Would you buy the iPhone now without the Phone: thinking about the iPhone as a 6G iPod.

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Would you buy the iPhone now without the Phone: thinking about the iPhone as a 6G iPod.

Date Created: 23 Jun, 2007, 01:28 PM

Judging by the number of writers - from the blogosphere through to leading mainstream media commentators - who see the iPhone's price as a major stumbling block, may I offer the following few thoughts:

Would you buy an iPhone for $499 or $599 if it didn't have phone capacity or the AT&T contract?

I would.

Seriously. Let's just imagine for a moment that what we have here is the next generation iPod, and it costs this amount without cellphone capacity. For that, perhaps in a year's time Apple will let you download some firmware for a nominal fee (say $99, a penalty for not taking the punt on the full iPhone in the first place), then you still go to AT&T (or whomever) and organise a pay-as-you-go service, say a month-by-month capped plan including data and SMS. For that you pay whatever is the going rate, or the best deal you can organise.

So what you have is essentially a wi-fi equipped iPod, ready to become a cellphone when your current contract expires or the deal between Apple and AT&T giving the latter exclusive carrier rights is over or waived.

The castrated iPhone can still surf the web and do email, and of course download YouTube videos as well as other web-based video services that will no doubt pop up, and Google functioning will increase to likely include a more sophisticated GPS than the current mapping service which will debut.

Through wi-fi, you'll make VoIP phone calls, do IM chats, engage in Basecamp-style collaboration, and basically carry on using it as a small portable Mac with rather limited functionality.

But given sales of very limited (by comparison) 5G iPods for a hundred dollars less (albeit with capacity of six times more), Apple is clearly softening us up for an onslaught of iPod-to-come devices that will satisfy a very broad marketplace indeed.

So... would you buy a denuded iPhone for the same money as the full-on beast, but with the prospect of adding the cellphone capacity for a fee as well as the contract with AT&T or whomever within the year. Of course, within the same year, Apple may well introduce a son-of-iPhone with a different set of capacities which would make this idea null.

But I figure a good way of testing ideas of "how expensive is too expensive" is by taking things to another limit, and in this case the iPhone as next generation iPod (sans cellphone) is one way to do it.

My guess is, that just as I wrote back in January when the iPhone was mooted pre-Macworld - I called that entry iPhone Bliss as compared to iPod halo effect - it will be the day-to-day use of the phone that will convince end-users (yes, those who will give their IT Admins hell at the office over its email capacity and bugger the security issues) of the sureness of Apple's design approach to everyday things. This device will leave competing device in the dust when it comes to pleasure of use, and the emotional satisfaction of ownership.

Remember in the early days of the iPod when white earbud wearers would nod sagely at each other, silently reinforcing how they "got it" compared to the multitudes with cheaper iRivers and Creative Zens? It's gonna happen all over again with the iPhone.

Be prepared to be very shocked when you get your hands on a demo unit how much you will really really want one, despite the so-called prohibitive cost of entry to iPhone Bliss. When enough execs see their own kids running around with these units (don't even ask how they'll get the money - today's Generation M for Mobile - have a razor-sharp instinct for what's cool) you bet corporate IT admins will shudder because they'll now have to do some work outside the MSCE manuals.

The iPhone will, like iTunes and the iPod, be another Trojan Horse delivering Apple (code)warriors into hostile territory. But it will come from the bottom up initially, then the top down, putting the squeeze on middle-level Blackberry users, eager to have something different.

Oh, by the way, let's not forgot a huge market waiting for the iPhone: Asia. This is the market a software-based keyboard was made for... just watch.