First, we have to give it up to AppleInsider for creating a very long transcript of Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer’s speech and Q&A at Morgan Stanley’s Technology Conference. Oppenheimer does, quite frankly, an incredible job of providing non-substantive answers to a plethora of questions, hitting the talking points all the while. There was one question and answer that we thought did show something interesting about the iPhone, though:

Q: So lets shift focus to the iPhone. Morgan Stanley published or survey results last week, and that pointed to very high level of demand. But from Apple’s perspective, what are the barriers to adoption for the iPhone?”

“A: We believe the iPhone is a breakthrough product with outstanding features that years ahead of anything in the market today. We don’t think there is another product like the iPhone and we think the iPhone will redefine the cell phone market. The iPhone combines three products into one — a beautiful, light, handheld device. We think it’s a revolutionary phone with visual voicemail. It’s the best iPod that we’ve ever done. And we think it’s breakthrough internet device with desktop class email, searching and web browsing. As an innovator, we don’t look at traditional market methodologies to think about how to develop products. Before we introduced the first iPod in 2001, we didn’t really ask ourselves what was the potential for the MP3 player market by looking at products that were over $399. We believe that people really love music and would appreciate a product like the iPod to listen to music while on the go. Though we’re new to the mobile phone market, we believe the addressable market will grow quickly for a product that delivers so much value and uncompromising functionality to customers.”

Now, we’re pretty confident Apple wouldn’t sink in the R&D dollars necessary to make the iPhone and invest all the time and money that goes into designing and producing such a product without doing some market research on determining what people are willing to pay, but we do believe there’s a conviction among people at Apple that if you make something awesome and that people will want, people will pay a premium. Not everything comes down to studying the best balance of making the product just good enough to sell and make a lot of money.

Filed under: iPhone News