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It’s not ridiculous at all - all those reasons you list mattered (though arguably iPhone had fewer features than most phones, Safari notwithstanding), but the t

It’s not ridiculous at all - all those reasons you list mattered (though arguably iPhone had fewer features than most phones, Safari notwithstanding), but the tipping points were the App Store and Exchange integration in iOS 2.0 summer 2008. And the iPhone 3G model. that matched the bar that Blackberry had set for security. Companies allowed the switch to iPhone when they realized that it was in theory as secure as Blackberry, and didn’t require a BES server.

kbenson 6y ago
The fact you note events after the initial launch are exactly why it's ridiculous to say it's why people chose it for those reasons "from day one".
- parasubvert 6y ago
  Some perspective please - The original iPhone had total restrictions and no 3rd party apps. Then they added the App Store the following summer 2008. So of course a major appeal was that it was a curated and totally secure platform was from day one. I know this because I was a many year Blackberry customer and was in the record lines in June 2007.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    The vast majority of phones people had at the time were not smartphones. The original iPhone was more "super impressive dumbphone" than smartphone, because it only had what it came with. Unless you were using Symbian, Blackberry, or a Windows Phone (which most people weren't), you had some dumb phone that had a crappy browser that couldn't render well, and whatever shipped on the phone. Maybe some extra ringtones you could download. Blackberry was far and away considered the much more secure and safe option, for those that needed it. Your company could run your own messaging service (through Blackberry Enterprise Server), so it was far more secure in that respect. I also had a Blackberry at the time the iPhone was announced. You were in the lines for an iPhone at the time because you wanted the safety and security it offered? Or because it looked really nice, had a browser that rendered correctly, and had a nice new way to interface? Because I don't know anyone else who switched for security at the time.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      You can understand how iPhone security and safety helped sell it, even though it was (inaccurately as we later found our) viewed as less secure than Blackberry. People bought iPhones because they trusted it was secure, and chose it over Blackberry because of features and UX. And they kept buying it because it was secure, had the release of the App Store opened the platform to a horde of malware, we would be saying remember when Apple sold iPhones? People mostly choose their plane flights based on cost, comfort, and time. Not because safety isn’t important, but because it’s assumed it’s by default excellent. Now how high a priority will safety be for travelers when the 737 Max is cleared to fly again?
      - kbenson 6y ago
        I'll totally concede all of this. And it bolsters my actual point, which is that: >>>>> Since day one security and safety have been the most important feature for iPhone, and the biggest reason consumers select it. Is incorrect, because safety and security were not the major selling points. The person who said that is incorrect. Nowhere am I saying that the iPhone was unsafe or insecure, but that it definitely wasn't seem as a "more secure" option and it definitely wasn't the "most important feature" and "biggest reason consumers selected it" from "day one". This comment of your and the prior ones make it pretty obvious you understand this, so I'm not sure what you're trying to argue anymore. Are iPhones often chosen now for for safety and security? Yes, although I still wouldn't say it's the most important feature or the biggest reason people choose it. It definitely wasn't that when it first launched though.
    - parasubvert 6y ago
      I’m saying it was all of those things: a proper browser, a good industrial design, plus the potential for Blackberry levels of security, which was realized only a year after the initial release. If you want to be a stickler on the OP’s original wording, yes this was more about potential than what the original iPhone shipped. And anyone who administered BES really wanted to see a market switch to ActiveSync on Exchange, because BES was a massive resource hog on Exchange for no major security benefit over ActiveSync: the messages got routed over auto generated TLS Certs to BlackBerry’s data centers in Canada... so the main benefit was properly configured end to end TLS. Which admittedly wasn’t nothing in the late 90s, so few understood SSL/TLS, and Exchange was a beast, and early ActiveSync was buggy and insecure! But by the mid-late 2000s Microsoft started getting its act together.
- valuearb 6y ago
  How many people would have stopped buying iPhone due to that epic run of malware and viruses that never happened? Why does Apple spend so much on safety and security if it doesn’t sell iPhones?
  - kbenson 6y ago
    > How many people would have stopped buying iPhone due to that epic run of malware and viruses that never happened? I'm not saying make it super easy. I would be perfectly happy with a situation where it's hard to install a separate store (on Android to install any app not from the shipped with stores you specifically have to go to settings and enable untrusted apps. But there's a huge difference between "hard" and "legally impossible". > Why does Apple spend so much on safety and security if it doesn’t sell iPhones? Because it lets them completely control the platform, so they don't have to worry nearly as much about competition? The fact that Epic can't just install another store and get around Apple's 30% cut is a huge incentive to spend money on "safety and security", because the way they've chosen to achieve those goals is "we control it all, you control nothing, and we'll keep you safe". That's very convenient for them.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      The net profits from that 30% is a trivial amount compared to their iPhone/iPad profits. Yes they are worried about competition, Android. Epic isn’t competition. Without the walled garden, the iPhone loses a huge differentiator between it and Android, a and one of their developers and customers most valued features.

