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Strategy, in the end, if it's done well should seem fairly obvious, even boring. a product roadmap that takes into rational consideration the aspects of market

Strategy, in the end, if it's done well should seem fairly obvious, even boring. a product roadmap that takes into rational consideration the aspects of market dynamics. If your company is looking to make incremental improvements and not trying to do anything innovative, I agree. If you’re building the first smart phone where there exists no “roadmap” or “rational consideration”, then it’s neither going to be obvious or boring.

jollybean 5y ago
Sorry, but not quite, your own example demonstrates that. So who built the first smartphone? It was probably Nokia. And what happened to them? BlackBerry? They were the one's that made Google and Apple pay attention, because they built the first real baseline use cases for data networks. But was that even a smartphone? Of course, the iPhone was not the first smartphone, but it was a breakthrough of sorts, but if we leave that product - that aside, how many companies can you think of that generally create this level of 'breakthrough' product? Almost none. 'Disruption' almost always comes from smaller, newer companies, where there is a fundamentally new strategy that is at the core of the companies existence, i.e. it's inherent in the nature of the company itself. The reason you might misunderstand this is likely due to the fact that popular understanding of the business world is completely skewed towards interesting and novel companies and technology. 'Business' is not what we see on TechCrunch or even the more classical business press really. The Economy is mostly made up of classical companies of varying sizes wherein my comments apply even more appropriately.
- lostcolony 5y ago
  It was probably IBM; the Simon Personal Communicator in '92. Depends how you define smartphone, but it could take/make calls, send/receive emails and faxes, and had some apps like a calulator and an alarm clock. All for the low low price of $1100 1992 dollars, and rockin' a fat 1 hour worth of battery life.
lostcolony 5y ago
Apple didn't build the first smartphone; they made it mass market because the technology (which Apple did not invent) had gotten to where bundling it into a smartphone would provide sufficient value to a consumer to be worth paying for. There were other mass market smartphones even then; what the iphone brought was UX (so kudos for Jobs for hiring Jony Ive) and an app store (so kudos for Jobs either for recognizing the benefit of allowing others to do the work to extend the iphone's software capabilities, or for hiring someone who did).
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Apple didn't build the first smartphone; they made it mass market because the technology (which Apple did not invent) had gotten to where bundling it into a smartphone would provide sufficient value to a consumer to be worth paying for. IIRC, that was already true for business customers before the iPhone. > There were other mass market smartphones even then; what the iphone brought was UX (so kudos for Jobs for hiring Jony Ive) and an app store (so kudos for Jobs either for recognizing the benefit of allowing others to do the work to extend the iphone's software capabilities, or for hiring someone who did). IIRC, the previous smartphone brought email, what the iPhone brought was email and the Web. With regard to the app store, I'm not sure if Jobs really deserves much kudos for accepting what users were already doing with their devices rather than continuing to try to force his original vision (first party native apps and web apps only, no third party native apps).
  - lostcolony 5y ago
    "that was already true for business customers before the iPhone." - Hence my use of the term "mass market" "what the iPhone brought was email and the Web" - So I never mentioned email re: the iPhone, that was supported back in the first smartphone in 92. For the web, I saw an article that mentioned that, but that doesn't jibe with what I remember or can find elsewhere. There were definitely phones that allowed you to browse the web, as early as the Nokia 9000 Communicator. I think it was the first to have 'unlimited' internet plans due to their partnership with AT&T, but I'm not sure that's nearly as convincing an innovation as 'the web'. Maybe the fact that mobile Safari had a look and feel similar to desktop Safari. I list the app store from https://time.com/4837176/iphone-10th-anniversary/ https://time.com/4837176/iphone-10th-anniversary/ and https://www.vox.com/2017/6/26/15821652/iphone-apple-10-year-anniversary-launch-mobile-stats-smart-phone-steve-jobs https://www.vox.com/2017/6/26/15821652/iphone-apple-10-year-... (though to be fair, the latter also includes the web), and because it jibes with my own recollections; I don't recollect app stores before the iPhone (though it came after launch). Yes, I remember user customizations, but not an official, searchable repository of them.
GeekyBear 5y ago
I'd say that Apple's big innovation was a user interaction method that made their device intuitive to use. >Chris DeSalvo’s reaction to the iPhone was immediate and visceral. “As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.’” “What we had suddenly looked just so . . . nineties,” DeSalvo said. “It’s just one of those things that are obvious when you see it.” https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-d...

