Full disclosure: I recently purchased a T-Mobile Android-powered G-1, with which I am more than a little enamored. Feel free to discard the following post as fanboy tripe.
Couldn't this article have just as easily been written about the G-1, or certain models of Blackberry? (Especially since Android is open-source. Isn't it?) It disturbs me when Apple products are treated like the exclusive apotheosis of their niche. I remember reading an article in which the journalist blathered spastically about "iPod-jacking," the paradigm-breaking practice of two people swapping headphones on their iPod to see what the other is listening to.
Huh???
ANY pair of MP3 players could accomplish the same thing, just like any modern wi-fi/GPS/accelerometer/etc. enabled smartphone could accomplish what this article is talking about.
Also, I have an open question: I'm perplexed by people who criticize Apple for keeping apps out of the store. Aren't you free to publish your app on your own website, which any user can navigate to, and install your app from there? Are people angry because, if Apple doesn't let you in the app store, you're almost definitely going to get less customers? (That's a fair thing to be angry about). Or... are people angry because, if you get kicked out of the app store, no one can install your app AT ALL?
"Aren't you free to publish your app on your own website, which any user can navigate to, and install your app from there?"
No. Which is why having a gate keeper at the store is so frustrating.
There are three ways to distribute--iTunes store, ad hoc (limited to 100 device IDs per app and is designed to use for testing) and enterprise which only works for corporate accounts and is limited to devices inside your company.
You can't. You have to sign up for the dev program to get the app on your device. You can program to the simulator, but that doesn't help you with the unique features of the phone (camera, accelerometer, etc).
WOW. I didn't realize that was the case. Now I understand the App store fiasco much more... it seems like Apple is paying the price for its closed architecture culture.
That makes me feel even more strongly about my original post: With an open architecture and less stringent gatekeeping, the G-1 is poised to take advantage of the PR disaster that Apple has been cultivating. It's too bad Apple has a monopoly on branding expertise, or T-Mobile and Google could really strike a decisive blow.
Well, I'm a developer who is interested in stuff more serious than iFart. I recently got an Android phone because I was turned off by all the negative stories I read about developing for iPhone. I can't be the only one in this boat.
If the App Store wasn't a massive success, no one would bother to develop for it, and no one would complain. The negative stories are an indicator of Apple's success. For developers, the Store is a negative, but for the users it is a clear positive; it delivers advanced and slick applications at relatively cheap prices. The users don't hear/care about the developer problems.
Or you can jailbreak, which lets you run unsigned apps including ones that you build in Xcode. But yeah, developing exclusively for the iPhone is just handing Apple a kill switch to your company.
I agree completely. Most of the fanboys who defend Apple's practices would be (justifiably) howling in outrage if any other company did the same thing.
The issue here is that the average person doesn't see the iPhone as a computer. That's why Apple is able to screw its users over like this and not catch any flak for it.
The Dreamcast was relatively open. I think the big reason that Apple kept the phone closed was because it could. People make the mistake of looking at it from a Mac/PC perspective, when really the iPhone was aimed at a consumer market which was already used to phones where the carrier had all the power. Sure, Windows Mobile is pretty open, but how many people use WM compared to generic "text phones"? I'd bet the vast majority of iPhone switchers are coming from the latter category, where the phone company owns your phone for all intents and purposes.
I agree with you: the G1 (and G2!) is a very capable device. As Android is adopted by more and more device manufacturers, Android could very well become a ubiquitous, ambient computing environment.
The reason I focus on the iPhone is for two reasons. First off: it's hardware. No matter how good the G1 is, the crux of the phone is it's OS. That's the standard being pushed in that case. With the iPhone, they're pushing the hardware and software standard.
Second (and this is by far the larger reason) is the install base. There's 40,000,000 iPhones and iPod touches in the market! The ubiquity and large adoption of this device is why it's "White Label." People already have it. For comparison, as of Jan 09 the X-Box 360 had ~28 million units in market. A large % of which might not even be on X-Box Live.
The penetration of the iPhone is what makes it special in this case.
