Dumb iPhone predictions: A look back
Now that Apple (AAPL) has shipped its 10 millionth iPhone this year — outselling Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry for the quarter, according to Steve Jobs, and climbing to the No. 3 spot in cell phone revenues worldwide, after Nokia (NOK) and Samsung — this might be a good time to revisit MacDailyNews' collection the dumbest things people have said about the device over the past two years.
A sampling:
“Apple is slated to come out with a new phone… And it will largely fail.”
Michael Kanellos, CNET, December 07, 2006
“[Apple's iPhone] is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine… So, I, I kinda look at that and I say, well, I like our strategy. I like it a lot.”
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, January 17, 2007
“Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone… What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a ‘reference design’ and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures… Otherwise I’d advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you’ll see.”
John C. Dvorak, Bloated Gas Bag, March 28, 2007
“The iPhone is going to be nothing more than a temporary novelty that will eventually wear off.”
Gundeep Hora, CoolTechZone Editor-in-Chief, April 02, 2007
“I’m more convinced than ever that, after an initial frenzy of publicity and sales to early adopters, iPhone sales will be unspectacular… iPhone may well become Apple’s next Newton.”
David Haskin, Computerworld, February 26, 2007
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.”
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, 30 April 2007
“How do you deal with that? How do they deal with us?”
Ed Zander, Motorola CEO/Chairman May 10, 2007
“It just doesn’t matter anymore. There are now alternatives to the iPhone, which has been introduced everywhere else in the world. It’s no longer a novelty.”
Eamon Hoey, Hoey and Associates, April 30, 2008
To see MacDailyNews' full list, click here.
@Danny from Boston
You say: "Predicting the success of a project is always difficult."
If it is so difficult, then a wise man would keep hi trap shut!
The reason the comments are so dumb is that the authors made them with such conviction and arrogance.
Anyone who has used ShapeWriter or its several competitors knows that a "virtual" keyboard the only way to go, since it won't work with real keys, and is much faster than typing on a micro keypad. As soon as Apple dumps their poor text messaging software in favor of shapewriting, the single real objection will be gone. Meanwhile, we can shapewrite notes and email them.
Justin in OK wrote…
What you fail to realize Justin is that Ballmer is referring to smartphones – the high-end ones that are where the real money is made. That market is incredibly small by comparison to the larger market, and Apple is essentially dominating it after less than 18 months playing in it.
There is nothing statistically wrong with what Ballmer said. But the problem is that iPhone has more sales than WIndows Mobile devices. That's the problem. In 10 years of existence WIndows Mobile is still lagging iPhone which has been in existence for an year.
Dumb remarks? What do you expect Steve Ballmer to say – Oh yeah Apple iphone will be a hit and will kick our butts?
All these executives said exactly what they were supposed to say to back up their own corp. Nothing personal.
I wish Apple would get serious with regard to business users. Many large businesses refuse to support it due to the lack of encryption capability. Don't get me wrong, I would love to have one. However, as usual Apple missed the mark.
I know a "Bob in Nashville", he is a dolt.
I work for a large medical company and we are about to roll out 800+ iPhones to Drs. and Directors. No complaints about "no keyboard" so far…
Perhaps Bob from Nashville, TN doesn't realize the iPhone costs $199 for 8GB or $299 for 16GB. Maybe he is a dolt.
Hank from Miami says, "…many of the individuals I spoke with do not find the phone very easy to use; especially the touch pad that cannot be used with a stylus."
Are you kidding? You don't like the iPhone because you can't use a stylus? That's like saying you don't like the modern automobiles because you can't start them with a HAND CRANK!
How is the last Ballmer comment dumb? If Apple has sold 10 million and there are 1.3 billion phones being sold, that is less than 1 percent. Seems like Ballmer was being optimistic about Apple's sales.
"…messaging, email, texting, MMS, and IM are the killer apps of mobile devices…NOT web browsing." That's because previous phones were terrible at browsing. The Internet is the killer app of all times. There is no reason to think people only want to use it when they are near their desks or laptops. Having it in your pocket, easily accessible wherever you are, is a game changer. As Southwest Airlines says, "you are now free to roam about the country."
The reason that more blackberry's are used by businesses is because iphones are not able to be purchased on business accounts, only personal accounts. So, blackberry's are the next best thing when businesses are wanting to put email capability into their employees hands.
Spending ~$500 on a phone is dumb. Making money off of dolts who spend $500 on a phone is great business.
“It just doesn’t matter anymore. There are now alternatives to the iPhone, which has been introduced everywhere else in the world. It’s no longer a novelty.”
Hey Eamon, just remember one thing: the iPhone WAS/IS the novelty and the rest just poor copies of it. It is like going to the moon. The FIRST one to put a foot on it was Armstrong…the rest…just another buddies doing the same.
I would forgive all those comments, except for the last one. All the others were in 2007, BEFORE the original iPhone launched. The last comment was in 2008, when the iPhone was already out and Eamon Hoey should have known better.
