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iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

networkworld.com

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Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#41

Post by kiratp »

jimbob45 wrote: post #25
mrtksn wrote: post #10

All these “iPhone is doomed” folks had good arguments, the original iPhone was a flawed device. On paper, the incumbent mega corporations should have been able to come up with an iPhone killer quickly, considering the resources available to them. What they missed was the inertia and the lack of agility in these big companies. They kept insisting on their current plans until it was too late. Only Google was capable of…

Apple might have genuinely murdered the entire market if they hadn’t insisted on their ridiculous exclusivity plan with AT&T. Whichever Apple exec greenlit that must surely have been an industrial saboteur because it saved 5+ other companies from ruin.

I worked at Windows Phone leading up to the WP7 launch all the way through the last version. The carriers had two things that every device maker, including Apple (initially) needed

1) distribution - Americans went to the carrier store and not Best Buy for their new phone

2) financing infrastructure- they could finance, subsidize and generally hide the up front price of these devices. The market expected a $0-200 phone with contract.

So, you needed AT&T and their contract prices already assumed they were subsidizing the phone so it was no point selling unlocked, full price.

Samsung was paying mobile store reps (at AT&T, TMO etc) $50-100 PER PHONE to push Samsung ($9B marketing budget).

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#43

Post by readthenotes1 »

chambers wrote: post #15

Someone did a retrospective on many of the naysayers in this article: https://www.arnnet.com.au/slideshow/428957/pictures-five-yea... I think, in the long run, the humility to admit wrong-saying does more for credibility than making excuses.

In college while working at the library, I overheard a young woman saying to her friend "just once I would like to hear him say that he was wrong and that I was right"

Well I can't claim to be a champion at relationships, I do believe this has served me well over the years.

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#44

Post by xoa »

toast0 wrote: post #23
kedikedi wrote: post #2

Very interesting article to read after 15 years and it seems to have aged like milk so to speak :) I think the main thing is that the author approaches the problem very logically (just comparing features) yet the users don't follow their logic. While I agree that windows mobile 8 was brilliant*, smartphone domain suffers horribly from network effect. Windows phone came too late into the game and couldn't move quick e…

> I missed out on windows mobile 7 which is the one this article mentions but I used windows mobile 6 and windows phone 8. Windows phone 8 was heavily inspired by windows mobile 7 aesthetics so I think they are comparable in ux. UX wise, 8 was a lot like 7. 8 added a few UX features, but the big differences were tecnical: NT kernel vs wince, which allowed for dual and quad core phones, which made background execution…

>because they haven't tried to approach the low cost market at all.

There's a reasonable argument to be made (and that has recently been getting some discussion, could swear there was a big HN thread on it but can't find the right search terms) that actually in a sneaky way this isn't quite true. Yes, for brand new devices Apple has maintained a high MSRP. But the current iOS also supports phones going back 6 years now, and iOS 15 is still getting security updates (last one less than a month ago [0]), pushing support all the way back to the iPhone 6S from 2015. And the rate of phone improvements has been steadily flattening, same as in standard computers before it. As a result, the "low cost market" arguably is getting addressed to some degree by robust support for high end but now older iPhones. An entry iPhone 11 can be had for around $250 or less, SE 2nd gen even lower. That's still a solid device, is still 2 gens newer than the last fully supported iPhone, and 4 gens newer than currently security supported. And Apple can still make some revenue on these via app sales and services.

If this is a conscious strategy it seems like a very good answer to the conundrum of what they do as updates become less utterly compelling and more and more people stretch out lifetimes. They can focus on producing mid to high end top tier devices, which brings better economies of scale, logistics, etc, but then by supporting them well those same devices will still be competitive with new low end devices a few years later.

----

0: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213673

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#46

Post by tptacek »

mrtksn wrote: post #10

All these “iPhone is doomed” folks had good arguments, the original iPhone was a flawed device. On paper, the incumbent mega corporations should have been able to come up with an iPhone killer quickly, considering the resources available to them. What they missed was the inertia and the lack of agility in these big companies. They kept insisting on their current plans until it was too late. Only Google was capable of…

Here we're commenting on a specific article. The case it makes against the 2008 iPhone:

* The upcoming LG Voyager phone

* The fact that Windows Mobile 7 allows you to use touch gestures to rotate the view in any app, not just in Safari and when viewing images.

* Windows Media 7 supports an ambient light sensor to determine screen brightness and ringer volume.

That's it, that's the argument. Counterpoint: the iPhone is the most successful electronic product launch of all time.

Apple iPhone. Enjoy the limelight because it won't last long.

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#47

Post by moffkalast »

readyplayernull wrote: post #22
m348e912 wrote: post #4

Makes you wonder if there should be professional repercussions for being so wrong. Does credibility or accuracy with assessments and predictions even matter? Other notable examples are Jim Cramer, who seems to be more wrong than right on stock and company analysis but still gets paid handsomely by CNBC. Or Paul Krugman who said the Internet's Effect on the World Economy Would Be 'No Greater Than the Fax Machine's. Kr…

> who seems to be more wrong than righ Just invert their output and you will have some good predictors.

Ah the ole inverse Cramer.

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#48

Post by everybodyknows »

ceejayoz wrote: post #14
StrangeATractor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure if you bet against them consistently you come out ahead.

If you wanna try, SJIM and LJIM are the ticket symbols to buy.

Hmm, Money in SJIM about 5x that of LJIM.

https://www.crameretfs.com/sjim https://www.crameretfs.com/ljim

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#49

Post by bravoetch »

starik36 wrote: post #38

This article reminds me of a conversation I had in 1995. We were using Astound on Windows 3.1 - a PowerPoint like product. Once Windows 95 came out, we quickly upgraded to it, but Astound didn't run well on it. So I called their tech support asking when the Windows 95 version is coming. They told me they didn't think Windows 95 will be popular. Instead they were working on a version for OS/2 Warp. I tried to tell the…

Then you may be similarly surprised that you're a victim of hindsite bias, and not a super-insightful technorati.

Re: iPhone Doomed to Failure (2008)

#50

Post by zmmmmm »

Beyond mocking someone who was clearly wrong, is there something to be learned? How can we avoid this in our own current thinking about what may succeed or not?

Apple is about to launch another product that people are deeply sceptical of - their VR glasses. Very very few people I know seem to believe this is going to work and become a mass market product in the end (even people inside Apple, apparently).

Are they wrong? are they right?

What about the thinking distinguishes it from the incorrect predictions of failure for the iPhone?

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