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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.'"
I'm really for anything that helps wrestle proprietary control settings away from the major carriers.
"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson
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:
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Remember than no iphones have been sold yet. The analysis needs to wait until some sales figures are available.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...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.
Obviously, we'll all have to wait until it's released to see what it's like. Apple are the masters of the UI, and most phones/smartphones I've had have really lousy UI. 3G or not 3G, I'd like to have a phone that doesn't suck to use. At this point, I'd toss out all the current crap and go back to my Nokia 6160 - it did what I needed and stayed out of the way. While I like getting email, Blackberry and Windows have a long way to go before they get away from sucking. I hope Apple's UI is a step forward. I could give a crap which 'G' my phone uses, so long as I like using my phone.
.if Apple meant it, the phones would be 100% unbranded and unlocked, they'd take any GSM provider's card....
And then Apple would not be able to provide features like visual voice mail which require changes to the carrier network.
What Apple gets by partnering is concessions in network development they would never get if they stood along against all other phone companies. That is the value that Apple brings to the table, making complex things easier and stuff like network improvements to handle random access voice mail are part and parcel of that. If the iPhone were just like any other MVNO phone, it would lose a lot of potential for true innovation in phone development.
What will be really interesting to see is how the open Linux phones proceed, or if they run into roadblocks.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The iPhone is a joke until it runs Windows Vista Mobile Premium, with Aero enabled holographic projector with 3D holo-conferencing. I'll hold out for the dellPhone.
Obviously, we'll all have to wait until it's released to see what it's like. Apple are the masters of the UI, and most phones/smartphones I've had have really lousy UI.
I'll second that motion. The most common features I need are gazillion menus down in my Motorola phone. People keep talking about how iphone "lacks features", but feature O.D. is a Microsoft trait, not an Apple one. If you want quantities of features, regardless of how easy it is to use them, then Apple products are probably not for you.
Table-ized A.I.
Steve Jobs really is a badass! I played hardball once in high school; broke my leg, three ribs, and four fingers. I hope the engineers weren't too severly hurt...
The view was horrible and the smell was even worse; Julie severely regretted becoming a proctologist.
That's just Apple FUD. I have never had an app bring down any of my Java MIDP handsets (NEC e606, NEC e616, Sony Ericsson Z800i, Nokia 6280). The systems are designed very carefully to avoid the possibility of apps bringing down the RF stack or screwing with basic phone functionality. Maybe the iPhone OS is just poorly designed and it's easy for bad apps to bring down the phone.
Have you ever heard of something called a 'user interface'? Apple knows how to build a good one, and Motorola, LG, Nokia, and the rest of them do not.
That is what will sell the iPhone. For every geek who looks at the iPhone and says "Bah! My free-as-in-speech, open-source, ugly orange phone with the stupid name (OpenMoko) will do all that and more! The iPhone is crap!", there will be 100 normal users who try it out and say "Goddamn, this phone is so much easier to use than the POS I have now. I'm buying one."
I am by no means technically illiterate - I'm a computer science major at MIT. But I have long since lost my patience for fighting with badly-designed, badly-engineered, badly-implemented consumer electronics. I will be buying an iPhone when it comes out, because like all of Apple's recent products, it will 'Just Work'.
It will be a hybrid iPod/cell phone/PDA with no sacrifices in functionality, compared to carrying around three separate devices. As Jobs mentioned in his keynote, the price is still cheaper than buying a smartphone and iPod Nano separately.
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Yeah I agree, I'm on my third motorola flip-top and while each new version does get slimmer and smaller, it seems there's always compromises. E.g., on my newest one, its too easy for the quick buttons on the side to change the ringer type while the phone is in my pocket. Not to mention the fact that T-mobile puts their "download ringtones" links first in the sounds menu and there's no way to delete them... It annoys me because the phone has bluetooth so I just upload my own mp3s; I'm not buy any of their crap.
If anybody can fix the UI disaster, its Apple. Sure it won't be perfect, but my guess is that it will be an improvement (if you want to pay for it). This whole situation reminds me of the way Apple dealt with the music companies, and we all know the DRM is a mixed bag, but it sure beats the competition for most people.
