Back then you could use what phones were available from your carrier. There was no such thing as BYOD. You had to have the carrier support the Apple device and that was only possible through the AT&T deal. Without that deal the iPhone would have died a quick death as it wouldn't be usable.
Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly (2006)
81–90 of 93 posts
Re: Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly (2006)
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
The early iPhone sucked in ways similar to how the early iPod sucked, and was received with similar reactions. In both cases, the folks who predicted failure focused too much on the technical deficiencies of the V1 product and not enough on the game-changing difference in approach. In the iPhone’s case that meant betting fully on a multitouch screen with a rich, smoothly animated GUI, and wresting software control aw…
Are you trying to argue with me as a proxy for the linked article? I didn't write it, and I didn't say any of that stuff you seem to be responding to. I'm explaining why it wasn't seen as a paradigm shift at the time, and that its dominance evolved over time (which is hardly surprising). Hyperbolizing history is generally a bad idea. The iPhone, as released, was a very mixed product.
I disagree with exactly that: I watched the intro live as someone in the industry (so it isn't "history" to me), and I and many others, including Andy Rubin [0], definitely saw it as a paradigm shift at the time, for the two reasons I stated. BTW, it was also a common belief in the industry that the emphasis on web applications was basically a smokescreen, because the SDK was not ready and Steve didn't want to focus attention on something that didn't exist yet.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2013/12/20/5229618/android-started-...
Re: Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly (2006)
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Jobs clearly wasn't resistant to app stores. He literally had one in the works when the product shipped. This is a myth. Jobs was genuinely against a native SDK and made the final decision to go for it on the 2nd of October 2007. Then Apple had to rush out the first version of the iPhoneOS SDK in just over three months. This is documented in contemporaneous emails produced during discovery for the Epic trial. https…
> It’s been 15% for years. The only people who pay 30% are people who earn more than a million dollars a year through the App Store. Almost everybody pays 15%. Right. And by the same logic Amazon makes exactly zero revenue from AWS, which is completely free for "almost everybody". You knew what I meant.
HN discussion quality check:
Jobs clearly wasn't resistant to app stores.
> Wrong, here's receipts.
30%!
> Wrong, 15% unless you're a whale.
Don't argue. Just read my mind through the screen, you already agree with everything I said.
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I don't get a dopamine hit from threads like this, they drain me. The opposing side gets a dopamine hit, reputation be damned.
I wish everyone would broaden their media sources as well as treasure history more (myself included.) I do appreciate flippant vs. philosophical exchanges like these to sift the comments for nuanced truths.
Re: Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly (2006)
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember 2 audience reactions really, really clearly from the original iPhone launch: 1. the reactions to "flick to scroll". 2. reaction to pinch-to-zoom. In both cases the audience was just gobsmacked: oohs, ahs and cheers all around. For people saying there were other devices out there at the time with similar or better hardware specs, or even comparable feature sets, I think you are totally missing the point. Th…
Yes, there were already phones with touchscreens before the iPhone, but they were all using a stylus, which seemed a better choice than a finger at the time, since they were more precise. But after the iPhone came out, it quickly became obvious how much better it was to use a screen with a finger with multi-touch than with a stylus. Steve or whoever made the decisions about the iPhone obviously knew very well what th…
> Yes, there were already phones
> with touchscreens before the iPhone,
> but they were all using a stylus
The LG Prada was the first capacitive touchscreen phone and was on sale before the iPhone. Technically its specs were underwhelming, but it was the pioneer of finger-UI.
Re: Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly (2006)
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the problem with being an established market leader. You're so terrified of blowing up your own market that you're afraid to disrupt with innovation.
This is the topic of the famous book “The Innovator’s Dilemma” (one of the three or four business books actually worth reading, and unfortunately also the source of the overused word “disruption” in business)
Could you by any chance list the other books?
Just finished reading The Innovator's Dilemma. Phenomenal read.