I think I see what you were getting at now, about the market penetration. I still don't really understand your point about hardware vs. software. The G-1 and iPhone are both pieces of hardware with pre-packaged software on them. Is there really anything the iPhone's hardware is capable of that the G-1 isn't, in some profound way? They both have wi-fi, GPS, accelerometer, calculator, touch screen, etc.
The iPhone really has become startlingly popular; I think I had a knee-jerk reaction to your article because Apple's incredible aptitude for branding always makes me a little queasy. People get so excited about Apple that and Apple this, that functional alternatives like the G-1 and Blackberry go unnoticed, and in the end, the market suffers because consumers are complacent instead of asking, "Can't it be better?"
People get so excited about Apple that and Apple this, that functional alternatives like the G-1 and Blackberry go unnoticed
They don't go unnoticed. It's only in geek-apple-loving communities like HN where they make it seem like the iPhone is the only viable choice for a joyful mobile experience.
in the end, the market suffers because consumers are complacent
I believe you're projecting your own preferences here. Unless you have evidence to suggest that the average iPhone owner is not happy with his purchase, saying "the market suffers" is a bit much.
That's not what he's saying. He's saying that the market suffers because of a lack of competition - and I tend to agree with that.
And as a side note, this article seems to sort of be leading towards that sentiment: "there’s very little reason for start-ups to even attempt to pursue the wonky world of hardware."
Couldn't this article have just as easily been written about the G-1, or certain models of Blackberry?
Android is not a large enough market for anyone to target exclusively. The Blackberry has inconsistent hardware capabilities, which fragments the large market it has.
The advantages that each of those platforms has just don't matter in achieving the kind of success that Apple has had with the iPhone platform in the way that the author describes.
The author means universal in the sense of a universal remote control, not universal adoption. Also, a big chunk of that 40 million is iPod Touch owners, who are not subject to carrier lock-in.
The point is that it is a sufficiently generic and popular platform that many companies that might once have rolled their own hardware have diminished need to. If the platform supports what they need and they can make do in a market of 40 million (and growing), why not? For consumers it is the same way; why buy a device when you can just download that functionality? It raises the threshold of utility.
The market doesn't have to be universal, it just has to be big and and consistent. Right now the iPhone is the only platform that can claim to have both of those qualities.
Totally agree. I don't have an iPhone (can't afford a data plan at the moment) but want one. Something feels wrong about being locked in to any one carrier for service though. My main PC isn't locked into anything. As long as the market I live in gives me choices of internet service providers, I get to choose. Does anyone know if we'll see a more open environment in cellphone service (data, voice, etc) in the near future?
You can import an unlocked device from France or something, but you'll have no visual voicemail, no 3G (EDGE/GPS works with Orange/Partner with some tweaking).
The Maps app doesn't have any info beyond the general border outline. You can get street names and all that from maps.google.com/ but that works awful in Mobile Safari.
AT&T lock-in is only a problem in the US, remember. Here in Australia the iPhone is available from 4 different carriers (Telstra, Vodafone, Virgin and Optus) and the fifth carrier offers plans for unlocked phones as well.
It's my understanding that you can buy an iPhone without a contract, it's just ~$600 more expensive. Visual voicemail is right out on other carriers though. 3G might work though, depending on your carrier.
Except for all the artificial limitations (no background processes is a huge let down) and the fact that Steve Jobs can crush your iPhone businesses if he chooses.
How is it a let down? For two years, two releases, two versions of software and one beta of OS 3 it hasn't been present. It's only ever been mentioned by Apple to say they aren't doing it, and always they've been discussing, advertising and working on push notifications as an alternative.
Given all that, why were you in any way expecting it?
Maybe because it's possible on competing smartphones?
I was curious about the new features in IPhone OS 3 and decided to take a look at the list. Copy and paste? MMS? Voice memos? Search? You've got to be kidding me. The competition has had that stuff for ages.
If Apple couldn't deliver that stuff on day one that's fine, but it should have been released in an update shortly afterward. It's absurd that 2 years later people are still waiting for basic functionality that's been available elsewhere the whole time.
