When Apple unveiled the iPhone what seems to be oh so long ago, Steve Jobs stood on stage and said that Apple would consider the product a roaring success if they managed to capture something like 1 percent of the global smartphone market before 2008. Now, numbers indicate that sales of the iPhone are so brisk that Apple’s device will capture approximately 10 percent of the US smartphone market this year.
[ Strategy Analytics: Apple to grab 10-percent of US smartphone market in 2007 ]
How this really translates to the global smartphone market remains to be seen, but it would certainly indicate that the iPhone made the splash that everyone expected it to, flaws or no. The iPhone certainly does have some serious flaws, many that would be a deal breaker for many smartphone users – I know several smartphone lovers who will likely stick to their Treos and Blackberrys and Nokias until Apple opens up the platform to developers who will provide apps that let them do the things they need to do. Sure, there’s a world of third party apps available for the iPhone that run through Safari, in the sandbox of web apps and services that Apple’s prescribed, but personally I have no doubt that as the iPhone matures as a platform, we’ll see Apple slowly but surely pull the veil back.
Apple has always been fanatical about keeping its environments tweaked, sandboxed, and optimized for their software and their tools; it’s no surprised that Apple wants to wait until they separate the success and performance of its device from the impact that any third party apps will have on the device before allowing those apps on. Apple wants the world to know the iPhone kicks ass before a third party developer makes a must-have application that slows it to a crawl or causes a problem on the device.
That all being said, and back to the 10-percent point, this news makes you wonder whether people are picking up the iPhone in addition to another cell phone, whether they’re leaving their service providers for AT&T in droves to get one, and whether the people getting the iPhone are moving away from other smartphones (which would mean Apple’s taking customers away from the Nokias and Blackberrys and Palms of the smartphone world) or whether these people are first-time smartphone buyers (in which case Apple is expanding the overall smartphone market). That remains to be seen, but Apple can’t be unhappy with the sales numbers from the iPhone’s opening weekend:
[ iPhone Weekend One: 700,000 Sold, $200million+ Profit For Apple ]
So happy, that it rumors have arisen that Apple is readying a smaller, lighter, and cheaper iPhone based on the iPod Nano. What this means is still up in the air and subject to speculation: is Apple ditching the iPod for the iPhone? Will there be more iPhone models? Will this one be on multiple carriers? No one knows yet, and Apple isn’t saying a word.