Why the iPhone will fail (2007) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the iPhone will fail (2007)

#91

Post by flatulent1 » Sun, Sep 05, 2010, 7:57 PM UTC

KirinDave wrote: post #86

In case anyone is wondering what happened to this guy, he's writing for Microsoft now. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee532402.aspx?sdmr=... Which makes sense. He's got that fantastically wrong sense of intuition in design that makes someone come to all the wrong conclusions with the data; the kind of person who couldn't see the iPhone was a Big Deal in UX. This means he's a great fit for the Microsoft UX b…

>In case anyone is wondering what happened to this guy, he's writing for Microsoft now.

Perhaps he was writing for Microsoft then too??

Between the shills and those just after page hits, there sure are a lot of articles not worth the paper they could have been written on. It's funny seeing the guy cite himself though.

Pity the iPhone is so hard to use and lacking that keyboard. People with the urge to hit control-alt-F7 obviously weren't consulted. And his point about multiple functions... Perhaps he figures there's still a market for dedicated word processors or something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories#WP_Market_Col...

Re: Why the iPhone will fail (2007)

#92

Post by henrikschroder » Sun, Sep 05, 2010, 8:20 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #11

We're all wrong at times. I can forgive that. What I can't forgive is quoting your own made-up "laws" like you've discovered deep truths about the natural world... "Because [Apple's] designers forgot Platt’s First, Last, and Only Law of User Experience Design ('Know Thy User, for He Is Not Thee')" -David Platt

It's one thing to be wrong with guesses, but this guy is factually wrong on parts of the technology. Apple did improve the touchscreen keyboard by adding a bit of prediction to it, all buttons aren't always the same size, which makes it easier to hit the "right" key all the time, which in turn improves the experience by removing the common frustrations.

He was also wrong about the volume controls as comments above show.

Re: Why the iPhone will fail (2007)

#93

Post by DannoHung » Mon, Sep 06, 2010, 4:23 AM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #85

DannoHung wrote: post #44

This guy's first point is so shitty that you can discard the rest of the article based on it ALONE: > First, the iPhone ignores the main reasons that the iPod succeeded: simplicity and ease of use. The iPod is very easy to play and very easy to load, much more so than any other device had ever been. Even more important, the online ITunes store made buying music much simpler and easier than it had been. You didn’t hav…

Yes, but you have to remember that at that time, we were all using feature phones. Smartphones hadn't really taken off yet, and they _did_ seem significantly more complicated, since they do so much more. I had a RAZR, and it could _technically_ play MP3s, but I certainly didn't want it to. I think that this complaint was totally reasonable, given the time period and the fact that it hadn't come out yet. And by reason…

His complaint is without any substance. That's what I'm getting at: "The iPhone is too complicated! Here's a bunch of things not related to the iPhone that are simple. The iPhone is complicated."