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Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) made a big splash today at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) with the introduction of the iPhone. If you still haven’t seen the iPhone you have no idea what you are missing. You can see the engadget coverage here. The iPhone is good enough to make a grown man cry.

Random thoughts:

• Apple stole the show with the iPhone announcement.
• Apple did a great job of not letting the iPhone specs and features leak out.
• Market Reaction:
  • Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL): Up 8.31%
  • Nokia (NYSE: NOK): Down 1.32%
  • Motorola (NYSE: MOT): Down 1.83%
  • Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM): Down 7.85%
  • Palm (Nasdaq: PALM): Down 5.69%
• Research in Motion and Palm got clobbered today but it might be interesting to note that the iPhone is not a smartphone. iPhone can play music and video, take 2 mp pictures and browse the web but doesn’t have Microsoft Office/ Exchange capabilities and no 3G. So it won’t be a business phone like a Treo or a Blackberry.
• iPhone is expensive.
  • $499 – 4gb version with a 2 year Cingular contract
  • $599 – 8 gb version with a 2-year Cingular contract
• This is a major win for Cingular (NYSE: T) as well. They also had exclusivity with the Motorola Razr when it came out.
• I am not sure if anyone can beat Apple when it comes to design and usability. The Apple and Steve Jobs legend keeps growing thanks to the iPod.
• We now have another Mobile OS with Apple using OS X in the iPhone.
• This is a wake up call for cell phone makers such as Nokia and Motorola. Apple has come up with a cell phone that has all the world drooling while Nokia and Motorola keep popping out variations of Razr.
• Motorola (NYSE: MOT) hasn’t been able to come up with a compelling cell phone since the Razr.
• Nokia (NYSE: NOK) hasn’t come up with a compelling device in ages. At least, Motorola came out with the Razr and the Q. Nokia was late in figuring out the ‘flip’ phone trend and then was late in figuring out that ‘thin’ is in. Nokia finally has come out with a ‘thin’ phone but it looks like an exact replica of Motorola Razr. Nokia does have some cool phones but they seem to lack mass market appeal. N-Gage was another failure for Nokia. Nokia really needs to wake up.
• Are we going to see Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) come up with a Zune Phone? They do get hit by this because of their Windows Mobile OS.
• Nokia and Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) (NYSE: ERIC) Samsung, Siemens and Panasonic also get hit because they have a stake in Symbian. I use a Nokia E62 which uses Symbian OS and let me tell you that its the slowest mobile OS I have ever seen.

I am still wiping the drool off my keyboard.

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