Re: Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly (2006)
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the topic of the famous book “The Innovator’s Dilemma” (one of the three or four business books actually worth reading, and unfortunately also the source of the overused word “disruption” in business)
Could you by any chance list the other books? Just finished reading The Innovator's Dilemma. Phenomenal read.
Two other important ones for entrepreneurs:
- “Crossing the Chasm” in the end this book is really just a single drawing, but the text explains the problem: why early traction not only doesn’t imply future growth, but if misunderstood, can kill any future growth. Also very important for investors and people at big companies.
- I really like the underrated “Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation” by Utterback. It’s kind of a complement to the other two, full of amazing market hacks to get a new product established.
For example, 120 years ago, electric companies would put on demo sessions for the public, so the gas companies would send people with metal bars in their sleeves to short out the electrical systems (in a cloud of sparks of course!). So Edison (IIRC) got the clever idea to run the electric wiring through the gas conduit, both “for safety” and to take the gas out of service.
We often don’t understand what the true characteristics and affordances of a new technology are — and neither do the customers. That’s what this book is about.
Re: Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly (2006)
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you by any chance list the other books? Just finished reading The Innovator's Dilemma. Phenomenal read.
Two other important ones for entrepreneurs: - “Crossing the Chasm” in the end this book is really just a single drawing, but the text explains the problem: why early traction not only doesn’t imply future growth, but if misunderstood, can kill any future growth. Also very important for investors and people at big companies. - I really like the underrated “Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation” by Utterback. It’s kind…
Thank you for the recommendation.
I got into a rut in terms of just doing programming and reading technical content about a year ago. So, I started reading from a list of books mentioned in various HN posts.
As I slowly make my way through the list, I feel both like an idiot for not having read these books earlier, and at the same time thoroughly happy that there are such beautiful concepts out there to learn that's not just programming or systems design.
Hadn't heard about the Utterback one! Seems like it would be right up my alley.
Re: Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly (2006)
#88Read the article before jumping into roasting. The author is NOT criticizing iPhone - he's skeptical simply because, at the time, network operators dictated which manufacturers enter the mobile phone market or not. It was a highly controlled market, and Apple not only had to build a great phone, but also had to punch through that stupid business barrier. In the end, Apple did make it.
Of course I'm writing this with the benefit of hindsight, but it's still an interesting position to read. They could make almost exactly the same claim for iTunes - that it's really not viable because you have no leverage over the incumbent publishers - that they're making for network operators.
And I really don't think this is a bad comparison, given that in 2006, iTunes is still very much fresh in the mind.
Re: Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly (2006)
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read up on handspring. Their phone was the full modern smartphone years before the iphone. They're the ones who met with Larry Page and got him to make a mobile version of Google.com. Jobs met with handspring back when apple was focused on the mac PC. Jobs stood up at the whiteboard and drew a mac with all the aspects of a person's life around it. Handspring's CEO or CTO stood up and drew a handspring phone and all t…
> When apple went to the telcos all jobs had to do was ask "do you want access to our millions of ipod users?" and he got his way That's actually not true, all of the telcos rejected the pitch except AT&T. There was considerable risk in it from their perspective, because Apple wanted total control over the user experience: no carrier logos on the handset, no carrier logos in the operating system, no preinstalled carr…
Total control like that wouldn't have been possible with any telcos without several million existing customers to back apple up.
Re: Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly (2006)
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's only partly true. He said: > As customers start to realise that the competition offers better functionality at a lower price, by negotiating a better subsidy, sales will stagnate. After a year a new version will be launched, but it will lack the innovation of the first and quickly vanish.
I like the line after that where he wonders if the failure of the iPhone will take the iPod down with it. It's funny that the rampant success of the iPhone is actually what killed the iPod.
That I've always found interesting - a proper "skate to where the puck is going to be" moment.
There was a good few years there where everyone was looking for the "iPod-killer". There's even a chance the Zune would have got there, except by time they got close .. that's not where the puck was.
But I always found it interesting that after all that search for the "iPod-killer", none was ever crowned - instead the entire market just slipped silently into the night.