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The book Losing the Signal goes into detail about this. They thought their existing advantages of the keyboard, battery life, durability, and network efficiency

by wmf 3y ago

The book Losing the Signal goes into detail about this. They thought their existing advantages of the keyboard, battery life, durability, and network efficiency would be enough to retain customers. By the time they realized they were wrong it was too late.

rrdharan 3y ago
(Also covered in the book) They also assumed, not entirely incorrectly, that they would have a bigger moat outside the Western market due to cost factors and so they spent a huge amount of time and money on their international expansion. Cheap Androids eventually ate them there. Plus the patent lawsuit.. and general bloat, infighting and innovator’s dilemma stuff of course.
taspeotis 3y ago
Except the iPhone had good enough battery life because it was basically a battery… > The iPhone "couldn’t do what [Apple was] demonstrating without an insanely power hungry processor, it must have terrible battery life," Shacknews poster Kentor heard from his former colleagues of the time. "Imagine their surprise [at RIM] when they disassembled an iPhone for the first time and found that the phone was battery with a tiny logic board strapped to it."
- raverbashing 3y ago
  "Surprise" When given a constraint, you design for that constraint. Good engineers do that And also not forgetting the role of sw optimization. No wonder software companies won the mobile phone space.
  - hgomersall 3y ago
    I wonder if that was the real trick of the iPhone: slightly less than a day is enough battery; work on that basis. It was dropped into a world where battery life was measured in days.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      There were multiple advantages, but one is that 3G mobile broadband rolled out around 2007/2008, and it was unlimited on iPhone. Before mobile broadband, there would not have been as much reason and application, but with mobile broadband, the entire game changed, and Apple smartly had ATT give it unlimited so people did not have to worry about using it.
      - corbezzoli 3y ago
        > 3G mobile broadband rolled out around 2007/2008, and it was unlimited on iPhone. Slight correction, I had to go look: AT&T started rolling out UMTS (3G) in 2002. I already had a 3G smartphone in 2004 in Europe that could do video calls. Fun fact: UMTS was announced in 1999 with a mind-bending 384kbps downlink speed.
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Interesting, maybe it wasn’t ready for unlimited usage? I distinctly recall, pre iPhone, using data racked up huge charges.
        corbezzoli 3y ago
        Carriers always want to charge as much as possible. In most of the world you can still pay data in gold coins. Just this summer I was screwed by Vodafone charging me €6/day on the first network connection without a plan. This in the same country where I can get 200GB for €10/month
    - sethhochberg 3y ago
      Same general approach they took with the watches. Sure, the battery life is miniscule compared to dumb or even semi-smart watches. But that doesn’t really matter if it’s easy enough to throw it on a charger while you shower and get dressed every day. Anything less would be a burden, for most people roughly a day is good enough.
    - jdechko 3y ago
wannacboatmovie 3y ago
Truth be told, none of this was wrong. In 2023 the following is still true of iPhone: the keyboard is shit (physical beats glass any day). The durability is shit. The battery life is shit, comparatively, but this was worked around by making the phone much larger and the battery not user-replacable. As it turns out, none of this was important as a decaying society, in a sort of dystopian positive feedback loop, placed far more importance on the ecosystem of mind-numbing, venture capital-backed social media tools as opposed to the efficient use of email and text messaging.
- bishnu 3y ago
  What about blackberries made them unsuitable for social media apps?
  - wannacboatmovie 3y ago
    The lack of emphasis on video. The iPhone is a portable movie studio that occasionally can send messages or make phone calls (poorly). If social media was still largely text based, BB would be a more efficient device. Unfortunately, it has morphed into a shallow, rich media platform. What gets attention: TikTok dreck, Britney Spears and her wild Instagram videos, not elegant prose. We as a society can't look away from the trainwreck.
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      I don't disagree, but still it's weird to me. I don't think I've ever sent anyone a video on my phone, I've hardly even recorded any. And I'm usually annoyed when I receive one. And I don't use social media at all. I suppose I'm the weird one.
    - AlotOfReading 3y ago
      It's hard to imagine a more text heavy social media site than HN, but even here I'd rather have a touchscreen. I don't spend the majority of my time typing, I spend it reading with the occasional comment here and there. An adequate writing experience in exchange for a better reading experience is exactly the right tradeoff to make for almost every use case.
SoftTalker 3y ago
Blackberry also had great interoperability with Exchange email, and decent support for Office documents, IIRC. That kept their business users onboard for a while, but even that wasn't enough.

