• Marketwatch, Thursday, June 28, 2007 10:45 AM

The iPhone may go down as one of the biggest duds in Apple Inc.'s history, given that it comes with a 20-minute video tutorial. Plus, it marginalizes the mainstream consumer, which means it's a niche product at best.

The iPod was too, but it was well-reviewed and caught fire. Apple's global brand awareness is probably 10 times what it was before the iPod, which already gives the iPhone a giant leg up buzz terms. Couple that with a cellular industry badly in need of innovation, and you might have the beginning of something revolutionary.

But "revolutionary" doesn't necessarily mean success. There's a lot riding on the iPhone, which might be a little unrealistic, given the mainstream's history of adopting new technologies. "Simply put, Apple's iPhone is a rock (not a pebble) that's just been tossed into the middle of a giant lake," claims Marketwatch. We're at the very beginning of a rapidly evolving movement toward device convergence. The iPhone may soon be old hat.

Read the whole story at Marketwatch »