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Dvorak to Apple - Stop The iPhone
eldavojohn writes "John Dvorak is advising Apple to cease all efforts on the iPhone, citing the mobile handset business as a 'buzz saw waiting to chop up newbies.' With Apple's image as a 'hot company that can do no wrong' on the line, Dvorak warns that the extremely fad-prone marketplace for cell phones will quickly turn the 'hot' iPhone passe'. Unless the company has several new models in the pipeline to release after the original offering, he says, they're likely to fail. 'If it's smart it will call the iPhone a "reference design" and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else's marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures.'"
Seriously, there's nothing to see here. Move along. Dvorak has known for decades that Apple users are protective of the Apple name and products. So he regularly goes about trying to get those users worked up. He even admits it here! Rather than giving him the satisfaction of getting you worked up again, why don't you try ignoring him for a change?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I think the biggest stumbling block for the iPhone is going to be the fact that it's not a 3G phone at a time when the trend is going toward 3G phones. Cingular is even giving 3G phones away free, now...
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
I wasn't sure how the iPhone would fare, but now that Dvorak is against it - I can rest assured it will be a success.
The phone has GPS. The GPS continually updates every minute and stores in cache on phone. Every so many hours, its uploaded to your home account so you can review where you were the days before. It also has a 1 touch blog. You can then record voice/text/pictures/video to your site and it will be formatted nicely. You can let family members or friends view this website. It would be a living diary for you, and would take no effort. Just 1 button and all the complex web work is done automatically. Hey and if someone wants to implement this, maybe you can hire me :)
God spoke to me.
Oh, wait. JOHN Dvorak? Nevermind.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
1) Say something braindead and contrarian about Apple
2) Get it posted on slashdot to flame contreversy
3) Get eyeballs on published work
4) Profit
Without John, how would I know what's not going to happen in the future?
Dvorak must need to bump up his pages hits to have money to go on vacation
Also consider dropping OSX. We're all using OS/2 now.
And I thought the iPhone was gonna be a flop... but now that John Dvorak says so, I *must* be wrong.
The man is a giant windbag of nerd conspiracy theories and technical misunderstanding. Why do the slashdot eds. slurp up all of his moonshot predictions?
My bicyles
Unless the company has several new models in the pipeline to release after the original offering, he says, they're likely to fail.
Good thing Apple is already working hard to make sure the iPhone is laughably obsolete upon release.
Okay, so a philosopher, a philologist, and a philatelist walk into a bar...
Namely nine out of every ten Apple devotees who love their Macs and have loved them for years.
Oh, and probably 3 out of ten iPod owners who think it would be cool to have their iPod and phone all in one.
And then there are the people who just have to have latest gadget.
Let's see, that adds up to...Dvorak being wrong again and again and again.
I'm not a Mac devotee, but even I can see that the iPhone has "cool" written all over it. People love having the hot new thing. The Razr is one example in the phone industry. The Prius is another in the auto industry. Hell, I even want an iPhone and I'm still using a cell-phone about the size of a brick. I think it was invented in 1983. I already own an iPod, but I want the iPhone too.
Remember, Dvorak prefers incendiary commentary over researched ideas.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Who else would post a Dvorak troll to the front page? What a waste.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
Unless Slashot is adopting the Dvorak page-hit-generation-model by posting intentionally inflammatory references to intentionally inflammatory articles.
Obviously every other comment is calling Dvorak an idiot. But I'd like to point out what specifically makes him wrong in this case. Apple has the rare ability to define a market. The mp3 player market, while small, existed before Apple's entry. Now many people call it "the iPod market". Apple basically defined the personal computer and helped spawn the market.
Apple has the brand recognition and design abilities to redefine the mobile phone market. Dvorak's assumption is that nothing every changes. But he forgets that Apple often seems to know what people want before they even know they want it.
Developers: We can use your help.
Article by John Dvorak
(-99,000) Troll
cat
It's a good thing Dvorak is an intelligent, experienced businessman who has himself run a highly successful, multi-billion dollar company similar to Apple, and not just some blabbering wash-up with a column.
