Well, it's now been over one week since Steve Jobs's iPhone announcement and just like clockwork, here comes the backlash! It seems like today is the day for running negative articles on the iPhone (though that's not to say that some publications didn't start the party early, i.e. during the keynote). First off, Engadget is reporting that the iPhone's price is 50 percent profit, based on manufacturing estimates for the device. That's not entirely surprising given Apple's high margins, but 50 percent? That seems at least a little dubious. Next up is ComputerWorld's article, subtly called "How Steve Jobs blew his iPhone keynote." It's true that Apple's early announcement of the iPhone strays from the company's usual policy of not announcing products that aren't yet available, and the article makes a few good points about how the hasty announcement could harm sales, as well as Apple's relationships with other companies.
InformationWeek joins the fray as well, chiming in on how the iPhone will fail to translate into sales in the business sector--though it will lead to sales for other companies who follow Apple's lead. Finally, we've got Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer, laying into the iPhone in an interview with InformationWeek: "I don't think this would be a very interesting announcement if anybody else had announced exactly the same product." Uh huh. Let's all continue to sip this delicious haterade until June, at which point we'll all run out to buy iPhones (Ballmer included).
Sick of the iPhone already? Check out:
- This Engadget article on the iPhone's profit margins
- This ComputerWorld article on how Steve screwed up
- This InformationWeek report on the iPhone in IT
- and this interview with Steve Ballmer
