Comments

# Jeff said on October 22, 2008 12:08 PM:

I'm a definite fan of the iPhone.  For me, the reason is that it goes way beyond simply being a phone.  It is a laptop in my pocket.  The browsing experience is unparalleled.  And to me, that propels the tool way beyond the competition.

# Duncan said on October 22, 2008 12:09 PM:

It is similar to the situation with the BMW 1 series - it is also more expensive and less capable than its rivals but carrying badge cachet.  Do not underestimate iBling :-)

# jimothy@mac.com said on October 22, 2008 12:11 PM:

With all due respect, shouldn't you state what you got wrong? But, I'll take a stab at it anyway.

First, you assumed that only Mac fans (or the "religious," as you put it) would buy it. Certainly, we did, but we're not the only ones. I work with several people who are openly anti-Apple, or at least anti-Mac, who love their iPhones.

Second, you made the assumption that the iPhone wouldn't work well. Presumably, this comes from your time working with Apple on the Newton, but guess what? Things have changed since then, and for the decidedly better. Apple of two years ago, when you wrote that piece, was churning out popular, high quality products that "just work." You'd have to completely put on blinders not to see that.

So, what'd you do wrong? You didn't take off your blinders.

# rocketjam said on October 22, 2008 12:14 PM:

Marketing may succeed in getting the first wave of buyers, but if it's a bad product, word of mouth would cause sales to die off quickly. There's obviously more to it than marketing.

# Leif said on October 22, 2008 12:15 PM:

It's not any of those things. The iPhone is popular because it does what cellphone makers should have been doing all these years: putting together most-used technologies in an easy-to-use way.

Steve Jobs is famous for knowing what to say no to. Yes, there are a lot of things available in other phones that aren't in the iPhone (though that gap is closing with the App Store), but as a phone, it works, and it's easy to use. As a web browser, it is unparalleled in the mobile space. The list goes on, but the point is, the iPhone makes technology accessible for non-techies, and that's what Apple has always specialized in under Jobs.

# Yomatiase said on October 22, 2008 12:16 PM:

I think i missed the bussines model that apple have proven to be succesfull for them, and the underpinings of the iphone, OSX.

The OS on the iphone is great upgradable modular platform, it was obvious that an sdk will be coming sooner or later.

Its true that multitouch wanst invented by apple, but its a great implementation on a consumer economically accesible device.

# Gareth said on October 22, 2008 12:25 PM:

You simply fail to understand what people - ordinary people -want. Not tech pundits, not engineers who have custom installs of Linux, not Windows nerds who build their own machines and STILL manage their MP3 collections in Windows Explorer, just ordinary people.

Ordinary people just want something easy. That works as advertised. The iPhone works EXACTLY as advertised. All of their adverts are about the user interface. Who else does that? You see an iPhone ad, and then you go to the Apple Store to play with one, and you say "huh, that's exactly how it was on the ad".

You can say that so-and-so invented a technology or used a technology before Apple. That the iPhone is not as "innovative" as Apple claim. It's all irrelevant. Apple make these things work, that's all they do.

Apple have excellent marketing that ordinary people can understand, such as "1000 songs in your pocket". Everyone else talked about HDs, Flash, MP3s, GBs, WMAs, and no one knew what they were talking about. Apple took the market because they know what ordinary people want, and they delivered on it.

Look at Nokia's pathetic "Comes With Music" phone. It's totally absurd from a user perspective. I know that if I buy a song from the iTunes WiFi Music Store on my iPhone, it is automatically synced with my Mac, and then it is automatically synced with my iPod, and if I had one, my AppleTV too. It is simple, and it works.

I've used a Blackberry, and a Windows Mobile device, and a Symbian device. They were all awful. The user interface and its terminology were designed for engineers, by engineers.

The fact that you just don't get it and you work for Microsoft speaks volumes. You're probably trying to hard to figure out what you're not getting, looking for the "big idea" that Apple are executing on.

Apple are a very honest, very human company. They just don't do bullshit. It is not about technical specs or styling, or "brand". It is about simplicity, and understanding. And they get it to work.

# infoblog » What I got wrong about the iPhone said on October 22, 2008 12:28 PM:

PingBack from http://blog.a-foton.ru/index.php/2008/10/22/what-i-got-wrong-about-the-iphone/

# Chuck said on October 22, 2008 12:29 PM:

1. It's an ipod.

2. The app store. This changes everything. The iphone is a mobile platform for computing that also happens to be a phone.

3. Your forgot how good Apple is without software and interface design.

4. Design esthetics matter. These are very personal devices, and the beauty of the device matters as well as the functionality.

# Mark said on October 22, 2008 12:29 PM:

Honestly?  It's the best mobile phone I have ever used, period.  Which - by extension - makes it the best smartphone I have ever used as well, and I have a boxful of them here under my desk - Blackberries, Symnbian things, WinMobile things, even some WinCE boxen.    Far more than marketing, that is what is drawing people to it.  They try it, they buy it.  As you said, it needs to be a phone first and foremost.  When it is the best PHONE, all of the other stuff - however cool - is gravy.  

I know more than 20 people who have bought one after trying mine.  That isnt marketing, that is people buying a product they want because they like the way it works.  The tech is the bomb, and the result is what draws people.

# Jamie said on October 22, 2008 12:34 PM:

Well...  Your original post took a very hysterical/sarcastic tone which invited responses in a similar vein.

Added to this, you seem to have missed that fact that while the iPhone doesn't do anything that hasn't been done before it does most of these things a whole lot better and that was apparent even from some of the demos given at the original keynote speech. Most people don't care about what technology drives a device, they care about how it works for them and how they interact with it.  That's why the iPhone as been a success, people enjoy using it.

# S. D. said on October 22, 2008 12:37 PM:

Here is what you got wrong, what you got -oh, so wrong and by the way, its what Microsoft seems to get wrong in general as of late, and I am speaking as someone who likes Microsoft's technology and computer science prowess but NOT its lack of serious focus when it comes to UI design.

When I read your post about the iPhone, the one thing that stood out to me was your assertion "Who would want one of these things?". You listed some features on paper and their undesirability, but it NEVER, absolutely NEVER crossed your mind, that design and great usability *execution* might actually be desirable.

I mean it seems like there was a lack of respect for usability. That is all. Sure Apple doesn't get it right all the time, but in MS's case there seems to be this general sense of "Usability? Pffft, who wants that?". Usability is just something which you hash out after you get all the features implemented in paper, right? Just throw it over to the usability lab, after the engineers get through with it, right? NO ! That's EXACTLY the problem. Marketing specs about what a product should have is fine, but you ALSO need to go beyond that abstractness of features and need to look at DESIGN execution during the whole development cycle. UI execution. Care about fit and finish. Care and research and focus on user interface flow and usability.

I'm exasperated with MS : THESE THINGS MATTER. Got it? Got it ??????? I totally, utterly respect MS for certain great technology they have and will continue to  provide.

Where I get REALLY frustrated is this utter shrug of the shoulders when it comes to end user accessibility of technology. On top of that you defend that attitude by saying : "Who wants one of these things anyway."  They want it because the creators of the iPhone top to bottom obviously have a FOCUS and CARE on usability and pleasure of use. You totally devalued that with your post. Totally. That's what you get wrong, this continuous, persisting refusal to respect usability and design. THAT's what you got wrong.

I am so passionate about it because I believe MS CAN do better, if they just, just, just start caring a bit about really making well designed, usable products. You already have the tech. Now you just need to start mentally, respecting usability. That is all. Whether its Ballmer appointing some Design czar or just making sure designers are present earlier in MS's software development, it has to get in there.  

Thanks.

# Rick said on October 22, 2008 12:46 PM:

Why on earth is it, whenever Apple makes a product that sells well that people say it's all down to marketing - yet whenever someone ELSE sells more then them it's because they're better?

iPhone is a cool product. Is it right for everyone? No. But that's why there's a thing called choice. Stop berating people for just picking something different from you.

# Jimmy G said on October 22, 2008 12:48 PM:

The problem is that you didn't see the iPhone as the device it is. You compared it to existing phones. Whereas the iPhone is not really a phone, it's everything you could possibly want in one device. And it's all of these things combined beautifully.

There are numerous reasons for its success, but to name a few:

The existing massive consumer base of iPod owners already have a major part of the iPhone equation on their computer: iTunes. No other phone company has anything near the power of iTunes (the software) or the content and quality of the iTunes Store.

The iPhone ads are aired worldwide to huge audiences. They show off a beautiful product with a beautiful interface that performs tasks easily and with flair that normally seem mundane.

The price of the iPhone (the original iPhone) was exactly the same concept used for the original iPod. Price it high to gain artificial scarcity - the select "elite" have an extremely attractive device that is difficult to obtain for the rest of the population. Bring out a newer, better iPhone several months after at a (still relatively expensive) but cheaper price point and the customers flood in.