Apple has never been afraid to enter a competitive market... in fact I think they purposely identify markets where innovation seems to have slowed and bring a product that shows the competition where they failed.
I am confident that the iPhone will be a success. Apple has been VERY good at seeing it's niche and developing the ideal product to fill that void. Once they have filled the niche, they are even better at attracting users who don't NEED the product by showing them a clean, functional, and enjoyable user experience that isn't offered by the competitors.
I am slowly becoming an Apple fanboy, and I hate to admit that. But when I compare their competitors products, I can rarely find a single one that so thoroughly meets it's customers expectations. Sure there are better music players than the iPod, better computers than the Mac, better STB's than the AppleTV, better media management apps than iTunes, and so on... but find one company that produces these products in such a way that they work as well together.
My family has recently become a Mac family, and I will get and iPhone for my wife and I because my experiences with other smart phones have all been mediocre at best, and I imagine that the iPhone will "just work" with my Mac. I could make anything work, given enough time, but the griping my wife will do when it doesn't "just work" isn't worth the cost savings. So I'll happily over pay for the iPhone.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
Wow, that's powerful advice. Apple is going to jump on this, and fast. I'm pressing refresh on Slashdot so I can be the first to read the next TFA linking to the Apple press release. I can see it now: Despite much work on our iPhone during the past five years, including Mac OS re-engineering and hardware design efforts, and despite notable interest on the part of the public, and despite our investments in marketing the product, and in licensing the iPhone's innovative multi-touch interface, and despite and our legally binding exclusive contract with AT&T Wireless, not to mention our legal agreements with Cisco, and despite ... oh why go on? Suffice to say we're canning it.
I can't understand why Apple haven't hired him yet. I mean, does there exist anyone that can beat his predictions, except perhaps Nostradamus?
Had the major companies listened to everything Dvorak says, they would have been rich by now!
"Just pack it full of features" is a very easy and lazy way to define products. Add too much detail and you gunk up the UI. It is way harder and more important to figure out what to leave out to make it easier to use and "cleaner" for the target user base. There are huge numbers of features that could have been added to ipod, but some of its appeal comes from relative simplicity.
iPhone does not need huge numbers of features to be successful. So long as it does the functions that the target audience expects, it should do well.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Why, John! I didn't know you posted on Slashdot!
Suddenly it all makes sense. All the trolls, the bad arguments, the poor attempts at putting Apple down. It was you the whole time, wasn't it? Oh John, you're such a kidder!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The cell phone market is filled with phones that are difficult to use, unstable, and generally crap.
I have a Motorola Q and it SUCKS. Sure, it hooks up to exchange, and it is nice and small, but battery life sucks, voice recognition sucks, and it crashes more than Eddie Griffin driving an Enzo.
I can't tell you how many times I've looked at phone interfaces from LG, Samsung, Motorola and Nokia and thought the designers were all on crack.
Apple NEEDS to show the world how to make a phone. God help us if they don't.
-ted
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Apple may have lucked out with the iPod - let's face it, any new product launch is a gamble, especially into a product for which you have no previous background.
I have to think though that trying to break into the already pretty mature cel phone market is an entirely different thing.
The market for iPods was largely wide open - most people who bought were moving over from CD or cassette players, and represented a pretty much untapped population.
The iPhone though will have to convince existing cel phone owners to change hardware, and in some case change service providers. That's a much tougher sell, especially when you're charging up front for a phone when most providers offer a phone for "free."
If I were marketing this thing I'd sell it as an upgrade for existing iPod owners, a newer better iPod that just happens to also include a phone.
Three Squirrels
Ya know, like how the iPod was going to destroy the prestine image of Apple back in 2001? What a fucking idiot this guy always seems to be. Sure the iPhone isn't going to break any records out of the gate, but its something to grow on. It's the way things have to work: the first adopters are always going to be techies, who want the most features possible... this subsidizes the marketing of lower-end models which target the mainstream consumer. It's a good business strategy when trying to bring out a new type of gadget.
