Next iPhone rollout is Steve Jobs’ biggest moment in years

Steve Jobs would perhaps like to think of his introduction of the iPad earlier this year as his finest moment since he returned to Apple after his medical hiatus, and in the long term that may ultimately prove the case. But in terms of the here and now, Jobs’ expected rollout of the next iPhone this week will represent one of his biggest moments on stage not just since he returned to Apple in 2009, but since he retook the helm of the company in 1997. At the time Jobs first introduced the original iPhone in 2007, there was no consumer smartphone market – and by and large, there still isn’t one beyond the iPhone. The vast majority of U.S. consumers are still using featureless flip-phones, and while geek armies have gone to incredible lengths to attempt to create the comical illusion that geeks-only smartphones like the Android have somehow overtaken the iPhone in marketshare despite the fact that most people have never even seen an Android phone in the wild, the fact of the matter is that the iPhone is ubiquitous to the point that it’s nearly impossible to walk down the street and not see at least a few in use on any given block.

That having been said, Apple has essentially been selling the same iPhone for two years now (the 3GS model being more or less the 3G model with a video camera wedged into it), geeks desperate to prevent consumers from gaining the upper hand have increasingly managed to spread disinformation about the iPhone and its failed competitors and paint a picture of confusion in the process, and Apple’s exclusive U.S. iPhone partner AT&T (who’s oddly had more to say about the iPhone than Apple itself of late) has managed to turn itself into the most despised cellular carrier in the industry’s brief yet ugly history. When Steve Jobs takes the WWDC stage on Monday he’ll be doing so with all the cards in his pocket: the iPhone is the only smartphone that the vast majority of people will ever consider buying. The surrounding ecosystem, which includes iTunes, the App Store, the iPad and iPod touch, and even the Mac platform, is something that competitors have zero hope of ever emulating successfully. Apple is increasingly the only technology brand that the non-geek mainstream majority trusts on any level. And most importantly, most people who don’t yet have an iPhone do seemingly want one. And now it’s up to Jobs to take all the iPhone-related cards he’s been holding close to his chest of late and play those cards in a successful manner.

But even those with the best hand sometimes lose if they don’t play their proverbial cards right, which is what makes Jobs’ WWDC keynote so vital. It’s a given that the new iPhone 4G will be light years ahead of the competition in all the areas that matter to mainstream users (this is a given because the current iPhone already fits the description), but Jobs has to roll it out in such a manner that the public can receive that message despite the increasingly irresponsible attempts on the part of the geek press to bury the facts in favor of promoting their Android agenda. Jobs also has to, somehow, get current and potential iPhone users to focus on the iPhone itself and not the sack of crap U.S. carrier that comes with it. Whether this involves demonstrating that all other U.S. carriers are also sacks of crap, or perhaps demonstrating that he’s got his foot on the neck of AT&T after all (recent announcements from AT&T would suggest the opposite), is something that will have to be left up to Jobs himself.

Most importantly, however, Jobs must remind consumers that they’re now in an era in which they get to make their own buying decisions when it comes to consumer technology. With so many geeks having total public meltdowns here in 2010 over the consumerization of consumer technology, it’s more vital than ever that consumers avoid the increasingly asinine technology advice coming from said geeks and instead buy the smartphone most suitable for them – which is for nearly all users the iPhone – rather than allowing themselves to be sucked back into the dark ages of “consumer technology” in which the mainstream was duped or bullied into buying completely unsuitable geeks-only products. It’s now clear that the next decade of consumer technology will be a bloody battle, between the geekiest one percent and the mainstream ninety-nine percent, over which the direction technology should be heading – and Jobs’ keynote on Monday will represent a major moment in that battle one way or the other.