kbenson 6y ago

The fact you note events after the initial launch are exactly why it's ridiculous to say it's why people chose it for those reasons "from day one".

parasubvert 6y ago
Some perspective please - The original iPhone had total restrictions and no 3rd party apps. Then they added the App Store the following summer 2008. So of course a major appeal was that it was a curated and totally secure platform was from day one. I know this because I was a many year Blackberry customer and was in the record lines in June 2007.
- kbenson 6y ago
  The vast majority of phones people had at the time were not smartphones. The original iPhone was more "super impressive dumbphone" than smartphone, because it only had what it came with. Unless you were using Symbian, Blackberry, or a Windows Phone (which most people weren't), you had some dumb phone that had a crappy browser that couldn't render well, and whatever shipped on the phone. Maybe some extra ringtones you could download. Blackberry was far and away considered the much more secure and safe option, for those that needed it. Your company could run your own messaging service (through Blackberry Enterprise Server), so it was far more secure in that respect. I also had a Blackberry at the time the iPhone was announced. You were in the lines for an iPhone at the time because you wanted the safety and security it offered? Or because it looked really nice, had a browser that rendered correctly, and had a nice new way to interface? Because I don't know anyone else who switched for security at the time.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    You can understand how iPhone security and safety helped sell it, even though it was (inaccurately as we later found our) viewed as less secure than Blackberry. People bought iPhones because they trusted it was secure, and chose it over Blackberry because of features and UX. And they kept buying it because it was secure, had the release of the App Store opened the platform to a horde of malware, we would be saying remember when Apple sold iPhones? People mostly choose their plane flights based on cost, comfort, and time. Not because safety isn’t important, but because it’s assumed it’s by default excellent. Now how high a priority will safety be for travelers when the 737 Max is cleared to fly again?
    - kbenson 6y ago
      I'll totally concede all of this. And it bolsters my actual point, which is that: >>>>> Since day one security and safety have been the most important feature for iPhone, and the biggest reason consumers select it. Is incorrect, because safety and security were not the major selling points. The person who said that is incorrect. Nowhere am I saying that the iPhone was unsafe or insecure, but that it definitely wasn't seem as a "more secure" option and it definitely wasn't the "most important feature" and "biggest reason consumers selected it" from "day one". This comment of your and the prior ones make it pretty obvious you understand this, so I'm not sure what you're trying to argue anymore. Are iPhones often chosen now for for safety and security? Yes, although I still wouldn't say it's the most important feature or the biggest reason people choose it. It definitely wasn't that when it first launched though.
  - parasubvert 6y ago
    I’m saying it was all of those things: a proper browser, a good industrial design, plus the potential for Blackberry levels of security, which was realized only a year after the initial release. If you want to be a stickler on the OP’s original wording, yes this was more about potential than what the original iPhone shipped. And anyone who administered BES really wanted to see a market switch to ActiveSync on Exchange, because BES was a massive resource hog on Exchange for no major security benefit over ActiveSync: the messages got routed over auto generated TLS Certs to BlackBerry’s data centers in Canada... so the main benefit was properly configured end to end TLS. Which admittedly wasn’t nothing in the late 90s, so few understood SSL/TLS, and Exchange was a beast, and early ActiveSync was buggy and insecure! But by the mid-late 2000s Microsoft started getting its act together.
valuearb 6y ago
How many people would have stopped buying iPhone due to that epic run of malware and viruses that never happened? Why does Apple spend so much on safety and security if it doesn’t sell iPhones?
- kbenson 6y ago
  > How many people would have stopped buying iPhone due to that epic run of malware and viruses that never happened? I'm not saying make it super easy. I would be perfectly happy with a situation where it's hard to install a separate store (on Android to install any app not from the shipped with stores you specifically have to go to settings and enable untrusted apps. But there's a huge difference between "hard" and "legally impossible". > Why does Apple spend so much on safety and security if it doesn’t sell iPhones? Because it lets them completely control the platform, so they don't have to worry nearly as much about competition? The fact that Epic can't just install another store and get around Apple's 30% cut is a huge incentive to spend money on "safety and security", because the way they've chosen to achieve those goals is "we control it all, you control nothing, and we'll keep you safe". That's very convenient for them.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    The net profits from that 30% is a trivial amount compared to their iPhone/iPad profits. Yes they are worried about competition, Android. Epic isn’t competition. Without the walled garden, the iPhone loses a huge differentiator between it and Android, a and one of their developers and customers most valued features.