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Newton's Ghost Haunts Apple's iPhone
PetManimal writes "David Haskin has looked back at why the Newton failed in the early PDA market, and warns that Apple may be setting itself up for a similar failure with the iPhone. The iPhone shares with the Newton a hefty starting price, and Joe Public may not be so keen on the cost, as recent survey data suggests. Moreover, the iPhone will have to deal with two additional factors that were not issues for the Newton: Competition, and wireless service providers: 'Besides overcharging for iPhone, Apple faces significant competition, something it didn't face in 1993 when it launched Newton. And you can bet that competition from the likes of Samsung and LG will both be good (although probably not as good as iPhone) and most assuredly cheaper... I'm more convinced than ever that, after an initial frenzy of publicity and sales to early adopters, iPhone sales will be unspectacular. If Apple doesn't respond quickly by lowering the price and making nice to AT&T..., iPhone may well become Apple's next Newton.'"
They've got it completely wrong about competition. In this case, it's better that they have competition than not.
With the Newton, it was an entirely new device, so it was that much more difficult to spur adoption. Whereas now, everyone knows what a cellphone is, so they can look at the iPhone and just say, "That's like my phone, only better."
They did the exact same thing with the iPod. Digital music players weren't new when the iPod came out, it was just the first of it's kind in terms of design and functionality. Suddenly everyone said, "THAT'S the digital music player I wanted to buy." I suspect the same thing will happen with the iPhone.
I don't care about the price, if I wanted one price would not have been my determining factor. It probably kills its for some others. One thing I didn't consider earlier is the number of people I know who won't get one because its too big. Its the old idea of, its a phone, if I wanted a pc I would get one.
The killer problem with the iPhone in my book, and it seems to get knocks from others I know as well, is the fact it doesn't have a battery you can changeout on the fly. I travel, and I don't always have access to a power outlet. Worse, the iPhone is designed to do things other than just being a phone, hence I will need to use it more often. So, whats with this fixed battery?
boneheaded.
Then again Apple is about looks more than anything in their consumer side. There are a few bright ideas in their PC group that seriously need to come over to the iPod/iPhone side.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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All of these were the 'next' newton at one point or another. I can't stress enough, that apple has a habit of picking markets where the higher price point is not well established and dominating that sector. Simply opining that because the iPhone will cost a significant amount more than a vanilla cell phone as an alternative, therefore it will be rejected by the populace is ahistorical and ridiculous. The iPhone is not going to cure cancer, it is not going to revolutionize the cell phone market, but I will be the farm that it will sell 10M units within a year, at least.
The armchair economists hard at work here seem to forget that apple (until recently) has made a business of selling branded, exclusive products at a hefty premium. To own a mac you had to be willing to part with more than a few hundred extra dollars, but for whatever reason, it was worth it. Whatever that reason may be: actual performance gains, better UI, susceptability to the RDF, who cares. It doesn't matter if 10M customers take leave of their senses and buy a 600 dollar phone with a cingular contract because of apple branding and market power or if they do so because it is a fundamentally better option. Either way, we are looking at a repeat of apple's succesful past history.
FTA:
Umm, if Apple does have hubris, it's just giving back the same hubris that the wireless carriers have been throwing around for years.
Exactly. The Newton was the first kid on the block, so it took competition a couple of years to appear, identify the flaws in the Newton, and beat it. That's the opposite of Apple: the smart phone market has been around for a few years, and Apple has identified the flaws in the existing offerings, and will beat them. It's like the iPod: hardly the first MP3 player, and certainly not the cheapest, but undoubtably the most succesful.
Probably the same kind of people who already spend $700+ on a so-called "smart phone" that does less, is harder to use, and looks less fashionable than the iPhone. And it doesn't really matter: if it makes a profit for Apple, then it's a good thing.
It's simple personal economics: if you don't want it, don't buy it.
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I'm always puzzled by the oceans of ink wasted on speculations like this one. Obviously some people (presumably many at Apple) expect the iPhone to succeed and some expect it to fail. Some will be wrong and some will be right. I'm not sure what the point of articles like this is, unless it is an effort by those who would benefit by an iPhone failure to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, a negative buzz as it were.
