Excitement over Apple’s new iPhone (set to hit the mobile phone market in June) and Apple TV (available in February), rode on through the middle of the week, even as industry analysts weighed in on the potential effects the new products could have on the mobile phone and home media system markets.



 
Some analysts, despite acknowledging that Apple’s new products aren’t perfect, nonetheless gushed enthusiastically about the launches, especially iPhone.
 
“It’s the best cellphone ever created,” Frost & Sullivan senior analyst Gerry Purdy told TMCnet Tuesday afternoon. “It will bring new users to the market quickly.”
 
Gloria Barczak, Professor of Marketing at Northeastern University, and a specialist in research about the successes and failures of consumer electronics product launches, was equally enthusiastic about the potential impact of iPhone.
 
“The iPhone raises the bar in terms of features and ease of use,” Barczak told TMCnet in an e-mail correspondence Wednesday. “Apple is known for its simple, elegant, easy to use products. If this product continues with that tradition, then competitors such as Nokia, LG, Motorola (News - Alert), etc. will have to follow suit.”
 
Purdy predicted that sales of the iPhone will be brisk, since the device combines a smartphone and iPod in one unit for equal or less than one would pay for those products separately. Plus, it’s just plain cool.
 
“It really sets a new bar for ease of use, and causes most everybody to think about what they want to do with their phone,” Purdy said of the iPhone. “It has tremendous sex appeal, and therefore will have very, very good sales.”
 
Being known for appealing and easy-to-use products also will help Apple realize success in iPhone sales, Barczak said.
 
“Apple's brand name recognition and success with the iPod as well as all the publicity garnered from the announcement yesterday will entice consumers to try out the new product even though the price is steep,” she told TMCnet.
 
Just how brisk will sales be? Purdy declined to forecast an exact number regarding potential sales during iPhone’s initial launch. But he did compare the product's potential to other, similar devices—predicting that, unlike the expected tens of thousands of units sold for most new phones, Apple likely will move hundreds of thousands of iPhones.
 
Despite such high expectations for iPhone, it admittedly is a first-generation product, and as such is not perfect. Purdy said his primary concerns are that the phone’s touch-screen keyboard will be difficult to use for people who do a lot of typing, and that the cellular technology involved is not 3G.
 
“It’s not the most advanced technology in the world,” Purdy told TMCnet. “But at the same time, its one of the best first models of a product that has come out in a long time.”
 
Thanks mostly to iPhone, but also Apple TV, Purdy predicted that the innovation Apple is known for will change.
 
“Overall, these announcements create more of a brand around Apple as a media company than Apple as a computer company,” he said of the product launches presented during Steve Jobs’ (News - Alert) keynote speech at Macworld Expo on Tuesday.
 
Barczak expressed a similar sentiment.
 
“Apple’s entry into the cell phone market as well as its name change to Apple Inc. indicates that it is becoming a consumer electronics company not a computer company,” she told TMCnet.
 
Apple’s launch of its TV product also indicates that the company is becoming more consumer electronics, and less computer, oriented. The significance of Apple TV was mostly lost amid the excitement of iPhone.
 
Just how big an impact Apple TV (a.k.a. iTV) will have remains to be seen. Barczak for one thinks the product is not nearly as big a deal as iPhone, because consumers already have access to a huge array of shows, movies and radio stations.
 
“Certainly, there will be some consumers who will appreciate the ability to have all of their media viewed on their big screen TV,” Barczak noted. “However, most content taken from one's computer is done so because consumers want to take that content with them. The success we see in consumer electronics has to do with mobility, and the iTV does not fit with that trend.”
 
Overall, with both iPhone and Apple TV, Apple’s announcements remind other manufacturers and service providers that they can’t afford to sit on their laurels.
 
“The life cycle of products in consumer electronics tends to be short (6-12 months) so no company can stand still,” Barczak noted. “All players have to be innovative and quick to market.”
 
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Interested in learning more about wireless technology? Be sure to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users.
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Mae Kowalke previously wrote for Cleveland Magazine in Ohio and The Burlington Free Press in Vermont. To see more of her articles, please visit Mae Kowalke’s columnist page. Also check out her Wireless Mobility blog.


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