The only mistake of this man is that he didn't account for the reality distortion field.
Why the iPhone will fail (2007)
41–50 of 93 posts
Re: Why the iPhone will fail (2007)
#42There's a pretty big mistake in his logic, even without the benefit of hindsight.
The iPhone didn't have to be as easy to use as an iPod. It's competing against other phones, and only needed to be easier to use than those.
(In any case, I do find an iPhone easier to use than an iPod.)
Re: Why the iPhone will fail (2007)
#43His logic for why people bought the iPod is flawed since he doesn't back it up with any evidence. I don't think iTunes had as much of an impact as he says, most people imported the majority of their collection from CDs in the early days of the iPod or downloaded it illegally which had nothing to do with iTunes. Also Apple was making the smallest harddisk MP3 player with the longest battery life for a few years and that's why I bought one (2nd gen, Feb. 2003) and later recommended it to others. I don't think the ease of loading the iPod was any better than other players in the early days, since flash based MP3 players were as easy or easier since you could just drag the files on or just their own simple tools. In fact to this day iTunes seems to hated by a large pencentage of my friends with iPods (who mostly use Windows BTW)
He also makes the mistake that the iPhone would be about music even though it was clealy a step backwards in terms of the capicity (4 and 8gb) and the controls as he points out. It was clearly designed for the Internet, Apps/games and video - though that is easier to see in hindsight.
Re: Why the iPhone will fail (2007)
#44This guy's first point is so shitty that you can discard the rest of the article based on it ALONE:
> First, the iPhone ignores the main reasons that the iPod succeeded: simplicity and ease of use. The iPod is very easy to play and very easy to load, much more so than any other device had ever been. Even more important, the online ITunes store made buying music much simpler and easier than it had been. You didn’t have to drive to the store, you didn’t have to even wait for the UPS man to deliver a CD from amazon. You could listen to the whole song before you bought it, not just a small clip. And you could buy individual songs that you liked instead of having to buy a whole CD of mediocre gunk to get those one or two good songs. (There hasn’t been a packaged album side worth listening to the whole thing in order since Abbey Road.) You didn't have to carry the CDs around with you and change them and worry about losing them. The iPod was a success not because it made complex and sophisticated things possible, but because it made simple things (listening to the music that you liked) simpler and easier than they ever had been before. The iPhone is doing the opposite.
I have highlighted the only section in which he lists complaints against the iPhone with respect to simplicity and ease of use.
Re: Why the iPhone will fail (2007)
#45This guy falls into the same trap a lot of UX designers do: He takes a good rule (keep it simple) and extrapolates too far in his conclusion. He assumes an average user isn't smart enough to grasp multi-function devices and multitasking. That said I don't blame him for his third point. I think a lot of people (myself included) were suprised at how little tactile feedback is missed on the iPhone.
It's not missed primarily because there's perfect visual feedback – when you scroll, the screen scrolls immediately (even if you reached the edge, it still scrolls a bit), when you type you see the letters popping up exactly at the point you're looking at, etc.
Re: Why the iPhone will fail (2007)
#46http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Why+the+iPhone+will+fail%2...
Just one in 103,000
Re: Why the iPhone will fail (2007)
#47>As I expound in great detail in my book Why Software Sucks (Addison-Wesley, 2006, http://www.whysoftwaresucks.com/ ) your user is not you. Seems that the author was really looking for a promotion vehicle for his book and looked to take a big product launch like the iphone and use it to his advantage. Everyone that bought the book based on this ridiculous article should get their money back like everyone that bought…
A minor point - it's Milli Vanilli (although mini vanilli sounds interesting) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli_Vanilli
Re: Why the iPhone will fail (2007)
#48This guy falls into the same trap a lot of UX designers do: He takes a good rule (keep it simple) and extrapolates too far in his conclusion. He assumes an average user isn't smart enough to grasp multi-function devices and multitasking. That said I don't blame him for his third point. I think a lot of people (myself included) were suprised at how little tactile feedback is missed on the iPhone.
It's not missed primarily because there's perfect visual feedback – when you scroll, the screen scrolls immediately (even if you reached the edge, it still scrolls a bit), when you type you see the letters popping up exactly at the point you're looking at, etc.
Exactly. My iPad hung a little yesterday and didn't do anything when I hit a button. I had, in fact, pressed the button, but there was no visual feedback. It's startling when it's not perfect, but when it works just so it doesn't really matter that it's not tactile feedback, it's that your brain gets the message that "yes, I just did x-action"
Re: Why the iPhone will fail (2007)
#49Success == Mass delusions in a walled garden.
Re: Why the iPhone will fail (2007)
#50The iPhone won't really fail, but it sure the heck won't hold the lead. It is impossible for 1 new apphole model a year to compete against dozens of new android models. Windows became #1 because of the shear numbers of different hardware models that were being released.