Strangely enough, I'm a bit proponent of the "do one thing and do it well philosophy", but after seeing the keynote, I am impressed. A good UI makes the extra features useful, a bad one makes them annoying.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
I am looking forward to trying the iPhone. In particular I'm looking formward to being free of the god-awful software that comes with most phones.
Just this weekend I decided to check an ebay auction on my samsung phone. I noticed that Sprint offers a "ebay premium" program for download. Guess what? It's FIVE dollars a month. WHAT? I already pay for internet access on my phone, why should I pay another dime to get a better view of my ebay account? If the phones came with capable browsers then this nickel and diming wouldn't be possible because the phone would have desktop-similar browsing capability. I think the iPhone is going to go a long way to helping consumers.
And now the countdown starts on the two other phones cited in the WSJ article. It didn't fly under my radar the "boy have we patented it" line at the expo - and for those who want the recast, on the (free) download at iTunes of the keynote - at 1:30 (remaining) comes the clarifier of over 200 patents filed on the iPhone.
Looking at the slightest cause for a lawsuit - "trade dress" it seems the other manufacturers are playing with fire already.
For a fan of corporate porn (me), it's going to be fun watching the legal fallout from the clones (remember all the imac clones that emachine tried to sell within a year - that's absolutely nothing compared to the design theft that happens in cellphones all the time). The LG and the Samsung weren't mentioned to have touch-screen but - boy - the LG is really looking to open it's legal doors in "creating consumer confusion from trade dress" bigtime.
Anyone want to place bets on when the first lawsuits from Apple start? I'm guessing August by the latest.
There's nothing funny about it. Jobs was simply pointing out a hole in their business plan. Cingular was flexing its ring muscle and Jobs rectified the situation. Although I think he was being too anal about removing the logo, market penetration is key. He wants this product to succeed not only in the US, but in Europe and across the entire Pacific rim.
"You also seem to have left out Windows Mobile in your list of companies that you seem to think don't know how to make a user interface. People can hate Windows concepts and MS, sure, but MS spends a lot of money with real people to ensure their crap is easy to use."
That's why Vista's UI is so great, right? I've seen it on several machines now, and it's a freaking mess.
"It is people like you that forget the rest of us have been using Windows Mobile and even Motorola 'user interfaces' on our phones for SEVERAL years, playing our music, using our bluetooth, playing our movies, and also accessing the internet at near DSL speeds, with the latter being something the iPhone can't even do."
Did you completely miss my point? I realize that these things are all technically possible on Windows Mobile and Motorola devices - the point is that the interfaces are lousy. I guess it's a matter of opinion - but I know a lot of people share mine.
"If Apple is the God of user interfaces, then why do they continue to copy good ideas and try to promote them as their own, you know like the iPod?"
Again, you're missing the point. What did the iPod copy, other than the idea of an MP3 player? The iPod was a success because of the user interface, and solid design that felt good in your hand. People like to whine about the marketing and 'cool' factor, but the iPod was popular long before the ads, and long before it became a fashion accessory, because of how good the UI was.
"
If Apple is the God of user interfaces and that is what you see as them doing well, why don't they actually create a new user interface paradigm, yet the new concepts for UI come from the OSS world and even MS. Remember this the next time you drag and drop text in a document, MS did it first."
So, that's the best Microsoft UI innovation you could think of?
And you don't think that the iPhone represents a new user-interface paradigm, with the multi-touch screen and all?
"Take the Menu bar, and how many users just don't get the 'multi-application' usage concept because the flipping bar confuses them, so they close and flip between applications."
Ever heard of Fitt's Law? There's a very good reason for putting the menu bar at the top of the screen - it makes it much easier to 'hit' the menus with your mouse, because the mouse stops at the top of the screen. Compare this to windows, where you have to hit a target of about 20 pixels or so to select a menu. I suppose it might not be completely intuitive, but in the long term it is a much better solution.
"If you are a CS major at MIT, then my faith in the next generation has been destroyed."
I'm crushed.
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"You phone companies don't know nuthin' about proper phones, not like Apple does."
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Believe it or not, there are many de-facto standards in the mobile phone industry. One of the most famous is the voice mail icon.
Your whole rant makes it apparent you don't understand what visual voice mail is. It's not iBiff. It's, well, voicemail that is visual - as in, you get to see a list of all voice mails you have currently waiting, and then you can choose to listen to any one you like, in any order.
