TMO at Macworld - iPhone Blows Away Attendee Expectations

by , 6:00 PM EST, January 9th, 2007

Note: The full interviews for this article are available as a podcast, and includes a cameo from TMO's own Bob "Dr. Mac" Levitus. You can subscribe to the Apple Weekly Report feed, find it at the iTunes Store, or take the direct link to its MP3 Version.

San Francisco, CA -- The keynote hall has barely quieted down, and Apple's newest product even isn't yet legal to operate in the US, but the verdict is in: the iPhone is a killer product.

In a series of interviews conducted with attendees leaving the keynote hall, not a single person expressed less than excitement and enthusiasm over the keynote, the iPhone's debut, and it's feature set. When pressed, few could come up with features they might have wished for.

Casual attendees, exhibitors, and experienced Mac enthusiasts said the keynote presentation itself was "excellent," "very good," "amazing," "best ever," and "awesome." Reactions to the iPhone itself -- the only product discussed in detail during Steve Job's Keynote -- were universally positive.

All but one of our ten interviewees planned to buy an iPhone, and two were planning to switch their cell service to Cingular to make that possible. The one user who was not planning to purchase an iPhone was not particularly focused on owning a smart phone, and was turned off by the small (4-8GB) storage capacity.

Keynote attendees said they thought they might become more critical once they got to use an iPhone for real.

One interviewee, Eric Walstram from Los Angeles, expressed a prevailing sentiment: "I thought there'd be more of a first generation element to [iPhone], but this is like a fifth generation element right out of the gate."

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