Apple Orders 12 Million iPhones

Waqas writes "Apple has placed an order for 12 million iPhones to be built by a Taiwanese contract manufacturer, according to an analyst citing reports from Asia. The Chinese-language Commercial Times on Wednesday cited Taiwan-based sources within Apple's iPod component supply chain as saying the phone is due to arrive during the first half of next year."

It's all about the interface

While I don't care about a phone that plays music or video, I want a phone that has a quick, intuitive interface for placing calls and text messages to people in my address book. I find that each time I've had to replace my phone, I'm progressively less satisfied with the interface. It seems like Motorola et al are so worried about form factor that they ignore interface design.

For example, about 7 years ago I got a Motorola StarTac. It was the coolest form factor phone at the time, and had a reasonable interface. Each name in my phone directory could have multiple numbers associated with it, with each number having an icon for office, home, cell, etc. When I wanted to call someone, I first selected the name, then the appropriate icon from that person's list. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it worked reasonably well. Now I've got a Motorola RAZR, and they've somehow lost the ability to recognize that a single person can have multiple numbers. If I have office, home, and cell numbers stored for the same person, I get three entries for them, making the full list of names much longer. Not only are phone makers not making steps forward, they're moving backwards.

Given Apple's track record, I'd say they're the most likely candidates to figure out an elegant cell phone interface, and I'm looking forward to the iPhone for that reason alone. If the interface is half decent, I'll be buying one to replace my RAZR.
-JMP

Re:It's all about the interface

Being a guy with a heavy southern accent, phone dial doesn't like me much :(.

I wish they'd make it work better for those of us from the south :)

Re:My LG has that multi-number icon deal

I believed you up until you said wife.

Re:It's all about the interface-My RAZR

I also had a StarTac, now have a RAZR, and had a V60i in-between. I have no trouble with my Verizon RAZR associating multiple numbers with a single name entry. Perhaps you just aren't entering them correctly.

My beef with the RAZR is its Voice Recognition. While it works, it doesn't understand my preferred terminology. With the V60i, I recorded my own voice tag for selected numbers. That let me refer to a telephone as Name Cell. RAZR only accepts NAME MOBILE. Also for business numbers I used Name Office. The RAZR only understands Name Work.

Re:It's all about the interface

Where they make it work is that if you only want to use the iPod to play music, you never even need to know that it can do all that other stuff. This is a skill that a surprisingly large number of "feature-rich" products lack.

Re:It's all about the interface

You're correct, the iPod has these features, but they are minor items and never get in the way of accessing and playing the music, photos and video.
What I meant is that Apple demonstrates that you can resist the urge to overload and clutter the interface, onscreen as well as button count and placement.

Re:It's all about the interface

Actually, you can still do that. On my (unbranded) RAZR I can select a name by pressing number keys or up/down, then choose from different numbers for that person by pressing left/right. It's a setting:

In your phone book, choose [menu] -> Setup -> View: Primary Contacts.

Now, every number with a certain associated name will be grouped under that name.

Re:It's all about the interface

Hang on a minute, who said that an iPhone *has* to be a music player- the assumption just seems to be out there that apple are going to take an iPod and bolt on 9 keys and an internal arial.

Apple know how to build great devices that just work, and if they're working on releasing a phone, well then you can be damned sure they're not going to compromise on making it a good phone just to squeeze iTunes in.

Also, why would they miss an opportunity to sell you a $300 phone that plays music , when they can sell you a $250 phone and a $250 music player :)

My phone

My phone calls people, it takes calls. It sends SMS and it receives them. That's all - I love my phone. When I went to buy it, the service chick couldn't understand why I didn't want a camera/video/gps/somethingsomething. I'm obviously a geek festooned with gadgets, afterall. The obvious answer is that I already have all those things, and much better ones than can be put in a phone, too. The original ipod was just a music player, but it has become more things - Apple is on a slippery slope - I hope they don't fall to the dark side with creeping featuritis and 'convergence'. I, for one, will always pass on a player/phone that is not just a player or phone.

Re:My phone

This logic actually backfired for me on my last new phone cycle. Since it was on sale, I could have gotten the camera/whatever/phone for the same price that I got my plain old phone with absolutely no bells or whistles. I thought "hey, it's simpler, maybe they put more effort into making it a solid phone." My wife got the fancier phone that looked cool but was also on sale. Turns out my phone sucks (really slow boot time, occaisionally shuts off, mediocre battery performance) and hers is way better. I still generally agree that the phone/mp3/toaster phone is unnecessary, but at least in this case it didn't work out quite as I expected.

and now we seee...

