I am in the market for a replacement for my two-year-old cell phone, so the recent news about a possible 4G iPhone on the Verizon network has really interested me.
For those who don’t know, this prototype phone was apparently lost by a man named Gary Powell– an Apple engineer who supposedly left this phone at a bar in Redwood City, California.
Apple is notorious for being extremely secretive and for product releases with great hoopla, so this product “release” was definitely out of character. At first, I, along with many other bloggers on the Internet, thought that this whole incident was a creative marketing ploy by Apple to get more buzz for an upcoming product. However, Apple does not need to resort to these viral tactics to get more of a buzz about their product. Everything they touch seems to turn to gold, so there would be no reason why they would change their product release and marketing strategy.
I wonder how this product leak will affect Apple’s sales of the iPhone in the coming months prior to the release. I know that I will hold off on buying a new phone until the details of this product are released. I just wonder how many others are in tune with websites like Gizmodo and will actually take this new product into consideration when making a purchase decision about the iPhone. Or will the unintended and unconventional strategy actually create more of a buzz about the new product?
Only time will tell, but with Apple’s recent success, one drunk engineer losing his phone shouldn’t be too detrimental to the company in the long run.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Did that guy get fired? (^_^) Lol!!! I’m a bit surprised that this news did not leak out to a wider audience as, like you said, Apple is extremely secretive about its proprietary technology and innovative products. I mean, if the sensitive programs in the 4G iPhone were of significant loss to Apple to have it on the market, then I feel that it would have caused a decline in its publicly traded stock. What is likely is that the 4G network upgrade may be the only operational advantage of this product which does put one question in mind. How can Apple surprise us further with its technology? To be honest, the iPad itself is not revolutionary if you consider how similar it is to the iPhone. Over the last few years, what Apple has been exceptional at is incremental improvement and not ground-breaking improvement. I don’t know, what do people these days feel can further make their lives more convenient?
ReplyDeleteAs a U. Scholar at Penn, I can say there is a huge demand for Apple products among fellow researchers. Some of my colleagues love the idea of the new I-pad. They are tired of carrying their books and articles around and are fond of composing papers without having to lug their laptop everywhere.
ReplyDeleteThis new 4G I-Phone also sounds promising. Given that phones with 4G technology have already been released in China, a "leak" (if true) will not hurt Apple's bottom-line. The possibility of communicating at faster speeds is very attractive.
As always, Apple does an exceptional job of marketing its products. Just the other day, I visited an Apple and I overheard high school students describe the I-Pad as "cool." No one describes a machine as cool; but the ads have been so effective that consumers immediately identify it as such.