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

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#31

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

By the way, I highly recommend Clayton Christensen's book The Innovator's Dilemma, which was mentioned in the article. If I ruled the world I'd decree that no-one was allowed to allowed to apply the word "disrupt" to technology or business without reading the guy who actually defined the term in the first place.

It seems lots of commentors here could use a primer: a disruptive innovation is usually cheap, considered as "worse" by existing customers, and enters the market at the low-end. But it serves a new market who have different needs to the existing customers. Over time the disruptive innovation gets better until eventually it replaces the original. Classic example: PCs and mainframes.

(Note: technically the disruptive innovation doesn't have to be cheaper. It's just better on metrics the new market cares about but the existing market doesn't. Often that's price, but not always.)

http://i.saac.me/post/startup-related-words-youre-probably-u...

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#32

Post by pinaceae » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:20 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…

utter nonsense. rather than regurgitating the same old facts to dispute you, i'll just hope you work for one of my competitors.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#33

Post by flatline3 » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:20 PM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #29

blubbix wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Microsoft redesigned Windows around tablet interfaces and launched their own ARM hardware to run it.

How much does it take before you'll call it a disruption?

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#34

Post by dannyr » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:20 PM UTC

alanh wrote: post #4

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."

Look at Android before and after the iPhone was announced: http://www.tekgadg.com/storage/Android_before_after_iphone_t... Gruber & his audience know (believe? Is there doubt?) that.

Are you claiming that Apple was not inspired by any previous device for the IPhone?

There were a bunch of full-screen touch devices way before the IPhone.

What about the Mac UI? If not for Xerox, it would have been completely different.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#35

Post by bluthru » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:22 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…

Oh, here it is. The inevitable "Apple is only successful because of marketing" comment.

Have you even used a mobile web browser before the iPhone?

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#36

Post by flatline3 » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:27 PM UTC

dannyr wrote: post #28

mkaltenecker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 something equally inane.

To this I all say: No. Stop. There is nothing interesting here to say. We've done this before, and it had more to do with tribal us vs. them simplification than it did with any genuine mature comparative analysis of the options.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#37

Post by r00fus » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:29 PM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #27

blubbix wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sure the professional accountant, likely an abacus user, would likely have derided mechanical calculators when they arrived on scene.

I'm not even going to mention horse carriages vs. automobiles.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#38

Post by flatline3 » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:31 PM UTC

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.

The same thing is true for the iPod.

I had one of these in 1998/1999: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#39

Post by olalonde » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:39 PM UTC

flatline3 wrote: post #33

olalonde wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Microsoft redesigned Windows around tablet interfaces and launched their own ARM hardware to run it. How much does it take before you'll call it a disruption?

I was specifically talking about the iPhone. Tablets definitely stand a better chance at "disrupting" the industry although this is also debatable.

I will call it a disruption when people start using iPhones/iPad instead of laptops/desktops. This doesn't seem to be the case for a large majority of people.

Re: The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In

#40

Post by rythie » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 10:42 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.

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 early smartphone.

Windows mobile didn't solve the web problem before the iPhone, several vendors solved the email problem before the iPhone though, which was easier, but just a small part of the problem.