The Zune failed because it tried to copy something that was already on the market, but started with the high end. The opposite would have been better, here, they should have started with really low-end models and worked their way up, because Microsoft wasn't really aiming to establish a new kind of device. The iPhone, on the other hand, is really pushing to try and bring a fairly unique kind of device into the mainstream market place, so they have to start at the top.
There's a reason Dvorak never gets hired for consulting work, he has no idea what goes into a good business strategy. I don't know why we even post his fluff on here any more. I say slashdot just ignore him from now on, and he'll eventually go away.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Having read the article (omg, ban him from slashdot!), I will give Dvorak this: the cell phone market is nothing like the mp3 market that Apple helped to create. The situations are very different, so you can't expect a success like the ipod. Of course, you almost never get successes like the ipod in business, so that really isn't saying much.
-Jeff
P.S. The rest of what he said regarding fashion, etc, I have no idea. Personally I think price tag, batteries, memory, calling plan, and the 3G aspect will tell the tale more than fashion. So JD and I may come to the same conclusion, but from completely different logic chains.
Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
According to this blog, Azerbaijan is actually a good place to get an iPod, compared to the surrounding countries.
He did say one truth which is that the cell phone business is a buzz saw. It is unknown at this time whether "Apple cool" will be enough. There are a lot of players in the market already, and some very good players that know the market. Apple managed to beat the odds with the iPod, whether or not it will with the iPhone remains a big maybe. The other truth he touched on is that people who follow "cool" are notoriously fickle.
I won't even try to argue that Apple *doesn't* have a percentage of customers who will "buy anything they build". Of course they do. But show me ONE successful company who doesn't! As both a Mac and a PC user myself, I find this accusation really tiresome. I know people who will only buy Ford cars and trucks, refusing to even look at what else is out there. I know people who have all Maytag branded appliances, again, just because of their belief that the company can "do no wrong" compared to the competition.
I think, in reality, *most* people you see who own multiple Apple products do so because they were impressed with the first one, and saw the benefits of owning hardware that inter-operates well. (The "bonjour" sharing capabilities of OS X on a LAN can't be fully realized if you only own one OS X based Mac, for example.)
And in fact, Mac fans seem to be quite preoccupied with building and arguing over lists of the "top 10" or "top 20" worst Apple products of all time. Even the biggest Mac zealots will usually admit that Apple's Performa 6x00 line in the 90's was garbage, for example.
Hmmm. Since it seems that you keep reading them and posting comments in them, it doesn't seem likely that they'll stop, now does it?
My blog
man I hate the modern mobile phones.
I would like to have a phone with large buttons, these can be either raised or sunken buttons, but I want to feel them, I want tactile response, a 'click' sort of feeling. I want to be able to push them without looking, so I want a large enough phone to put these large enough buttons. I want the phone to be made of metal, something that needs a screwdriver to be taken appart, I want it to be waterproof. Better yet it should be able to float, but that's asking too much for something made of metal. In any case I want to be able to drop the f.cking thing into a bucket full of soap water, pull it out after 3 hours and still be able to use it without any problems. I want this phone to have a nice screw on clip, which won't break off. I want this phone to have a power socket, that doesn't break after 3 weeks of use. Not like those f.cking Motorolla power sockets that are completely useless garbage. I want a power socket that can be closed (waterproof, remember?) and the kind that doesn't break even if the power cord is shoved in sideways (well, if there is an attempt, anyway.) I want the battery to last for a month (too much to ask,) ok, if it lasts for 5 days without recharging that would already be a miracle. I want the reception on this phone to be exceptional. I don't want this phone to do anything fancy. I don't want a camera or an mp3 player. However an AM radio would be awesomely appreciated. Not the useless FM radio, but the useful AM, that's where all the best talk shows are in Toronto. I don't want any musical cacophony as a ring tone, I don't care, but a single purpose rotary volume control would be freaking awesome, with a single purpose VERY HARD TO PUSH, BUT A LARGE button to switch from Loud to Soft to Vibrate and back.
I do not mind paying up to $300 for a phone like that. If it has an AM radio, 350. If it has a built in GPS receiver then 500.
