iPhone Hype. It's all about packaging!

When I say packaging, I don't mean the white/black back cover or the box the new iPhone comes in. I am referring to way they are delivering their message.

The new iPhone, based on what I've read is a little disappointing. Leading up to today there was a lot of speculation and many bloggers posted wish lists. The actual phone seems to have taken very little into consideration except the 3G and A-GPS which all came as no surprise.

The device itself doesn't really provide any features that you can't get with a Nokia, Dopod, HTC or a Blackberry. So why launch such a mediocre device only one year after the first version?

The answer is the new 2nd generation is not really about a better device. It is about capturing international markets. So far the iPhone has hardly any market presence outside the US. In the US, the iPhone was only available via a revenue sharing deal with AT&T. All iPhones outside of the US are hacked and hence cannot be updated.

As part of the new deal with AT&T the device price is subsidised by a fixed fee per phone rather than a percentage of the monthly connection fee. Something that is more multi-carrier friendly as is the case in most markets outside the US, however in doing so existing iPhone users might get irked about having to switch to a more expensive plan so the new model was rolled out so that existing users can see a reason to switch to a 3G plan.

So in my humble opinion, the new iPhone is actually a minimal upgrade to justify a new business model to make it possible for Apple to talk to people like China Mobile who are unlikely ever to consider a revenue sharing model, but not to piss off AT&T and existing iPhone user too much.

Or I could be wrong.....