And now see the real reason Apple crippled the features to be included in the Motorola ROKR phone (especially the storage). they wanted that market for themselves, but didn't have a product ready yet.

Better them than Microsoft

Apple has placed an order for 12 million iPhones to be built by a Taiwanese contract manufacturer, according to an analyst citing reports from Asia.

Let's just be thankful that they aren't being designed by Microsoft. If they were, you could only talk to other Microsoft phone owners, and every number you called would get blocked after three calls or three days unless you paid extra to get it unlocked...

and it would be BROWN.

Thats right. Brown.

Re:Apple is the same way!

Um you can play songs purchased from iTunes on

1) a CD

2) a computer (up to 5 with no limits to how many times you play them on there)

3) your iPod which you now can have linked to up to 2 librarys on 2 different computers

Yes you need to strip the DRM to play it on a device that is not supported by fairplay, but if your buying from iTunes then you know this already and its not a issue, as everyone knows iTunes exists to sell the iPod, and your personally ripped tracks stay DRM free (unlike Microsofts which get the 3or3 scheme thrown into them too)

12 million phones?

That's a strange number to order. Is that for a full year? If so, why order them all at once?

Just for a reference, Motorola sells around 10 million RAZRs a quarter. I don't think Apple is crazy enough to believe the iPhone is going to be that popular.

Re:12 million phones?

That's a strange number to order. Is that for a full year? If so, why order them all at once?

Just for a reference, Motorola sells around 10 million RAZRs a quarter. I don't think Apple is crazy enough to believe the iPhone is going to be that popular.

Are you kidding? With the i**** brand on it? RAZRs were trendy because they were thin. B.F.D. Being thin doesn't measure up to being an i-something from Apple.

I would be absolutely shocked if it didn't instantly become more trendy and more popular than the RAZR.

How will the iPhone fare?

So, I'm rather curious as to Slashdot's opinion on the iPhone.

Most industry/financial analysts have been harshly attacking Apple for the iPhone. (Many of these same analysts were gushing over Motorola's "genius" idea to design a "cool" cell phone, ala razr)

So I ask you, Slashdot analysts, how will the iPhone fare?

Re:How will the iPhone fare?

I take it upon myself to answer on behalf of the slashdot collective:
It depends if it has more space than Nomad or not.

Apple Product Lifecycle

The headline reminded me of the (in?)famous lifecycle [misterbg.org]

Ouch

Steve must be pissed that this got out. Remember, loose lips sink ships.

What if?

What if the iPhone isn't also an MP3 player? What if it's just a phone? Here's my thoughts: my phone sucks. The interface is horrible. If Apple designs a better phone, would people buy it? Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves. I'll give you another topic. The holy Roman empire was neither holy nor Roman. Discuss.

GSM or CDMA? Which carriers?

Will these phones be GSM or CDMA? And are there any carriers lined up for them? I'd predict they'll likely be GSM since most USA CDMA carriers like to cripple the snot out of their phones and remove all the cool features unless they can nickel and dime their customers out of pay-per-use of those features. Heaven forbid you wish to make your own mp3 ringtones without buying them from the carrier or anything like that, or dare to use BT for anything other than connecting an earpiece.

It's not just the interface...

...but I'm sure Apple will do a good job of it. Phone technology at the moment is a pain in the butt. Most of us have a home phone, a mobile and a work phone not to mention skype/voip. Why can't these all be the same thing? I'd like a phone that figures out the best way to contact someone and calls the correct number. I'd like a phone that:

• when I'm at home rings if someone dials in on my home number
• when I'm at work rings if someone dials in on my work number
• if I have voip and the person I'm after it does too, call using that

I really don't cary about being to take photos. I own a camera that is vastly better than my phone camera. I'm hoping Apple will shake the tree a bit with a new phone concept. I'm unimpressed with most of the phones at the moment because they really only offer new ways for TelCos to take money off me.

The winner for longest-lived Apple rumor...

I'm thinking the iPhone has to take the cake. What other continuously-running (not off and on, like the buyout/merger rumors) Apple rumor has had legs for this long? The iPhone rumor has been in full force for at least two and a half years [taoofmac.com].

How about SD?

I just want a phone with an SD slot, quality playback, and decent folder navigation. The only time I listen to music on a portable player is at the gym, so I just want to be able to pop the card out of my PC and into my phone/MP3 player. I don't want to carry around seperate devices, I don't want to have to remember to charge a player I only use a few days a week, and I don't need a goddamned computer-in-a-phone. For the love of God, SD cards are up to 8GB now. It's the simplest and fastest way to transfer music, but almost nobody's supporting it because they all want you to use their proprietary crap, or pay-to-download, etc. I finally found a decent car stereo with SD support, but as far as I've seen, the phones that do have SD slots are all full-blown SmartPhones (sic) with some craptastic keyboard and/or a huge display that's just begging to get broken/scratched if I were to put it in my pocket.

