Quote:
Originally Posted by Messiahtosh
If it has an awesome, Apple-designed interface, then it will be a hit.
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Phone interfaces are perhaps the one area where Apple's UI team can't really make that much of a difference.
We can look at the ROKR and make some guesses why it was a failure.
First and most importantly it wasn't an iPod replacement. People don't want to buy a phone that plays music unless it can replace their iPod.
Second, it was outdated technology for a premium price. If Think Secret's rumored specs are true, this shouldn't be as big a problem with the iPhone, but it should be a concern. Apple has a tenancy to intentionally leave out some feature to keep artificial product differential. And with Apple's lethargic upgrade cycle the iPhone could look very old very quickly.
Yonzie,
If the iPhone is going to have 1+GB of storage and a 3MP camera, it's not a mainstream cheap phone and it will be compared unfavorably to other high end phones. Here is a comparison of sizes between some phones and some iPods:
Nokia N95 99mm x 20mm x 53mm 120g
SE W810i 100mm x 19.5mm x 46mm 99g
Samsung D900 103mm x 12.9mm x 51mm 93g (Closest to rumored iPhone specs)
iPod 30GB 100mm x 11mm x 61mm 136g
iPod 80GB 100mm x 14mm x 61mm 157g
iPod nano 90mm x 6mm x 40mm 40g
The fact is that the N95 is not significantly larger than the other phones while it has a significantly better feature set.
Apple's 'magic' these days is finding an emerging market and solving some of the big outstanding issues that keep the products from reaching mass market. I don't see what problem with mobile phones Apple is going to solve.