John Heilemann has written about Steve Jobs in New York Magazine. Regarding his “fourth act”, the iPhone:
Apple’s competitors, by contrast, find the prospect of the iPhone terrifying. “The entire fucking Western world hopes that it’s a case of imperial overstretch,� says the CEO of one of the planet’s largest communications companies. “But everybody is quietly saying, er, what if people want to buy a $500 phone? What if, er, people have been waiting for a device that does all these things? What if this thing works as advertised? I mean, my God, what then?�
I’m not buying an iPhone last week, I know too many people with broken MacBook’s to take a chance on a $500 phone that had it’s case and battery replaced a week before launch.
But what if Jobs is right and everyone forks over $300-$500? What will handset makes like Nokia do?