinced that people want to combine phone functionality with their music. Email? Sure. Instant messaging? Of course. But music and video may be a different story.

Here are 3 clues that lead me to believe Apple isn’t releasing the iPhone as a defensive product:
1. Only 8GB capacity - Are you serious? I haven’t had… more...

That’s according to a poll run over at Silicon.com which asked its users whether or not they would be planning to buy an iPhone. Whilst 60% of readers shared no interest in purchasing the phone, 35% did with the remainder still not really sure what an iPhone is or what it does.

One thing Silicon.com aren’t mentioning is how many users voted - it would be no good if only 100 people voted and only 35 of them were interested in buying the phone as it doesn’t say a lot for Apple’s market share. Anyway, at least it’s good to see the enthusiasm there.

Actually, speaking of market share, Tim Ferguson, who wrote the article, says that it would be interesting if Apple did actually conquer 35% market share as it would literally be Apple competing head on with the likes of Nokia - his writing on this is a little misleading. Just because 35% of users voted toward buying the iPhone, doesn’t mean that Apple will gain 35% market share. 1% market share in the mobile phone industry is roughly 10 million units of a given device by one company. Apple would have to… more...

Cingular has always been an owned subsidiary of AT&T, but after AT&T’s merger with Bell South, moves have been made to consolidate the brands into the “New AT&T” According to their site, “The Cingular brand will begin to transition to the AT&T brand in early 2007…” so why in the world would they announce the partnership with Apple’s iPhone as Cingular?

AT&T could have used the huge announcement which has sent ripples of excitement around the world, to kickstart the rebranding effort. But instead it has been about Cingular, a brand that will no longer exist by the end of the year. Did AT&T miss the boat with the iPhone?

Related link about the AT&T/BellSouth merger.