UPDATE: Perhaps this is what was keeping them busy – here are the details about the iPhone $100 iPology rebate
Folks, I noticed some strange issues with Apple over the last 6 months
and I’m beginning to wonder. First, our friends in Cupertino introduce
iPhone 6 months before it is ready (they almost always aim for
immediate availability after a major product announcement.) This
leads to uncontrolled hype that no company – not even Apple – can live
up to. Then they announce they will sell 10 million iPhones by the
end of 2008 BEFORE they sell a single one. One would think they
would give the product a few weeks on the market before making such
claims (they really have nothing to gain but now a lot to live up to.)
Finally they release the iPod touch yesterday and one of the key
features – WiFi music downloads – isn’t working. In fact we’re seeing
that even the ringtones in iTunes seems to be broken. How
uncharacteristic for a company who has a history (as I mention in my
free eBook available on the right of this page) of surprising and
delighting its customers. Right now many of those customers are
asking "what’s going on?" Surprised for sure. Delighted, no.
In my next post I’ll give you my answer – what’s yours?
My guess is that Apple were surprised (but not delighted) with the new challenges from the content providers and decided to move all plans forward more quickly than intended.
It certainly hasn’t done Apple’s share price any harm http://finance.google.com/finance?q=apple
Guess no one bothered to check to see if the thing worked, huh? Didn’t stop me from shelling out for an iPod Touch this weekend. Check the blog to read all about it! Apple does seem to fix the bugs pretty quickly as loyal consumers get angry fast when their gadgets aren’t performing to their standards.
One thing to remember about the iPhone is that it is a phone, and it requires FCC approvals that Apple never had to get before. The fear was that there would be leaks from the FCC approval process. Apple acted proactively, announcing the iPhone on their own terms, rather than on the terms of the leakers and the rumor mongers.
Isn’t keeping control of the message and brand part of good marketing?