iPhone Reality Check

I took a lot of flack for suggesting that iPhone buyers were blind to the significant impact the poor AT&T network would have on their experience and that, despite this (or rather because of it), iPhone would be so successful it would give Apple the leverage to fundamentally change the wireless industry.

So here’s a quick reality check. From iPhone user Staci Kramer at mocoNews:

– maps and directions that disappear from view when I lose a good signal.

— no step down (at least none that I’ve seen go into action) to formatted-for-mobile pages when the speed isn’t good enough. Several times, I’ve been able to load a perfectly usable page through the AT&T Edge network on my usual device while the iPhone is stuck in a loading loop.

— YouTube can be a lot of fun but it also can disappear, like the maps. I was in the middle of a demo over the weekend when the OK Go video refused to go. Then again, Go To My PC wouldn’t go either, surprising my mom, who assumed I’d be able to log right in and fix something with my trusty iPhone.

A next generation web browser and UI really DOES need a next generation network to deliver the next generation mobile web.

When I used AT&T and T-Mobile, I used to get poor or lost signals all the time. On Verizon, it NEVER happens — the iPhone would be positively transcendental on Verizon.

But how well is the iPhone selling despite this, relative to all those other “innovative” cell phones like the RAZR?

Apple over the weekend sold more than 700,000 iPhones to rocket past analyst predictions and shatter AT&T’s record by selling more iPhones in three days than Motorola’s RAZR did in its first month. Apple’s supply of iPhones depleted at more than half of its retail stores less than a week after the cellular handset hit shelves at 6:00 p.m. ET last Friday night. Buyers cleared out both Apple and AT&T stores in 10 states, with 95 of 164 stores selling out on Monday night, according to Bloomberg. Apple stores located in Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, and Washington state sold their entire stock of iPhones yesterday, and AT&T sold its entire stock at almost all of its 1,800 stores.

Hmmm…a phone that sells out on the least desirable network, shattering its sales record. I wonder if Verizon is feeling just a wee bit of pressure.