Don't get me wrong. Although I choose not to use the iPhone, I still like it. Despite the fact that it does some very basic things badly or not at all, it does have some neat features and has driven the competition to work a little harder. The iPhone made mobile app stores commonplace. The 'find my phone' and 'remote wipe' features are very cool and I haven't seen those on another phone. I'm looking forward to how the competition responds.
What does bother me, though, is all the Apple apologists coming out of the woodwork to brush all of their faults under the rug. Apple does some good things and some not so good things. In my opinion, a lot of the features in this update are things that people should not still be waiting for. I also think we don't need to be in the habit of excusing the lack of background applications. We're so fond of innovation, yet this missing features prevents the kind of innovation happening on other platforms.
Then by the performance of the competition, we have to surmise that either users don't care about said features, or said features have such flawed execution that the majority of its target users simply choose not to use it.
I would lean to the latter. Sending MMSes on most phones is a pain, recording a voice memo less so, but still convoluted. Search? Oh boy, yeah, some phones have this, but it's an even greater pain to get to.
And this is where usability rears its big ugly head again - the one thing that software engineers tend to ignore (because they themselves do not demand it). It's turned out that all along the UI has been the magic key to everything. For better or for worse, Apple hasn't just made the iPhone easy to use, they've made it fun to use, and that's something the competition has yet to clone.
> we have to surmise that either users don't care about said features, or said features have such flawed execution...
No this doesn't follow. It is a logical fallacy. Just because a product is successful doesn't mean that it has all the features people want. If the advantages of a product make up for it's shortcomings then people will buy it. By your logic you would have to argue that video wasn't a feature people cared about. Or better yet that Windows was the ideal desktop OS.
It really is sad how these Apple fanatics are so keen to point to a whopping 30% US smartphone market share (more like 10% worldwide) as proof that it is everything people want and yet when confronted with the unrivaled dominance of another product (e.g. Windows) they are more inclined to dismiss the users as people who don't know better.
Then by the performance of the competition, we have to surmise that either users don't care about said features, or said features have such flawed execution that the majority of its target users simply choose not to use it.
That's a strong statement that I can't agree with completely. We can probably agree that most users don't care about most features other than dialing. When I asked why scrolling through a contact list on a Motorola RAZR is so slow the response I got is that most users don't use the contact list.
If most people don't use most of the features of their phones that's fine. But I do, and giving me a prettier package isn't going to change the fact that it doesn't have the features I'm already using. Apple is clearly more interested in less demanding users and have made a boatload of money that way. That's fine too.
But if you want to talk smartphones for power users, I think the iPhone has been missing some important features. In other areas, they've clearly surpassed the competition. This is a good thing for everyone. Even though I don't use an iPhone I've got a much better browser on my phone because of it.
Personally, there's no way I'm buying a smartphone that doesn't do MMS or copy/paste when there are others that do this in addition to just about everything else the iPhone can do. But I put a premium on features instead of user interface and it's not as if the worthwhile competitors' user interfaces are from the stone age.
The competition hasn't exactly been left destitute since the release of the iPhone either. If anything, their product line ups have only gotten stronger even if market share has decreased. Sure, Nokia is in the toilet, but I think it probably has more to do with the fact that they've more or less been sitting on their asses for a few years than the iPhone. I won't even bring up Windows Mobile because it's just sad. Blackberry, excluding the Storm, is looking better and better. Despite the fact that the design and build quality of the T-Mobile G1 is a cruel joke, Android is something worth getting excited about. If someone puts it on nice hardware we could end up with a very cool phone.
Really? You're deciding on a phone based on MMS and copy/paste? That seems like such a small (and overweighted slice of the pie...)
My favorite case of this feverish feature list fetishizing is Nokia, whom never fails to deliver amazing phones with every feature imaginable, all of which are so badly hindered by a dated, clunky OS that renders most of them useless.
Last time I used an N95 it took me 7 clicks from the map screen (and four sub-menus!) to get the phone to find me on the map. Sure, GPS was available before Apple got there; but could most people use it?
