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

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#21

Post by samspot » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 9:59 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 just started reading The Master Switch over the weekend, and I think what the writer here is talking about is the potential to completely destroy the current PC industry, much in the way that the telephone destroyed telegrams.

Whether it has or not won't be obvious until much later. I'm not hoping it has happened, nor do I necessarily believe it has. But I think 30 years from now we might be reading about how this was the defining moment in the death of PCs.

This may be completely obvious to everyone here already, but it was a whole new line of thinking for me after reading a bit of that book.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#22

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:01 PM UTC

icarus_drowning wrote: post #19

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 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.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#23

Post by blubbix » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:11 PM 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.

Most people in the cell phone industry said the same thing five years ago.

But, having used both WM5/6 and Symbian, those phones weren't just less slick, they were nightmares to use compared to what we have today. It really was baby software.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#24

Post by matthew-wegner » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:12 PM UTC

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 any kind). The era of touchscreen smartphones will be looked back on fondly as a strange transitional blip.

Now, the likeliness of this scenario is a totally different discussion. But calling the game 5 years in feels a bit premature.

(Perhaps the massive wealth Apple has accumulated in the iPhone/iPad era will cement their ability to dominate all future tech. But maybe not, in a post-Jobs environment...)

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#25

Post by blubbix » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:13 PM UTC

rprasad wrote: post #20

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…

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

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#26

Post by look_lookatme » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:14 PM UTC

This last week I was re-reading what, for me as a 19 year kid, was a seminal article in understanding the power of the web and personal devices:

http://www.cs.umd.edu/~golbeck/LBSC690/SemanticWeb.html

Discounting the structured data bits (a lot to discount) it's amazing how close we are with tablets and Android/iPhones and Siri and Google Now. I fear the siloing of valuable data in apps, but I have to acknowledge that without the iPhone I don't think we'd be as far along as we are.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#27

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:15 PM UTC

blubbix wrote: post #23

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.

Most people in the cell phone industry said the same thing five years ago. But, having used both WM5/6 and Symbian, those phones weren't just less slick, they were nightmares to use compared to what we have today. It really was baby software.

It wasn't for everyone, that much is true. But I liked Windows Mobile on my iPAQ PDA (not a phone), it was fine for me. As a technical user I didn't mind the interface, it was familiar to some extent and had the complexity that I loved about Windows.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#28

Post by dannyr » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:16 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.

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.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#29

Post by olalonde » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:17 PM UTC

blubbix wrote: post #17

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?

Microsoft has redesigned Windows and lowered prices multiple times in the past, before the advent of the iPhone. I wouldn't call this a disruption. Furthermore, I would guess only extremely few people are choosing an iPhone rather than a laptop/desktop computer.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#30

Post by rythie » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:19 PM UTC

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…

Lots of business users only need smartphones or tablets day-to-day where previously they needed laptops, they don't want to carry a laptop all day and now make do on a smartphone so they do.

Given a limited budget I'd expect they'd choose an upgrade phone/tablet over a laptop that they rarely use and is most likely locked down by IT anyway.

At home, I've seen people who have a desktop and laptop - when they get a phone and tablet, they stop using the laptop.