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iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

networkworld.com

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Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#21

Post by bhauer »

Rygian wrote: post #7

Reads as the same level of naïveté as the intertwined trends of "Tesla will go bankrupt" and "Tesla killer EV unveils soon" articles in the past years.

Incredible but true. In fact, many comments on this thread could apply to that context as well. For example:

> On paper, the incumbent mega corporations [legacy ICE manufacturers] should have been able to come up with an iPhone killer [a Tesla killer] quickly, considering the resources available to them... What they missed was the inertia and the lack of agility in these big companies. They kept insisting on their current plans until it was too late.

As we know, the theoretical ability of the incumbents to fiercely respond has been imagined every year since 2012, and yet the legacies are still struggling.

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#22

Post by readyplayernull »

m348e912 wrote: post #4

Makes you wonder if there should be professional repercussions for being so wrong. Does credibility or accuracy with assessments and predictions even matter? Other notable examples are Jim Cramer, who seems to be more wrong than right on stock and company analysis but still gets paid handsomely by CNBC. Or Paul Krugman who said the Internet's Effect on the World Economy Would Be 'No Greater Than the Fax Machine's. Kr…

> who seems to be more wrong than righ

Just invert their output and you will have some good predictors.

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#23

Post by toast0 »

kedikedi wrote: post #2

Very interesting article to read after 15 years and it seems to have aged like milk so to speak :) I think the main thing is that the author approaches the problem very logically (just comparing features) yet the users don't follow their logic. While I agree that windows mobile 8 was brilliant*, smartphone domain suffers horribly from network effect. Windows phone came too late into the game and couldn't move quick e…

> I missed out on windows mobile 7 which is the one this article mentions but I used windows mobile 6 and windows phone 8. Windows phone 8 was heavily inspired by windows mobile 7 aesthetics so I think they are comparable in ux.

UX wise, 8 was a lot like 7. 8 added a few UX features, but the big differences were tecnical: NT kernel vs wince, which allowed for dual and quad core phones, which made background execution better, although it was highly restricted by policy; a new application framework for better or worse (a staple of the windows phone era), etc.

I'll leave out the rant about what Microsoft did wrong with the platform. I will note though, that the fact is iPhone only dominates the market in a handful of countries; Android dominates worldwide, but clearly Apple is fine with the status quo, because they haven't tried to approach the low cost market at all.

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#24

Post by matwood »

mrtksn wrote: post #10

All these “iPhone is doomed” folks had good arguments, the original iPhone was a flawed device. On paper, the incumbent mega corporations should have been able to come up with an iPhone killer quickly, considering the resources available to them. What they missed was the inertia and the lack of agility in these big companies. They kept insisting on their current plans until it was too late. Only Google was capable of…

> the original iPhone was a flawed device

It was clear to me when I got the original iPhone that it changed everything going forward. It had flaws, but it was easy to see past them as technology improved.

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#25

Post by jimbob45 »

mrtksn wrote: post #10

All these “iPhone is doomed” folks had good arguments, the original iPhone was a flawed device. On paper, the incumbent mega corporations should have been able to come up with an iPhone killer quickly, considering the resources available to them. What they missed was the inertia and the lack of agility in these big companies. They kept insisting on their current plans until it was too late. Only Google was capable of…

Apple might have genuinely murdered the entire market if they hadn’t insisted on their ridiculous exclusivity plan with AT&T. Whichever Apple exec greenlit that must surely have been an industrial saboteur because it saved 5+ other companies from ruin.

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#26

Post by wtallis »

mrtksn wrote: post #10

All these “iPhone is doomed” folks had good arguments, the original iPhone was a flawed device. On paper, the incumbent mega corporations should have been able to come up with an iPhone killer quickly, considering the resources available to them. What they missed was the inertia and the lack of agility in these big companies. They kept insisting on their current plans until it was too late. Only Google was capable of…

I think this article also was making an assumption that the iPhone was a once-off product rather than just the 1.0 of an ongoing program. The challenge for Microsoft and all the other incumbents wasn't to catch up to the original iPhone, but to overtake the trajectory of the iPhone product line.