"Apple doesn't have an unblemished record when it comes to introducing innovative new devices?" Well, big whoop. Neither does Microsoft (remember Microsoft Bob?), IBM (remember the four-inch floppy? No? Thought you didn't), whatever.
Innovation is always risky. And success or failure can turn on a hair. If a few breaks had gone Apple's way the Newton might have succeeded. Conversely, a few turns in the other direction and the Mac might have failed (anyone remember just how bleak things looked in late 1985?)
I still love Steve Jobs for saying that "the killer app for cell phones is making calls." Maybe that's just a slick Steve Jobs talking point... or maybe Apple's iPhone team believes it to the core, and they've made something that'sreally good for making calls. With all his blathering of whether it's innovative or not, and whether it's overpriced or not, David Haskins never addresses the question of how good it is for making calls.
People happily buy "overpriced" iPods because they're really good for listening to music. If it turns out that the average cell-phone user thinks iPhones are really good for making calls it will succeed. But we won't know that until a lot of iPhones are in the flesh-and-blood sweaty greasy hands of a lot of real customers.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Apple is great at taking an existing product or set of technologies and figuring out how to make it "just work" in a way that's intuitive and easy. You'll pay for the convenience but for an increasing number of consumers it's worth it. I have full confidence that the iPhone will be more of the same.
I used to think Apple produced nothing but overpriced junk but that was primarily because my previous exposure to their products occurred in the 90's. Then several years ago when iTunes for Windows hit I was tired of managing my music collection in other programs and looking for an easier way so I gave it a shot after hearing rave reviews from Mac users and it was such an improvement over the other software I was using that I uninstalled the other programs immediately. iTunes worked so well that I decided to go for an iPod and it was (and still is) hands down the best MP3 player I've every owned. I gave the iTMS a try and the iPod / iTunes / iTMS combination worked so well together that when the Mac Mini was announced I decided to bite the bullet and try a Mac. I liked it so much I upgraded to an iMac within 6 months and have just convinced my boss to split the cost of a MacBook Pro for use at the office and when I'm on the road. I couldn't be happier after making the switch. I've got to deal with Windows based PC's all day at work and when I get home at night I want something that will just work.
I'm starting to feel the same way about cell phones. I'm tired of all of the crap you have to put up with. I got an LG phone for Christmas and it's the best cell phone that I've ever owned but that's not saying much. My cell phone has an mp3 player, but of course you can't use the mp3s as ring tones and the user interface absolutely sucks. It's got the best built in web browser of any cell phone I've used, but it still can't display half of the web sites I try to visit properly. Admittedly it handles web sties designed for mobile browser well, but often times I need to visit a site that hasn't been designed for mobile browsers. It's supposed to work with any Micro SD trans flash stick so I purchased a 2 GB stick and, of course, it doesn't work. A little research on the Internet revealed that even though they claim any chip will work just about no one can get the 2 GB stick working. I've had enough. I want a cell phone / mp3 player combo that just works. I want to be able to easily manage my music on the phone, I want to be able to easily find the tracks I want to play, I want to be able to use any thing on the mp3 player as a ring tone. I don't want to worry about buying the wrong kind of flash memory. I want my contacts and calender to sync with my computer easily, I want a web browser that won't mangle most regular web pages. Visual voice mail will be a handy feature and the integration with Google maps looks pretty awesome as well. In short, I want something that just works. I realize that other phones will be cheaper and may have more features but I don't care. A phone can have all of the features in the world but if they are poorly implemented and/or the UI sucks what's the point? I don't have time to fiddle with crap all day long. Life's to short. I want something that will just work and I'm willing to pay for it.
I'll skip the first generation to give Apple a chance to work the kinks out and to further improve the product but as soon as the second generation of the iPhone ships I'm buying one. I'll be ready for a new phone by then and I'll be happy to shell out $500 dollars if I know that at the end of the day I'll have a cellphone that does what I need it to do and "just works". If the iPhone lasts half as long as my and holds up half as well as my 3G iPod has then it will have been well worth the money.
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Well, this is a mercifully short rant at least. Too bad it's totally disconnected and the points are each (separately) developed poorly. If his main point is really what it seems to be (that is, that Apple is making the same mistakes with iPhone as it did with Newton) then here's what I see wrong with it:
1)He compares the pricing of the two devices...but seems only to go as far as saying they both cost "too much." He doesn't seem to put together the fact that the Newton's $700 1993 price tag was almost exactly twice as expensive as the iPhone: $999.48 inflation adjusted. And that's for a much less capable device, with an untested interface that didn't work well.