Not to mention the number of big names building high quality iPhone apps, and the amount of press attention anything Apple does gets.

It's no surprise the iPhone is (so far) a success, but it's still got a way to go.

# DomArch said on October 22, 2008 12:50 PM:

It's the best phone I've used, much better than the blackberry is as a phone - my only complaint is lack of voice dialing, but that's not why it's so successful.

You were way off about the keyboard.  Lack of a physical keyboard does turn off some people, but after using the iPhone keyboard, most people I know, including myself, quickly become converts.  The auto correct rocks.  But that's not why it's so successful.

The internet access (for me) works when I need it to...whiz bang.  It's reliability compares to any other phone I've used.  But that's not why it's so successful.

The battery life is tough...BUT if I used a RAZR as often as I'm using the iPhone, I'm pretty confident I'd be charging it twice a day as well.

The reason it's so successful, and what you got wrong, was it did redefine the market, it is ushering in a new age.  It's not a phone, it's an incredibly powerful, pocketable, computer that includes a phone.  There's nothing else like it out there.

# loopy_nj said on October 22, 2008 12:51 PM:

As far as the iPhone goes, your entire prediction was wrong.  It is a perfect illustration of why you are "at Microsoft" and not Apple.

# dan said on October 22, 2008 12:52 PM:

what did you get wrong?

everything.

The question is telling. What you probably should have asked is "why" did you get it all wrong - and that you couldn't see this as an issue of why, rather than what, says a lot.

The iPhone isn't a "what" device. In your original post, you talked about features, about the phone's keyboard, about Internet access. These are all "what" the phone does. Microsoft excels in piling on the "what" stuff.

What you didn't consider is the why - which is to say, the reasons the iPhone works (and the reason Apple products work for their users.) They appeal to something beyond features, and it isn't just pure emotion: they appeal to the basic "I get it" sensibility that comes from intuitive functionality. You pick up an iPhone, and it works. Plain and simply. People bought them, and they understood -why- those features were in place, and -why- they were useful. That was something Windows Mobile - and I've owned six WM phones - never did.  It isn't that I've failed to be productive with Windows products. But they've never fulfilled that "why" quotient. They are always "what."

I hope that explanation isn't too obtuse. My point is that by phrasing your forensic query the way you do, you say a lot about the - and I say this with respect for your work - reasons you got it wrong in the first place.

(As for the Newton, the reason it failed was simple: it didn’t work.)

# Chris Adams said on October 22, 2008 12:54 PM:

I think many techies underestimate how important usability and polish are. As an example, I recently started using Outlook 2007 at a new job and was shocked at how bad it was. The core functionality works but there are tons of hangs (blocking network io in 2007???) and the UI wastes space, has tons of inconsistencies (e.g. things which can only be done via drag-and-drop, not through context menus, the app menu or hotkeys, and other permutations of that problem) and outright bugs (e.g. search folders have a fair number of terms which are ignored). The rest of Office 2007 is similarly well below the level of UI consistency and polish most Mac shareware developers provide.

Outlook is the corporate standard, so we use it - but nobody likes it so that marketshare is fragile to a competitor such as Gmail.  Google Chrome and Firefox are increasingly the browser people want to use - almost certainly because of UI quality rather than widespread longing for modern standards few people have even heard of; IE7 is what they're forced to use by a crappy legacy web app.

The iPhone also had a similar, even stronger push: it was the first smartphone which wasn't crippled by the phone companies. They were greedy and did things like never provide updates, require app developers to pay them off for network access without nags, etc. and that produced the same fragile marketshare.

# Ben Lawson said on October 22, 2008 1:07 PM:

In a lot of ways the iPhone is what the Newton you were involved with might have been. They both have "soft" interfaces, so there aren't dozens of usually irrelevant and distracting buttons. They both have intelligent, consistent and user-oriented development tools (this is where Flash, Java and Windows Mobile = epic fail).

What's different? Dramatically lower component costs, robust cellular and wifi environments, an internet-oriented society and the iPod.

Your older post is a classic example of the Microsoft "functionality" mindset. But what is the benefit of a function if no-one uses it? That's why Apple's habitual focus on simplification and usability is eating everyone's lunch. Some of us recognised this immediately, some of us didn't...

Oh, it's a great phone too. So go to a quiet place, contemplate this, and promise to open your mind next time 'round!

# mgseeley said on October 22, 2008 1:14 PM:

You weren't alone in your prediction of smaller sales so I won't pig pile on that aspect of your initial impressions. Now that you have had 15 months to get some hands on experience with an iPhone, how do feel about the lack of a keypad or how the unit functions as a phone? As "just another guy who wants to to understand an interesting problem about technology and the future" you've certainly used one, no? Have your views changed?

# joecab said on October 22, 2008 1:15 PM:

"redefine the market" or "usher in a new age": it's beginning to do just that. Look at what its competitors are coming out with now, especially RIM and Google.

"Without even mentioning that the same functionality has been available": You can't look at functions as a checklist. It's the overall package and real world use that matters. The iPhone whole is greater than a sum of its parts.

"who will want one of these things (other than the religious faithful)": Apparently millions of people. Some aren't even Mac people.

"People need this to be a phone, first and foremost": Not anymore. This is a little computer that also makes phone calls, not the other way around. Part of how the market is being redefined for smartphones.

"5 hours of battery life?  No keypad?  (you try typing a phone number on that screen, no matter how wonderful it is -- you will want a keypad)": 5 hours if you spend all your time only using the 3G stuff. Longer with other things like playing music and videos. It hasn't been a problem for me so far. Also, Apple's brought a lot of people (like me) who've never had a dedicated keyboard on a phone (and refuse to use that awful T9 on a numpad) so I type plenty fast on the screen.

"And for all that whiz-bang Internet access, you absolutely need the phone to work, immediately, every single time.  Will it do that?": For me, so far, so good.

"So please mark this post and come back in two years to see the results of my prediction: I predict they will not sell anywhere near the 10M Jobs predicts for 2008.": I think part of the problem is putting your own arrogance against Apple's: you couldn't imagine how this device so unlike everything else out there could sell that high, and Apple was boasting that it would. personally, i don't see how anyone could make any prediction either way given what an unproven thing it was. Part of the reason people couldn't believe that this many would sell was its initial unsubsidized price: Apple tested the waters to see if people might prefer a full-priced yet unsubsidized phone: it looks like their marketing determined that sales showed that a subsidized model would sell much better so they changed the model. I don't think it occurred to many people that Apple would make such a huge change.

"Okay, it's possible there are enough Apple religious people to buy a lot of them at first, but even the most diehard Mac fans who buy one of these will secretly carry two phones.": Enough with the Apple fanatic putdowns, please. This comment about the two phones makes NO sense. You deserve to get raked over the coals for sure on this one. I'd be surprised if most iPhone people even carry around iPods anymore, except for maybe the gym where a light, smaller music player without a camera is probably a better idea.

And as far as the Newton argument, enough. Do you really think the Apple of today is that same Newton era Apple? Really? I think you need to let go of this "cool" aura you've bestowed upon Apple's gear. Cool is great, but fleeting: well-engineered and aesthetic go much further.

# Derek said on October 22, 2008 1:16 PM:

Richard,

 I think the honest answer is a trees and forest thing.  Many, many folks who are hip deep in technology tend to look at the individual pieces of something.  That is, does it have all the parts I'm looking for?  In contrast, I think that most people are looking for a total experience.  The iPhone was the first widely available phone to get the total experience right.  Thus, it has been a wild success.  Sort of like the iPod (in fact, the iPhone is kinda riding the iPod's coattails in many ways).

 To use Yet Another Car Analogy... when buying a car, do you look at what type and brand of brakes it has?  Do you worry about whether the gas cap is on the right or the left?  No, the average person looks at the whole 'gestalt' of the car and decides on that.  Granted, there may be things (like manual vs automatic transmission), but those are exceptions rather than the rule.  

# Michael Ströck said on October 22, 2008 1:16 PM:

Yes, it's far, far better than anything else. If you don't see why, you really need to take off the filter goggles. Even back then... Practically all of the points except for the SDK-related stuff and the GPS applied right from the first keynote. Here's a quick list of the things that make it such a success:

The user interface, the industrial design and touch&feel, the and especially the developing environment and SDK. Apple hit this one out of the ballpark. Windows Mobile, Android, Java-enviroments... They all don't even get it wrong in comparison, they're just not in the same league...

If that didn't tip you off, maybe you should have looked at the the web-browsing capabilites, GPS, accelerometer (and its potential for games), the fact that it's a f*ing color, widescreen iPod with iTunes, the App Store, the marketing, the downright mind-boggling 3rd party accessories market, the fact that it uses an iPod dock-connector, which practically everybody has already in use. Also, there's the inherent and very handy (from a retail perspective) demo-ability of it's most important features, which is important because Apple is the only handset maker with SEVERAL HUNDRED stores in the US and abroad dedicated purely to its brand and products...