It also missed the ramifications of the smartphone industry being in an exponential growth phase at the time: being able to upgrade existing phone hardware to Windows Phone 7 and work around the missing sensors needed for the new features was not a competitive advantage. It was Microsoft wasting developer effort for the sake of hardware that would rapidly (within a year or two) decline to a trivial fraction of their install base.

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#27

Post by mrtksn »

matwood wrote: post #24
mrtksn wrote: post #10

All these “iPhone is doomed” folks had good arguments, the original iPhone was a flawed device. On paper, the incumbent mega corporations should have been able to come up with an iPhone killer quickly, considering the resources available to them. What they missed was the inertia and the lack of agility in these big companies. They kept insisting on their current plans until it was too late. Only Google was capable of…

> the original iPhone was a flawed device It was clear to me when I got the original iPhone that it changed everything going forward. It had flaws, but it was easy to see past them as technology improved.

Same. The moment you held it and unlock it you can tell that this is the future. It was flawed in some ways but it got so many things so right that it felt like from a different era.

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#28

Post by simonh »

mrtksn wrote: post #10

All these “iPhone is doomed” folks had good arguments, the original iPhone was a flawed device. On paper, the incumbent mega corporations should have been able to come up with an iPhone killer quickly, considering the resources available to them. What they missed was the inertia and the lack of agility in these big companies. They kept insisting on their current plans until it was too late. Only Google was capable of…

One thing they missed was the importance of two things. A full 32 bit pre-emptive multitasking workstation class operating system with a full TCP/IP networking stack under the hood. Combined with a desktop class object oriented GUI application framework, of course tailored to a small screen touch interface.

These are not visible features of the device. You can’t tell just by looking at it or even using it, except that they enable a fluidity and consistency in performance and functionality. It also provides a sold foundation of back end operating system services, made available as a solid platform to developers.

Google was incredibly lucky because their under development Blackberry clone happened to be based on a Linux kernel, using a custom Java engine. This gave them all the same core advantages to build from. A workstation class OS, pre emptive multi tasking, full TCP/IP, solid back end system services and a desktop class object oriented application stack.

On top of that, Apple maintained absolute focus and discipline in building the user experience. The many different interaction modes the author was so impressed by in WP7 were all possible on the iPhone, it had all those capabilities. Apple just composed the interactions into a much more coherent and approachable interface. Again, discipline and focus.

Eventually yes, Microsoft came up with a really decent phone OS, but that was around 2011. Way too late. iPhone and Android were already far too established with deep and wide ecosystems of peripherals, applications and services.

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#29

Post by wtallis »

jimbob45 wrote: post #25
mrtksn wrote: post #10

All these “iPhone is doomed” folks had good arguments, the original iPhone was a flawed device. On paper, the incumbent mega corporations should have been able to come up with an iPhone killer quickly, considering the resources available to them. What they missed was the inertia and the lack of agility in these big companies. They kept insisting on their current plans until it was too late. Only Google was capable of…

Apple might have genuinely murdered the entire market if they hadn’t insisted on their ridiculous exclusivity plan with AT&T. Whichever Apple exec greenlit that must surely have been an industrial saboteur because it saved 5+ other companies from ruin.

Was Apple insisting on exclusivity with Cingular/AT&T, or was that just the only carrier that would cede control over the phone's software to Apple?

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#30

Post by [deleted] »

matwood wrote: post #24
mrtksn wrote: post #10

All these “iPhone is doomed” folks had good arguments, the original iPhone was a flawed device. On paper, the incumbent mega corporations should have been able to come up with an iPhone killer quickly, considering the resources available to them. What they missed was the inertia and the lack of agility in these big companies. They kept insisting on their current plans until it was too late. Only Google was capable of…

> the original iPhone was a flawed device It was clear to me when I got the original iPhone that it changed everything going forward. It had flaws, but it was easy to see past them as technology improved.

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