The iPhone is worth its weight in gold for its ability to inspire thinking!

The blogosphere has been alive and hopping the past week and a half as the iPhone finally hit the shelves.

It's a wild ride and everyone has an opinion.

Many people absolutely love it!

From those Apple fans who are so gaga over the iPhone's arrival that they're willing to wait in line for days before iDay to those bloggers who have been praising the iPhone's every virtue since Steve Jobs announced it, to those gotta-have-it-no-matter-what-service-I-have cell phone users who paid stiff fines to get out of existing service contracts so they could drop a lot more money to buy the iPhone.

Many people absolutely hate it!

From Verizon's internal memo telling sales people how to trash the iPhone's every flaw, to the unimpressed bloggers who can't understand its appeal, to techies who prefer different models to  skeptics waiting to see the first-generations major problems to customers who would never dream of switching service providers just for a flashy phone.

As for me?  I'm absolutely loving the whole shebang!

I don't intend to buy the iPhone, nor am I in a position where I can do so, but I have never been more excited about a cell phone in my life.

This is a very exciting time because the iPhone is such a game-changing, emotion-inspiring, polarizing product that it's caused more people to truly think about cell phones than ever before.

Look around the blogosphere. Watch the News. Read the paper.  Talk to your friends.  Talk to your parents/kids.  Chances are that everyone has an opinion about the iPhone.  And those opinions are raising questions like crazy.

Here are some of the fantastic things people have been asking because of the iPhone...

• What makes a cell phone so exciting that people will wait in line for hours just to be a part of the first day of release?

• What kind of phone causes people to willingly throw out their long-term service relationships with a company they selected not long before as the best match for their needs?

• What kind of service does it take for companies to retain their customers when a fan-club-inspiring new product hits the market?

• What are the features that customers really want in their phones?

• How can cell phone makers create phones that get such an incredible response from customers?

• Will the iPhone still be hot in 6 months, or will it fade as quickly as the Motorola RAZR?

• Who will turn out to be that happiest iPhone users? Who will it benefit most? Will it be the Apple-fanatics? Techies? Young, hip students? My mom?

• How will Apple stay ahead when every cell phone maker is focusing on beating them?

• Can charitable organizations use the hype of the iPhone to raise awareness of their issue?

• Will the iPhone still be cool when everyone has it?

• Or is it cool because everyone wants to have it?

• Is all the fuss about the amazing new technology?

• Or is it just about how Apple has combined existing technology in a new way?

• Is this the end of the phone as we know it?

• Harry Potter vs the iPhone: who wins?

• How can our company make money off the new iPhone?

• If people are willing to pay $500 for an iPhone, how much will they pay for the next generation of phones?

• How much does a company's brand influence sales of its new products?

• What will Apple think of next?

• Is every little thing Apple does magic?

• And most importantly, what is the next phone that will blow our minds?

Are you thinking yet?  You should be.

The present shake-up of the American cell phone industry is giving us an amazing opportunity to redefine the cell phone and determine where it goes next.

So, what are your thoughts?  Do you have any answers to those questions?  Or do you have even more questions to provoke creative thinking even further?

Comments

[barry rutherford]

looking forward to seeing one i don't believe they're here in Australia yet. At least officially that is.

Me too! I'm over in Germany and the iPhone is just a myth to me so far.

[Mike]

I personally can't stand the IPhone or the people that clamored to get one. It's nothing more than an existing technology wrapped in a new package and people stand like baby birds waiting for the chance to spend their mortgage payment on a phone.

A very understandable opinion and not unexpected. The iPhone is extremely polarizing because its different, and because it's from Apple--a company that already has deeply-enthusiastic fans on the one hand and also a lot of people who dislike all the Apple hype.

But, in my opinion, the controversy is good because it gets people engaged in discussing what THEY really want in a phone.

Not so sure that the cost should be a huge issue though. Of course, for a young person like myself, buying an iPhone is a huge expense. There are others who can afford it, though, and if it's what they want to spend their money on... fine with me.

And I bet that all the cell phone makers would be thrilled to sell phones at that price--and many more will attempt it in the future.

[Mike]

Katie,

Very thought provoking questions. It is interesting to think about what "change" represents. Will it last or just go away? How can I use it? What does it all mean?

Mike

Some very good questions from you too! I think the only one that has a definite answer is that change will last. Maybe not in the same way (e.g. the iPhone might just be a fad for a season), but the way people think will be different (e.g. everyone now wants phones withe a big video screen). Change, in my opinion, is the process of moving somewhere new. ~Katie

[Christine Kane]

since january, i avoided looking at anything about the iPhone because steve jobs is the only human being that can quickly turn me into a lunatic CONSUMER! and i didn't want to drool over the iPhone until it was absolutely necessary. last week, my husband and i were watching the instructional video that came out about the iPhone, and I looked over at him and said, "this is going to change EVERYTHING." and i do believe that. still, i'm going to wait a little while before i get one!

I definitely agree that the iPhone is going to change everything! It's an exciting new direction for the cell phone industry. And waiting a bit sounds like a good idea. I'd rather wait until all the kinks are worked out so I can just enjoy the benefits! Hope you love it when you do get one. ~Katie

[Luke Langford]

I take Harry Potter over the iPhone. I'm not so sure that Apple the iPhone will have the same long term success the young wizard has.

I love the iPhone hype too - and think it has some amazing features. But I don't think there is much disruptive about it - nothing new which appeals to those who don't already use mobile phones. It is a sustaining innovation - just a better mobile phone.

Patterns of innovation show that entrants usually lose the war when the battlefield is constrained to sustaining innovations.

Bottomline: Is Apple really offering anything that Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, LG and/or Sony can't offer in six (or so) months? I don't think it is...

I agree with you that Harry Potter wins over the iPhone... the lifespan of a phone as a craze is short... while Harry is going to be attracting excited children and the dollars of their parents for a long time to come.

Also, interesting way to sum your comment up! Now I'm wondering... does it really matter if Apple is truly offering something that the others can't match... or does it just matter that people *think* the iPhone is so revolutionary?

[Fox]

You brought up some excellent question!
I'd like to add this however:
"Will the iPhone really increase the quality of our life?"

Or should we ask "what kind of phone would actually increase the quality of our lives? That could lead in an interesting direction...