iPhone Can’t Get No Dissatisfaction

It’s hard to find an iPhone user that doesn’t love his or her phone.

You might have thought by now, the coolness should have worn off.

I have a program director friend of mine who lives in Hollywood Hills. He dumped his Blackberry for an iPhone even though he gave up slightly better coverage with his Verizon service. He's not atypical. A lot of people are overlooking AT&T's slow EDGE system to own this revolutionary device.

Articles have appeared on Mac websites that refer to initial research showing as high as a 75% satisfaction rate among early adopters of the Apple iPhone.

When has the record industry had a 75% satisfaction rate?

How about radio?

Or satellite radio?

Or, well, you name it.

The reason this is so critical is that the iPhone is the prototypical mobile device of the future. We may laugh at how primitive the iPhone looks and feels two years from now when many users go out to buy their replacement models. The mini-computer known as an iPhone has exceeded expectations and that’s hard to do.

You’ll see the “imagineers” at Apple tease us with new features and new capabilities in the coming months and years. It will be very difficult, in my opinion, for competitors to catch Apple or slow down this juggernaut if it isn’t done right now. I don’t see that happening.

What’s most significant is that everyone in the music-related media must permanently start thinking in terms of delivering content people crave in the mobile space.

Radio was the mobile device for a generation or two.

Arguably, Sony's Walkman was the device to a generation.

Now, it's the iPod and soon will be the iPhone.

It is hard to get traditional media to think about the plain old Internet. This must change.

Even providers of audio and video will necessarily adapt.

Morning drive will be delivered in 45-minute segments to mobile devices. It will have video, audio and text. You can't call it radio.

Streaming audio will no longer be necessary. Go ahead, try and listen to streaming audio on an enabled mobile device. Our concept of real-time entertainment will have to change.

Entertainment devices will be including the necessities of the next generation – texting as long as it remains popular.

Consumers will demand video – easily accessible – for portable use. The mobile phone of the future will act as a storage device as well.

The smart phone will be a mini-computer – not full service as we’ve come to expect from laptops, but very useful and easily transportable.

There are a lot of businesses that are going to have to find ways to create, market and monetize their content for the mobile market to stay engaged and profitable. This is not easy because the rules keep changing. Technology sometimes hands us a winner (such as the iPhone) and other times shows us a loser (just about anything Sony these days).

In order to keep consumers satisfied, the music media business is going to have to be more agile, resourceful and creative.

When an iPhone can win high marks for satisfaction from consumers who paid $500-600 for them then you can be sure they are going to set a high bar for the content these devices feature.

Traditional and new media -- start you engine. The race for quality content is on.

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