Apple could be onto a good thing with the iPhone

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Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 2:30 pm

A recent Piper Jaffray study reports that 84% of the students surveyed knew about the iPhone and that 25% said that they would purchase one at the standard retail price of $500. Apple could be onto a really good thing with the iPhone.

Analysts have been predicting that iPhone sales for 2007 would be around 660,000 units, with some 4 million units being shipped in 2008, but if this recent survey is anything to go by, these figures could be very conservative.

However, there is a difference between saying that you'll buy something for $500 and actually buying it. Also, there are a lot of unknowns surrounding the iPhone. Sure, it looks good and no doubt will exude that Apple "cool," but I'm interested in things like battery life and usability. Teens make a lot of use of SMS test messaging and I'm still not sold on the ergonomics of a hard touchscreen for fast text input. "Sexy" wears off with cell phones real fast, but it wears off incredibly quickly if the phone can't handle the basics well.

I don't believe that the price will put people off, especially the young. Handsets such as the Motorola RAZR cost about $500 when new and they sold. If the iPhone is as good as Steve Jobs says it is, then there's no doubt that there are phones on the market that cost more and do less.

Personally, no matter how good it is, I'd hold off until at least the next version. Hopefully by then Apple will have ironed out the kinks.