Now of course this is not a new thing to phones, IP phones in particualr. But the cell phone industry? They support nothing like it today. To actually be able to randomly access voice mail is, in 2006, apparently a startling concept to cell phone network providers.
Making an unlocked phone doesn't mean being forced to limit yourself to the documented features of GSM. You can implement whatever the hell you want, and let the carriers decide what they're going to implement.
And the carriers can laugh at you, and the feature is useless. Apple cannot realistically build a phone, and then release it "hoping" that all (or any) of the ideas they have get implemented. They have to make a polished device first, so that people wll actually want to buy one. If they did not the cell industry would seek to kill it fearing Apple would gain too much power. Far easier to play to the greed of a single carrier and get them to do what is needed.
The Linux phone is basically taking the path you advocate. But I really do not think it would ever be in a position to dictate new network features the way Apple currently is by basically taking hold of a carrier and shaking some sense into a very stagnant industry who really doesn't understand device development. I say that as a user of various cell phones for years, which are uniformly horrible in day to day use. The Linux phone would eventually be better but it would always be limited in potential by what the carriers allowed. I am thinking the Linux phone will eventually be able to make use of the same features that are being added for the iPhone.
Also Apple is not just supporting visual voice mail, but also push email from Yahoo and perhaps other things we have not heard of yet. Allowing Apple to help design user-oriented improvements to the network is something that eventually will improve all phones, not just the iPhone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Jobs himself said, shortly after the iPhone launch, that you can buy applications for the iPhone - they will just be tightly controlled by Apple, probably similar to the games for the iPod today (and there is speculation games on the iPod were actually a was to test delivery of software via iTunes which is how the iPhone is updated as well).
Frankly I also think users will be able to move Dashcode creations onto the iPhone, I would be very surprised if that was not the case. For me that eliminates a lot of the need for custom applications.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ken Kutaragi: Our product is so good we want the whole industry to bend over backwards, kiss our ass, then take a good old anal reaming and for our customers to pay $600 for our product.
Slashdot: Arrogant asshole.
Steve Jobs: Our product is so good we want the whole industry to bend over backwards, kiss our ass, then take a good old anal reaming and for our customers to pay $600 for our product.
Slashdot: OMG!!1! you are such a massive visionary. please come here and ream me right now.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Regardless if the product is a stinker it will sell well, because its Apple.
The Cube?
Case closed, on your argument.
People buy Apple products when they work well. Over the past few years Apple has done a good job at producing products that work well for people. It's amazng how sales follow when you build something that works.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is it true that the iPhone will only have 1 button?
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Well, a 'good' user interface is very subjective, and even OSX has many carry over design flaws that were good in the 80s but are quite outdated today, yet Apple still sells the concepts as 'easy' or the 'best'. Take the Menu bar, and how many users just don't get the 'multi-application' usage concept because the flipping bar confuses them, so they close and flip between applications.
.03% of the whole phone market, but we are so uber cool because we know how to pair devices that no-one else matters and therefore do not exist"
Translation -" I know nothing about UI design, and are pleased to advertised the level of my ignorance."
You also seem to have left out Windows Mobile in your list of companies that you seem to think don't know how to make a user interface. People can hate Windows concepts and MS, sure, but MS spends a lot of money with real people to ensure their crap is easy to use.
Translaton - " I have no imaginaton that an interface could actually be better than Windows crammed into a tiny screen. "It was good enough for granpa, it's good enough for me!""
Oh, and Windows Mobile has been around for quite a while now, and with 6.0 pushes the envelope of mobile usage and connectivity far beyond anything Apple has promised for the iPhone.
Translation - "6.0 offers a lot of cool advanced features, which people have already been using for some time via third party add-ons because it takes so long for Microsoft to design a good UI. I will acknowledge Visual Voicemail as a cool feature when Microsoft supports it in Windows Mobile 9.0"
It is people like you that forget the rest of us have been using Windows Mobile and even Motorola 'user interfaces' on our phones for SEVERAL years, playing our music, using our bluetooth, playing our movies, and also accessing the internet at near DSL speeds, with the latter being something the iPhone can't even do.
Translation - "The "Rest of Us" is
If Apple is the God of user interfaces, then why do they continue to copy good ideas and try to promote them as their own, you know like the iPod?
