The iPhone Breaks Cover

Three days before actual release and it looks like the embargoes have come off for the usual suspects:

David Pogue of the NY Times

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal Edward Baig of USA Today (article, YouTube)

So far the consensus is that while the iPhone is not perfect it is fully justified of the hype. And boy has that hype been high. The San Francisco Chronicle ran an article entitled "Can iPhone change the way we live?", and has been running daily front-page stories as though it were the second coming of Christ. It would be amusing if it weren't also sad given the sorry state of the Chronicle's journalism.

What's interesting is that this amazing level of hype has come about because of a decision that Apple made which runs counter to its usual practice - it pre-announced the iPhone by a large amount of time. Steve Jobs is famous for his "one last thing" pull-a-rabit-out-of-a-hat approach to product announcements at tradeshows which means that hype rarely builds up. Apple has been pretty good about having products ready to buy immediately after announcement lately, and if there are delays they are mostly a matter of weeks. (The only one I can recall that dragged on for a lot longer was the high-end G5 towers from a while back.)

Apple has smartly realized that its market position has reached a (cliché alert) tipping point and that it is now more favorable in some cases to pre-announce products. In the past these long-lead pre-announcements have been reserved for the OS, which requires developers to get on board early so there are good apps ready to go at launch. The iPhone is a much more closed off device than the Apple desktop OS so by that measure there was not as much need to pre-announce. But in this case it has paid off in spades - but only because the product seems so far to be justifying the attention. If it had significantly stumbled we would have had a big case of "the bigger they are, the bigger they fall".

Personally I won't be one of the people camping out in front of Apple and AT&T stores to get one. People have taken my earlier comments to mean that I was not interested in the iPhone. In fact I do find it an interesting device but I also saw that if it was not executed really well that it would be an unpleasant device to own in the long run. Many of my initial concerns seem to be dealt with - screen scratching, typing without hard keys. I'm still taking a wait and see attitude, looking to see if the shine wears off it after real people (not reviewers) have had it in their hands, pockets, bags for a while.

AVP of Marketing Strategy Adam Richardson is the author of Innovation X: Why a Company’s Toughest Problems are its Greatest Advantage. His book is the manual for leaders looking for clarity about the emerging challenges facing their businesses. You can follow Adam on Twitter @richardsona.