Apple has released the iPhone, just like everyone expected!

After more than two years in the making, Apple CEO Steve Jobs today announced the company’s intention to enter the mobile handset market, unveiling the new Apple iPhone. The iPhone brings together several features of the iPod, digital camera, smartphones and even portable computing to one device, with a widescreen display and an innovative input method.

“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” said Jobs.

Apple also announced increased iTunes and iPod sales as well as the iTV, a device that streams content to your TV set. All of these things are super cool, but they leave me thinking “where’s the revolution?” Somebody else made every one of these products long before Apple. They weren’t the first mp3 players, they just came in late with a copycat product that was trendier and easier to use than everyone else’s (and had a healthy dose of lock-in to keep people in the product). iTV is the same thing: a number of similar products already exist that do the same thing, Apple is merely creating one with a super-easy UI that places nicely in the Apple ecosystem. Can you think of another company that built itself up doing the same thing? That’s right - Microsoft.

Microsoft has long been criticized for never doing anything original; always taking other people’s work, slightly tweaking it, and selling it as their own. Apple is doing the exact same thing, including similar anti-competitive practices, only now they’re doing it better. Apple innovations are marginal improvements that go a long way, not revolutions.

My prediction: If the iPhone is a success, it will be limited. The cell phone market is fiercely competitive, and based on complicated relationships with service providers. At it’s price point, the iPhone isn’t competing with standard cell phones, or even standard music phones. Instead, it’s up against Palm, PocketPC, and to a lesser extent Blackberry powered smartphones. There are certainly segments of the business community that buys these phones that would love an Apple offering, but I’m not sure if it’s as large as Jobs would like. On the distribution side, the iPhone brings iTunes into competition with the carriers’ lucrative ring-tone download businesses.

That being said, this is one slick phone. In my opinion it dominates every other smartphone or musicphone on the market, with a simpler UI, more powerful OS, and the ability to easily sync with a computer. If I used Apple products, and had $600 to blow on a phone, I would definitely give it serious consideration.

If iTV executes well, it’s also an exciting product. Most past attempts to stream PC video to the TV have resulted in expensive boxes, jerky pictures, difficult set up, and crappy UIs. Solving these problems (again, not revolutionizing, minor innovations) would change the home theater landscape. Again, though, enjoying them requires locking yourself into the Apple ecosystem.

Like nearly every MacWorld, Apple unveiled some pretty cool products, but these aren’t revolutionary. Apple is starting to look more and more like it’s Big Brother in Redmond, taking existing products, tacking on marginal improvements, bringing them into the ecosystem, and overselling them. Don’t knock the strategy, it works. I only wonder if the Mac-fanboys who complained when Microsoft did it will have the same opinions now that it’s their guy playing the winning strategy.

Categories: Business and Economics, Strategy, Technology