Brier Dudley's Blog

Brier Dudley offers a critical look at technology and business issues affecting the Northwest.

May 29, 2008 11:14 AM

Scorched earth 3G iPhone reporting

The effort going into predicting the 3G iPhone release date is amazing. Today the intrepid army of 3GiP reporters is parsing Taiwanese chip supplier reports to gauge the initial shipment volumes.

The consensus, if you can't wait two weeks for Steve Jobs to speak at Apple's developer conference: The hallowed device may be delayed a bit, or the volume of units at launch may be lower than previously expected.

Given the state of the economy and cost of things like food and gas, is it surprising that Apple may ratchet down production of a premium phone that costs $1,000 a year to own and operate?

Maybe the reporting is a testament to how frustrating it can be to browse the Web with version 1.0 of the iPhone. I thought it was like driving a Ferrari in a traffic jam -- "c'mon already, let's see what this lovely machine can do."

But the real question is, imagine what could happen if the resourceful bloggers and analysts bird-dogging the iPhone used their resources to track and compile news that helped more than just impatient gadget hounds, click-hungry blogazines and rich AAPL investors.

I wish they'd been so diligent when fables were being spun about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Could they take a crack at the federal budget or policies proposed by candidates for president?

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