Every real marketer has to appreciate how Apple has garnered about $1 BILLION dollars worth of attention, branding, word of mouth and internet buzz with ONE keynote, a few official interviews and now less than 5 TV spots.

Of course, everyone has to chime in – everything from outright failure to 45 million sold but perhaps we should take names & keep score to see come June 30th or July 30th or July 30th, 2008 to see who was on target and who was Dvorak?

Dvorak – meaning of course – old, ancient, irrelevant and without any understanding of technology since the time when computers actually had to “boot.” (no resemblance to any living person intended, I know he can’t be real).

Thanks of course to MacSurfer who keeps a nice tidy record. We’ll just go back about 45 days to early today to get a general recap of who said what – remember at the beginning of May, no one was really sure when in June yet it would actually be out but it was also enough time after the keynote to not just spout knee jerk reactions. After several months of analyses and fact gathering, it seemed reasonable that everyone could offer intelligent opinions based on competitor info, the marketplace, consumer buying habits and technology.

Well, apparently that was too much to ask of some people. Of course, since nothing is out, and there are no hands on reviews, in theory everyone’s opinion should be valid and yet, it might be time for some to call it a day in the tech field and go into gardening.

Of course, here’s where I stand.

And others …

(sorry – too lazy to link all).

FAILURE:

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” Steve Ballmer
“Why Apple’s iPhone is not the next iPod” Saabira Chaudhuri, FastCompany
“iPhone: Apple’s First Flop” Todd Sullivan, ValuePlays
iPhone: Apple Making All the Wrong Moves Todd Sullivan, ValuePlays
“”So it really makes you wonder whether the iPhone, when it finally arrives next month, will be clunky and misguided despite its gorgeousness and slick user interface. Apple could turn off customers if the pricey device can’t really do what it promises because of little gotchas like insufficient bandwidth or short battery life or an unusable virtual keyboard.” Brent Schlender
“But as a first-generation product, and the first mobile phone for Apple, the iPhone could have bugs in any of a number of areas, such as the touch screen, which is unique for such a device; battery life; call quality; and software stability.” Antone Gonsalves, InfoWeek
“The keyboard is a disaster, and people are going to return the phone in droves. I’m guessing 20% will go back.” The D Guy
“Apple’s iPhone Will Fly . . . Then Flounder” Jim Louderback, PC Magazine
“Apple won’t sell 10 million iPhones in 2008.” Lance Davis, The Register

NOT FAILURE BUT NOT HIT …

“It’s usually bad luck to bet against Steve Jobs, but I still find it hard to see how Apple is going to shift 10 million iPhones in 2008.” Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNET

CAN’T DECIDE

“Survey: many want, 6% will buy iPhone” (then notes) “highly successful Motorola RAZR after its launch in 2004 achieved a 6% market share at its peak.” Markitecture
“7.6% said that they’d definitely be getting one. A massive 46.2% said that they’d seriously consider getting an iPhone, but only if the available deal was attractive.” Shiny Media, UK
“Business users should probably avoid the first-gen iPhone.” Graceful Flavor
“10 Reasons Why iPhone Will/Won’t Succeed” Noah Kravitz, PB Central
“I keep coming back to one aspect of the device I don’t like – the onscreen keyboard. As much as I think that the glass-topped software-powered keyboard on the iPhone looks cool, I keep coming back the one thing that’s important about a keyboard to me – usability. Do I think that the iPhone’s keyboard is going to be an efficient input device? No. Is this going to mean that Apple is going to have a hard time selling iPhones? Probably not.” Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet
“Perhaps everything will go right but expectations for the iPhone don’t allow for anything but perfection.” Larry Dignan, ZDNet

PROBABLY …
“iPhone has the potential for adding a totally new, $10 billion-a-year business” Peter Burrows BW Mag
“I am skeptical on price, but people are lined up to buy it,” Jupiter Research, Neil Strother
“I have never seen as much anticipation for a new product,” Michael Cai, Parks Associates

SUCCESS:

“Why Ballmer is wrong about the iPhone” mad4mobilephones
“Predicts the company will sell 45 million iPhones in 2009” Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray
“Apple’s iPhone Rocks the Cell Phone Industry” Paul Carton ChangeWave Alliance
“iPhone may double smartphone sales” ARM CEO, Warren East
“4 million in 2007” Merrill Lynch
“Apple to sell around 17 million for fiscal 2008” Shebly Seyrafi, Caris & Company
“iPhone volumes will be met” UBS
“Almost half of Europe’s iPod users participating in its 2,000-person pan-European survey said that they are likely to consider Apple for their next mobile phone.” Canalys
“45% of Americans are aware of the iPhone’s existence” Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine
“9% of 3,500 people surveyed would be buying the iPhone, with another 7% saying they would buy the phone for someone else as a gift, this is “huge” and the iPhone is “going to be a monster.” 79% said they would consider dumping their existing wireless carrier to switch to AT&T to grab the iPhone.” Patrick Seitz, Investor’s Business Daily
“Sea change in awareness of how mobile computing will change after the release of the iPhone.” Tomi Ahonen
“84% of the students surveyed knew about the iPhone and that 25% said that they would purchase one at the standard retail price of $500.” Piper Jaffray
“… Sell-outs and complaints about lack of availability of the phone … Survey of 36 stores showed that 64 percent reporting a waiting list.” Channel Checkers
“It will change the whole category of what people think a phone is.” Richard Doherty, Envisioneering Group
“I think they’ll ship 10 million [phones] this calendar year,” Stephen Coleman, Daedelus Capital
“In many ways, the iPhone isn’t just a phone, but will likely be a cultural icon like the iPod. All of the carriers need some type of response.” Michael Gartenberg, Jupiter Research

