From CNN.com/DowJones: Apple's IPhone Must Avoid The Razr Trap.

The iPhone is, by all accounts, a truly innovative piece of technology. Yet the most innovative parts - its user interface, its touchscreen capabilities and its appearance - remain what Apple brought out with the original device. The iPhone's latest additions, such as the ability to tap faster wireless networks and its location services, have been available in smartphones for years.

  "Where's the innovation?" Global Equities Securities analyst Trip Chowdhry said in describing his initial impression of the new iPhone.

Unbelievable to write a whole piece like this and never once mention the SDK and the App Store. Did any of these people see the keynote? At least a third of it was devoted to all the innovation happening through third-party applications. Yes, technically it's true that those innovations won't be specific to the 3G iPhone, in that first-gen users will benefit from them as well. But that doesn't mean that the iPhone product won't get massively more appealing to consumers starting mid-July thanks to those innovations.

Think of the games alone: the current iPhone is not a game platform at all, in that none of the applications available for it directly are games. But starting in July, the iPhone will be one of the three most innovative handheld gaming platforms in the world, and certainly the one with the most innovative controller interface. (We saw how that worked out for the Wii.) Yes, the hardware for the iPhone 3G is more of an incremental advance. But everything else happening to the platform is as game-changing as it gets.

Comments

[Erik]

Plus, it's not as if Apple has been sitting on its hands, milking the iPhone for years. Since indroducing the Razr, Motorola has done little but produce knock-offs of its own product. Apple's not doing that yet, and I'd be surprised if Jobs, et al., would let that happen.

[AJ]

That guy should have stuck around for the WWDC sessions that happened after the keynote. Apple speakers asked how many of the attendees in the audience were first time attendees: almost the entire room raised their hand. WWDC is *packed* this year and every iPhone session I've been in has been completely full. Apple has not only made a compelling device for the regular joe, but they've made an extremely interesting device for developers.

[nickb]

Hardware wise yes they've just tweaked, but if it an't broke don't fix it. And it isn't as if they're standing still milking the Razr. Apple will make some wonderful improvements in the future, but right now they're focusing on stabilizing their recent advances. Which is the best way to go. They've been running 100 miles a minute for a while, and its time to make sure those gains are on a good footing.

I bet you this will be the last WWDC with iPhone and Mac OS X developers in the same camp. They'll need to split the confrence in the future to get everyone in the camp.

[Erik]

I agree. The price drop is a huge deal, and the GPS and 3G functionality is great, but the SDK is where it's at. Users will not be limited to Apple's ideas of what is useful. When developers start tapping the GPS functions, the networking and the accelerometer and dual-touch screen functionality for gaming, this will become much more than just a phone.