3 ms·
They nailed it. Nobody else had anything like the iPhone or iTouch when they came out. After their first successes, Palm stalled. Microsoft’s phones were inte
by Nevermark 3y ago
They nailed it.
Nobody else had anything like the iPhone or iTouch when they came out.
After their first successes, Palm stalled. Microsoft’s phones were interface abominations. I suffered through both.
Adding the App Store completed Apple’s redefinition of what a phone was, what mobile computing was.
Kudo’s to Google for leaping into that new market by redirecting Android. Every manufacturer that tried to keep up by upgrading their previous platforms bit the dust.
- withinboredom 3y agoThey nailed it in the US, yeah. Elsewhere, not so much, which is more evidence that it was accidental/lucky than intentional.
- Nevermark 3y agoNo it was evidence that: (1) Apple was a small company going into a new area with a very unusual design for the time. Apple couldn't make enough of them from day 1. (2) the phone market required major business changes to adapt to the iPhone. AT&T made all kinds of unusual concessions to Apple to make the logistics, and Apple's business needs. A complete redesign of how phone software, hardware, interfaces work, along with major changes to cellular partnerships and logistics, is not an "accident". The polish was excellent too. Every phone I used before the iPhone had limited and flaky interfaces, from basic phones to handheld computer phones. Bill Gates was floored when he saw the iPhone, by his own report. Steve Jobs was obsessed with the design of the phone and how he needed to change cellular business models. They designed numerous candidate hardware, and two alternate internally designed operating systems, before settling for the iOS they delivered. Steve didn't always get everything right, but "accident" isn't particularly applicable to anything Steve did.
- withinboredom 3y agoI never questioned how hard Apple worked, how many iterations, etc. Innovation's success is rarely ruled by those things. They got lucky in the US. They got lucky that AT&T (or anyone) was willing to make those concessions. They got lucky that enough people wanted a phone like that (I didn't). They got lucky that the US turned it into a status symbol. There are probably many other things as well that required luck, that I didn't pay attention to at the time.
- Nevermark 3y agoCertainly agree they had luck. But when there is that level of preparation, it just strikes me wrong just to summarize is at they just got lucky. Also, Steve Jobs got "lucky" many times, with similar preparation. So everything requires some luck, but it seems very dismissive of what they did, that nobody else did as well, several times.
- withinboredom 3y agoLuck is pretty much the defacto model for capitalism. Luck has so much to do with everything and nothing at all. Being prepared? They got lucky in that they were prepared for what actually happened. They had no control over the market, for all they knew the phones would explode after 600 days of use. They weren’t prepared for jail breaking via a TIFF file, they weren’t prepared for that at all. I don’t know or care about Steve Jobs, so I can’t really comment on his luck. But lucky people tend to be lucky. I’m not dismissing what they did, but by putting them on a pedestal, you are dismissing all the other innovations that have come and failed, for nothing more than not being as lucky. I worked on some game-changing real-estate software in 2007-8. They weren’t so lucky. Had the crash happened a year or two later, the entire way you buy/sold houses would be different.