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I love the quote from Ed Colligan: Messrs. Zetsche and Lutz might want to meditate on Palm CEO Ed Colligan’s infelicitous words mocking the newborn iPhone in 2
by paul 11y ago
I love the quote from Ed Colligan:
Messrs. Zetsche and Lutz might want to meditate on Palm CEO Ed Colligan’s infelicitous words mocking the newborn iPhone in 2006 [emphasis mine]:
“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
- blub 11y agoMythicizing the iPhone is both dishonest and unhelpful. They didn't just figure it out and walk in, it took them years and many iterations to build a world class product. Apple was able to use the wedge of UX to convince customers to but their devices and gave them time to fix the gaps in their hardware and software.
- jarek 11y agoAlso note that Apple wasn't just "PC guys" at the time of iPhone introduction, they had fairly high-profile experience building portable devices through the iPods. Google first bought a software team and then partnered with HTC to get hardware for the first Android phone on the market - again it wasn't a pure "PC guys" "just figuring it out." But the Colligan quote is well on its way to becoming historic out of context, like Olsen's and Gates's.
- paul 11y agoHow is quoting the Palm CEO dishonest? The fact that he was so wrong about Apple is kind of the point.
- blub 11y agoThe point is that he wasn't "so wrong". Apple didn't succeed immediately and without stumbling a few times. At the same time the competition screwed up monumentally. IMO, Apple will need another wedge and that car makers screw up in order to repeat their iPhone success. This is a possibility, but not a certainty, as some here proclaim.