Look - it´s a phone

Is it the beinning of a new era in mobile phone industry or only a storm before the calm? Fact is, Apple is introducing today the new iPhone in the US market, AT&T the exclusive carrier refused their employees to go on holiday and temporarily hired additionally 2000 employees. Not many people have seen it sofar and even less could test it. But still, there are people queuing since the beginning of the week.

Experts are skeptical about the product. The camera is apparently not the best. There´s no connection to UMTS networks and the costs are relatively high (500-600$). And Apple denied AT&T to sell it with discount prices although customers have to buy a 2-year contract of the phone operator. Apple´s target amount of sold pieces till end of 2008: 10 Mio. Nokia sells this amount every 10 days...
Still, it might not be a superior product but Apple has enourmous competencies and knowledge in Marketing. And as the trend in Marketing is not anymore on a product or even brand perspective, but on a community perspective it could still be a successful product for Apple. Simply, because Apple products have at least since iPod a high social value. From my perspective, mobile phones are a highly publicly consumed good which supports the idea of a status symbol and symbolization of consumption. Or as our profs call it: the link is more important than the thing... in europe by the end of the year