3 ms·

I don't think the opening premise is entirely accurate. Isn't one reason for the iPhone's popularity (and most of Apple's devices/computers) that they provide

I don't think the opening premise is entirely accurate. Isn't one reason for the iPhone's popularity (and most of Apple's devices/computers) that they provide both a great experience and they're convenient (iTunes/App store, reliability, "it just works" etc.)? Later the author states that he believes price to be a factor of convenience (which I would agree with), but that needs to be stated in the intro because I was put off before even getting to the meat of the story.

potatolicious 17y ago
Yeah, I'm going to call shenanigans on this article, and to be blunt, the author is talking out of his ass. The very first sentence is the problem: "Life, it turns out, is a series of tradeoffs between great experience and high convenience." No, it isn't. By pretending this is a hard and fast rule to all things in life, the author has taken the mistaken position that no product can ever be a great experience and be convenient at the same time. We know from experience - the iPod/iTMS, the Wii, etc, that this is just clearly false. The author then further fails to use even the most rudimentary logic: "the entire e-reader market consisted of just 1 million units in all of 2008, and Amazon nabbed only a slice of it. By contrast, Microsoft sold about 1 million Zune music players..." Using this flawless logic, we can also surmise that the iPhone is a terrible failure - just think about how many non-smartphones Nokia sold last year! The iPhone only sold a fraction of those last year! Not all markets are built the same. There's no reason to believe that the Kindle wasn't a huge success in its market. The problem with the Zune is that it failed to capture even a tiny portion of its* target market - this comparison is completely invalid.
- futuremint 17y ago
  Ah yes, the Wii is another example. I also have one of those :). Just recently we also purchased a Keurig coffee maker (with the little cups, give you coffee in about 3 blinks of an eye). Also a great experience thats wonderfully convenient.
warfangle 17y ago
The difference is the type of product it is. The iPhone wasn't just another phone - it was the first to include an app store to encourage a developer ecosystem, among other things. The iPhone wasn't a reimagination of the phone, or a replacement for it - it was a phone with a bunch of other cool stuff. The Kindle is just a book reader. It can show you any book you want, but it's expensive and doesn't do much more than allow you to buy and read books. I guess it can read book to you, too. But that's about it. It doesn't let you browse the web (now /that/ would be pretty awesome). It doesn't let you play games. There's no developer ecosystem that I know of for it. It's a one-function thing that's very expensive. Compare: 20 hardcover books, $20 each: $400. Kindle 2 and 4 books: $400. It only becomes cost-effective once you've spent $720 on your kindle book reading system: your Kindle, and 36 books @ $9.99 each.

potatolicious 17y ago

Yeah, I'm going to call shenanigans on this article, and to be blunt, the author is talking out of his ass. The very first sentence is the problem: "Life, it turns out, is a series of tradeoffs between great experience and high convenience." No, it isn't. By pretending this is a hard and fast rule to all things in life, the author has taken the mistaken position that no product can ever be a great experience and be convenient at the same time. We know from experience - the iPod/iTMS, the Wii, etc, that this is just clearly false. The author then further fails to use even the most rudimentary logic: "the entire e-reader market consisted of just 1 million units in all of 2008, and Amazon nabbed only a slice of it. By contrast, Microsoft sold about 1 million Zune music players..." Using this flawless logic, we can also surmise that the iPhone is a terrible failure - just think about how many non-smartphones Nokia sold last year! The iPhone only sold a fraction of those last year! Not all markets are built the same. There's no reason to believe that the Kindle wasn't a huge success in its market. The problem with the Zune is that it failed to capture even a tiny portion of its* target market - this comparison is completely invalid.

futuremint 17y ago
Ah yes, the Wii is another example. I also have one of those :). Just recently we also purchased a Keurig coffee maker (with the little cups, give you coffee in about 3 blinks of an eye). Also a great experience thats wonderfully convenient.

warfangle 17y ago

The difference is the type of product it is. The iPhone wasn't just another phone - it was the first to include an app store to encourage a developer ecosystem, among other things. The iPhone wasn't a reimagination of the phone, or a replacement for it - it was a phone with a bunch of other cool stuff. The Kindle is just a book reader. It can show you any book you want, but it's expensive and doesn't do much more than allow you to buy and read books. I guess it can read book to you, too. But that's about it. It doesn't let you browse the web (now /that/ would be pretty awesome). It doesn't let you play games. There's no developer ecosystem that I know of for it. It's a one-function thing that's very expensive. Compare: 20 hardcover books, $20 each: $400. Kindle 2 and 4 books: $400. It only becomes cost-effective once you've spent $720 on your kindle book reading system: your Kindle, and 36 books @ $9.99 each.