Phone or Platform?

I should probably do a poll, but instead, make a comment on your thoughts; is the iPhone just a really awesome phone or the hint of a new platform?

I think it’s too soon to tell, but the ball is clearly in Apple’s court.

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  • http://www.debontherocks.com Deb on the Rocks

    I love the idea of it as an Iwatch, techno-bling as an extension of the body. I think it’s a new way of thinking about tools–and it was framed as a phone because that is the most intimate tool we are currently accustomed to using. Well, techno tool.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/72feetabovesealevel/ michael

    For me the cost of the iPhone, the rate plans and having to sign a 2 year contract for a device that duplicates services I already have is too high a price. I can make a grocery list with paper and pen for free, why use an iPhone?

    If the folks that voted for the iPhone as a platform prove to be correct and we get 3rd party software for it, like Quicken, I’d be all about the iPhone. Until then, I’ll wait.

  • http://12tutufondue.blogspot.com Doc Bill

    I think the nature of “phone” will change.

    iChat in your hand?

    Then you’d have people walking around with their iChatPhone at arms length bumping into things. It will be chaos and the end of civilization as we know it.

    Much as we have calculators built into the weirdest products so may go the phone.

  • Stenar

    Definitely platform.

  • http://www.digitalcatharsis.com the mighty jimbo

    rumor is a multi touch tablet by 09.

    just a matter of time. dell has multi touch in the works too. ms has their ideas for the technology. lenovo/ibm can’t be far behind.

  • http://writteninc.blogspot.com Carmi

    It’s v1.0 of a possible future platform that capitalizes on increasing demand for full-featured mobile, connected devices.

    In its current form, however, it’s too feature-limited to be considered revolutionary. But that’s irrelevant for Apple: all these need to do it crank Mr. Jobs’s reality distortion field and then collect kajillions of dollars from fashion-forward early adopters. It’s this cash flow that will drive evolution to v2.0 and beyond.

    The fact that the new iPod touch is essentially the iPhone without the phone speaks volumes about Apple’s mobile platform strategy.

  • http://david-jaime-jason.blogspot.com Jason

    Platform! Around the time of its release I was bellowing on and on to whomever was unfortunate enough to have to hear me that this was, in concept anyway, a fundamentally different doohicky (albeit one that we knew was coming down the pike) and that the marketing should not focus on it as a phone. For some reason Apple’s Marketing Department must have felt secure enough with their approach not to have to contact me about the issue.

  • http://creativetypedad.com/ creative-type dad

    I’ve had one since the day it came out. It’s a fancy phone.

    It’ll be a platform if they allow people to create their own widgets on it.

  • http://www.greeblemonkey.com aimee/greeblemonkey

    It’s a phone that hints.

  • http://www.greeblemonkey.com aimee/greeblemonkey

    (oh, and by the way — anyone else try to run their finger across the screen when using other people’s
    s phones? I got a hearty laugh when I did that the other day.)

  • KC

    Phone or platform? Well, I don’t own the iphone. But my most awesome boss just bought everyone in our office the 16G touch (there are 8 of us). So after using this little guy for the last week I think it is the most awesome electronic toy evah!

  • http://www.singulus.typepad.com Eric Cabot Steed a.k.a. Singulus

    Add one more missing link and it’s a radical new platform i.e. ‘Rendezvous’. Okay, It used to be ‘Rendezvous’, Now It’s ‘Bonjour’. When you can subtly & safely link to those in your proximity, as well as your wider, Working Area as well as, a la wireless 802.11n, the internet as a whole — Watch Out !!

    It’s an entirely new world, Sweetheart !!

  • http://www.freaklamp.com Matt

    It’s a platform. It’s not a phone. It’s not an mp3 player either. It’s a handheld multimedia decive. Apple just announced that in February they will be releasing an SDK (Software Developer Kit) for the iPhone and, recently released, iPod Touch. I just got the ‘Touch’ and used a program to add all of the iPhone applications to it. Also, an ‘installer’ that lets you add a ton of other apps through a web based interface. I carry this thing with all the time, watch movies in near hi-def. Check mail, cruise the web, post on my blog, etc.

    It’s a computer in the palm of your hand and there will be a ton of additional free, fee-based service, or purchase only applications for these things. Apple has sold a bunch of them but with this move, they have raised the bar, set a new standard, and will sell a ‘bazillion’ more.

    With flash based memory prices spiraling, they can up the memory on iPods and iPhones and not raise the cost. 32gb and 64gb models are not a stretch at all. As they raise the storage on these models, they will sell a kajillion bazillion.

    It has shaken up the industry and left everyone else scrambling to keep up.

    Ok, I’m done. They can have my iPod Touch when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.

  • https://www.kevinworthington.com/ Kevin Worthington

    I know this is almost a month later, but according to Time: http://​tinyurl​.com/​25rtdt

    “4. It’s not a phone, it’s a platform”

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