The iPhone has had this much success while despite binding customers to buy the phone with a particular cellular package. Imagine where its sales would be if the phone was sold on a stand-alone basis like most other phones in the market!
whats wrong with what ballmer said??? 1. iphone DOESN'T appeal to businesses today with one of the main reasons is the soft keyboard. it IS more difficult to use than a physical keyboard no matter how used to the soft keyboard you get. i was at the gartner IT conference last week in orlando with about 8,000 IT/business attendees and for every 1 iphone i saw, there were probably 500 blackberries and 100 winmo phones…no joke. what's scary is RIM is only now recognizing the value of the consumer market and will attack that with a vengence. an honest comparison between the iphone and the new Bold or Storm is not even close. iphone users always point to a great web browsing experience. that's a crock of an argument. people don't spend hours and hours browsing the web on it. they get what they need and get off…same as any web enabled phone. now what we all have seen is people incessently messaging on their phone…something that the blackberry flawlessly does. messaging, email, texting, MMS, and IM are the killer apps of mobile devices…NOT web browsing. last but not least, blackberry is not in as many countries as apple so the 'outselling' claim is factually true but if you compared apples to apples (no pun intended) then RIM is still killing the iphone. RIM will launch in many international markets as well in the future and i don't think it will be the same rosy picture.
2. as for the share thing…has anyone looked at microsoft's gross margins lately? i would 100% agree with him. i'd rather have a big(ger) chunk of a ridiculously high margin business like software than less margins on hardware. its a no brainer. people like to put them in the same business but they are not. until apple licenses their OS to other makers or microsoft starts making hardware, they are no more in each other's business than they are in PCs. Apple competes with RIM, Samsung, Nokia in phones, not microsoft.
I've had a Blackberry and a windows mobile device…I prefer the iphone 3G for email and texting to both of them. I can just about run my business from from my iphone. Something I could not do on my old blackberry or tilt.
Well I fail to see the problem with some of those predictions. The iPhone does stink for email and text.
I love all of this. I particularly love the job title that the editors slipped in for Mr. Dvorak.
Extremely funny.
For the football fans out there… that was locker room material for SJ and team. Apple, with its varied product offerings, is a multi-dimensional company. It is most impressive to enter a new market and to become a game-changing force so quickly. Vision + execution = growth. When this mkt gets some legs, AAPL will be fine. MSFT has languished 10 years for a reason…
In Biblical times when prophets were wrong they stoned them…. It appears that the impact of their own words are stinging like flying rocks….
Excuse me why I answer my I-phone, email, check my schedule, look at my ebay auctions etc… I continue to be amazed at this great tool.
WS Oregon
I was going to wait to buy one. I wanted more memory, a user replaceable battery, etc. But I didn't wait and I'm glad. It really is awesome.
Steve Ballmer is an idiot and CNET is always anti-Apple!
I would trade my Windows based pc at work for a Mac in less than a nanosecond – if I could.
@Jason: "I’m not really sure why Ballmer’s “2 – 3%” quote is considered “dumb”."
It is beyond dumb because Ballmer is saying that Windows Mobile will have an 80% share. At this point it is glaringly obvious that the iPhone will outsell Windows Mobile (if it hasn't already). It also very likely that Microsoft will abandon WinMo altogether, just like it did "Plays for sure" in favor of either purchasing RIM or creating an all in-house strategy a la Zune. At this point Windows Mobile is dead. Any part of its lunch that the iPhone doesn't eat, Android will.
… And wait for the iPhone Nano to come next year.
Apple will bring its phone to the masses in '09. Worldwide.
It will start selling at around $150, and will explode.
10 millions out of 1.3 billions phones is not enough for Apple.
Apple will be the reference for mobile devices (laptops, phones, tablets)
And all will be MobileMe, App Store and iTunes connected.
This is where Apple takes over the cloud… the post-pc era.
arrgh.. the 1-3% percent prediction by Balmer was for the whole smartphone market not for the whole market of 1.3 phones. That is WHY it is so stupid of statement by a management person of a competing company. It is incredibly ignorant.
How many "iPhone killers" have been referenced by competitors since the iPhone release? Thats flattery.
When it comes to "game changers" one simply has to look at our youth… Us guys buying things for the next 10 years or so are not what drives the creation of "innovative" and "game changing" technologies. Our youth do.. And than we find ways to make it work in business (with their help of course)…
What I find interesting is you can put a so called "smart phone" in the hands of an infant 1 to 2 years old, and they will discard it after the initial novelty of the lights coming off and on begins to bore them…
On the other hand if you put an iPhone or iPod touch in their hands and you actually have family pictures, or some of the gaming apps that interact with them, the child can figure out how to unlock, get to what they want, and entertain themselves until you take the device away.
For all the detracters out there, this is a game changer… This is a technology that you will either get on board or get left behind.
