I brought my iPhone to a friend’s birthday party last night, not because I was bringing my iPhone, but just because it’s my cell phone and I bring my cell phone with me everywhere.
Once the word spread that I had an iPhone on me — I was the only person there with one — a lot of people asked if they could hold it, look at it, use it. I let them.
To a person, they loved it. They were dazzled by the interface, impressed by the features, and just kept wanting to touch it. These people clearly connected to the iPhone on a visceral level and wanted one of their own.
On an emotional level, the sales draw of the device clearly works.
And these folks are market for the iPhone: they all have cell phones and most have iPods.
The problem? None of them have $500-$600 to buy the iPhone that they liked so much.
And that conundrum makes the persistent rumors of the iPhone nano — a smaller, less-feature rich, but crucially, less-expensive iPhone – make a lot of sense. If these folks could get the iPhone with fewer features (they’d probably be happy to dump the web and email) and pay half the price or so, I’d expect that 5-10 people at that party would own one in the next 12 months.
And that was just one small party in Providence, RI. If those numbers hold true across the country, Apple will be selling a lot of iPhone nanos, if they ever come out.
