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The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

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Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#11

Post by olalonde »

> What’s happened over the last five years shows not that Apple disrupted the phone handset industry, but rather that Apple destroyed the handset industry — by disrupting the computer industry.

That's a bit of a stretch. There is still a large difference between an iPhone and a desktop/laptop computer from a user point of view. I'd be very surprised if smartphone sales had any noticeable influence on computer sales (in the developed world). The traditional computer industry doesn't seem to have been much impacted by the iPhone and I can't see by what definition of disruption it was disrupted... Sensationalism is probably good for pageviews.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#12

Post by novalis »

olalonde wrote: post #11

> What’s happened over the last five years shows not that Apple disrupted the phone handset industry, but rather that Apple destroyed the handset industry — by disrupting the computer industry . That's a bit of a stretch. There is still a large difference between an iPhone and a desktop/laptop computer from a user point of view. I'd be very surprised if smartphone sales had any noticeable influence on computer sales…

Well, that site is a notorious pro apple source so I don't see how they could have come to a diff pov on the smartphone disruption success story that is the iphone. The narrative is at the point of the post-pc world now, let us see how the masses react to these fantastic news.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#13

Post by falling »

mindstab wrote: post #3

Yes. It's the iPhone disruption... That over half the market there that's android? Doesn't count cus they entered later (well they were working on it before but launched later) and therefore nothing they contributed counts. Yes clearly "All of this, because of the iPhone."

I think you are not very clear on the meaning of the word disrupt:

interrupt (an event, activity, or process) by causing a disturbance or problem: a rail strike that could disrupt both passenger and freight service.

a disruptive product is a product that breaks with what was before and changes the course of its class of products.

It relates to market share only insofar that it needs enough share of its market to make an impact on it, which is not necessarily a majority.

Now, I think it’s a bit silly trying to say that mobile phones/smartphones/pocketable computers didn’t change after the introduction of the iPhone (see also link below by alanh: http://www.tekgadg.com/storage/Android_before_after_iphone_t..., or check how many phones with and without keys are available today, or the success of the “app store” model).

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#14

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

The iPhone itself did not bring anything new except a slick interface coupled with multi-touch. We already had powerful smartphones, for example ones running Microsoft's Windows Mobile.

But the iPhone brought smartphones to the public's attention, and the iPhone later brought the App Store.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#15

Post by olalonde »

novalis wrote: post #12
olalonde wrote: post #11

> What’s happened over the last five years shows not that Apple disrupted the phone handset industry, but rather that Apple destroyed the handset industry — by disrupting the computer industry . That's a bit of a stretch. There is still a large difference between an iPhone and a desktop/laptop computer from a user point of view. I'd be very surprised if smartphone sales had any noticeable influence on computer sales…

Well, that site is a notorious pro apple source so I don't see how they could have come to a diff pov on the smartphone disruption success story that is the iphone. The narrative is at the point of the post-pc world now, let us see how the masses react to these fantastic news.

I totally agree that the iPhone disrupted the cell phone industry. Where I disagree is that it disrupted the PC industry as well. It might have influenced the industry to some degree but it definitely didn't "disrupt" it.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#16

Post by spiralpolitik »

olalonde wrote: post #11

> What’s happened over the last five years shows not that Apple disrupted the phone handset industry, but rather that Apple destroyed the handset industry — by disrupting the computer industry . That's a bit of a stretch. There is still a large difference between an iPhone and a desktop/laptop computer from a user point of view. I'd be very surprised if smartphone sales had any noticeable influence on computer sales…

Given that smartphone sales passed PC sales as of 2011 in a sense it did disrupt the computer industry as the focus of innovation is now in the smartphone/tablet space rather than the desktop and server space.

I do think however that saying that it destroyed the handset market is a bit much. The iPhone totally disrupted the embryonic smartphone market but the dumb phone market is still going fairly strong (if in volume rather than profit). The last numbers I saw had a 5:1 ratio between dumb and smartphone sales so there is still a ways to go yet.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#17

Post by blubbix »

olalonde wrote: post #11

> What’s happened over the last five years shows not that Apple disrupted the phone handset industry, but rather that Apple destroyed the handset industry — by disrupting the computer industry . That's a bit of a stretch. There is still a large difference between an iPhone and a desktop/laptop computer from a user point of view. I'd be very surprised if smartphone sales had any noticeable influence on computer sales…

Microsoft is betting their future on a redesigned Windows with an unprecedented upgrade price of $39, and just pissed off their hardware vendors by launching their own PC devices.

And you don't think the PC industry is being disrupted?

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#18

Post by mkaltenecker »

Androsynth wrote: post #8
mkaltenecker wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone very clearly disrupted the market for mobile phones. Whether or not someone else had the same idea at the same time (but couldn’t bring a disruptive product to the market) doesn’t really matter. Current market shares don’t really matter. This Android defensiveness is getting on my nerves. Worse than rabid Apple fanboys in the 90s.

imo, the android defensiveness stems from the rabid Apple fanboys of the past ~5 years (eg daring fireball).

My advice is to not be so sensitive. Android is very successful. There is no need to jump in loudly screaming whenever someone mentions Apple or the iPhone.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#19

Post by icarus_drowning »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #14

The iPhone itself did not bring anything new except a slick interface coupled with multi-touch. We already had powerful smartphones, for example ones running Microsoft's Windows Mobile. But the iPhone brought smartphones to the public's attention, and the iPhone later brought the App Store.

The "slick interface" is, I think, the entire genius of the iPhone (especially when compared to its competition). Sure the functions of the iPhone were all (mostly) present in competing devices when it launched, but it was hard(er) to leverage them on Windows Mobile or Blackberry because the interface wasn't nearly as polished and easy to use. (If you doubt that statement, try using a web browser on a 2007-era Blackberry. Even today, with much more of the internet being "mobile aware", the experience is so awful it is almost disingenuous to say that those devices can browse the internet at all).

Simply put, it was very much the "slick interface" that "brought smartphones to the public's attention", and ultimately, illustrated how powerful having a pocket computer really is.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#20

Post by rprasad »

mindstab wrote: post #3

Yes. It's the iPhone disruption... That over half the market there that's android? Doesn't count cus they entered later (well they were working on it before but launched later) and therefore nothing they contributed counts. Yes clearly "All of this, because of the iPhone."

Apple's disruption is not the hardware, the software, or the integration of the two.

Apple's disruption is spending several hundreds of billions of dollars on marketing to tell people what they could do with the hardware and software.

Androids, Windows Mobile, Blackberry could do everything the iPhone could do, and usually faster, cheaper, and better. But they never told anyone how to do all the cool stuff, or even that the cool stuff was possible. Which is a shame, because most people actually credit Apple with inventing the smartphone, more than a decade after smartphones hit the market.

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