Seriously, your judgment was way off from day one.

# MichaelC said on October 22, 2008 1:16 PM:

It was partly the hardware, but mostly the software. Every other mobile phone I've used required me to become an expert in its interface's subtleties to use productively. The iPhone was easy to understand and use right out of the box. And it was fun to use. Never underestimate the power of fun.

# MikeMcD said on October 22, 2008 1:22 PM:

The iphone was a pretty ambitious concept in terms of usability, and many of the features seemed more likely to frustrate than to help the user experience. To your credit, you just didn't have the luxury of having an iphone in your hands at the time, and couldn't really know that Apple would deliver on both promises of unprecedented functionality and a simple phone that wouldn't get bogged down by all the flashy extras and touchscreen interface. Plus, given Apple's lack of success with the Motorola phone, I could understand your skepticism.

Overall, I think that what most people didn't expect with the iPhone was that it not only would be accepted by the masses, but it would often exceed the expectations of even the most critical iPhone users.

# GlennF said on October 22, 2008 1:24 PM:

While I'm a journalist who writes regularly about Apple technology, I thought the iPhone was too ambitious, too, and too overhyped. It seemed like nothing could live up to the fires that Apple stood back and let burn (it hardly fueled them, except through lack of attention; they released strategically very little).

Now the reason the iPhone worked, in my opinion, is that it hit a demographic that wasn't typically buying smartphones before. The first wave of buyers weren't supported by corporations: you couldn't do Exchange sync, you couldn't use 802.1X (WPA Enterprise), and VPN support was very constrained. Just among other issues that RIM and Windows Mobile had solved long ago.

And the lack of a "real" keyboard meant that BlackBerry users who were heavy typists weren't likely to switch. So when you look at the size of the smartphone market and were thinking about switchers, perhaps, the iPhone wasn't there for them.

What I think turned out is that Apple both expanded the smartphones market to new buyers who wouldn't have considered a typical smartphone before, and they found some adherents after the 2.0 release who didn't have heavy typing needs, or were willing to balance those against the general utility of the device.

Having tried every platform (including Android now with the G1), the iPhone has the best browsing experience, bar none, and in my experience with regular users (not just my own usage), browsing and email (where the email app is fine, not great) represent the majority of what people do.

Because of the multi-touch gesture system, anything graphical that formerly required lots of hassle to zoom or navigate became easy. Thus anything that was generally hard to do on a smartphone became easy on an iPhone, even as many easy things on smartphones (push, enterprise integration, typing, security) were quite hard or unavailable on an iPhone.

# Biba said on October 22, 2008 1:24 PM:

Tell me you are not being prejudice against Apple and their iPhone. You've just picked a phone in June when you can choose an iPhone where your pros and cons totally contradict yourself...

"I've been using it now for a month or two and here's what I like:

   * Much, much faster than my old Treo.

- So is the iPhone, and plus you don't get half the experience.

   * Way, way more memory, including RAM, so I can run more apps simultaneously

- The AppStore have over 4000 apps developed for the iPhone, have you even bother to look at them?

   * Built-in GPS.

- Again, much better experience on the iPhone, lots of apps takes advantages of it with location based services.

   * Built-in WiFi

- That was so last year with the first gen iPhone. You can even do VOIP if you wanted to.

What I don't like:

   * no built-in RJ-11 jack (or any kind of audio-out), making it hard to connect to my car's audio.

- There are tons of options with the iPhone, pretty much most New cars have the iPhone in mind.

   * slide-out keyboard.  

- There is nothing covering it, just a simple glass panel on the iPhone.

   * No sound switch.  

- There is a simple switch on the iPhone to turn on vibrate."

Despite your observations on your new phone, and even after looking at the iPhone, and totally wrong predicting iPhone's sales forecast, and now even trying to blame it's success on just merely Marketing, I have to say there is nothing in the World would persuade you to ever bother revisit the iPhone.

# sirshannon said on October 22, 2008 1:24 PM:

I was a die-hard Windows Mobile user and was on my 3rd WinMo phone when the iPhone came out.  However, the problems with Windows Mobile were known to every user and (unfortunately) rejected and/or ignored. This lack of progress eventually led me to try an iPhone. I'm now on my second one and I don't think I'll ever be able to use a WinMo phone again.

The touchscreen isn't as good as a keypad, true, and there are other missing features but except for a few small ones, the iPhone far outclasses and outperforms WinMo in every comparison.  The missing features infuriated me (and a couple still do) but the 90% overlap between iPhone and WinMo is much more important to me 90% of the time.

Your original post was a lot like my feelings at the time.  But when I saw no good (meaning "improved") new WinMo phones coming that season, I decided to give iPhone a try and wait for my next WinMo purchase.  Over a year later, I still don't see WinMo making the improvements that were needed 2 years ago.

# Reid said on October 22, 2008 1:26 PM:

I guess the question back would be, did you get anything right? Take another look at your post. Which, by the way, was written AFTER the iPhone was announced, but before it was available for sale. And which, by the way, dared readers to come back and check in to prove you right. :)

# Ted T. said on October 22, 2008 1:29 PM:

"you try typing a phone number on that screen, no matter how wonderful it is — you will want a keypad)."  This to me distills what you got wrong about the iPhone.  A failure of imagination, that, yes it would be possible have a phone "just far, far better than anything else"

You never, ever miss a real keypad on the iPhone.  First because between the superior favorites screen and address book you practically never have to dial.  And if you do end up entering a number, the large numeric pad that pops up is actually easier to use than a "real" one.

Of course that is just a minor if telling detail.  The SDK/dev tools/app store and eager consumers thereof with 200 million app downloads thus far is what has sealed Windows Mobile's coffin.  It is inconceivable that it will ever attract the developer mindshare or customer share of iPhone Apps.  

Obviously not all of this could have been predicted the day the iPhone was introduced, but those of us who viewed the iPhone as total game changer on day one, realized that it was unique to start with, and that in its initial form it only was just the start.  Apple these days is a rapidly moving target in both software and hardware development.

Those who continue to think that superior marketing is the cause of the iPhone's success will forever fail to compete with it.

# Kevin Dangoor said on October 22, 2008 1:31 PM:

So, John Gruber linked to the post in question: http://blogs.msdn.com/sprague/archive/2007/01/18/java.aspx

which certainly leads to a bit of traffic and mail.

I think the first thing you got wrong is mistaking Steve Jobs' second time around at Apple for the Newton-era Apple. The Apple of today won't ship garbage. If they have a product idea that doesn't work (from a user's perspective), they'll kill it before it comes out.

They caught a lot of flak for the MobileMe launch, and Jobs reportedly came down hard on the folks involved. MobileMe is a fine product that just shipped with bugs. Imagine Steve's reaction if one of his product managers hands him a phone that sucks as a phone. It wouldn't fly.

As an iPhone user, I don't miss having a keypad. In fact, there's rarely any reason to do anything involving numbers. All of my contacts' various numbers are there. If I'm looking for a business, I'll generally fire up the Google Maps app and just tap to get the company info and tap again to call. Or I can search on Google for the company and then tap the phone number in the search results (thanks, Google!)

I was actually skeptical about the iPhone when it was first announced. But it is a truly awesome piece of consumer electronics. The UI is wonderful. And it's only become more useful over time after the App Store launched.

So, I think where you went wrong was:

1. Steve Jobs wouldn't ship something that calls itself a phone but is a crappy phone

2. The user interface and platform of the iPhone really was innovative and competitors are still working to catch up.

# Michael Tyznik said on October 22, 2008 1:31 PM:

I think there are several points you got wrong.

1. I don't miss a physical keyboard. With the touchscreen and word correction I type way faster than I ever could on a physical keyboard with my fat thumbs.

2. You talk about the functionality being available on other phones, but you are missing why Apple is so successful. They are about experience. Sometimes that comes in the form of functionality, and other times they forgo some functionality in order to focus on creating a wonderful user interface and overall experience. That's why I love my iPhone.

And the overall certainty of the blog entry bothered me. The whole line about Apple users carrying two phones has an air of superiority about it that just makes you hard to take too seriously.

# Ken said on October 22, 2008 1:33 PM:

It's brave of you to open yourself up to comments here, and I applaud you for it.

With regards to what you got wrong:

- You dismissed all of Apple's customers as mere religious fanatics and fanboys, instead of people who are genuinely looking to use the best products available.

- You dismissed the iPhone's innovative touch-screen interface (which other companies are now scrambling to copy) without having used it and giving it a fair chance.

- You compared the iPhone to the Newton; if you remember your history, Steve Jobs hated the Newton and killed it upon his return to Apple. There's something we should all be realizing by now: Jobs recognizes the difference between merely "cool" and actually groundbreaking.

