Sorry, but this picture also fits here
I came to this story through a great rebuttal on Macalope which I strongly suggest you read. Essentially David “Le Obvious” Berlind is saying that a 3G iPhone aka iPhone 2 will reduce sales of the old iPhone aka iPhone 1. Now, I’m no prognosticator, but as far as I can tell this has been Apple’s M.O. during the Jobs era. While I really like saying what the iPhone should come with (SD card slot, Java support, a small container of Mexican Jumping Beans) we all know what the iPhone has is what it will have until the end of time — a great interface without the crap that us tech journalists point out when we do reviews.
Apple will never put an SD card into the iPhone. Why should they? Eventually they’ll offer the iPhone Classic with 160GB of memory and if you can’t figure out how to get pictures and music on and off your iPhone without removing and inserting a memory card that is small enough to get lost up your urethrea, there is no reason for you to be tapping away at the damn thing anyway. Then there’s 3G. 90% of U.S. citizens don’t know what 3G is nor do they particularly care. They will know what it is when iPhone 2 comes out touting “Broadband Speeds!” but they’ll just say “Oh, the iPhone 2 is better. Time to sell my iPhone 1 on Craigslist.” They won’t say “My 3G bandwidth provider is now offering a better data terminal which will enable me to SSH to my high end server farm and download goat porn much faster than the competitors 3G data terminal.” Fast browsing anywhere is a nice to have, but it’s a battery drainer, just like WiFi and I unless you live in a major metro area, 3G is unnattainable anyway.
I used to work in Europe as a telecom consultant back in 1998-1999. They were talking about 3G way back then and as they implemented it over time they discovered that people were perfectly happy sending SMSes and calling grandma. As bloggers and writers, peole like Berlind love the concept of 3G — “I can leave my house and type my articles on my Samsung Blast!” — but in practice most of your time is spent checking email, tossing off a few messages, and surfing for nice Thai places in Cleaveland. You’re not doing Work, you’re intercepting the asteroids that orbit around Work.
So when the 3G iPhone 2 comes out there will be much rejoicing. Another thing that will happen is that th iPhone 1 will disappear. It will no longer be available. I can’t go to the Apple Store and pick up a 1st gen iPod, right? Man, I really like those four buttons. Can’t I have one? No! Go suck it, says the Apple Store guy, buy the Classic. And I will, like the Apple fanboy I am. And, provided David knows good phones, so will he.
If true, Jobs quote of “A 3G iPhone later next year” should kill demand for iPhone 1.0 [ZDNet]