No cameras, no mp3s, no fancy programming except for very basic features. I want a freaking phone that works and cannot be easily destroyed. It has to be a quad band so I can take it with me anywhere, and it has to have a detachable SIM card (f.ck you, Telus.)
I can't get anything like this, I may just build my own.
You can't handle the truth.
I think the iPhone has potential. As a device, it's extremely well-designed. The multitouch interface is certainly something new and could redefine the way people interact with mobile devices. They've clearly put a lot of top-of-the-line hardware into it; the demo Jobs gave of things like Cover Flow on the iTunes portion of it is proof enough of that, and every smartphone -- or product that pretends to be a smartphone, anyway -- should have 802.11 these days.
:)
As a product, ehhhh. Who are they selling to? Certainly not Joe Consumer -- who has $499 to throw away on a 4GB iPod, even if it also happens to be a cellphone and web browser? For $499, I want a device that matches up to what the iPhone ACTUALLY is -- a handheld OS X device. But no, Apple had to go and lock the machine down and give a bunch of phony excuses for it, when all it really comes down to is "Jobs wants to be emperor of 'his' product." So all of the potential that it had as a handheld OS X machine -- the potential that they actually touted with all of the talk about it "running OS X" and "having Cocoa" -- will go to waste. No GNU tools. No open-source software. Bah.
OK, maybe we agree more than disagree.
+++ATH0
I got suckered with the RAZR, and you're dead right - it sucks. It's worse than any phone I've owned. But I'm saving my money for an iphone for that very reason. Yes, you heard me right - I'm saving my money for an iphone because the RAZR and every other cell phone I've had since the nokia something-circa-1998 has sucked big time.
The iphone was built by people that think current cell phones suck in both design and function (if I remember it right, Jobs himself started this crusade for a usable cell phone after some lousy offering with motorola in '05?). Apple built the iphone without the input of the cell phone companies, and as I understand it, in some cases, in spite of them - verizon dumped it because apple wouldn't use verizon's web browser (or some such quibble) - that really had nothing to do with the device itself. Verizon and every other phone company wanted to tack their own little piece of crapware to the device, and apple said no. Oh thank GOD.
APPLE built a *phone* from the hardware to the software, without the 'help' or input from the very same companies that have flooded the market with cool LOOKING garbage like the RAZR. I've never owned a mac, but from what I understand they're pretty good at the whole 'designed' for people thing. I own an ipod (hate itunes, but love the device), and I'm happy to bet $600 that I'll be using an iphone for the next 5 years.
Of course... if it sucks too, I'm just going back to screaming really loud. Or maybe just suck it up and get a land line.
In any event, I think he's wrong on all counts simply because the iPhone doesn't represent a dead end for Apple even if the iPhone product itself fails. Eventually, Apple will want advanced touchscreen products, MacOS X running on very small low-powered systems, cellular internet access, and so forth and so on built into its products. iPhone may not be The Killer Product, but each of the technologies in it is core to Apple and important in the long term.
Strategically, the iPhone represents:
* Gee doesn't shipping the first consumer digital cameras count as a new product Mr. Dvorak?
But, the margins are very slim, the phone is kinda big and fragile in comparison to a flip-phone (big screen, like the PSP.. with a very shiny surface) and expensive as all hell.
The thing is that was overlooked is that thin margins are exactly what make the phone industry vulnerable. They have all been competing on no margin forever squeezing device functionality to come cheap as possible.
Now here comes Apple, who knows margins very well - and prefers large ones thank you very much. So they reject the whole exiting phone model, and build a really nice phone that does cost more but also gives Apple great margins.
So now people start buying them, and because margins are good Apple is able to come out with more models and make improvements. The iPod is not a fad phone because it represents something different in the mobile market, an attempt to build a nice phone without worries about margins squeezing them to death. Even if a phone is expensive you only pay for it once, and if it works well then the cost is worth it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My electric tooth brush is water proof and does not have a power socket It couples magnetically the a charger with a coil of wire. This is how all cell phones should work.
NT