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Right. Apple made a great phone. But my point was I don't think they changed the industry structure. Even to this day the industry structure is pretty much a

Right. Apple made a great phone. But my point was I don't think they changed the industry structure. Even to this day the industry structure is pretty much as it was in 2006 (see the points I listed before). But we do have much better phones, thanks, in part, to the iPhone.

Groxx 16y ago
Phone software sales is absolutely different, though. It used to be difficult to get ringtones - only PalmOS (and blackberry? I never had one) devices had applications, and the market was so small it was laughable. By making applications easy to make and (extremely) easy to buy, the focus of smart phones has shifted dramatically. The industry is more interested in side-channel profits where previously they were a dead-end, used only to drive a few long-tail sales. edit to agree with other comment: absolutely, carriers are largely untouched by this, if you ignore the massively-increased bandwidth usage (which would have happened anyway).
- kenjackson 16y ago
  All the smartphones had applications. They all had app stores, but they were done by 3rd parties. The big difference was that smartphones were much smaller in 2006 than 2011. The industry is still all about revenue from plans, at least in the US. These revenues subsidize cell phones, including the iPhone. What's the data on profit that Apple makes from apps? I suspect that it's a small fraction of their profit on the device.
jad 16y ago
> But my point was I don't think they changed the industry structure. Right, I think it depends on what you mean by "industry". If you mean handsets, they've obviously completely disrupted it. Touch was not a mainstream interaction model for phones before the iPhone, the mobile software market qualitatively changed and continues to explode, phones were almost never updated after they were purchased, real web browsing wasn't really possible, etc. If you mean carriers, the impact has been more limited. They have made extremely important inroads inasmuch as the iPhone turns the carrier into a dumb pipe. All iPhone owners have the same features regardless of carrier (with a few notable exceptions like AT&T customers getting MMS after every other market in every other country).

Groxx 16y ago

Phone software sales is absolutely different, though. It used to be difficult to get ringtones - only PalmOS (and blackberry? I never had one) devices had applications, and the market was so small it was laughable. By making applications easy to make and (extremely) easy to buy, the focus of smart phones has shifted dramatically. The industry is more interested in side-channel profits where previously they were a dead-end, used only to drive a few long-tail sales. edit to agree with other comment: absolutely, carriers are largely untouched by this, if you ignore the massively-increased bandwidth usage (which would have happened anyway).

kenjackson 16y ago
All the smartphones had applications. They all had app stores, but they were done by 3rd parties. The big difference was that smartphones were much smaller in 2006 than 2011. The industry is still all about revenue from plans, at least in the US. These revenues subsidize cell phones, including the iPhone. What's the data on profit that Apple makes from apps? I suspect that it's a small fraction of their profit on the device.

jad 16y ago

> But my point was I don't think they changed the industry structure. Right, I think it depends on what you mean by "industry". If you mean handsets, they've obviously completely disrupted it. Touch was not a mainstream interaction model for phones before the iPhone, the mobile software market qualitatively changed and continues to explode, phones were almost never updated after they were purchased, real web browsing wasn't really possible, etc. If you mean carriers, the impact has been more limited. They have made extremely important inroads inasmuch as the iPhone turns the carrier into a dumb pipe. All iPhone owners have the same features regardless of carrier (with a few notable exceptions like AT&T customers getting MMS after every other market in every other country).