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The Perfect Phone Storm?
peter deacon writes "Is the iPhone the next Segway, the next Zune, or the next iPod? The Perfect Storm offers some iPhone details that aren't secrets, but tend to be lost upon the analysts and journalists cranking out hit pieces on the iPhone. Why is everyone from Gartner to Gizmodo calling for a boycott of the iPhone? An interesting take on how Apple's new mobile phone will push to open up the web as a mobile platform for every mobile device on the market with a standards-based browser, and how Apple 'hacked the hackers' by releasing Safari for Windows in advance of its new phone."
Ask yourself, with a 5 year head start, why are "smartphones" still only "Geek" toys? Why aren't they good enough for everybody? Apple is trying to get it's 10% of the market by bringing NEW users into smartphones!!
The biggest problem with smartphones and the iPhone is size. If you aren't carrying a bag or wearing cargo pants, they just don't fit. Going out dancing or bar hopping with a Treo clipped to your hip just looks stupid. If they really want to revolutionize phones, every iPhone needs to come with an iPhone-nano that rings at the same phone number.
We are all just people.
I don't know why everyone's getting so hyped up over a small part of the iPhone. I know I want one because a) it syncs with iCal and addressbook and b) it has good chances to being the first ever actually useable smartphone. I've looked all over the market about a year ago, and to be honest, every smartphone sucks, just each one in different ways. From what I've seen, the iPhone has the lowest "suck factor" by far, and a couple really nice features. I don't think the web-browsing will clock in a considerable part of the time you spend with your phone for most people.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"The iPhone is nothing special."
Really? I watched the original demo back in January, and after that I knew how to use it. I'd never held one in my hand, but if you gave me an iPhone I bet I could get all the stuff to work in a couple of minutes without using a manual.
Contrast that with my Samsung WinMobile smartphone. The manual for that is about half an inch thick (I still can't remember how to do some of the things on it). The software that is bundled has inconsistent interfaces. Nothing seems to work in a predictable way on it and the touchscreen is tiny, requires a crap stylus, has buttons all over it, and looks like ass. And, although it was a free gift from my employer, it costs more than the iPhone.
The iPhone is the original Macintosh of smartphones. The only difference is that you don't have to keep swapping disks out of it, but most people would think that a good thing.
The iPhone is going to be a massive success because a lot of people would like the functionality of a smartphone, but have been put off by the poor usability of previous efforts.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
While I also think Apple has focused a lot recently on the iPhone (for good reason), they did update their Mac Pro line recently. Furthermore, if you notice on sites like http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/, every long drought has brought about a significant update. New enclosures, processor generation jumps (i.e. G4 to G5).
l e_snatches_14_percent_of_may_notebook_sales.html Apple notebooks updates come out about the same time as other PC manufacturers (in terms of shipping actual product and not just announcing).
I would be more concerned if there wasn't a notebook update. Desktops are "dying" so to speak for consumers which is where Apple targets. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/06/22/app
This push for the iPhone will in fact help Mac users and possibly standards users. If the iPhone is very successful, Safari / web standards compatibility will be a requirement. I don't have to keep wondering when the top hit list will ever change over (http://webkit.org/projects/compat/hitlist.html). More services will open up for the Mac; for instance, push IMAP instead of proprietary Blackberry protocols may become standard which would allow desktop apps to take advantage of. Better synchronization support for OS X. H.264 may become a "de facto" standard which would stop the Windows Media only sites I keep encountering. There are many reasons for you to care about the iPhone as a Mac users that aren't directly related to the phone.
People who just tend to focus on Mac OS X are missing the bigger picture. I may not get an iPhone but I understand and do care about its success. And its coattails may not be limited to just Apple. Everyone benefits from a more open and standards based web. It might just take an iPhone like phenomenon (or hype machine) to nudge webmasters and other parties in the right direction.