Maybe I should just start my own company, use someone else's VC to fund it, and if it fails, at least I'll have exactly what I wanted.

Re:How about SD?

Yeah, this is what turned me off:

You can download songs only through the included USB cable. There's no way to transfer iTunes music wirelessly, you can't listen to music through a Bluetooth headset, and you can't use iTunes tracks as ring tones. The strict 100-song storage limit hasn't changed either, and all songs must be saved on the TransFlash card, assuming you haven't filled it up with a lot of other data. And forget the idea of storing more music on the phone's skimpy 5MB of integrated memory--it just isn't possible. So in other words, don't get too excited about circumventing the inadequate 100-song cap. Like the Rokr, the Slvr L7 also connects with only one computer at a time. When we tried connecting to a second computer, the Slvr L7, like the Rokr E1, erased all our previously loaded songs. http://reviews.cnet.com/Motorola_Slvr_L7/4505-6454 _7-31313329.html [cnet.com]

So it would seem you couldn't just pop in a (micro) SD card with mp3s on it and go. Even worse, it's only USB 1.1.

How good..

Besides getting scratched easily, your nice white apple cell phone will be dirty with all that oil your face produces. How good is that going to be?

So what's the catch?

Everyone knows that Apple always does one stupid thing with every piece of hardware they sell. Something that isn't a deal breaker, but is annoying, and makes no real sense. With the Macs, it's their refusal to ship the things with 2-button mice. Withe the iPod, it's their refusal to include an FM tuner.

My guess is the iPhone will have no "7" button.

Steve hates the number 7.

Re:So what's the catch?

There's quite a great deal of sense in both those examples you provided. One-button mice are considerably easier for new users; the number of times I've had to explain the difference between left- and right-clicking makes me really very pleased that they do.

As for the lack of an FM tuner: that would add bulk to the iPods, and probably wouldn't be used by many users anyway. The iPod plays prerecorded songs and videos; I'm a huge fan of BBC radio but have never missed it whilst listening to my own tracks. In any case, if you really want an FM tuner in your iPod, Apple will gladly sell you one.

Not sure I buy this rumor...

Apple punishes partners pretty seriously for leaking this much info this early, I call shens... I think there is an iPhone out there in testing, but I'd be shocked if we see it at the same MacWorld as iTV, Leopard and a very likely Mac Pro refresh. Be better to hang on to this as an ace in the hole if the Zune got some market traction.

Any actual info about iPhones?

I've been trying to figure out if there's any news on what the iPhone actually does. I've found some mock ups of what fans think they'll be like, but nothing verified by Apple. I assume it will be as functional as an iPod Nano (plays mp3s, wavs, apple lossless, AAC audio, ripped and encrypted, as well as showing photos), while offering the ability to make phone calls. Are there any actual pictures of the iPhone, or do we just know they've gone into manufacturing?

contract manufacturer?

I wonder which host of virii will ship with the phone, or will it just make my ear prone to various opportunistic infections.

A special kinda stoopid

Whoah - not the way to do business with Apple.

Steve Jobs does ... not ... like ... his surprises to leak in advance.

Apple used to leak like a sieve. Everyone knew their product plans before their own salesfolk did. It got so bad sales took a huge hit every time the next big thing was due as everyone put off their orders. Now after Job's return Apple does a few big new introductions at their own MacWorld or at a few specialty shows, the famous "one more thing ..." products. Those are always hugely, obsessively, secret so Apple gets the maximum PR. Heck, everyone in the industry, caring about Apple or not, tracks these just to see what Apple will do next.

The last time someone leaked in a big way it was ATI. The result was 24 hours before the new Mac introductions, with ATI cards, they had their products stripped from the new Macs, all Apple presentations were rescripted to omit references to ATI, Apple marketing materials were quickly remade sans ATI, etc. Apparently ATI were persona non grata at Apple HQ for several months until his Steveness was sufficiently mollified this would never happen again.

Since then other Apple manufacturers have gotten in lower levels of trouble for simply acknowledging large orders had been made by Apple. These are picked up by the local press, which is of course read by everyone in the industry around the world.

But to confirm the long awaited iPhone, a rumor that has been a staple for years from the dingiest Mac rumor site to the NYT, that takes a special kind of stoopid.

