Where are all the Flip-smartphones in America? Or, Who is the target market for the iPhone?
Philip Greenspun, posted about the iPhone along with a billion other people. I tried adding a couple of comments that were deleted moderated, so I’m adding them here.
Where are the flip phones?
Basically all Japanese phones are flip-phones and it baffles me as to how American consumers are denied the simple interface of “open to make or answer a call; flip closed to hang upâ€. http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2007/01/09/apple-iphone/
This is just not correct. Americans are not being ‘denied the simple interface of “open to make or answer a call; flip closed to hang upâ€.’ The Razr is a very popular flip phone model and the Cingular 3125 is available for those that want a smartphone. There are also many other companies offering flip-phones in both smartphone and non-smartphone form.
Who is the market for the iPhone?
Certainly not Philip Greenspun.
Seth Godin in There are two kinds of people in the world. said:
There are two kinds of people in the world.
The folks that want (need!) an iPhone, and those that couldn’t care less. And of course it’s not just Apple and it’s not just phones. It’s every single industry in the world.
Most users of this phone probably don’t even want to use it to make phone calls. They want a hip PDA that just happens to be a SMS/IM client.
Teenager Michelle Rome can’t imagine life without instant messaging.
Teens, adults separated by ‘instant message gap’ WILL LESTER, Associated Press
How to not make accidental phone calls from your smart phone.
. . . it appears that this is yet another smartphone that is not a flip-phone. In other words, if it brushes up against something in your pocket it will make or answer unwanted calls.
. . . What I want is a phone that won’t make calls from inside my pocket.
Most every smartphone has some type of auto-locking feature, use it. It really is that simple.
On Moderation
As I said, I tried adding a couple of comments that were deleted moderated. This shocked me. After composing a reasonable comment, it is painful to see your work just get blasted into /dev/null/.
The most valued comments are alternative perspectives. Philip Greenspun’s Weblog - Comment moderation policy
I felt that I offered an alternative perspective and was on topic, I guess I’ll try again next time. 
Who is Philip Greenspun?
He is the awesome author of SQL for Web Nerds. The chapter called data warehousing, what to do when your query doesn’t answer your questions inspired me to seriously study databases leading me to where I am today. Go subscribe to his blog, you won’t regret it.