Thursday, January 13, 2011

The Second Coming of iPhone

Everyone and their uncle is making predictions about the fate of iPhone on Verizon and, in that light, Android. Let me make mine (consciously avoiding citations pro or con, and deep technical issues that are already aplenty):
  • There will be an initial surge of people that are just out of contract (or were waiting for iPhone) on Verizon;
  • There will be an initial surge of people that will switch to Verizon because they didn't want to switch to AT&T, but want an iPhone, who are just out of contract or were waiting for iPhone;
  • This surge will be somewhat sustained for the next few months as more people come out of contract;
  • The surge will then be dampened as they realize that iPhone (or Verizon, or iPhone on Verizon) is not all it cracked up to be, and relay their experiences to their friends;
  • Android acceptance curve will not be significantly affected because the target audience and market segments for Android and iPhone are different.
UPDATE (2011/02/14): Initial surge was weak, with two major reasons to blame: cold weather and people waiting for iPhone 5. Of course, we'll live to see whether more Verizon iPhones will be sold as the weather gets warmer, and what would be the iPhone 5 impact.

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