TO DESCRIBE the June 29 launch of Apple’s iPhone as “hotly awaited” doesn’t even begin to do justice to the scale of the ballyhoo.

In America, they are calling it the Jesus phone. One mobile expert, Tomi Ahonen, has declared the mobile telecoms world will count its time in two eras: BI, Before the iPhone, and AI, After the iPhone.

Forget Vodafone, forget Nokia. Those guys were just waiting for Apple and Steve Jobs to show them what a mobile phone was all about.

Shares in Apple have risen by about 50% to $120 since the iPhone was unveiled in January, adding $35 billion to the company’s value.

Of course, the iPhone is beautifully designed. Part phone, part iPod, part video player, part internet browser – other devices offer similar functionality, but none is so elegant. The software is thought to be full of the clever and user-friendly twists that have made Apple so successful.

But investors are ignoring some very substantial risks. Apple’s sales target – 10m phones by the end of 2008 – doesn’t sound much; it’s only 1% of the annual mobile handset market. But it’s a much bigger share of the 100m-sales-a-year smartphone segment in which the expensive iPhone (the cheapest model is $499) will compete.

As a reality check, Blackberry has only 7m users worldwide. And the iPhone doesn’t have a keyboard, making it less attractive to the corporate market.

More fundamentally, the parallels between the iPod and iPhone are misplaced. The iPod took control of an immature market. The mobile-phone market is much more mature, more fiercely contested and – crucially – more reliant on the goodwill of network operators.

In the US, Apple is working with a single operator, AT&T. In Europe and elsewhere, no launch date nor network partners have been announced. Apple has no experience of the operators’ handset testing requirements nor of national differences in mobile markets.

The iPhone will sell in large numbers, not least to iPod and Mac computer lovers. But expectations are set so high, disappointment looks almost inevitable. And if it comes, Apple’s shares will fall heavily.

HBOS

Is HBOS looking accident-prone? The bank’s decision to narrow the gap between the terms it offers existing borrowers and better deals for new customers may have looked like good business sense, but it backfired. New borrowers went elsewhere; existing customers left in droves. Net new lending dived to just 8% in the first half of this year – way below HBOS’s 15%-20% target.

This episode looks more like a stumble than a blunder. Even so, it is a worrying miscalculation from Andy Hornby, chief executive of Britain’s largest mortgage lender. HBOS defends its position as a “calculated” bid to bring stability to a market where fierce competition has led to crazy deals. The lesson is that even the mighty HBOS does not have that clout.

HBOS’s slip-up needs context. It has suffered big dips in lending before and recovered share – crucially – without killing margins. It will also hit its double-digit earnings growth forecast this year.

A decade ago, this stumble would have hurt, but HBOS is now far more diversified, with just 41% of profits from retail banking. Paradoxically, the negative sentiment makes the shares more compelling – the bank, with a broad mix of business and good growth prospects, has underperformed markedly this year.

Still, Hornby needs to reestablish HBOS’s reputation as a sure-footed bank.

Times Recommends

• Equitable Life halts £7bn sale on market turmoil
• Potential buyers emerge to save Woolworths staff
• Terrorist attacks close Bombay Stock Exchange