iPhone: Fool me once, fool me twice…

The drunken night with iPhone is over, and now as we wake up next to our new love, the sober reality is not as good looking as we thought.

As we learn more about the device and its battery shortcomings, as night follows day, bad press is following good.

I wonder if David Pogue of the New York Times and Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal knew now what they didn’t know then, would they still have given the iPhone a thumbs-up?

The latest is the fact that replacement batteries must be installed by Apple, which will take three days for turnaround. But more importantly for a multimedia-savvy device, a warning from Apple that they are not responsible for maintaining any data, like contacts and phone numbers, on the phone. In fact, all the stored data may be wiped clean.

While the $500 to $600 price tag may be high, it appears obvious the only solution is to buy two — probably Apple’s real goal!

Seriously, as an enterprise solution the iPhone appears to be a non-starter. Certainly, other than a C-level executive, there are not many companies that will outfit a large sales force with such an expensive, and more importantly impractical device.

Years ago I spoke with a large financial services company that was putting at that time very pricey flat panel displays on the desk of each financial adviser in the company.

Yes, it was a very pricey move, the executive told me, but company image was also important and the flat panels made a statement about the company that outweighed the price.

So, is the iPhone equivalent to the flat panel display in terms of an upscale image? Yes, but, at least those flat panels were as good as the cathode ray tube monitors.

While a company may want to project a certain image by buying iPhones for its sales force — and no doubt many on staff will buy the phones and demand support — will IT be willing to put up with the necessary support required?

Who in sales can be without their cell phone for three days?

And Apple advises to back up contacts and data before sending in the phone for battery replacement. Obviously IT will have to do that for the non-technical staff. Perhaps IT will have to figure out a way to replace the battery in-house.

Will Apple train and designate someone at each Apple store to do the upgrade while you wait? Or at least, if not while you wait, avoid the hassle of having to mail it in? Have you ever seen what happens to a package marked “Fragile” in the Post Office?

It appears to me the iPhone is sitting on a very dangerous precipice. Either it can fall one way and become the status symbol it wants to be or, if a few more gotchas are uncovered the iPhone will become a laughing stock with buyers looked on as gullible consumers who weren’t smart enough to spot a troubled device when it was right in the palm of their hand.