My assumption is that as soon as this story started to break a damage control team from the manufacturer to Cupertino. Now the question is if Jobs will go ahead with the rollout or delay it at the last minute. As this is the same man who once had a factory closed down for all of the robots to be repainted, 9 times, 'til he was happy, who has a history of cancelling large projects, I dunno.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Also, if true, what the iPhone will entail, especially after Disney's recent phone flop.

Re:A special kinda stoopid

Well, a leak of a new product makes that you stop buying all current competitors of said product.

A leak of a new MacBook would slow down MacBook sales.

A leak of an iPhone would slow sales of competing MP3 cell phones, but not slow much any Apple product. This leak could potentially slow down sales of Sony Ericsson phones.

In fact, Sony Ericsson would benefit from the feature list of the phone, but we don't know anything yet about it. Except that scrollable border patent.

We don't know if we will buy the iPhone... but we WANT information about it so bad that it creates a strong iPhone brand.

-Hey, there, take a look of this new SE/Nokia MP3 cell-phone!
-Buzz off! I want to know about the iPhone first!

Yuck

Dialing with a click wheel will suck (unless they put numbers on it like old rotary phones).

Need to develop more PDA features into the iPods first...then phone...

I want pictures dammit!!!

Shit - Show me some pictures!

I've been holding off on buying my new phone for a couple of months now (and I'm due for a new one). I'm going to hold out for this beauty, but possibly 6 months from now - damn!

My only fear ...

is that 12M won't be enough.

--
Help my Apple stock double. Again. :)

Release Date?

So, if they're ordering them now - does that give us an indication of when they'll be released? How long does it usually take to manufacture phones?

Maybe this will quiet them.

I for one welcome Apple's new phone; a white plastic phone with white earbuds will garner enough attention to lower the vocal volume of people who still shout into cellular phones as a pathetic attempt to look important.

What does the iPhone need?

I really worry about the fact that once this phone is released, everyone is going to be pretty upset because it is missing one key feature that they require. Right now, everyone wants an iPhone because their current phones are just too annoying, but once you've put all the features people demand into an iPod, the iPhone will be just as bad.

You need Bluetooth?

Of course, I can't live without my glowing blue earpiece.

You need text messages?

Well, yeah - of course, that's gotten to be a regular need of mine.

You need mobile internet access?

Duh... yes!

You need a camera built-in?

Of course I do - my current phone has one and I've gotten used to it. (And it had better be a good quality camera too!)

You need it to sync with Outlook or Entourage or Address Book?

Why are you even asking that - of course.

You wanna check email?

Might as well by this point.

Okay, then - here's your iPhone - that'll be $950 please...

What are you nutz!? I'm not paying that much for a phone - besides, look at this huge confusing menu system!

Wish people would get over phone subsidies

Interesting to see that TFA is already predicting that the iPhone will bomb because it can't compete with subsidised handsets in the US. I really wish this meme would die.

For one thing, of course there's no such thing as a free phone. You just pay the cost over time through higher call plans. Admittedly, you may get some benefit of scale when the network buys handsets in bulk but there's no reason Apple couldn't do that too. More likely some company will just start offering much cheaper pre-paid SIM plans like everywhere else in the world.

Another thing, the US carrier market is only a minor fraction of the world market. There are 1.5 *billion* handsets in the world. There are around 300M US citizens. Do the math. The European and Asian markets are enormously larger and people there are used to buying unlocked handsets so that they can connect to any network they like. Here in Australia we've had number portability for years.

Lastly, independence from carriers is a *good* thing. We need to stop carriers dictating phone features. I'd like to see a phone that can switch to WiFi when it gets a signal, or peer to peer when I'm close to the person I'm calling. Think the carriers want that? There's no technical reason that phones can't do this today, but the longer the carriers control the phones people buy, the longer it'll take to happen.

...before realizing it hasn't made them yet

Reporter: "There's a lot of excitement about the iPhone..."

Jobs: "Wait. The what phone?"

Reporter: "Er... the iPhone; the brand new device that's meant to do to the cellphone what iPod did to the walkman. Flash based MP3 player, revolutionary new interface... I thought you may have heard of it?"

Jobs: "Hmm, sounds good. Put be down for 12 million of those babies."

Reporter: "Er, I don't work for you, Mr. Jobs."

Jobs: "You're fired."

Prudential was sure wrong

From Prudential Equity Group analyst Jesse Tortora's report in Oct '06 [businessweek.com]: "Our checks indicate that Apple will produce these phones in limited quantities initially due to concerns over market acceptance and battery life."

Today: Apple orders 12 million iPhones

Seeing as how the Razr only sold