Scott Bush

It’s no secret. I love the Mac, my iPod, Apple, etc. So it’ll come as no surprise to anyone that I am excited about the upcoming iPhone and am thinking—like most people I know—about getting one. All the press about the iPhone, from blurbs on local TV news reports following its introduction at Macworld to spoofs on MadTV and spammy “free iPhone!” offers in your inbox, is delicious gravy for Apple. But why is that?

I’d argue that it’s design. Excellent design. Apple’s always been at the forefront of user-friendly interface design and industrial design that can doubles as art. It’s precisely this expection of greatness that has people excited. From what we’ve seen, this phone will be to the Smartphone/PDA market what the iPod was to music players and what the iMac was to tech-frightened soccer moms in the late 90s. It’ll just work and be powerful enough to put small form-factor mobile computing into the hands of the “everyman.” Blackberries and Treos may have made inroads with travely-weary executives (and outright geeks), but the iPhone is poised to bring those features to the masses through excellent design and intuitive interface.

PT Barnum said “there’s no such thing as bad press, as long as they spell your name right.” Well, the press (and pop culture in general) isn’t misspelling Apple or the iPhone. The wonderous device won’t even be available for five or six months yet but it already has a larger following than anything Nokia, Motorolla, or Samsung has ever released. (This claim can be verified by a non-scientific test: Ask any non-techy, middle-aged person who’s not been living under a rock the past few weeks what a “BlackJack” or “RAZR” is. Then, ask them what an iPhone is and compare the answers. I’d bet the rent money that more people have heard of Apple’s offering.)

I’m guilty of bias here, because if Dell announced a phone six months prior to its release and a flurry of media attention was devoted to it, I’d be annoyed. But luckily it was Apple, so I can be excited and happy instead.