end kvetch

TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) recently posted something about a review by David Platt that totally chewed out the iPhone. Now, I can accept that maybe Apple has made some mistakes but he was just vicious. Now, even though the ol' Plattster has a book published and is apparently doing some keynote speeches at events that sound kind of important I still deem him a nobody. Why? Because, 1) he is declaiming the iPhone from his seat atop his blogspot blog and 2) the site promoting his book is ugly and finally, 3) I've never heard of the company that published his book. This is probably the point where you decide that I'm a hypocrite, I'm a nobody kvetching about a nobody kvetching about the iPhone. However, I have prepared for your response and I have made a list of things nobodies can do:

1. Say "NOBODY/NOTHING is good."
2. Say "NOBODY/NOTHING is great!"
3. Say "NOBODY/NOTHING is horrible."
4. Say "SOMEBODY/SOMETHING is good."
5. Say "SOMEBODY/SOMETHING is great!"
6. Say things nobody else cares about.

Obviously the iPhone, which is the Paris Hilton of gadgets (except it hasn't gone to jail...yet), is a something meaning that only major columnists/newspapers can declaim it but anyone can acclaim it. The MS Zune, in contrast, is a total nothing so anyone can say anything they want about it.

What David Platt obviously fails to take into account is the sheer force of marketing behind the iPhone (and to a lesser extent, anything with an Apple logo on it). There is no other product/company in the world that could motivate half the blogosphere to advertise for them (at no cost). I think it's pretty obvious that the iPhone will sell like crazy.

The only question that remains is "will they also be returned like crazy?". I'm not expert on contract law but it seems like the AT&T contract would at least make this more difficult (if not impossible). If customers will be allowed to transfer the contract to another phone AT&T will be making a killing, they get to harness the marketing-fueled buying frenzy and reap the profits for two years while Apple may get stuck with a couple million iPhones and a bunch of red zeros on their financial reports (I can't even think about it).