jollybean 5y ago

Sorry, but not quite, your own example demonstrates that. So who built the first smartphone? It was probably Nokia. And what happened to them? BlackBerry? They were the one's that made Google and Apple pay attention, because they built the first real baseline use cases for data networks. But was that even a smartphone? Of course, the iPhone was not the first smartphone, but it was a breakthrough of sorts, but if we leave that product - that aside, how many companies can you think of that generally create this level of 'breakthrough' product? Almost none. 'Disruption' almost always comes from smaller, newer companies, where there is a fundamentally new strategy that is at the core of the companies existence, i.e. it's inherent in the nature of the company itself. The reason you might misunderstand this is likely due to the fact that popular understanding of the business world is completely skewed towards interesting and novel companies and technology. 'Business' is not what we see on TechCrunch or even the more classical business press really. The Economy is mostly made up of classical companies of varying sizes wherein my comments apply even more appropriately.

lostcolony 5y ago
It was probably IBM; the Simon Personal Communicator in '92. Depends how you define smartphone, but it could take/make calls, send/receive emails and faxes, and had some apps like a calulator and an alarm clock. All for the low low price of $1100 1992 dollars, and rockin' a fat 1 hour worth of battery life.

lostcolony 5y ago

Apple didn't build the first smartphone; they made it mass market because the technology (which Apple did not invent) had gotten to where bundling it into a smartphone would provide sufficient value to a consumer to be worth paying for. There were other mass market smartphones even then; what the iphone brought was UX (so kudos for Jobs for hiring Jony Ive) and an app store (so kudos for Jobs either for recognizing the benefit of allowing others to do the work to extend the iphone's software capabilities, or for hiring someone who did).

tablespoon 5y ago
> Apple didn't build the first smartphone; they made it mass market because the technology (which Apple did not invent) had gotten to where bundling it into a smartphone would provide sufficient value to a consumer to be worth paying for. IIRC, that was already true for business customers before the iPhone. > There were other mass market smartphones even then; what the iphone brought was UX (so kudos for Jobs for hiring Jony Ive) and an app store (so kudos for Jobs either for recognizing the benefit of allowing others to do the work to extend the iphone's software capabilities, or for hiring someone who did). IIRC, the previous smartphone brought email, what the iPhone brought was email and the Web. With regard to the app store, I'm not sure if Jobs really deserves much kudos for accepting what users were already doing with their devices rather than continuing to try to force his original vision (first party native apps and web apps only, no third party native apps).
- lostcolony 5y ago
  "that was already true for business customers before the iPhone." - Hence my use of the term "mass market" "what the iPhone brought was email and the Web" - So I never mentioned email re: the iPhone, that was supported back in the first smartphone in 92. For the web, I saw an article that mentioned that, but that doesn't jibe with what I remember or can find elsewhere. There were definitely phones that allowed you to browse the web, as early as the Nokia 9000 Communicator. I think it was the first to have 'unlimited' internet plans due to their partnership with AT&T, but I'm not sure that's nearly as convincing an innovation as 'the web'. Maybe the fact that mobile Safari had a look and feel similar to desktop Safari. I list the app store from https://time.com/4837176/iphone-10th-anniversary/ https://time.com/4837176/iphone-10th-anniversary/ and https://www.vox.com/2017/6/26/15821652/iphone-apple-10-year-anniversary-launch-mobile-stats-smart-phone-steve-jobs https://www.vox.com/2017/6/26/15821652/iphone-apple-10-year-... (though to be fair, the latter also includes the web), and because it jibes with my own recollections; I don't recollect app stores before the iPhone (though it came after launch). Yes, I remember user customizations, but not an official, searchable repository of them.

GeekyBear 5y ago

I'd say that Apple's big innovation was a user interaction method that made their device intuitive to use. >Chris DeSalvo’s reaction to the iPhone was immediate and visceral. “As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.’” “What we had suddenly looked just so . . . nineties,” DeSalvo said. “It’s just one of those things that are obvious when you see it.” https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-d...