Apple's success isn't about marketing; it's about product differentiation.

# David said on October 22, 2008 1:34 PM:

I think what many people, not you alone, overlooked in their assessment of the iPhone was that virtually every mobile offering had the same relatively mediocre user experience: the same small screens, clunky input response, and desktop-style user interface.  Smartphones were better, but they felt like a desktop OS had been forcibly wedged into them.

People were used to the typical cellphone, not because they liked it, but because there was no comparison.

After using an iPhone for the first time, it was like a breath of fresh air.  I used features that my previous phone had, but were hard to access. I also starting thinking of the phone as no longer just a "phone," but rather a truly portable computer -- with an OS specifically designed for handheld usage.

# Chris said on October 22, 2008 1:35 PM:

Disclaimer: I am an iPhone owner, but not a Mac user.

"What did I get wrong?"

The short answer is that I think your assumptions were significantly off-base.

First -- and I recognize my use pattern is likely atypical -- I do NOT need my device to be a phone first-and-foremost. Frankly, the app I use the most often is Mobile Safari, followed closely by iPod. Phone is probably fifth or sixth down the list, possibly farther since the advent of the App Store.

Even if I DID need it to be a phone first, as a great many of my coworkers and friends do, I suspect I'd have as little in the way of obstacles as they do. Your anxiety about a touchscreen keypad is a total non-starter. For one, you use it extremely rarely, enough so that you're likely only using it to transcribe a number from another source (paper, computer screen, someone's voice)... not while driving or otherwise hassled. Furthermore, the iPhone's easy-to-use contacts lists (All Contacts, Recent Contacts and Favorite Contacts) make it very easy to mentally map the easiest way to get to someone's number is in a straightforward and intuitive way.

Second, yes the device's internet access (generally) works immediately. It's certainly solid enough to get the job done, and done extraordinarily well. Compared to my old phone (a Sidekick), it's much more useful, and while it's less stable than my old Moto v60, it's an order of magnitude more capable.

This is perhaps the most important thing, though: it's damn easy to use. Usability is its single best feature. As I mentioned above, I had a Sidekick, which is renowned for its UI... and the iPhone blows it away. It's slick, it's (generally) responsive... and that's the core of the issue. It is, frankly, NOT as full-featured as competitors' offerings. In some areas, substantially so. That said, I'd rather have a phone that does twenty things extremely well over a phone that does forty things in a bizarre and inscrutable fashion.

(The marketing has been good too, I suppose -- it's Apple, after all -- but I think all the good marketing in the world wouldn't sell a product that was a clunker like you were anticipating. The technology is superlative. The software is excellent. The gestalt, though, is what's making these fly off of shelves.)

# Jon said on October 22, 2008 1:36 PM:

It's part marketing, but it's also something that the Windows Mobile team (and Symbian, and RIM) doesn't quite get yet: it's about the interface.

The notion that you can use a stylus for a phone, let alone should, is counter-intuitive for all but a certain class of people.  Why should I bring out a tiny pen I'm likely to lose when I use it out on the street?  Fingers are intuitive, and Apple built the iPhone around that; most firms still don't get it.

Also, many phone makers (including Microsoft) have virtually no idea how to handle media playback right now: outside of perhaps very recent Nokia phones, only the iPhone gets that right.  For goodness' sake, the T-Mobile G1 still doesn't have a native headphone jack.  How can it fight the iPhone when it makes no sense to iPod owners?

And don't even get me started on mobile web browsers!

# DB said on October 22, 2008 1:37 PM:

The gloaters, feh. If it’s any consolation, the Interwebs are full of ’em. Make any definitive statement, take any clearly delineated stand, and they come out of the woodwork.

The only thing you got wrong, really, is underestimating the care Apple took to address exactly the issues you brought up in your initial post. If you thought of it, surely the dozens or hundreds of engineers at Apple paid handsome salaries to do nothing but ponder possible problems thought of it too. (Frankly I could cut and paste this into a response to any naysayer, because it’s a consistent pundit blind spot.)

Now, the response could be “yeah, but other companies don’t display similar acumen”, and that would be defensible. The difference is that Apple aims their products at individual buyers, not institutional buyers. If I’m getting something for myself, I buy something to please myself. If I’m a buyer ordering products for people I don’t know and may never see, what incentive do I have to get things that they will find cool and easy to use?

That’s the final link in the chain. Cel phones in particular are iconic examples of unfriendly user interfaces. (It used to be VCRs, of course.) The iPhone is first and foremost an amazing user experience. It ain’t no more complicated than that.

The legend is that Steve Jobs says “Is it something I would buy and find cool?” Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s a myth, but certainly some form of that question is a fundamental design goal at Apple, and very few companies even bother to ask it. Nintendo is the only one I can think of offhand.

# Stu said on October 22, 2008 1:37 PM:

Why don't you go back & read what you got wrong:

http://blogs.msdn.com/sprague/archive/2007/01/18/java.aspx

My answer?  You got everything wrong.  Every sentence in your first article, and followups, was wrong.

1. It's redefined the market.  Every company now has to have an iPhone killer.

2. It's ushered in a new age.   Most phones still aren't easy to use.  ie make calls, play videos, play music, get mail, surf the internet, play games, try new apps.  Some phones can do some of these things well, but no other phone can do *all* of these things well.

3. No other phone *yet* has all the same functionality.  They're still trying to just *copy* the iPhone's full range of functionality.  My 3 yr old can use my phone to play music, movies & games.  Can't do that on a BB.

4. It is a phone, and works just fine at that.  AT&T may be a bit spotty, but that's not the phone's fault.

5. The keypad works better than most - the numbers are larger.

6. Battery life was poor, but software improvements have made it good, for a smartphone.

7.  Yes, the phone works just fine when you're on the internet.

8. Apple has already sold more than 10M phones, and possibly up to 20M by year end.

9. A lot of iPhone buyers aren't 'religious fanatics'.  Some don't even know about the Mac OS.

10.  The Newton wasn't cool, unless you were a nerd.  The iPhone is cool, because it's the best iPod there is.  And it keeps getting better.

I'm not sure why you needed to write an article inviting people to point out how badly you missed the mark on this.  And MSFT still keeps missing it.  See Balmer's quotes on it as well.

# NeilM said on October 22, 2008 1:37 PM:

Richard, I think you got about three-and-a-half things wrong about the iPhone.

The first is is saying that RIM, Treo and the others have had the same functionality for years. In theory, yes, but in real life their functionality has been either limited, for instance barely usable web browsing, or uneven in the sense that the others did one thing really well, such as the Blackberry's email and push, but the rest was rather an afterthought. (That said, we had a Treo 700V and it didn't do anything well, not even the phone part.)

The second ties into the first, and was your underestimating Apple's ability to integrate the iPhone's various functions into a coherent, harmonious, and even delightful user experience. Not the least of this is the iTunes App Store. I'm the household geek, so of course I like the iPhone, but my non-gadget-freak wife (the business professional and former Treo user) chuckles over hers every day, and says she just doesn't know how she ever got along without her iPhone 3G.

Third was underestimating Apple's compelling hardware design. The iPhone was (I say "was" because of the recent spate of would-be iPhones) lighter and more compact than its competitors, and used both new and existing technologies in better ways. Furthermore, and this should have been expected given experience with the Mac, the hardware/software integration is seamless.

The "half" was your observation about the iPhone needing to be a good phone. You were correct, but as it turns out, and somewhat to my own surprise, the iPhone is a very good phone.

I don't ignore Steve Jobs' infamous Reality Distortion Field, but no RDF works on what we now know to be more than 10 million iPhone buyers. No, the iPhone isn't perfect — but it really is that good. It has redefined and vastly expanded the smartphone market segment, and now everyone else is in catch-up mode.

# Alan said on October 22, 2008 1:44 PM:

"What did I get wrong?"

The mind reels. You got the "phoneness" of the product wrong, certainly: it is a very good phone, and the only people I see carrying a second phone are those wed to a Blackberry from their workplace. You were also wrong on sales over time, which are accelerating at a breakneck pace. You were even wrong on the soundness of the underlying technology—multi-touch is easier and more comfortable to use than the vast majority of five-way switches on dumb phones.

But really, all of this is beside the point. Remember what you said? "I predict they will not sell anywhere near the 10M Jobs predicts for 2008."

You got the number wrong.

# Carl Jonard said on October 22, 2008 1:44 PM:

What did you get wrong?

Well, not to be blunt, pretty much everything.

Your primary argument seemed to be that the iPhone would not work effectively as a phone. But it does. It's a great phone, probably the most user-friendly phone out there, and it does "work, immediately, every single time."

And "typing a phone number on that screen" is rarely necessary, but when you do have to, it works great. The individual number buttons are bigger than any other cell phone out there.