Translation - "I did not realize the iPhone had a totally different interface than the iPhone, and to me multi-touch is what I do at home in bed with my Windows Mobile device".
If Apple is the God of user interfaces and that is what you see as them doing well, why don't they actually create a new user interface paradigm, yet the new concepts for UI come from the OSS world and even MS. Remember this the next time you drag and drop text in a document, MS did it first.
Translation - "I am annoyed that Apple not only copies UI elements but improves on them, so I will prtend they are UI pirates and bring nothing to the table."
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You mean like the ROKR? Apple fans are always quick to disavow that one as though Apple had never touched it.
Oh, Apple touched it - and found out what happens when you let tradition cell-phone design take place. Not even Apple can come up with a usable device through the process. This of course dispells the notion that people buy things just because APple is involved with them - people buy Apple devices when the work well, not when they suck.
Notice they were able to learn from thier mistake, which is what the article is really about.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It would have 12 buttons, and make phone calls... and would be waterproof, have a huge freakin battery, and survive a fall from a low flying airplane. Why are no companies making the kind of cell phone I want? No MP3 player, no alarm clock, no text messaging, but broadcast a signal strong enough to stop your grandpa's pace maker, and heavy enough to be used as a meelee weapon in a bar fight!
I want the civilian version of this:
http://home.att.net/~wd0giv/Phones/ta838.jpg
Another hint: most people know how to connect their phone to their PC. It's called mini USB. Know how I know they know how to do this? It's the same method as an iPod.
Yes, and how do you transfer files to it? Either you drag files manually into weirdly laid-out folders, or you have to use some kind of flaky, slow, ugly application the manufacturer had some moron throw together, with bitmapped graphics all over the place.
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Let me say this again - it doesn't matter that your phones could technically do everything the iPhone can. The point is that the iPhone will make it simple, straightforward and easy.
It's like you're saying that all cars are the same because they can all get you to your destination, will keep you hot or cold, and will let you play the radio. Never mind how fast they accelerate, what the fuel mileage is, how well the AC works, how good the speaker system is, how reliable it is. A Kia Rio and a BMW 335i _technically_ have many of the same features - why would anyone buy the BMW?
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Huh? Since when have we had an operating system with that type of functionality in that size of a package? The iPhone is NOT a cell phone. It is an operating system that includes cellular networks as a source for its network data requirements. The iPhone will host the first OS that places a brilliant interface on just another input/output stream called voice data. It's radical because Apple actually seems to be placing hardware innovation first. Your right, this tech has been around for years. Why is it that no tech company until now has bothered to try and do it right? They just do it well enough to get you to fork over your hard earned cash. Because of this we've spent the last few years with no innovation whatsoever. When companies place profit first and become monopolistic, they don't have to make anything better because they have already latched their parasitic teeth into your wallet. Now that Apple is in the game, they will HAVE to make their products better and cheaper, or Apple will put them out of business. Intel sat on it's ass until AMD started whipping them, now that they've seen the writing on the wall, we are back to getting some of the best processors ever out of them. The same thing will now happen to the cell phone business. If they don't get off their collective butts, Apple will run off with their cash cow. Just like the record companies, the cell networks are relics. It's about time somebody started taking advantage of, and making a profit out of, these outdated modes of business. Good for Apple. Good for us. Long live the new flesh.
Yes phones today come with lots of expansion capability - that only the most technical users make use of.
They also can sync via USB or even bluetooth to computers. Yet people hardly sync anything over this connection. The more advanced among us actually make use of address books and contact lists.
But wouldn't it be great if many more people could make use of a lot of storage and computer syncing through an interface they use today? iTunes phone syncing means that a lot more people will be able to access features that really only the most technically inclined people use today.
Now here's the real aspect of the phone that will propel popularity, yet is hardly mentioned - the dock. In a world rife with iPod friendly accessories, no one feature of the iPhone is quite as immediatleey useful as the standard iPod dock connector it sports. It will be able to charge in the car with chargers people already own. If that isn't a first for amobile phone, I don't know what is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Or you're a Verizon customer, you pay them 25 cents to put it on a web page, which you then screenscrape.