WE’RE NOT AFRAID …
(um, what was that line Yoda says back to Luke when he says he’s not afraid? 😉

“Company is ready for competition from Apple Inc.’s iPhone, “How do you deal with [the iPhone]?” “How do they deal with us?”” Motorola CEO Ed Zander
“Helio Ocean vs. Everything (including iPhone)” Gizmodo
“Sun’s JavaPhone Could Beat Apple To The iPhone Punch” Alexander Wolfe, InfoWeek
“Motorola Inc. plans to introduce a device next week with “unbelievable video capabilities,” a month before Apple Inc. starts selling its iPhone.” Motorola CEO Ed Zander
“Nokia: iPhone will lift phone prices” Electronista
“Samsung aims to one-up Apple: South Korea is a hotbed of cutting-edge cell phones” Business 2.0
“Helio Ocean: Is this the iPhone Killer? (Despite some hardware flaws)” Threebase
“… Decided to pass on the iPhone deal and says he has no regrets: “Time will tell” if he made the right call, he says, Strigl doesn’t think the iPhone will be that hard to compete against. Why? Because, he says, for five long years it will be tied to AT&T’s wireless network. His point: A phone is only as good as the network it runs on, and he thinks Verizon’s is better.” Denny Strigl, Verizon’s COO
“Sony meets iPhone challenge with BT broadband deal for PSP” Sony
“We have several music devices coming” including the LG Prada, “but there are others” Verizon
“Microsoft designs the mobile operating system that can be used on a large range of devices.” Microsoft, Robbie Bach
“Palm is poised to compete with the iPhone” BusinessWeek
“Other Makers’ Feature-Rich Phones Could Benefit From Apple Device’s Buzz” WSJ.com
“HTC Touch is poised to join the ranks of would-be iPhone killers.” PC World
“‘What are you doing in response to the iPhone?’ But because we’ve been doing this for so long, the iPhone is actually a response to us.” Verizon

2+2=11? WTH?

“iPhone is actually driving the market towards Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS” Sramana Mitra
“Apple Hopes to Infuse iPhone with Wii Windfall” (aka: Apple to learn how to market from Nintendo’s Wii – good analysis for memory span of 3 months or if you’re 6 years old) Gizmo Cafe
“Jobs Gambles Rep on iPhone 1.0” NY Post
“”Apple has a history of leaving its partners bleeding or bloody in the dust” Rob Enderle
“Apple Should Trash The iPhone” The D Guy
“”It’s way out of line with what the phone is going to do, This is not a great phone. It’s an interesting design.” Rob “IBM PC Unit unlikely to be sold to Lenovo” Enderle
“The introduction of the iPhone implies “the beginning of a long farewell to the Mac as a general purpose computing platform” Paul Thur.
“iPhone to Flop…Then Fly” PC Magazine
“Essentially we’re just Apple’s Guinea Pigs to make sure the each generation of the iPhone is awesome while Apple and AT&T keep up their reputation.” Tanner Godarzi, iPhone Matters
“Why The IPhone Shortages Are Good For Apple And Us” Tanner Godarzi, iPhone Matters
“The iPhone shortage will be due to AT&T. The wireless giant is going to deliberately be keeping the iPhone on a controlled outflow from its stores.” Tanner Godarzi, iPhone Matters
“Meeting Steve Jobs and rubbishing the iPhone to his face … Ok, so it was a dream.” SMS Text News
“Apple planning iPhone shortage” Nick Farrell, Inquirer
“… Experience tells us that nobody really buys anything when it first comes out, it is always the way, because after a while the prices begin to fall dramatically and then we begin to see special deals.” Coolest-Gadgets.com

RANDOM FACTS/QUOTES

“AT&T officials say a million people have put in requests for an iPhone.” AT&T (aka: 1 million people said – please send me an AD!)
“Market buzz: Apple to buy 500 million Samsung NAND flash chips” EE Times Asia
“… Recent survey was that over half the people who had a music phone don’t have a one song loaded on them,” he said. “Not a single one. And mostly it’s because they don’t care, Forty-four percent had zero songs; 18 percent said they did not have as many songs as they wanted.” David Chamberlain, Principal Analyst at InStat
“Just 26 percent of U.K. and U.S. mobile entertainment users are currently satisfied with their services.” Mobile Entertainment Forum
“Many of those who will “definitely” investigate the phone at its minimum $499 price are new to Apple, AT&T, or both. Of the interested respondents culled from the 1,230 total, nearly half — 48 percent — said they didn’t already own an iPod, making the iPhone their only (if not very first) Apple-branded music player.” Solutions Research Group
“…Growing wave of middle-market Americans who are defining a new market segment through their willingness to pay a premium for “new luxury” goods” Credit Suisse
“… Quiet, behind-the-scenes anxiety at Apple. Some Apple executives worry privately that expectations for the one-button phones may be too high and that first-generation buyers will end up disappointed.” Business 2.0

DON’T GOT TO VEGAS

“$10 says the iPhone is opened to 3rd parties on June 11th” David Chartier
“When it Comes to the iPhone Release Date, I Put My Money on June 12” iPhone Matters

JUST IMAGINE HOW GOOD IT WOULD DO IF IT WERE ACTUALLY RELEASED 🙂 …

“An overwhelming 90 percent of respondents gave the iPhone higher marks than their own handset and over 40 percent of respondents rated the iPhone much better across key functional categories– including music player, web browsing, voice mail, and phone call management–indicating real innovation in designing a user experience” Harvey Cohen, Strategy Analytics

In case you need a map for June 29th to find OFFICIAL AT&T stores (3rd party stores & kiosks will not be selling the iPhone – don’t camp out at the wrong store 🙂

You will need Google Earth.

Here is the Google Earth plug-in for AT&T stores.

Good luck!