In Boing Boing this morning, I found a link to John Heilemann’s article in New York Magazine about Steve Jobs and the iPhone.
The cover seems to say it all, but the article makes some of the same points that I mentioned in yesterday’s post.
Apple is taking a huge risk with the iPhone, and AT&T has decided to come along for a ride on Steve’s “reality distortion field”. There are other places to read about Steve, but Heilemann tosses in some of Jobs’ better moments - questioning the sanity of the Segway, for example, or rolling out the iPod, then changing his mind and porting iTunes to Windows.
There’s a nice section about the internal Apple debate regarding the iPhone’s keyboard. There was no debate, because Steve Jobs didn’t want a physical keyboard, even if customers want one.
The discussion regarding AT&T’s poor reputation as a mobile carrier is also worth reading.
Heilemann asks one of my favorite questions: what happens if this new iPhone business really takes off?
The follow-up: If consumers really want US$500 cell phones this year, how will competitors adapt?
UPDATE 15:26 HT: Seth Godin has posted his take on Heilemann’s article. Seth believes that Heilemann is being “small-minded”. Steve Jobs is really a “rifter” who fixes problems and leaps from one market to another.
UPDATE 19 June 14:35 PM: Also see Kawika Holbrook’s brief January 29 screed about call quality.
