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Alan A. Reiter of Camera Phone Report and Thomas Landspurg of TomSoft both left thoughtful comments on my “WiFi is more important than HSDPA for early iPhone success” blog post from last week.

Tom wrote:

My main point would be that the two places where you’re most likely to have WiFi coverage (the home and the office) are the two places you’re most likely to use a laptop or workstation for data access.

and Alan noted:

The two places you note where WiFi is free — home and office — are the two places you are least likely to use your cellular phone. This is especially true in the U.S. where cellular is much more of a secondary device rather than in many other countries where it’s often a person’s primary phone.

I understand their points, and I am sure for a lot of people they are correct. I do currently use a laptop for most wireless data access at home/work, but I foresee a more even split between computer and mobile device as the iPhone, or similar innovative WiFi-mobiles, come to market. Perhaps this is a difference in use cases, but for me I still see a big opportunity for a WiFi enabled iPhone at home and work.

Part of the reason that I noted those two free WiFi hotspots is that for me, my cell phone is my primary phone. In fact, it’s my only phone, for both work and personal use. So perhaps that magnifies its importance for me in the place where I spend the most time, home and office (ok, my office is a home office since I telecommute, but still). As a “cord cutter”, I break the mold of Alan’s “secondary device” mobile phone use case.

The other reason I noted WiFi support in iPhone is that I believe this device may shift the WiFi usage profile of its owners. I would love to use a device such as the Nokia N800 when I don’t feel like dragging out my laptop (reading news feeds on the couch in the evening, for instance), but I simply am not interested in a non-cellular capable Internet tablet. I have all the nationwide free long distance bucket minutes I could ever need on my cell, and good signal strength to boot, so why bother with VOIP for calling? Here I violate Tom’s “computer for wireless data at home/work” use case.

To me, this says there’s a third use case, one describing customers interested in maximizing their Internet capabilities with a second always available channel that supplements those times when they haul out the “big iron” PC or Mac. If it keeps its promises, iPhone’s 3.5 inch screen and Web browsing interface could solve my small, instant on, mobile Internet access device needs while maintaining my Nano‘s music chops and my phone’s call capabilities. Nerdvana.

It will be interesting to see just how many of us third use case cord cutting gadgeteers there are out there come June.

Reuters is reporting that Nokia’s media head, Anssi Vanjoki, has described iPhone as “quite interesting” but said in effect that the lack of 3G will cripple it in the marketplace.

Nokia, or at least Mr. Vanjoki, doesn’t get it. And a lot of other people are falling prey to this too.

In a perfect device (updating my wishlist from way back in 2004), there would be HSDPA along with the included GSM+EDGE, WiFi, and Bluetooth. But the truth is, at least in the US a lot more people use WiFi in their office, their home, the coffee shop, and quite a few other places than pay for 3G on their cell. And in the two key places, home and work, WiFi is essentially free. Again this is especially true in the US, Apple’s launch geo for iPhone.

Let’s repeat that: WiFi at home and work is essentially free.

Free is hard to compete with. It’s going to be a long time before my mother pays extra for HSDPA, but she already has 802.11g. If Apple makes the use of WiFi truly seamless, a lot of people will buy. 3G or no.

And besides, who knows what features Apple will have in future versions of iPhone? Jobs has already mentioned 3G for upcoming iPhone models. Perhaps it’ll even be in place before the European and Asian launches.

If you accept that WiFi+EDGE is “good enough” for a lot of people, then why haven’t previous smartphones or mobile computers or whatever you want to call them crossed the chasm into mainstream adoption? In a word, interface. In three words, aesthetics and interface.

Just about everybody hates the interface on his or her phone. Free model or multi-hundred dollar smartphone, doesn’t matter, same dislike. And doesn’t every other phone on Earth look ugly now that we’ve glimpsed an iPhone? The promise of iPhone is that Apple, just maybe, has gotten the beauty of the design and the simplicity of the interface right.

You know, now that I type this I wonder if it’s not so much that Mr. Vanjoki doesn’t get it, as that he doesn’t want to get it. How this chart appears in several months may be the best measure of who’s right, Apple or Nokia:

PS I’m a NOK shareholder and use a Nokia mobile every day, all day. I don’t own any AAPL stock and have never owned an Apple product until my recent Nano. I’m just calling things as I see them.

Yuck, it’s official that it’s happening much sooner than many expected:

According the the Wall Street Journal, AT&T is killing the Cingular brand as of Monday January 15th.

What a terrible mistake in my opinion! “AT&T” is so 20th century. It just smacks of back-astardness to me.

Makes me want to change carriers just to get away from the ugly bills and Web graphics that will soon be bombarding me anytime I interact with my cell company. If only there weren’t this little thing in June compelling me to hang around…

A Cingular sales rep named Danny Orange posted to The Boy Genius Report yesterday about what he’s hearing from customers on the iPhone.

This launch will be huge. I am a cingular sales rep and all we heard all day today were customers coming in and asking questions about the iphone. Many of the customers are you average joe user, so i think apple is going for a broader demographic then just “apple users” or “ipod users”. I think the launch will be huge, but i hope cingular will embrace this device as part of its rebranding.

I’d suspected iPhone could cut a wide swath. Early customer buzz seems to agree. And Danny’s speculation that Cingular might use the iPhone launch as part of its re-branding as AT&T (argh) seems dead on.

And for existing Cingular customers under contract: According to Engadget, “Both existing and new customers will be able to purchase the iPhone”. Presumably that means one can purchase it at launch time for the 2 year contract price, assuming you’re willing to extend any existing contract out 2 more years(?). No waiting for the usual upgrade window of two months til end of contract? Please, Cingular, please!

If Cingular and Apple play things right, this could be a very interesting launch come June!

What do you think? Has Apple beaten NOK, MOT, and the others at their own game? Talk it up.

GigaOM reports that CES is “All About Mobile”.

Will MacWorld’s big “one more thing” finale also be a mobile masterpiece? Will my Nano soon have an Apple Phone in its circle of friends? Or will everyone who’s been speculating and betting and babbling be really, really disappointed?

Time will tell…