Saturday, June 30, 2007
Apple Screwed Up the iPhone it is now the iRock
As much as I like Apple and think they try to do the right thing, it seems like Apple really messed up the iPhone debut. I can't imagine the people responsible for the launch having a job at Apple anymore given Steve Jobs reputation for excellence. Just when it seemed as though Apple could do no wrong and their stock began to catapult threw the roof, they have perhaps the worst public relations incident ever in the history of Apple.
The iPhone was really a product that Apple intended to grab Windows users over to OS X. Now I wonder how they could have screwed up this launch this badly. In a nutshell, many users waited for some period of time in line to get an iPhone yet they still cannot activate their phone due to some undisclosed problem. At the Apple Support Forums there are some threads that have been read over 23,000 times as desperate users try to figure out what the problem is in getting their phones activated. If you try to go to the link above it will actually lock up your web browser as the thread is to big to fit in your browsers memory.
What adds insult to injury is that the iPhone manual clearly states that the iPhone will be functional even if it is not activated, but for thousands with a 600 dollar iRock this is not the case. Their phone is locked up into a mode where only emergency calls can be made.
I wonder what the cost of the public relations nightmare will be for Apple. I would put the damage to Apple's long term stock price in the millions of dollars if not hundreds of millions as Apple's reputation for new customers has been damaged. Most of the Apple loyal will forgive Apple, but potential new customers may be turned off forever.
// posted by Noah Gift @ 9:15 PM 
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