I assure you that the author of the article does indeed have a positive outlook on the iPhone. That is obvious from the context, so the bias can be evaluated by anyone reading it. The article does not pretend to be a blandly objective Wikipedia article, or a "should I buy one" review. Instead, it is quite obviously providing an opinion on the market and how the iPhone works within Apple's strategies, and how so much of the negative information about it is based on people grasping for straws or otherwise providing biased information, except that they are not clearly presenting it as delivered with a bias.
Bias is not a problem if you recognize it. You can learn about the viewpoints of even unreasonable extremists by reading what they write, and knowing that they are extreme in their opinions, you can evaluate how much of what they say you can agree with. Bias is only a problem with unreasonable people present biased information as if it is neutral and conveying no hidden agenda. Such as when CNN says the war in Iraq is going well. They should be providing an unbiased report of the facts, not presenting PR as news. When you watch a show that presents a clear and obvious political agenda, you are hearing opinions, not news. One can not have an unbiased opinion. Bias is expressing an opinion.
Still, nowhere does the article insist that people should buy an iPhone, although it certainly does provide reasons why IT users should question what you refer to as "analysts wishes." Really, it asks, why do these analysts wish this stuff? Why are they expressing their wishes that the iPhone be banned? Is there bias involved?
I should also assure you that the author of the article has experience in administrating Exchange 2003 and in using it with Windows Mobile phones, and that the comments made were made in relation to actual support issues.
The points you outline as important to IT are certainly worth mentioning. Some of them Apple addresses, and some of them are outside of the currently demonstrated feature set. For example, it appears that the iPhone won't edit Excel docs, although it can view them. Will Google Sheets serve this need? How many people will this really affect? Is this something that will expand in the future?
Certainly, the iPhone isn't going to satisfy 100% of the market. Apple generally targets 80% of the needs of the market. The iPod has no built in radio for example. If you really want a radio, you can buy an add on. If you really want a music player with a built in radio, you have to buy one from somebody else. That has not resulted in too many lost sales.
The iPhone will also not work for everyone. I was speaking at Lawrence Livermore Labs, where phones brought on site can't have cameras. They also can't emit radio in the form of bluetooth, WiFi or even cellular. Obviously, Apple would be stymied to develop a version of the iPhone that would work there, because it would be impossible. So LLL falls outside of places where Apple can sell iPhones. That's a pretty small portion of the market however.
I know so much about the article and its author because I wrote it.
Hi and thanks and yes I am Dan.
I can think of features I'd like to see too, and can imagineeer video conferencing and free VoIP over WiFi. And what about voice recognition and voice synthesis and voice mail trees and an iTunes store client... The thing is that many of these things are either engineering problems or have to wait because Apple has finite resources.
I'd rather get an iPhone now and watch it improve as Apple releases software updates for it that wait for it to be released until it could serve any need anyone could imagine. A general purpose computer would quickly turn into the Newton, which was ~$900. It lacked a clear obvious use, and only offered the potential to do a lot of things that its relatively small user base could not actually support.
The iPhone is already so much better than my Treo or the WM phones I've looked at, even the high end Nokia phones -- for what I want to do with a mobile. If it gets a market base similar to the iPod's, it will result in a vibrant platform that will have to deliver demanded features. It will create a vacuum for development. That won't detract from people who want something else. There will always be a market for N95s or WinCE phones tied into Microsoft's server and VB environment, and Treos... well not Treos, I think this will kill Palm.
That's what I see: no reason for threat. The only thing Apple can do to rivals is raise the bar, forcing them to compete and push the envelope themselves. That's why I don't understand all the hate and try to deflate it with some reality.
It's a lot like the Mac: the only thing Apple has done to the PC is to help push standards like USB, push tight integration, and push innovative features. PC users benefit from Apple being around, even if they never choose to buy anything from it. I think choice is good, and that innovation needs to be welcomed, not scorned. The mobile business is tragically boring, and the iPhone will help shake things up. I think the engineering decisions Apple is making are all pretty smart, and I like to describe why. If that makes me a "fanboy," well then yipee, I don't mind. As you've probably noticed, I have my own detractors, and I've learned to deal with it. I just like to write.