You wrote: "even the most diehard Mac fans who buy one of these will secretly carry two phones.  One to prove how loyal and "cool" they are, and the other to actually make and receive calls." Nobody does this.

Based on pure conjecture, you assumed that the iPhone would suck as a phone, and it just doesn't.

# Jason said on October 22, 2008 1:49 PM:

What did you get wrong?  Are you serious?  How about we examine your prediction...

So please mark this post and come back in two years to see the results of my prediction:  I predict they will not sell anywhere near the 10M Jobs predicts for 2008.

When you throw down the gauntlet inviting peole to come back in two years, don't be surprised when the actually come back in two years and remind you that you were wrong.  What were you wrong about?  Come on...  Maybe you should be asking instead where your prediction went wrong.

It's clear from Microsoft's slow response to the "I'm a Mac" campaign that the company generally fails to understand Apple's marketing acumen.  If Apple does one thing exceptionally well, it's advertising.  Failing to understand that was your first mistake.

Your second mistake was to overlook the gaping hole in this particular vertical market.  Prior to the iPhone, public perception was that their only option for the kind of functionality offerred by the iPhone was Blackberry.  This is the same Blackberry that has regularly made news with service outages.  

Your third mistake was to overlook the ease of use that the iPhone offers.  When you can add functionality without adding the overhead of complexity, you're going to generally have a winner in the marketplace.  Being a Microsoft employee, this should be a concept that wouldn't slip past you.

# CraigH said on October 22, 2008 1:51 PM:

A lot of people complain about the lack of a hardware keyboard, and it's a valid point.  But when using this as a central argument against the iPhone, it shows a complete misunderstanding of the benefit of the novel touchscreen interface.  The fact that you're *not* toting around a keyboard all the time is the whole point!

I think the iPhone has been successful because the touch interface is like an infinitely adaptable swiss army knife.  Not perfect at all tasks, but it has a huge range of utility, one being to simulate a keyboard in a way that is good enough for a large number of customers (and when you consider how easy it is to create keyboards in many languages for international users, it suddenly becomes a major boon).

To put it another way, if a hardware keyboard is important to a particular customer, they better damn well be using it 100% of the time to justify that feature, otherwise it's baggage that adds weight/volume and usually takes up space that could be put to better use (a bigger screen for instance, or maybe more battery capacity).  None of the software interfaces of the iPhone carry this sort of packaging "overhead" or burden.  Whether you want/need/use them or not, they don't bring along a basic packaging penalty.

# Hade said on October 22, 2008 1:55 PM:

Like a commenter already mentioned in response to your original post on this, I think what you got wrong is the fact that it 's not about features. It 's about usability.  

There is really nothing spectacular about the phone in iPhone, except that it makes good use of the touch interface, and integrates well with other services that are also there. For me, iPhone use mostly revolves around the address book, which not only stores phone numbers and lets me easily retrieve them (that flipping gesture is genious, IMHO), but also stores e-mail adresses, physical adresses, web sites, ... If I want to take a quick look at a contact 's website, well, I just go ahead and do it. Same story for sending them an e-mail, locating their home or office on a map, etc.

Speaking of websites, we all know that the iPhone has popularized mobile internet use in a way no other device ever has before. That 's because it makes it easy to surf the internet whenever, wherever, and it doesn 't dumb down the experience.

Then of course there is the iPod part, but since the iPod Nano had already been proven a smashing success long before the iPhone came out, it should surprise nobody that users like the iPhone as a media player. In my - admittedly somewhat biased - opinion, the iPhone really is the best iPod Apple ever made. Note that the iPod, in and of itself, has NEVER been the MP3 player with the most or the best features. It became a hit despite that, and maybe to some degree because of it.

And yes, a lot of devices can do most of the things I just mentioned, and often a few others too. But not many do all of them well.

One of the important reasons the iPhone does do them well is, of course, the touch interface. And who cares if it wasn 't exactly new, let alone invented by Apple? Apple combined several existing ideas and implemented them in a useful way, and that 's all most people will ever care about.

To top it all off, there is the App Store. Sure, there 's a lot of crap on there, and Apple has proven itself to be a somewhat unreliable gatekeeper for it (see various ad hoc justificiations for rejecting or removing x or y app). Despite that, as mobile phones go, it 's borderline revolutionary. In principle, it makes the iPhone an infinitely expandable platform. It can be a Gameboy clone, an eBook reader, a backup drive, a mobile RSS reader, etc. In principle, the sky is the limit. How many mobile phones can you say that of?  

# Joe Ferguson said on October 22, 2008 1:58 PM:

I notice that Richard says, and I quote, "Note: I'm not a Microsoft spokesman,...".

This is a rather strange thing to proclaim when he holds the position of Senior Director of Marketing within Microsoft.

What gets me about most people that publicly comment on technology, is that they are very rarely able to eat a bit of humble pie when they get it wrong.  And boy did Richard get it wrong on the iPhone.

So a couple of facts for you.

1. Apple sold more phones than RIM last quarter: 6.9 vs. 6.1 million.

2. Measured by revenue, Apple is the third-largest mobile phone supplier in the world, behind only Nokia and Samsung. And they’ve been in the market for just 15 months.

Source: http://www.macworld.com/article/136248/2008/10/apple_financials.html

3. Apple have sold just over 13 million iPhones to date, and over 9 million in calendar 2008 alone. Given that the remaining three months of 2008 are the holiday season, Apple’s “10 million in 2008” goal looks like a sure thing — given that the current quarter started three weeks ago, they’ve probably already done it.

Also, the 6.9 million iPhones sold last quarter are more than the 6.1 million iPhones sold in the previous five quarters combined.

Source: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/10/21results.html

4. Microsoft boldly proclaimed that it would sell "more than" 20 million licenses to its Windows Mobile operating system by the end of its fiscal year on June 30, Microsoft later scaled that prediction back to "nearly" 20 million units. This week, however, the software giant conceded it did not hit its target: The company sold just 18 million units in the fiscal year.

Source: http://windowsitpro.com/windowspaulthurrott/article/articleid/99898/microsoft-misses-windows-mobile-sales-target.html

So to conclude, it looks bleak for Microsoft Mobile and RIM and all the talk of the iPhone not having a keyboard...

... have you seen RIM's latest offering?

# Harry Zink said on October 22, 2008 2:21 PM:

What you got wrong is quite easy -- the very fact that Apple 'gets it', and all the other ones you listed ("that the same functionality has been available on PocketPC, Palm, Nokia, and Blackberry for years") simply do not.

The classic reminder would be "It's the software, stupid!", and it's exactly what Steve Jobs points out repeatedly - the iPhone is merely the hardware Apple built in order to run their software the proper way.

The difference is that WinMobile (née PocketPC), Palm, Nokia, and Blackberry have kept providing 'good enough' products, aiming for a low denominator of functionality -- while Apple has taken the opposite approach, aiming higher (much higher), and continuing to improve the software faster while evolving the hardware slowly.

Apple simply provided a better product, and kept improving it, while responding to what their market needs - something the other guys, who have been at it for years, apparently haven;t been able to do.

Quite simple, really :-)

# Phil said on October 22, 2008 2:23 PM:

I think there were three mistakes in your analysis, and none of them obvious in foresight (I say think, since they are mostly inferred, rather than said right out).  First, you thought of the functionality as the same that "has been available on PocketPC, Palm, Nokia, and Blackberry for years" - the difference in experience brought in new users in droves.  Second, the "whiz-bang Internet access" you mentioned became indispensable _after_ people began using the phone, but the iPod aspect (which you didn't address at all) brought people in - not having a second device was a much larger driver than would have been reasonably anticipated.  Third, unlike the Newton, this was a nearly inevitable progression from the iPod (remember the ROKR?), so that technology which wasn't included wasn't removed, just never there.  Java, Flash, etc - these would have been big deals if they had been truly expected up front, but they weren't.

# Flooey said on October 22, 2008 2:24 PM:

Looking at your old article, I think the number one thing you got wrong was the fact that you assumed people buy smartphones to make phone calls.  I make maybe one phone call a week, and many of my friends are of similar mindsets.  The iPhone isn't a phone for me and the other people I know who own one, it's a pocket-sized computer that happens to make phone calls as a side feature.  Making phone calls on the iPhone is pretty pedestrian, but the casual computer features (by which I mean mainly the Safari and iPod apps) are extraordinary, and that's the area where smartphones were previously pretty terrible.

As well, I agree with Glenn that the mistake a lot of people made was thinking that a smartphone had to appeal to business users because current smartphones were largely purchased by business users.  The causation was simply backwards: current smartphones were largely purchased by business users because the consumer features weren't any good but the business features were there.  Apple came out with the first really good consumer-oriented smartphone, and consumers loved it.

# Scott said on October 22, 2008 2:37 PM:

You want to know what you got wrong?

