Nik Rawlinson
iPhone 4 is getting slammed by the media, but it’ll still fly off the shelves.
iPhone 4. What a surprise. Were you disappointed? I was. Not with the specs. Not with the hardware. Not with the forthcoming and slightly awkwardly named iOS4, but by the lack of, well, surprise. But enough of the spoilers. We all might have been able to write Jobs’ script on his behalf, as his job was really no more than confirming what we already knew, but that didn’t make the specs any less impressive.
The case is subtly improved, being smarter and sleeker, and the addition of a front-facing camera for use with FaceTime, Apple’s name for video calls, which is about as close to VoIP as the Cupertino giant is ever going to get, is as logical as it’s overdue. Moreover, while I don’t buy into the alleged higher-than-retina-resolution screen – hold the phone close enough and I bet you can make out the pixels – I’m quietly impressed nonetheless.
So why isn’t everyone else?
Most of the coverage – factual pieces aside – has been resoundingly negative, and this is before 99.9% recurring of the global population has got their hands on one (factory workers aside). Clicks, it seems, are becoming more important than reasoned, considered argument, and 10 reasons why the iPhone is not for you/is a waste of money/won’t work underwater seem to be more effective at dragging in the viewers than a proper hands-on review.
Expect this all to change when review units become available.
There are few companies that can attract the kind of unwarranted hatred that Apple does right now. Fewer still could attract such inaccurate reporting. iPhone 4′s case will scratch easily because it’s made of plastic, said one such report. No it’s not. It uses Bing rather than Google for search, said another. Nope. It’s expensive. Really? Bear in mind that many of these stories were written before the UK networks announced their prices and make up your own mind.
iPhone 4 has had an unprecedented amount of bad publicity, but that will make no difference. Despite being an evolution of an evolution of an evolution of what was once a radical and original product like nothing we had seen before it will sell and it will sell well.
So let’s see the naysayers put their money where their collective mouths are. If you really do think the iPhone 4 is destined to fail, then pick a number – whichever number it would need to sell to prove to you that it’s done pretty well – and take it to your local bookie with some cash. See if they’ll take a bet that it won’t reach that level. If iPhone 4 really is as underwhelming as you seem to believe, you’ll turn a quick profit. Quicker, perhaps, than Apple.
