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The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

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Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#61

Post by greedo »

rprasad wrote: post #57
blubbix wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ha. Yes Microsoft targets enterprise customers. By purchasing tons of print ads in PC Magazine etc. Take a look at the SG&A for both companies and you'll see that for a company that doesn't manufacture many tangible goods (the xbox is a blip on the radar compared to Apple's manufacturing) sure spends a lot of money, much of it on advertising:

http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/sga_expense#series=type:co...

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#62

Post by mattgreenrocks »

flatline3 wrote: post #36
dannyr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your advice works for the Apple fanboys too. IPhone is very successful as much, if not, more than Android. It's interesting though that it was Apple dissing Google in its WWDC keynote (how its latest OS is in most phones unlike Android's). Google, unlike last year, didn't diss Apple at all at Google I/O.

Can we just not do this? I already lived through the "MACS SUX PCS ROOL" 90s, and I don't really want to deal with the modern Android vs. iOS incarnation. Next, someone will be saying "right tool for the job", a Linux desktop guy will pop in to say "you're both wrong!", some benevolent Windows user will pipe in with "Macs are mostly good for design." I can't remember what gamers would say, but it was probably somethi…

But how will they feel Right On The Internet with that sort of perspective?

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#63

Post by chrisdroukas »

vacri wrote: post #60
spiralpolitik wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

True, but those points don't yield the PC an inherently superior computer from a utility standpoint.

Despite what you've said, non-PC devices are for core tasks (email, web browsing, messaging, etc.,) a highly-refined, elegant and convenient experience for many end users. Given a person who uses their computer almost entirely for the tasks I've mentioned (and there are plenty of this type of user), would it not be right to recommend them an iPad or other tablet?

What, exactly, would that user be gaining from a full-fledged desktop or notebook PC? That question is getting increasingly difficult to answer.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#64

Post by untog »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #59
danilocampos wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think a better metaphor is that we'd already been to space, but this time we let everyone do it, not just astronauts (i.e. the technically inclined)

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#65

Post by tjogin »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #22
icarus_drowning wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Blackb…

True. But the iPhone was far from the first in its category. You might say, however, it was the first good device in its category.

It's more important to be good than to be first. Otherwise Microsoft would be the king of tablets right now.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#66

Post by tjogin »

Tichy wrote: post #43
programminggeek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Android certainly hopped on, but most of the basic innovations and vision came from the iPhone and Android took them and did their own thing with them. They copied. Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Dell, HP, etc. all have taken turns copying their peers at something. Good for them, it is the right decision. Otherwise, Android would have turned out a lot more like the Microsoft Kin.

I'd say Palm were really the first to provide a usable pocket computer. iPhone did not come out of nowhere.

Being first is about as useful as saying "first!" and there is zero value in "coming out of nowhere". What matters is creating something great.

The iPhone turned the industry on its head. Palm did not.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#67

Post by olalonde »

chrisdroukas wrote: post #63
vacri wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

True, but those points don't yield the PC an inherently superior computer from a utility standpoint. Despite what you've said, non-PC devices are for core tasks (email, web browsing, messaging, etc.,) a highly-refined, elegant and convenient experience for many end users. Given a person who uses their computer almost entirely for the tasks I've mentioned (and there are plenty of this type of user), would it not be ri…

A hardware keyboard.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#68

Post by unconed »

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.

This is a complete fallacy and ignores everything inside.

The iPhone wasn't just the hardware—though it was very good for what it did, with e.g. Android taking 3 years to match the multi-touch or accelerometer sensor quality even on their flagship phones.

What made the iPhone shine was the software, where they took the mature base and frameworks of OS X and used them to power a phone. While competing smartphones were still running on underpowered embedded kernels, iOS was supremely modern, fully threaded, with full separation between CPU and GPU, needed for that butter smooth response. And on top of that were frameworks for image/media processing, vector/PDF rendering, a mobile GPU-accelerated version of WebKit, etc. All the stuff that powers QuickTime, iTunes, iLife, was all there, and in non-neutered, slightly modernized form.

Thanks to this, Apple could nail both the feature set and performance of their built-in apps, and it opened the door for the app store to explode with innovation. The difference between a good UI and a bad one isn't a skin, it's how responsive everything is and how easy it is to do sophisticated things. It's a camera app that starts up instantly, a photo gallery that can generate and load thumbnails without lag or hitches, a built-in search engine that is fast and language-aware, ...

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#69

Post by moron »

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…

> the web is being disrupted by smartphone apps

What does this mean? Christensen has a specific definition in mind when he uses the word "disrupt" (which definition is being used in the linked article), and I can't see how it fits into this sentence.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#70

Post by Tichy »

tjogin wrote: post #66
Tichy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say Palm were really the first to provide a usable pocket computer. iPhone did not come out of nowhere.

Being first is about as useful as saying "first!" and there is zero value in "coming out of nowhere". What matters is creating something great. The iPhone turned the industry on its head. Palm did not.

Most useless discussion ever. But still, how do you define "turned the industry on it's head"? By the amount of money that is made in a market segment? I developed mobile apps long before the iPhone existed. I still get requests for web development.
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