by wmf 3y ago

rrdharan 3y ago

(Also covered in the book) They also assumed, not entirely incorrectly, that they would have a bigger moat outside the Western market due to cost factors and so they spent a huge amount of time and money on their international expansion. Cheap Androids eventually ate them there. Plus the patent lawsuit.. and general bloat, infighting and innovator’s dilemma stuff of course.

taspeotis 3y ago

Except the iPhone had good enough battery life because it was basically a battery… > The iPhone "couldn’t do what [Apple was] demonstrating without an insanely power hungry processor, it must have terrible battery life," Shacknews poster Kentor heard from his former colleagues of the time. "Imagine their surprise [at RIM] when they disassembled an iPhone for the first time and found that the phone was battery with a tiny logic board strapped to it."

raverbashing 3y ago
"Surprise" When given a constraint, you design for that constraint. Good engineers do that And also not forgetting the role of sw optimization. No wonder software companies won the mobile phone space.
- hgomersall 3y ago
  I wonder if that was the real trick of the iPhone: slightly less than a day is enough battery; work on that basis. It was dropped into a world where battery life was measured in days.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    There were multiple advantages, but one is that 3G mobile broadband rolled out around 2007/2008, and it was unlimited on iPhone. Before mobile broadband, there would not have been as much reason and application, but with mobile broadband, the entire game changed, and Apple smartly had ATT give it unlimited so people did not have to worry about using it.
    - corbezzoli 3y ago
      > 3G mobile broadband rolled out around 2007/2008, and it was unlimited on iPhone. Slight correction, I had to go look: AT&T started rolling out UMTS (3G) in 2002. I already had a 3G smartphone in 2004 in Europe that could do video calls. Fun fact: UMTS was announced in 1999 with a mind-bending 384kbps downlink speed.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Interesting, maybe it wasn’t ready for unlimited usage? I distinctly recall, pre iPhone, using data racked up huge charges.
        corbezzoli 3y ago
        Carriers always want to charge as much as possible. In most of the world you can still pay data in gold coins. Just this summer I was screwed by Vodafone charging me €6/day on the first network connection without a plan. This in the same country where I can get 200GB for €10/month
  - sethhochberg 3y ago
    Same general approach they took with the watches. Sure, the battery life is miniscule compared to dumb or even semi-smart watches. But that doesn’t really matter if it’s easy enough to throw it on a charger while you shower and get dressed every day. Anything less would be a burden, for most people roughly a day is good enough.
  - jdechko 3y ago

wannacboatmovie 3y ago

Truth be told, none of this was wrong. In 2023 the following is still true of iPhone: the keyboard is shit (physical beats glass any day). The durability is shit. The battery life is shit, comparatively, but this was worked around by making the phone much larger and the battery not user-replacable. As it turns out, none of this was important as a decaying society, in a sort of dystopian positive feedback loop, placed far more importance on the ecosystem of mind-numbing, venture capital-backed social media tools as opposed to the efficient use of email and text messaging.

bishnu 3y ago
What about blackberries made them unsuitable for social media apps?
- wannacboatmovie 3y ago
  The lack of emphasis on video. The iPhone is a portable movie studio that occasionally can send messages or make phone calls (poorly). If social media was still largely text based, BB would be a more efficient device. Unfortunately, it has morphed into a shallow, rich media platform. What gets attention: TikTok dreck, Britney Spears and her wild Instagram videos, not elegant prose. We as a society can't look away from the trainwreck.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    I don't disagree, but still it's weird to me. I don't think I've ever sent anyone a video on my phone, I've hardly even recorded any. And I'm usually annoyed when I receive one. And I don't use social media at all. I suppose I'm the weird one.
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    It's hard to imagine a more text heavy social media site than HN, but even here I'd rather have a touchscreen. I don't spend the majority of my time typing, I spend it reading with the occasional comment here and there. An adequate writing experience in exchange for a better reading experience is exactly the right tradeoff to make for almost every use case.

SoftTalker 3y ago

Blackberry also had great interoperability with Exchange email, and decent support for Office documents, IIRC. That kept their business users onboard for a while, but even that wasn't enough.