"I predict they will not sell anywhere near the 10M Jobs predicts for 2008.  Okay, it's possible there are enough Apple religious people to buy a lot of them at first, but even the most diehard Mac fans who buy one of these will secretly carry two phones.  One to prove how loyal and "cool" they are, and the other to actually make and receive calls."

# Jean-Denis said on October 22, 2008 2:57 PM:

Well, I guess people (including me), would appreciate it if you would keep your commitment. You said "So please mark this post and come back in two years to see the results of my prediction:  I predict they will not sell anywhere near the 10M Jobs predicts for 2008".

Simply stating you were completely wrong would simply be enough. And though you are not a Microsoft spokeperson, you are still clearly associated with Microsoft, and with Steve Balmer's wisdom regarding the iPhone (which I'm sure you know about).

# Podesta said on October 22, 2008 3:15 PM:

It seems to me that you got EVERYTHING wrong about the iPhone.  You thought the phone function would be an inadequate afterthought.   You believed the lack of a physical keyboard would be fatal.   Somehow, you were unaware of just how important both a wonderful browser (Safari) and ready availability of music and other iTunes entertainment are.  You naively believed the price was a barrier.  You clearly had no idea of what consumers want -- a well-designed convergence device.  That is what the iPhone is.

I must disagree with Glenn F. (Fleishmann?).  The original wave of iPhone purchasers were not people new to smart phones, but tech enthusiasts.  They were soon complemented by people willing to try something different since the status quo of cell phones left much to be desired.  (Reminiscent of the current political climate.)

No one who 'gets' the iPhone is troubled by the touch screen keyboard after a week or two.  The keyboard is easy to get used to.

# Tenacious MC said on October 22, 2008 3:16 PM:

I'll tell you what I think made the iPhone popular. Touchscreens. They were cool on Star Trek from The Next Generation and so forth. When I was watching those shows, I can't imagine how badly I wished we had software-defined multi-touch screens on everything today. Now we do with the iPhone to start with.

Try typing or dialing a number on the iPhone's touchpad you say? It works the way I thought it would in a very positive manner. How much more closer to the future can you get with this thing? It just works.

The only thing I can see that's keeping Apple from getting the absolute full potential of profits from the iPhone: people's dislike (or hatred) for AT&T. Despite this, the rest of us are still moving over to the iPhone.

# John Meche said on October 22, 2008 3:24 PM:

I think it was the marketing. The iPhone is not an iPod for smartphone users. It's a cell phone for iPod users. Anyone who loved their iPod and hated the music functions on their phone but didn't want to carry 2 devices was in the sights of iPhone marketing.

# Kevin said on October 22, 2008 3:40 PM:

People still, after all this time, just don't get it when it comes to Apple. Why has the iPhone been such a tremendous hit?

It just works.

Period. Seriously. It takes what was difficult, cumbersome and crappy and makes it just work. This has always been Apple's "secret sauce," and it's astounding how no one else can seem to figure it out.

# Frank Fulchiero said on October 22, 2008 3:43 PM:

This is not ad hominem. But if you did not get it then, you may not get it now. It's not just the surface glitz, which helps. It's about integrating the hardware with the software, and a good user experience, which no-one does as well as Apple.  And I'm no fanboy.

# Steve Hyde said on October 22, 2008 3:51 PM:

I’ve been an iPhone owner since they were released in Germany one year ago. I had been a long-time Palm user – I didn’t go out of the house without my Palm V and then my Tungsten – and then I bought a Nokia 6680, which I thought was going to replace my old phone and my Tungsten. I did stop using the Tungsten  but I never used the 6680 as a smartphone because it was just too unwieldy – the screen was terrible, too small and navigation was a nightmare. Oh, and with my failing eyesight, I needed to have my reading glasses with me all the time just to use the phone!! All the time I was looking for a device that would replace the Nokia and give me back the Palm functionality in a USEABLE device. Plus, I wanted the self-same device to incorporate the iPod that I’d also started carrying around.

Then came the iPhone and I’ll confess here to being a sort of Apple fanboy although that doesn’t mean that I buy everything they bring out, as soon as it comes out.

The iPhone is a USABLE device in a package that fits in your pocket. Apple looked at what people do with these diverse devices; looked at what want from a single device, what was wrong with the forerunners and put as much as they could in making the ultimate user experience. Admittedly, Apple didn’t put everything that everybody wants into the iPhone. If they had, they’d have ended up with the “Microsoft Word” of mobile phones (and I’m not talking about ubiquity, here ). Instead, they concentrated on the 80 – 90 % of things that are important to 95% of the market and providing an outstandingly solid user experience.

# Paul Chapel said on October 22, 2008 3:55 PM:

I think GlennF is right. I never wanted a smart phone, Black Berry, WinMo or whatever, before the iPhone came out. Those zillion buttons on Blackberry, etc actually made smart phones look unattractive and hard to use.

The iPhone came out and I remember thinking, now this is how easy all computers should be! A child could use it. That's not to say that it only appeals to idiots. It's just that, why make something harder to use than it should be? Why click five times, three clicks will do? Why do we need a freaking Manual when it could just as well be self explanatory?

# Think Twice said on October 22, 2008 4:05 PM:

I suppose what you got wrong is never, ever underestimate Mr. Jobs. He has proven way too many people wrong over the years. However, if you are like most, you will look for the failures in his record rather than successes.  More than anything the fact hat Apple seems to pay attention to how people *actually* use things. Cell phone interfaces has been abysmal till now.

# JC said on October 22, 2008 4:12 PM:

Well, start with your quote:

"What!?!?  Without even mentioning that the same functionality has been available on PocketPC, Palm, Nokia, and Blackberry for years, I just have to wonder who will want one of these things (other than the religious faithful).  People need this to be a phone, first and foremost. But with 5 hours of battery life?  No keypad?  (you try typing a phone number on that screen, no matter how wonderful it is -- you will want a keypad).  And for all that whiz-bang Internet access, you absolutely need the phone to work, immediately, every single time.  Will it do that? "

Same functionality? - Not for the internet, apple was way ahead, and apple still is ahead currently.  Sometimes, when I'm on the regular computer, I find myself with the urge to double-click, in order for the zoom to "naturally" happen!

Of course, Android has closed the gap, as has the functionality of the other phones, but they aren't there yet.

"I just have to wonder who will want one of these things (other than the religious faithful)"

Well, it turns out, quite a lot of people.

"But with 5 hours of battery life?  No keypad?"

It turns out that people can type fine on the iphone - so not a drawback.  Battery life as well.

"And for all that whiz-bang Internet access, you absolutely need the phone to work, immediately, every single time.  Will it do that? "

Better than any other phone created.

So, the reasons you gave for the I-Phone not doing well, were all incorrect.  And were clearly incorrect at the time, I remember reading this article of yours.  

# JC said on October 22, 2008 4:15 PM:

To follow up - it's just easy to use, really.  The only thing currently that other phones have over the I-Phone, is their ability to be used as a GPS device - and actually TALK to you.  Verizon has this, when you pay an extra $10 per month, and my fiance got a Verizone phone with that capability, because of it.  (She gets lost easily).

But - ease of use, ease of use, ease of use.

# Alan said on October 22, 2008 4:28 PM:

Richard,

Kudos to you for posting this based on what were I'm sure a bunch of annoying email. Since I was one who emailed you, I'll offer my comments here.

I have a blackberry and had it for about 6 months before the iPhone was announced. In that time I greatly appreciated being able to access the internet.

The web browsing was clunky (roll the dial to scroll across the links), there was no html rendering (it's all text and pictures, kind of like 1999!), slow (waiting forever for javascript to parse), and the screen was tiny. I forgave all of this, though, because there was no significantly better reference and because the berry did a great job on emails (at least, non-html formatted emails).

When the iPhone came out, though, it was immediately apparent to me that the large screen html browser with easy navigation was a killer app. I read that there were other browsers for other devices that were "just as good" but I've yet to see one. For me internet access is the main thing - and the iPhone really did it much better than anything else I was able to try out. I put Opera Mini on my blackberry and thought it was worse than the native app. I'm sure newer blackberrys have better browsers now, and I've heard they are doing some html email rendering now.

I think the visual presentation on the iPhone is much higher grade than most other devices (smooth scrolling, fonts that match and look good at small size, 3d shading on icons, transparent overlays, and so forth).

When comparing phones by "tech specs" you don't see a lot of differences, but when someone goes to use an iPhone it leaves them with a positive experience.

# dan said on October 22, 2008 4:42 PM:

So you moderate comments that aren't to your liking? Even thoughtful ones?

Again: that you asked "what" you got wrong - not "why" you got things wrong - is the key to your mistake. This isn't about the hard empiricism of a "what." The iPhone expresses an idea, physically: that's a why.

Microsoft has always been a "what" company, and when it has succeeded, it has been because it has done "what" well (Windows XP, 2000). Apple has always been a "why" company, and it has failed when it has done that concept poorly (Newton!)

