Apple Expectations Too High for iPhone?

In a recent commentary on Apple's upcoming and highly anticipated iPhone, British publication "The Register" outlined a number of reasons why the device is unlikely to fulfill Steve Jobs' lofty sales expectations for its first full year. The Apple CEO hopes his new baby will be grabbed up some ten million times in 2008, a prediction The Register counters with a number of critical factors making much lower sales figures far more reasonable. Although The Register provides some solid evidence, it really needs just one, central dynamic in its list: the iPhone's cost.

Jobs hasn't used complicated mathematics or a freakonomics template to deconstruct the mobile phone market. His prediction, it seems, is merely based on the lowest common denominator and Apple success in other tech hardware spheres. "10 million iPhones is one per cent of the mobile phone market," Jobs has said, and thus, a reasonable goal for the device's first (full) twelve months.

The Register cites a number of reasons why this might be ridiculous. For one, the phone will likely be late. A number of other "smart phones" have experienced the same issue, and with the reported launch approaching fast, hype is still relatively low. That's thanks to Apple itself, which is almost certainly because it is struggling to produce the communicator. (Source: theregister.co.uk)

Other factors include a crowded market and an even more crowded losers section (IBM, Siemens, Fujitsu, etc). The iPhone will also be encroaching on the immensely popular BlackBerry, a device that hardly pretends to revolutionize mobile entertainment. It just works, and it just works for less. (Source: itwire.com)

And, that's the key. At $499 and $599, the iPhone is the telecommunications equivalent of the Sony PlayStation 3. Right down to problem production rumors, both have struggled to whip up enough hype during the climax of their release, primarily because no one can actually afford their steep prices. Although this writer is still convinced Sony's console can overcome the beloved Nintendo Wii and regain market dominance, it won't do so for six hundred bucks.

Neither will the Apple iPhone.