There's a chicken and egg situation when it comes to features like MMS, copy/paste, and search - the number of users is directly correlated with its usability and discoverability. Sure, there is a demographic that will never use the feature in any case, but IMHO the fact that many phones have these features but are barely used is more a testament to the difficult UI than the notion that some people just don't want it.
I agree that Apple has sparked a renaissance of sorts in the cell industry - a do or die if you will. This is good for everyone - BlackBerry is getting better every day, Nokia is woefully behind, MS is still twiddling their thumbs, and everyone else is basically a non-player (including Android, for the time being anyway).
I am perpetually at a loss for what this term means. On the one hand you're describing these features as "basic" but on the other they're for "power users". Is that not a contradiction?
I think you are trying argue semantics instead of any particular point, but I'll clarify things anyway. When MMS, for example, has been available for years from every major carrier in the US on even some of the cheapest phones I would consider it a basic feature. The fact that many people don't use it doesn't change that. If that were the case, you could just as easily make the argument that text messaging doesn't necessarily need to be included because most people don't use it.
The bottom line is you can't sell me a so-called smartphone in a pretty package and sing the praises of all its bells and whistles when it doesn't have the features I use on a daily basis. When you can get MMS on a free phone from MetroPCS it seems like a pretty glaring omission on the iPhone.
I'm not just picking on Apple. I was using Apple products long before it was the cool thing to do and I happen to like them, but let's be realistic. I owned a Sidekick a couple years back and had the same complaint. The thing is marketed as this socially connected, multimedia phone and it can't even do MMS. The 4 year old POS Nokia I switched from was able to do that. The Sidekick was, rightfully, ripped for this so I don't understand why Apple gets a free pass.
That's true but let's look at what the competition to the iPhone was mostly lacking:
-Fully functional modern web browser
-Good GUIs (some exceptions)
-High quality screen with good visual design and font rendering
-Intuitive multi-touch interface
-Good integration for media syncing/playback
-A lot of pre-iPhone SmartPhones (RIM specifically) didn't even have 802.11 wifi
-Good attachment viewer (All Office formats including 2k7)
As of 1 year ago:
-Full Exchange support
-VPN support
-Excellent SDK with a fully integrated distribution system and free development tools.
So while your point is valid that it did take Apple about 2 years to fully build iPhone OS into a mature OS I would say it's also absurd that other SmartPhone platforms were so far behind in the above areas. It works both ways doesn't it? I would never buy a phone without a fully functional modern web browser again. I don't care if it has the best copy & paste and voice memos ever. It's all about what features a large variety of people find the most important. Users did purchase their phones fully knowing they did not have copy & paste, MMS, voice memos, etc.
I modded you up because you make some good points. That the iPhone delivered features that the competition probably hadn't even thought of is beyond dispute. I think the fully functional web browser is the iPhone's biggest contribution. It's the only reason I have a decent browser on my non-iPhone.
I want to make it clear that I think the iPhone is great even though I choose to use something else. The iPhone isn't for me. I've tried it and I want to like it, but I just don't. It's impossible for me to type on the screen. There are some minor usability annoyances. I've grown accustomed to a few things that the iPhone doesn't do. Not to mention, I've been an ATT customer in the past and I don't think they provide particularly good service.
That said, I still want to see the iPhone succeed because it means I, and every other consumer, get to reap the benefits of healthy competition. There's no doubt that the iPhone kicked just about everybody in the ass when in came out, but while Apple has been feeding us excuses for why we don't need the features they don't provide, the competition has been busy implementing some of their best ideas. I've purchased 2 smartphones since the iPhone was released and both have fully functional browsers, app stores, good SDK's and acceptable multimedia capabilities. They've both been capable of doing things that the iPhone can't do-- either due to design or policy-- while the most obvious disadvantage compared to the iPhone has been the number of applications available. My point is it's a more level playing field than it was a couple years ago.
