How Jobs Played Hardball In iPhone Birth

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Apple bucked the rules of the cellphone industry when creating the iPhone by wresting control away from normally powerful wireless carriers, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Only three executives at the carrier, which is now the wireless unit of AT&T Inc., got to see the iPhone before it was announced. Cingular agreed to leave its brand off the body of the phone. Upsetting some Cingular insiders, it also abandoned its usual insistence that phone makers carry its software for Web surfing, ringtones and other services... Mr. Jobs once referred to telecom operators as "orifices" that other companies, including phone makers, must go through to reach consumers. While meeting with Cingular and other wireless operators he often reminded them of his view, dismissing them as commodities and telling them that they would never understand the Web and entertainment industry the way Apple did, a person familiar with the talks says.'"

Comments

Steve Jobs is WRONG!

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Mr. Jobs once referred to telecom operators as "orifices" that other companies, including phone makers, must go through to reach consumers.

Incorrect. The consumers are the orifices in the telco / phone maker / customer relationship. Everyone gets to screw them.

Anyway, let's hope the iPhone enjoys more success than the last Apple/Cingular deal mentioned in the article:

But the Motorola ROKR, released in the fall of 2005 and carried exclusively by Cingular, was a huge disappointment for Apple executives. .

Still Two-Faced

[mythosaz]

...if Apple meant it, the phones would be 100% unbranded and unlocked, they'd take any GSM provider's card, and APPLE would provide simple, regional, downloadable settings (for carrier-based web proxies, etc.)

Apple doesn't have to sell them through Cingular (AT&T) or anyone else.

Bucking the system...my shiny metal ass.

Re:On a general level...

[squiggleslash]

I'm sure a locked down phone that only runs Apple's software and is only available on Cingular, with Apple claiming that it's morally wrong to unlock a phone (such people are "bad guys") to run on other networks, is going to do that.

Anyone who thinks Apple is trying to do anything but shift power from one proprietary group to another is delusional.

Worse still, Cingular is one of the only two major GSM/UMTS carriers in the US. So it was one of the few that was truly open and non-proprietary, compared to the likes of Verizon.

I'm hoping some of Apple's innovations in the UI realm will make their way to competing phones, but right now the Apple phone itself is bad news from the point of view of opening up the industry. It represents everything that's bad about the US mobile phone industry, it's expensive, locked down, and treated by its maker as little more than a weapon to play in some insane power wars in which the end user will always be the victim.