Sometimes, "what" becomes outdated, and it ceases to function. This is, in my opinion, what is happening with Windows Mobile: the platform was adequate - especially because it faced competition that was only adequate. RIM initially showed that "why" competition could beat it. The iPhone has hammered the "why" so hard that WM is sinking fast.

Again, I think the question speaks to the MS corporate culture. When MS does "what" well, success is HUGE - the whole world adopts. When MS does "what" poorly, disaster strikes (Vista, perhaps?) When MS tries "why," it has so far also done less well than it might have hoped - online services have historically not worked, Tablet PCs - but there are bright lights in X-Box, and hope in Zune.

In any case, sometimes the best way to answer a question is to examine the question itself.

Hopefully you'll publish this one. A lot of thought went into it. I guess if you don't, that kind of makes you more of an MS spokesman than you imply... :)

# Tri said on October 22, 2008 5:08 PM:

You failed to link to your post from two years ago. Very prescient.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sprague/archive/2007/01/18/java.aspx

# Martin Turner said on October 22, 2008 5:31 PM:

I think what you got wrong (along with lots of people who explained to me at great length why other smartphones with 3G and bigger cameras were 'better') was the idea that Apple was trying to break in on either the phone market or the smartphone market. In fact, Apple was trying to create a new product category, one which it owned completely from the beginning. This was the same approach it took to the iPod. Although the iPod wasn't by any means the first MP3 player on the market, the iTunes + iPod combination as brand new, and Apple established ownership of the 'legally acquired downloads' market fairly quickly.

The iPhone has gone in two phases. The original iPhone sold to people who were very style conscious, very Applephile, or who had worked out that the features the original iPhone had enabled them to carry fewer gadgets than they had at the time. Myself, I moved from carrying a phone, a Blackberry, and an iPod, to just an iPhone. The iPhone didn't do enterprise email, but the Blackberry didn't do my personal email, and my personal email was more important to me.

The iPhone 3G attracted a lot of people who had vocally said "I won't buy the iPhone until it's got 3G" (including many who didn't know what 3G was). However, the real boost was the 2.0 firmware, which opened up the world of Apps, thereby turning the iPhone into a UNIX core palm-top computer.

It wasn't so much the browsing experience, or the look, or any one thing, it was the fact that Apple invested a very large amount of technology, design and marketing into a single product which was both desirable and which sat in a market position which was entirely unoccupied. From Apple's point of view, the plethora of 'iPhone killers' is highly beneficial, because every time one of those phones is described, the reviewer re-emphasizes that the real king of this particular market is the iPhone. The more 'iPhone Killers' there are, the more anonymous they become by comparison with each other, and the more the iPhone is established as the category leader.

# Chip said on October 22, 2008 5:37 PM:

Richard,

Very nice of you to revisit this topic.

You ask: "What did I get wrong?"

While you did get wrong the number sold, AND the iphone's technology advancement, AND the fact that the phone works well, AND that the only buyers would be Apple zealots, AND that iPhone buyers would carry two phones, you were most wrong on two major points, (and this wrongness appears to be consistent throughout Microsoft:

1) Consumers care more about the combination of features and price than they do about the combination of simplicity and elegance; and

2) Apple under the new Steve Jobs is the same Apple when you were there.

A little respect for the competitor when they get things right would be nice.

# SamK said on October 22, 2008 5:44 PM:

Everybody always talks about the cultist folks that think Apple products are cool and that is why they buy them.  You know, the iPod was successful because it solved a problem. How to easily obtain, transport, and listen to music?  iPhone solved problems too.  How to get the internet & email easily on a phone?  Before the iPhone most phones were a cacophony of menus to check email or get to the web.  Text messaging things like POS (Parent Over Shoulder) might have been fun for some but a pain in the caboose for many. iPhone solved these problems. Google is doing the same problem solving with Android and products like Google Docs. This is what both of these companies do. Solve problems.  I have used MS products for over 20 years and I have to say that I have not seen MS solve very many mainstream problems lately.  I have read and seen some cool research and research byproducts but I cannot think of the last time that a MS product solved an everyday problem for me.

# Marcos said on October 22, 2008 5:47 PM:

Well, let's look at what you wrote:

>Even some of my blindly-loyal pro-Microsoft friends and colleagues talk like it’s a real innovation and will “redefine the market” or “usher in a new age”.   What!?!?  Without even mentioning that the same functionality has been available on PocketPC, Palm, Nokia, and Blackberry for years....

Mistake 1 - comparing an Apple product to something based on a list of features.  This was what iPod-naysayers said in 2001.   The interface, the integration with iTunes, the size - all ignored because based on some features checklist, the Apple product comes up short.  

Well, the iPhone does everything all those other phones did better - much better.  Consumers care about the actual experience and ease-of-use.  This was true with music players and it's true now with phones.

> I just have to wonder who will want one of these things (other than the religious faithful).  People need this to be a phone, first and foremost. But with 5 hours of battery life?  

Granted, the initial 5-hour talk time was short, but I believe comparable to other smart phones at the time.  Fortunately, by June Apple had upped this to 8, and future software improvements have increased it more still.  Perhaps the mistake here was not realizing how much can be improved through software.

> No keypad?  (you try typing a phone number on that screen, no matter how wonderful it is -- you will want a keypad).

Typing numbers on the virtual keypad is very easy, but since the iPhone syncs contacts, this notion of people dialing a lot of numbers manually doesn't really jive with cell phone users in general.  Even non-smart-phone users store numbers in the phone, and rarely use a keypad to dial.

>And for all that whiz-bang Internet access, you absolutely need the phone to work, immediately, every single time.  Will it do that?

I think the answer here is pretty much yes.  

Granted it took until the second iteration of the iPhone, the 3G, for it to really take off, but since Apple was predicting 10 million in 2008; and clearly some sort of refresh was inline by then, it seems now like a pretty conservative estimate.  

So, overall, yes, the iPhone is better than any other phone.  Perhaps people who email excessively prefer a physical keyboard, but by and large what smartphone compares to the iPhone?  They are all playing catch-up, none offer as good a browser experience or now, anything like the app store.  Android presumably has a chance at going somewhere, but we'll see how Google and it's myriad of hardware partners manage things there.

# Hans Gerwitz said on October 22, 2008 5:53 PM:

Simple desktop integration and on-device UI trumps "power" for most paying users.

You underestimated Apple's ability to execute.  Moreover, you fell into the classic MS trap of quantifying product value with feature and function bullet points.  Apple engineers experiences, which is even more unique in the mobile industry than it has been in music players and general-purpose computing.

# ScottBruin said on October 22, 2008 5:55 PM:

You guys just don't get it, that's the problem. Look at this quote:

> Unfortunately for Apple, problems like that don't exist in the handset business. Cell phones aren't clunky, inadequate devices. Instead, they are pretty good. Really good.

That's Michael Kanellos for CNET.

I do a doubletake when I read that. WTH are you guys smoking and can I have some?! Are you kidding me. There are so many problems with current phones. I don't have an iPhone yet but for the past 3 years I've been frustrated with phones.

And yes it's the "technology," though it's simpleminded to call it that. The entire experience of using the phone is spot on. The interface blows other interfaces to pieces. To call that "technology" is to make it sound like the iPhone works because it has a touchscreen and built-in speaker. And now you see Verizon and everyone else selling touchscreen phones because it's the "technology" that does it.

# Cam said on October 22, 2008 5:56 PM:

Before the iPhone, I would have never considered a "smart phone."  In fact, I have been in a hate-hate relationship with every cell phone I ever owned.

Basically, I love my iPhone.  I waited for the 3G to be released and the phone does everything I could ever possibly want it to.  Is it absolutely perfect?  No.  But I could never imagine myself using a miniature keyboard and I have always found the interface of my friends blackberries to be obtuse.  I still can't imagine myself using a miniature keyboard, because the touch screen is that good.

Apple could certainly make it more compatible with "enterprise" but I still don't get what all the fuss with "Push" is.  IMAP suffices for all of my needs.  If there was anything missing that I lament it is the lack of Kerberos support.  I still hate sending a password through the ether...

# Dave said on October 22, 2008 6:06 PM:

Isn't it pretty easy to see what you got wrong? You made a prediction from within a bubble, and didn't have much idea about the consumer market.

You dismissed anybody who might buy the iPhone as "the religious faithful" and made clearly wrong claims such as "5 hours battery life".

You also overlooked Apple's attention to detail on the user interface front.

# Luis said on October 22, 2008 6:12 PM:

"ha ha, you idiot" kind of stuf

Well you were quite arrogant with your "mark this post and come back", so you deserve the full load of them, even if 90% of that people are probably a lot more idiot than you.

I hope this experience made you a better person.

# Jay said on October 22, 2008 6:23 PM:

What you got wrong"

"real innovation?"

