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The Economist on Apple, the iPhone, and Innovation
portscan writes "This week's Economist has a special report on Apple, Inc. and innovation. 'The fourth lesson from Apple is to "fail wisely". The Macintosh was born from the wreckage of the Lisa, an earlier product that flopped; the iPhone is a response to the failure of Apple's original music phone, produced in conjunction with Motorola. Both times, Apple learned from its mistakes and tried again. Its recent computers have been based on technology developed at NeXT, a company Mr Jobs set up in the 1980s that appeared to have failed and was then acquired by Apple. The wider lesson is not to stigmatize failure but to tolerate it and learn from it: Europe's inability to create a rival to Silicon Valley owes much to its tougher bankruptcy laws.' There is also an article on the business of the iPhone and the future of the company. "
Any of you posters who dismiss and disparage the iPhone's chances of success would still be impressed if one of your friends had one. You'd think he/she had something going on, maybe that they were affluent and stylish, maybe that they were lucky to be able to play with one, maybe that it reflected badly on your own utilitarian tastes, home-built computers, t-shirt wardrobes, and dorm-room outlook on life.
If you don't wear the likes of Armani and Rolex and think you never will, or if your car is generic and that's good enough for you, and if your diet consists of a lot of fast food, and if you are basically an ordinary person, then the concept of a luxury item may be something you don't truly understand. You might think of it as a needless or ostentatious ploy to gain status, whereas in reality a good segment of the population considers such things to be affordable and desirable on merit alone.
"It costs too much" says a lot about priorities. The fact is, the iPhone is a great piece of technology, and if they were free, everyone would want one. (But some people would complain about any price.)