I'm not sure it's fair to say that customers bought iPhones knowing that they did not have MMS, voice memos, etc. It's not like it's written in big print somewhere that it doesn't do these things. Most early adopters probably found out after they bought the phone. I think it's easy to assume that the iPhone has these features when you're upgrading from a 3 or 4 year old subsidized POS that has them.
Which just goes to show how little those things mattered. The theory is those things are "basic", but the reality is that the company both succeeded and surpassed the competition without them.
So Apple chose not to, or couldn't, deliver them sooner. So Apple chose different priorities. It's not absurd, ridiculous, apologistic and it's not a "fault".
It's an interesting argument the author is making, but it sure sounds like it's a bit of a reach at this point. Sure, the iPhone has nice market penetration in a certain demographic (who are more likely than others to buy gizmos) but I strongly doubt that you'll see companies that would have otherwise developed hardware, not do so. Instead, I think you'll see the flourishing of products with small enough niches such that if they had to build their own hardware, the product would have been shelved. This section:
Even established businesses seemed to disprove their own divisions: as tomtom showed off their upcoming navigation software I was left wondering why they need to make their own devices anymore.
is the epitome of that reach. Why does TomTom need to make their own devices any more? Because they don't want to add in an implicit $60/month data fee to use their service, which you have when it's iPhone based. Because if it's strictly iPhone, you can't give it to your parents as a gift so they stop getting lost. Because they make some nice margins off their high-end hardware, which they can't on an iPhone. Because they don't want to limit themselves to the (comparatively) small demographic of people with an iPhone who drive in an area with a cellular data connection, as opposed to the much larger one of people who drive cars that have 12V accessory plugs.
Likewise with the ZipCar application - they're not going to go iPhone-only, since it's giving up free market share. So they'll add an iPhone interface for coolness purposes and to appeal to a certain demo (which they probably do pretty well with already), but it won't fundamentally change their business plan.
The Pasco demo (focusing on teaching science to kids) also seemed somewhat contrived - who's gonna outfit a lab with iPhones to do readings? More importantly, what makes more sense for a school board buying a new lab's worth of equipment - buying sensor packages that work with a dedicated ruggedized central station that the school owns, or buying ones that require all students to have and use expensive and relatively flimsy cell phones of one particular brand?
So yes, I think that the iPhone represents an interesting new platform and will enable some new business opportunities (especially at the small end of the busines ecosystem), but it's not going to cause the end of all commercial customized hardware.
Apple's hardware isn't appropriate for every situation. If it were to be white label, they would need to make the software available to other hardware developers, and that's never going to happen.
This article is more about software than hardware, the apps largely don't care what hardware it's running on.
Your sentence doesn't make any sense, you start with "Apple's hardware" then you talk about "make the software available to other hardware developers". Do you mean hardware accessories for iPhone? It's in 3.0.
What? No. I mean they would need to make the software (iPhone OS 3.0) available to 3rd party hardware developers in order to have a "white label" platform.
As always: business. AT&T is effectively paying Apple to prevent that very scenario.
AT&T is weathering the downturn relatively nicely thanks to their exclusive deal with Apple. The ~$200 check they cut Apple per 2-year contract is paying for that exclusivity plus like-advertising.
Couldn't this article have just as easily been written about the G-1, or certain models of Blackberry? (Especially since Android is open-source. Isn't it?) It disturbs me when Apple products are treated like the exclusive apotheosis of their niche. I remember reading an article in which the journalist blathered spastically about "iPod-jacking," the paradigm-breaking practice of two people swapping headphones on their iPod to see what the other is listening to.
Huh???
ANY pair of MP3 players could accomplish the same thing, just like any modern wi-fi/GPS/accelerometer/etc. enabled smartphone could accomplish what this article is talking about.
Also, I have an open question: I'm perplexed by people who criticize Apple for keeping apps out of the store. Aren't you free to publish your app on your own website, which any user can navigate to, and install your app from there? Are people angry because, if Apple doesn't let you in the app store, you're almost definitely going to get less customers? (That's a fair thing to be angry about). Or... are people angry because, if you get kicked out of the app store, no one can install your app AT ALL?