iPhone v2.0 is the Real Weapon at Nyquist Capital

iPhone v2.0 is the Real Weapon at Nyquist Capital

OK, this is the only coherent, logical analysis I’ve read to date about what I saw first hand at the Macworld Expo keynote last week.

I actually have an immunity to the Reality Distortion Field, and spend most of every keynote with a smirk on my face and skeptical thoughts running through my head. One of them was “it will cost too much” and that was proven correct. It beat my high estimate by a fair margin. Mr. Schmitt agrees with me that $299 is the price point that most consider to be the pain threshold.

I have a three year old Palm Treo, that I’m looking to replace sometime soon. I may wait for a Apple Phone, or maybe not. I actually like the Palm PDA side of my Treo and the phone is passable. It isn’t as cool as the Apple toy, but at least I KNOW I can ssh into my servers, or run all the software I’ve bought for my various PalmOS devices over the years. Schmitt is right in that “existing mobile phone interfaces suck” but I’ve grown accustomed to the Palm/Treo.

My beefs about the Apple Phone come down to two things:

1. You would have to drag me kicking and screaming back into the clutches of AT&T’s abysmal customer torture system. My loathing for their vindictive billing practices and truly awful network coverage in my part of the world (I had to drive 6 miles from my house to get a signal) knows no bounds. I don’t care if Cingular were made up of drunken generous Leprechauns, once they get assimilated by the Orcs that operate AT&T they’ll be just as evil and just as disinterested in keeping my business. No thank you.

2. Apple seems all too willing to bend over and accept the business terms of the carriers and cripple this device. No VOIP, no iChat, no ring tones from your iTunes library. Of course the latter is useless to me since “vibrate” is the only ring I EVER use… but you understand what I’m talking about here. They have taken what could be a TRULY revolutionary device and intentionally stunted its capabilities based solely upon the rapacious desires of their carrier “partner”. Jobs said it himself that software is what truly makes the hardware useful and what elevates this product above the field. But instead of flying into orbit, Apple has agreed to merely hover a few inches above the ground. You would think, that with their history in the recording biz, where Apple successfully held their ground to deliver what consumers wanted over what their partners desired, that this device would be more free.

Perhaps it will be someday, and that is the day I’ll buy one. I want to be able to make and receive calls from my home 802.11 network, since no cell signal will penetrate the woods that surround my house. Apple’s phone can do that, but will it?