Michael Gracie

Forbes: Digital goods–and pets–are coming to Apple’s blockbuster device.

As a solution for the rumored pathetic MobileMe service Apple should buy Facebook and enable users’ ability to wipe poop on each others iPhone screens.

Instant enterprise ready, baby!

UPDATE: There’s a heck a goodwill write-off waiting there too.

UPDATE 2: Even better - sell the poop for $1,000.

That’s not exactly what the myriad of press releases say, but if some random research firm can wildly guess that Google’s Android cell phone operating system will capture 2% of the worldwide market in just a year’s time, I feel I’m entitled to some speculation of my own…

Motorola, Samsung, LG, and HTC already make plenty of crappy phones, desired by three types of customers:

1) Those who can’t afford an iPhone, or the subsequent iTunes bill;
2) Those who can’t afford Blackberry service, or the subsequent divorce; and
3) Those above who just dropped their device in the toilet (while using it ON the toilet), and can’t afford another until next month.

The opposite of the three above are those who already have a functioning iPhone or Blackberry, can’t live without it, and trying to convince the rest of the world they can’t live without one either.

Conclusion

Android goes live, the phone manufacturers spend gazillions integrating it, and it fails miserably. Sprint and T-Mobile die trying to sell the things. We are left with two decent hardware manufacturers with two decent operating systems…that Google can live happily within.

Then again, that’s just a wild guess.

UPDATE: I almost forgot Symbian. Been there, done that with Nokia. Nokia too makes great hardware - actually, I’ll call it utilitarian. Fits the masses well, but just doesn’t create the kind of fervor that would make you carry it with you into the bathroom.

You don’t have an iPhone. Maybe you are happy with your existing phone. You may have just signed a new contract with another carrier. You can’t afford one?

Any way you cut it, society is now labeling you LAME! But never fear - you do have options:

- You can wait for hackers to unlock it (and then pay a $1,500 premium for it)
- You can adopt one (even though it isn’t real)
- There will soon be tons of parts floating around for you to buy (saving yourself assembly labor costs)
- You can buy a knockoff (that isn’t a knockoff)
- Then there’s just faking it

Or, you can just read the money quote of the day:

“This has prompted concerns that the higher than expected demand could lead to iPhone shortages.”

And wonder who the hell is “concerned” that a there may be shortages of a $600 cell phone besides John Dvorak ;-).

UPDATE: You can also…win one (not)

Let’s play a game - it’s called “How Much iPhone Buzz?” Click on this link, and then continually hit the refresh button. Blog chatter stats regarding the iPhone will fluctuate tremendously, but see how many articles you can actually get to come up. My best was +30 million:

A weakness with Google Blog Search? Or a reflection of what is actually going on regarding Apple’s latest product? It would be easy to say “who cares,” but that would be a cop-out - it is obvious a lot of people care. Fanboys care. Steve Jobs cares. Apple shareholders care. I’m firmly in the tactile keyboard (read: Blackberry) camp, and had better things to do than sit in front of an Apple store for a day waiting to buy a consumer product that would make me seem cooler than my friends. But alas, even I care.

Anyone watching, even cursorily, should care. Not about the iPhone, but about the buzz. What lessons can be learned from that?

UPDATE: Besides developing the perfect formula for generating such enormous marketing hype, there might be an opportunity for the contrarian…teaching consumers how to contain their enthusiasm until after the kinks are worked out. Nevertheless, I think the powers that be could have been more transparent regarding service subscribers on small business plans, as well as notifying folks that if they had a fraud alert on their credit report that the online activation process was a no-go.

UPDATE 2: Of course some ran out and bought the iPhone just so they could take it apart for the world. Traffic stats are bound to hit the ceiling there - is that what you call being part of a product launch marketing hype ecosystem? Maybe so.