Ever heard of Fitt's Law? There's a very good reason for putting the menu bar at the top of the screen - it makes it much easier to 'hit' the menus with your mouse, because the mouse stops at the top of the screen. Compare this to windows, where you have to hit a target of about 20 pixels or so to select a menu. I suppose it might not be completely intuitive, but in the long term it is a much better solution. ...
That's why Vista's UI is so great, right? I've seen it on several machines now, and it's a freaking mess.
So if hitting the menu on an appliation is too hard and you need the edge of the screen to find it, then maybe you should try Vista, it is virtually menu free, a paradigm even easier than the dated menu concepts still in use on OSX. Or even really blow your mind, try Office 2007, again no menu and a nice large ribbon to find (that can auto-hide if it gets in your way). (And being Menu-free or using a Ribbon are neither MS nor Apple innovations.)
I can't believe you actually had the guts to defend the Apple menu bar that is carried over from 'UI Innovations' of 1983 in an argument about how Apple's UI is always better and 'more' innovative. Either it is guts or you just don't get it.
Did you completely miss my point? I realize that these things are all technically possible on Windows Mobile and Motorola devices - the point is that the interfaces are lousy. I guess it's a matter of opinion - but I know a lot of people share mine
I actually didn't. There are lot of people that actually do like the UIs on some of these devices and is also a reason for their success, even the Motoral Razr has nice easy interface with voice activated dialing that is a great selling point for users.
So Windows Mobile 6.0 is a lousy interface? That is YOUR opinion, and considering it hasn't even been released, I kind of doubt you have used it.
Even PalmOS has some 'innovative' ideas that made it a success and a success on Phones years ago.
Oh, and there is the fact people can develop applications for not only the dated PalmOS, but Windows Mobile and even JAVA or Brew applications for MOST phones, again something the iPhone won't be able to do.
Considering I have been using 3G and other high speed cellular techology from my phone for OVER 3 years now, it is frankly SCARY that Apple thinks its users will want to try to browse the web, download songs or do anything on their phone at barely better than dial up speeds.
So when you are using your shiny iPhone, and notice the guy in the corner of Starbucks watching TV or streaming a movie on their cellphone, don't be jealous. Just remind yourself that Apple is so innovative, they know better than the other companies and you can remind yourself you didn't want TV or Movies because Apple told you so.
So, that's the best Microsoft UI innovation you could think of?
Ya, that is only one I could think of, what a great counter-argument.
Oh wait there is also the concept of select and modify, so next time you highlight some text and then change the Font/Color/Size/etc, think of MS, again they did it first.
Do you think it is just possible that I might be using rather simplistic examples of 'innovative' concepts in UI usage that is littered THROUGHOUT any modern GUI based OS?
Geesh...
RIM, with their Blackberries, were really the first ones to not allow carriers to screw up their firmware. It's really quite trivial as a normal user to do pretty much whatever you want with a Blackberry (provided you have a data plan).
Did you actually understand the gist of the article, how difficult it is to get through the "orifices" to get to the customers? The carriers are (except Cingular when it came to Jobs apparently) in total control of the delivery system, and can demand anything they want from phone manufacturers.
Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. My point is that these assertions are total bullshit. I've been using unlocked phones on Cingular for many years, and I am using three different unlocked, fully programmable phones right now. Not only do they work on Cingular, they also work in other countries on other carriers with other SIM cards when I travel. And I can (and do) load many different applications on them. And when you buy a locked Cingular phone, you can easily have it unlocked.
I think Verizon and Sprint try to exercise more control, but it's not right to lump Cingular in there.
So, Jobs didn't free users from carrier control, he is trying to establish control over users, with a totally overpriced and feature-deprived phone.
Well golly gee willikers, don't buy one then!
I won't. And I'm trying to convince others not to buy the iPhone either, since I think Apple's behavior should be discouraged and punished by the market. Once they come out with an unlocked, programmable iPhone, then it's maybe worth looking at it again.
Yes, you can buy an unlocked phone, but you'd have to make sure it works with the carrier you'd want to use it on. This works best with GSM phones cause of the sim card (the carrier is not involved with you switching phones). However, non-gsm carriers have to be involved to activate your phone, and ones like Sprint won't turn on any phone that wasn't sold through them.
Also, unless you get an expensive pre-paid phone service, you are still stuck with a 2 year contract. And you don't get a discount on the contract if you bring your own phone, so you might as well get their "free" phone.