The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In • Hacker News Board

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#51

Post by alttab » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 11:42 PM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #15

novalis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd say it disrupted the computing industry by converging the cell phone and pc industry.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#52

Post by falling » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 11:43 PM UTC

matthew-wegner wrote: post #24

Regarding the original quote: They’ve launched an innovation that the existing players in the industry are heavily motivated to beat: It’s not [truly] disruptive. History speaks pretty loudly on that, that the probability of success is going to be limited. This could still very well be true. One possible 20-year-out future is that wearable computing has completely replaced handheld devices (or indeed most devices of…

If you pick a long enough time span everything is eventually transitional.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#53

Post by mitchty » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 11:55 PM UTC

mkaltenecker wrote: post #18

Androsynth wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly, we aren't rooting for football teams here, no need to act territorial.

In addition, its a factual reality that Android came out after the iPhone. That doesn't discount its contributions however, just puts into perspective its place in history.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#54

Post by mitchty » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 11:56 PM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #41

rythie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that they were not good enough for the task. For example I had several "smartphones" before my iPhone and really browsing the web was so much of a pain that, if you were near a computer, you'd turn it on wait 5 minutes for it to boot and still get your task done quicker than trying with your phone. In fact going home to check something on computer (or ringing someone up) was often preferable to using an…

Yeah. Web browsing on Windows Mobile was terrible. Only slightly better than WAP.

Especially with a stylus, /shudder, I don't miss that at all.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#55

Post by randomdata » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 11:57 PM UTC

tadfisher wrote: post #42

programminggeek wrote: post #10

The biggest disruption being that the phone, mp3 player, email, etc. were just "apps" and none was any more important than the others. So, instead of making a phone that is great for just one segment (see the ill fated ESPN phone), the phone is now a platform with personalized features for each user via apps and it's always on, always connected, always up to date. Funny enough, the web is being disrupted by smartphon…

I'd place less emphasis on "apps". Remember, the original iPhone was released with a total of zero third-party apps; all third-party content and functionality was delivered via the Web. The disruptive event was the sudden confluence of always-available data, a decent web browser, and an interface friendly enough to make use of it. "Apps" had been around for years on the "smartphones" of yesteryear, be it J2ME, Window…

all third-party content and functionality was delivered via the Web.

Or apps installed via jailbreak methods. My recollection of the time was that while the iPhone was certainly an interesting device, it was the third-party apps that made it a "must have" device.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#56

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 11:58 PM UTC

mitchty wrote: post #54

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Web browsing on Windows Mobile was terrible. Only slightly better than WAP.

Especially with a stylus, /shudder, I don't miss that at all.

To be fair, it isn't quite as bad as browsing on a feature phone with optical trackpad. Styli also have enough precision to avoid zooming in when clicking on links.

On the other hand, it's a dreadful browsing experience in practice.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#57

Post by rprasad » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 12:06 AM UTC

blubbix wrote: post #25

rprasad wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If so, why didn't Microsoft spend their money on marketing instead of replacing WM6?

Microsoft targets enterprise customers. Their customers are swayed by personal relationships, not television ads.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#58

Post by danilocampos » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 12:19 AM UTC

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 iPhone itself did not bring anything new except a slick interface coupled with multi-touch.

This is about as useful as saying "the space program brought nothing new except the ability to go to space."

> But the iPhone brought smartphones to the public's attention

Why?

Because the interface worked so much better than anything that came before it.

The market doesn't necessarily give points for trying. You win when you make something people want. People want things that work well. Until the iPhone, smartphones simply didn't.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#59

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 12:27 AM UTC

danilocampos wrote: post #58

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 iPhone itself did not bring anything new except a slick interface coupled with multi-touch. This is about as useful as saying "the space program brought nothing new except the ability to go to space." > But the iPhone brought smartphones to the public's attention Why ? Because the interface worked so much better than anything that came before it. The market doesn't necessarily give points for trying. You win wh…

>This is about as useful as saying "the space program brought nothing new except the ability to go to space."

But the point is that we had already, metaphorically, been to space. We just did it better this time and went to the moon, too.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#60

Post by vacri » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 1:36 AM UTC

spiralpolitik wrote: post #16

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 volu…

PCs last longer these days, are no longer subject to significant performance improvements every couple of years, aren't frequently lost or dropped/broken/stolen, and don't come on plans with carriers that have you in a constant upgrade cycle.