How about Apple store predictions: "I give them two years before they're turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake." — David Goldstein
And defense (yes) of Dvorak:
"After decades of computer-store missteps, it's apparent that Apple has a winning formula that can now be used to leverage sales of anything it wants to sell." — John Dvorak
one fact in the above article 'comments' remains true…
the iphone is a novelty that WILL wear off…they ALWAYS DO.
i suspect this device will maintain it's 2-3% tops market share, and that is overly opptimistic. the devices today and due tomorrow will outshine, outperform and outprice this novelty.
at least the stock price has dropped to where it should be….don't let me say it again but…
I TOLD YOU SO!!!!
I'm not really sure why Ballmer's "2 – 3%" quote is considered "dumb".
1.3 billion phones sold. Apple sells 10 million phones. That's less than 1%. 3% would be 40 million units. It seems like he's right on the mark with his prediction.
Funny to see how utterly, completely wrong Dvorak was (as he's often been on Apple-related issues). Not only did he give Apple no chance of succeeding, but he completely neglects to consider the impact of RIM, who has been a major competitor in this market.
The funniest thing is that (as typical) he sounds so smug in the process. Priceless.
Several brainless bugs are sitting on top and ruling the corporate America.
I told several times that few competitors are going to be extinct and Apple is going to change the landscape of the mobile communication industry. It is happening. Let me repeat – Apple has no competitor to the iPhone in sight. Not even in the distant future.
Look for my posts in the yahoo news group under AAPL
All had NEGATIVE agendas hoping that their pronouncements would hobble the competition and others to manipulate Apple stock price down.
I find it amazing that the latter can happen to successful companies with great successful innovative products and billions of dollars in the bank with no debt and the world is only NOW, AFTER 1 YR. starting its SLOWDOWN. The year long negative media litany has decimated stock prices. The economy has been talked down by a media litany of fear mongering negativity.
Given the international nature of our current economic crisis and the need for international solidarity, I feel it only fair to show solidarity with our American colleagues and show them that the Europeans are right behind them in making dumb statements about the iPhone.
Wednesday 6 February 2008 to the Financial Times – Ad Scheepbouwer, CEO of Dutch telecom company KPN.
"I had one (an iPhone), but I thought it was pretty useless".
He added he still hoped to market it in the Netherlands. The result? Apple choose T-Mobile, which promptly added 60,000 extra mobile subscribers as a result.
Apple may have sold 10 million units, but many of the individuals I spoke with do not find the phone very easy to use; especially the touch pad that cannot be used with a stylus. It is ok for phone calls and surfing, but input on the unit is awkward, at best. I passed on the unit for this reason as well as the fact that the calling and data plans are more expensive for the i-phone than other data phones.
Not only do I think Danny from Boston hit the mark, but I think it should also be pointed out that a lot of these predictions came out before the price cut and that had a lot to do with its success.
You guys are naive. I would expect competitors like Microsoft and Motorola to talk negatively on the competition. Why in the world would they praise it?
As for the critics… they are CRITICS. They criticize. Besides, the Internet is one big magnet for negativity and cynicism.
Hindsight is always 20/20.
Steve Jobs read all those comments and set out to disproof them LOL I remember reading most of them .very funny
but I think the ones that really are to be taken seriously
are: the steve ballmer , Ed zander and ed colligan
truly pathetic attempts, that shows exaclty what kind of companies they are running.. old and out of ideas
Predicting the success of a project is always difficult. If the device is full of technical merits, it may fail because it's "too different" or it could fail because the timing is wrong. Conversely, a device largely missing technical innovation could succeed based largely on timing and politics.
To refer to many of these predictions as "dumb" is laughable. When it comes to predicting the future, one can certainly be wrong without being dumb. For example, while Ballmer may be a horse's ass, his prediction that the iPhone would fail for business users due to its lack of keyboard is hardly without merit.
Hello,
Your article "Dumb iPhone predictions: A look back" is based not on "AAPLinvestors’ full collection," but rather on MacDailyNews' original article Apple surpasses goal of 10 million iPhones sold in 2008; outsells RIM in September quarter – October 21, 2008 – 06:08 PM ET
You should credit the proper source.
ex ped: We weren't aware of the MacDailyNews article. We've given them credit and are trying to determine which came first.
Crazy predictions from, in many cases, very smart perople. How can they be so wrong? The iphone is an awesome product that spurs interest into Apples other core products resulting in more sales – and larger market share. Did your friends mess with your Razr when you first got it? No, they didn't. Apple is awesome and I can't wait till my Razr contract is up.
Well it is nice to see you review all the wild things said, and while the past quarter is no prediction of future sales as they say…it is safe to say, the comments made as you reported above, were less than insightful regarding the future of the iPhone. I am interested Philip in your take on the UBS downgrade this morning, for my own part I have a hard time taking serious advice from a company that posted 44 billion dollars in losses over the past quarter against a company that is posting billions of dollars of profit in the same period…or am I missing something?
Here's a prediction for you, one that will hopefully draw a laugh. Blue tooth ear pieces for the iPhone and every other cellular device will eventually be outlawed because of their detrimental impact on society's ability to communicate. Here's why:
http://writingfrontier.com/2008/07/12/are-you-talking-to-me/