Apple and the Big Bang Theory?

Updated on the 10th July! See my comments in bold!

So, less than 5 days to go the launch of the new iPhone 3G and people are getting very excited about the new iPhone, the App store and MobileMe.

But let's just think about this for a minute.....

Apples over-riding concern is that the user experience is the best that it possibly can be.

Yes, they've started switching on the me.com addresses but does anyone seriously think they will go with a big bang approach for all the new components on July 11th?

6 million current iPhones all suddenly being able to download v2.0 of the software and millions of people all clambering to download all the free apps from the App store.

All on the day Apple launch their new flagship iPhone 3G.

Do you think they would really risk the ensuing melt down that would happen as the worlds press gather outside Apple stores around the world and watch as people try to access the App Store on their new phones and discover a service unavailable message.

Not a chance.

My prediction is that it will pan out this way.....

iTunes v7.7 will be released this week to everyone, prior to the 11th July.

Yup, I called that one OK but it was a no brainer

The App store will open on the 11th July but will only be available to those people with a new iPhone 3G on Friday as they will be the only people with the iPhone v2.0 software. Apple most likely will withhold v2.0 of the software for the original iPhones for several weeks and will only roll it out in a staged fashion when it is finally released to the existing iPhone population.

A day out, they launched it on the 10th to everybody. So everyone can download or purchase apps but still need v2.0 of the software

Why would they do this?

Well the most obvious is capacity and ensuring they can manage the demand for access to the App store. I don't know about you but I'll be downloading a ton of free apps and a couple of paid for ones, the day I get onto the App store. So by restricting access to protect availability, that would seem like a sensible move.

But you also have to consider Apples masterful marketing dept.

How many people are waiting on the release of v2.0 before they make the decision to go with the new iPhone 3G. My gut feel is that a lot of people are.

How many will still wait to see v2.0 on their existing iphone once they know it's going to be a few more weeks and all these podcasters and bloggers are extolling the virtues of the new iPhone and the delights of the App store? Well call me cynical but I'm sure Apple might get a few more sales in the intervening weeks by withholding v2.0 of the software.

Looks like I was wrong and the v2,0 of the software has been leaked as of the 10th July. Seems fairly certain that it will be available to everyone come 11th July

So what about MobileMe?

Well I figure that the .Mac infrastructure has already been beefed up to cope with the migration of the current .Mac population to MobileMe so we may see the first batch of people migrated this week so they can start to access the Web Apps and will see the push technologies switched on. However, push to the iPhone is dependent on iPhone v2.0 software so come Friday, only new iPhone 3G owners will see push to their iPhone. Another reason not to wait to upgrade perhaps?

MobileMe is the shocker!! The service was due to be down for 6 hours but it's been more like 16 hours - major, major fail on Apples part.

Of course, this is all speculation and come Friday they might just push the button but I just can't see it myself.

I will of course, be upgrading to an iPhone 3G on Friday!

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Comments

[MHillyer]

I have to say - you pretty much hit my thoughts on the nose here. They have to slowly roll all of this out - there is no way anyone could handle all of the mobileMe, iPhone 2.0 software, 3g iPhone launch and all the appropriate patches for it all on the same day - if they decide to go that route, it could only lead to one big mess

[tt4mac]

I disagree. They will get everything they can pushed out early including iTunes and Mobile Me. You might even see 2.0 with these pushed out to current users early this week. Even if they wait till Friday all will be available to current users long before new buyers can get their phones starting at 8:00 am LOCAL time. The local time allows for a staggered role out globally. Next you need to remember that Apple pushes updates to the OS to many more users and some of these are very large files. Nothing on the iPhone will come even close to those sizes. Plus you have the even larger serving of media files by iTunes daily. One thing I will say may happen is they will throttle down the normal iTunes purchase to free up bandwidth and might even stop it for an hour if need be.

All in all you must remember that iTunes already handles many more purchases and much more band width than will occur on Friday. If I was worried about problems I would worry more about ISP's throttling bandwidth to Apples servers.

Cheers.

[ptedder]

I am afraid that you are correct on this. Like a crazy fool I was hoping that we 1st gen iPhone owners would get to taste the 2.0 goodness early on, but that does not make sense. While I am OK with them holding out on the software upgrade for a brief period of time, If It becomes a marketing move as opposed to a need to measure resources than that will be a black mark in my book for Apple.

I don't anticipate that though and am holding out that we will all share the goodness of iPhone 2.0 software this weekend.