2)He notes the real reasons why the Newton failed (large size, bad handwriting recognition, completely new product category), but doesn't attempt to claim that these will be problems for the iPhone. They won't, so he simply ignores them.
3)Evidently he considers competition to be a problem that the iPhone has in common with the Newton. This after he notes that the Newton was the first device of its kind, and therefore had absolutely no competition. Strong competition may or may not be problematic for the iPhone, but it certainly won't be a parallel to the Newton.
4)He totally misrepresents the only evidence he cites. Specifically, the study on how many people would buy at what prices. His link says "miniscule number." Yet the survey itself says 26% of respondents said they would be likely to buy it, and 1% of those would buy it at the launch price. Insofar as Apple itself has set a goal of only 1% market share, being able to sell a quarter of that volume for the launch price sounds extremely encouraging to me...imagine if a quarter of Sony's target market had thrown down $600 for a PS3. Also, the study makes specific note of the fact that they don't expect the price to stay that high; business as usual in the cell-phone world, but totally ignored by this author.
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"History does not repeat itself, except in the minds of those who do not know history" - Kahlil Gibran
I have my doubts too about the iPhone. The MP2000 cost $1000 in 1996. Not only was this a severe psychological threshold (adding an extra digit), but in current, 2007 dollars that is 2.5x as much as the iPhone. The base iPhone is under a psychological threshold (500), and in real terms much cheaper than the MP2000.
It's also simply not true that the Newton didn't have competition. In the same year that Apple introduced the 2000, the first MP that worked really well, Palm introduced the Pilot, which had a radically different view of a PDA. It didn't even recognize ordinary handwriting -- it didn't have the horsepower. But even though users had to learn graffitti, it got the most important thing right: form factor. A PDA must be something you don't mind carrying.
Finally -- and this is huge difference -- the MessagePad was a platform. You could buy it for its address list and notepad, but given the size of the box, you could just as practically use a paper planner. What it needed for success was developers and applications that would go beyond the paper planner, and which would integrate with the user's information infrastructure. As clunky as Palms HotSync architecture is, the Newton Connection manager was clunkier still. I worked with developers of Newton apps trying to convince them to work on streamlining the process of moving data back and forth to databases, but truth be told the Newton, without a built in network, wasn't a very attractive platform for this.
The iPhone is not a platform. It's a gadget. It could be a platform, but Apple has closed it. Personally, I think this is more draconian than necessary, but it makes Apple's intention clear: users will buy this thing for what's built in. It's a converged device for the uses which, after a decade of mobile technology, have been proven attractive to consumers.
There may be some wisdom here. I was in the computer store the other day to get a cable for my PDA, and I was shocked that the PDA display had shrunk from several counters of PDAs to a two shelves only eighteen inches wide, tucked under a counter. One shelf was for Palms and the other for Pocket PCs. All the space that used to be taken up by PDAs, and then some, was taken up by accessories for iPods. So why fight it? Why invite retailers to set it up next to a pocket PC phone, when you already have a category all to yourself?
Altogether, we're talking about a different scenario with the iPhone. The Newton was trying to create a new category of products, the iPhone is trying to muscle in on an existing category. It's risky, but if it fails, it won't be parallel to the Newton at all. Sure, you can always say if a device was cheaper, it would sell more. That doesn't explain anything at all. But if the Newton had been half the price, it probably would not have succeeded in the long run because it was too big for what it was immediately useful, too poorly connected for what it could have been useful for.
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The iphone shuffle. It has no screen and only has one button, when pressed calls one of your contacts at random. If you really want to call some one specific, keep calling until they answer he phone, or conversely only store one contact.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Your post was good until the last line. I hate to mention it once again to somebody else but, Steve Jobs did say in the Keynote that they will make a 3G version. I'm speaking under the assumption that nearly everybody on Slashdot watched the keynote or heard this fact spew from SJ's mouth from somebody else. If you didn't watch the keynote, then now you know. A 3G version is coming, Steve said so.
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