Multi-touch, app store, wifi, motion sensor, video all have been innovations for a phone.

"I just have to wonder who will want one of these things?"

I've never been asked about a device more. The interest is unreal. And 10 million iPhones later I guess a lot of people want one.

"People need this to be a phone, first and foremost"

Yeah it is and for me it's been rock solid. With visual voicemail, dead-easy conference call setup and more, it's been the best phone ever.

So you were fundamentally wrong on every point. Why don't you get one and see for yourself?  

# johndpalm said on October 22, 2008 6:35 PM:

The iPhone is in few ways technically better than comparable smartphones.  Many of the technical specifications are inferior to other handsets (i.e., Samsung's SCH-i730) are more than 3 years old.  Even the latest iPhone hardware lags behind competing models (i.e., AT&T Tilt).  The SDK allows only one app at a time (you can't listen to music and surf the web).  And the AppStore is monopolistic and anti-competitive.  Do I need to even mention the lack of keyboard?

These fine details are lost most iPhone users.  The number of iPhones sold is a reflection of the perception that they are more advanced technically rather than a creation of slick design and wow-me marketing.

# Chris Mahon said on October 22, 2008 6:46 PM:

johnandpalm clearly hasn't used an iPhone. I'm posting this from my iPhone (from my bed thanks) with deep house playing on the iPod app. When I walked in from work the connection switched from edge to wifi seamlessly. In London today I used google maps to find the location of my meeting, while listening to more house on a podcast, and during the meeting I was able to check my work mail using OWA. That's what iPhone is all about.

# Oli said on October 22, 2008 7:14 PM:

@johndpalm

Actually you CAN listen to music and surf the web, in fact I'm doing this on a bog-standard first generation iPhone right now.

# RK said on October 22, 2008 7:15 PM:

It's quite straight forward really. Apple presented consumers with something anyone can use regardless of all the usual features typical business users require (some of which they added in updates). I bought one because all I want to do is listen to music, surf the web, have a look at YouTube vids and check e-mail. I don't need to take extremely high quality pics everyday(although a nicer camera would be welcome), I don't need to edit excel docs (most people wouldn't want to on a phone). I would hate having to use a stylus and really hate having to monitor cpu/memory performance if i ran to many apps.

They made everything easy to use for everyday people.

Oh, it would be great to have mms/bluetooth transfers etc... but I can count on one hand the number of times I've ever bothered to send or have recieved an MMS. I gave up trying to surf the net on other phones as it was too annoying to try and set up. I guess millions of people are OK with an iPhone.

I don't think that the iPhone is technically more advanced than other phones.. but the experience of using it is way more advanced than most of the major manufacturers'products (it has made Nokia/RIM/Samsung et al re-think who they can sell a 'smartphone' to).

I guess all the technological minded people did not really see that the iPhone was going to be a success because they assumed the technical (geeky) stuff was not on a par with other phones out there and failed to note that the iPhone is all about the experience (well, not between 2.0 and 2.2 OS updates!)

# Brian said on October 22, 2008 7:35 PM:

I pick up the iPhone and can immediately make cool things happen with zero knowledge of how it works. I'm rewarded with some tasteful effects, and I can mimic a few unique things I saw done in a demo.

I pick up an MS-based phone and I'm lost in the weeds at once. With the MS phone I've also got this interface that looks like it's trying to be a desktop instead of something new. I immediately get the impression that I've got a lightweight, inferior version of something that sits on my desk.

It looks like Apple picked half a dozen things a mobile phone/media player should do and made those absolutely simple to do. Everything else supports those features. It looks like MS tried to make an everything-in-the-world platform and then implement phone and mediaplayer features on top of it.

# Russell said on October 22, 2008 7:42 PM:

The iPhone succeeded not because it had the best hardware, or because it had the most functionality (in fact it is behind most smart phones in both categories). It succeeded because they perfected the software and the marketing sides of selling a phone. I've used Palm, Windows Mobile & Symbian, and while they all have more functionality than the iPhone, none of them tie it together in such an amazing package like Apple did with the iPhone.

I've had mine for about 6 months, and it's easily the best music, phone and internet experience I've had on a smartphone.

# Court said on October 22, 2008 7:51 PM:

If you could buy a iPod Touch but it came with phone features and a camera for the same price (most people think of the cellphone bills as already a part of their life), what would you do?

I would buy the iPhone instead of my next media device, that is for sure.

# Court said on October 22, 2008 7:51 PM:

If you could buy a iPod Touch but it came with phone features and a camera for the same price (most people think of the cellphone bills as already a part of their life), what would you do?

I would buy the iPhone instead of my next media device, that is for sure.

# lg said on October 22, 2008 8:15 PM:

Johndpalm, you comment "you can't listen to music and surf the web" highlights that you are commenting on a product you have no real experience of using.

# matt said on October 22, 2008 8:20 PM:

It would seem to me that the iPhone's success is due to how they paid attention to all the details.  From the marketing, to the hardware, to the software.

Btw johndpalm, you *can* listen to music and surf the web at the same time.  (possibly you're thinking of 3rd party applications not being able to run in the background, but since the music and web browsing apps are developed by Apple, they can run in the background)  Oh, and the replacement of the physical keyboard with a virtual one makes breaking into non-English markets that much easier as well.

I think the iPhones will continue selling well not because of how iPhone users are missing the 'fine details', but rather instead because they are *noticing* the 'fine details'.

# MikeFenn said on October 22, 2008 8:47 PM:

I whole-heartedly agree with GlennF. iPhone brought most people who didn't have a business need for one to a smartphone. And there's a bunch of those people around. Or how about all the people (like me) who were carrying around a so-so phone AND an iPod and realized they could just have one gadget to worry about AND get more functionality out of it.

To johndpalm: Which iPhone are you using? Im sitting here listening to music on my iPhone 3G AND browsing the web on it. Pure Specs don't mean anything to most people. If <insert function here> is a horrible experience, then that functionality is ignored, thus the better specs are negated.

# rattyuk said on October 22, 2008 8:48 PM:

@ JohndPalm

"you can't listen to music and surf the web"

er, you can precisely do that on the iPhone. You can't do it with 3rd party apps.

# djjd said on October 22, 2008 8:49 PM:

johndpalm - you're incorrect about being able to browse and listen to music at the same time. Not a problem at all.

It's not the OS - it's the SDK that imposes that limitation, which means that the iPhone can multitask - they just don't currently allow developers to write applications which can run in the background. Apple can - third parties can't.

As far as technical specs, the processor on the Tilt is running at 400mhz, whereas the iPhone is capable of running upward of 620mhz (although I believe it normally runs at 412mhz).

I don't think the technical specs are so inferior - I think they're selective. More to the point, Apple made a phone that wasn't trying to compete with other smartphones feature-for-feature as much as it's trying to compete with laptops and iPods.

I think the secret to the iPhone's success is the user experience. It's not a single feature or a single metric - it's an attention to detail built around the core functions of the device. When it first came out, it didn't do much - but what it did - at least the key features which are its calling card, such as browsing, email, and media support  - it generally did quite well, if not leagues beyond the competition.

What made it better wasn't a single metric of performance - it was the ease with which those functions worked, and the simplicity required to understand how to use them.

That single-minded quest for simplicity at the expense of features is what has driven the device's success because most people don't know how to use the majority of the features on most electronic devices they've ever purchased. VCR's, DVD players, let alone desktop computers or sophisticated phones - sure there are plenty of gadget hounds who laugh at those people, but those gadget hounds should know exactly what I'm talking about.

Those gadget hounds are the minority - they understand how the devices work, what they're capable of, and how to put them to use. Tragically, they're also often on peoples' speed-dial to help them out of countless incidents of technical assistance.

The iPhone is selling like hotcakes because people fell that they found a gadget they finally know how to use - an experience the engineers designing most phones probably have a hard time relating to.

# Aad 't Hart said on October 22, 2008 8:53 PM:

Richard,

This is what I wrote already a year ago: http://aadjemonkeyrock.blogspot.com/2007/10/apple-iphone-versus-htc-touch.html

-Aad

# KennMSr said on October 22, 2008 9:08 PM:

I've had an iPhone since Day 1 in June 2007 and it had basically replaced my notebook for everyday use. I get up in the morning use it to check my e-mail and weather for the day and look for any technology news that might have been posted over night. It's a great phone as well and a way to carry a huge portfolio of pictures of my grandkids plus provide a toy for them to play with when I visit.

I find that I can actually type faster on my iPhone than my notebook because of the predictive typing. By playing Bejeweled regularly I improve my typing by randomly knowing where to touch the keyboard and not be pressured during an actual applications usage.

# Nathan said on October 22, 2008 9:35 PM:

johndpalm: "you can't listen to music and surf the web"

This is not correct. You can listen to music and use safari and other applications. Please don't make statements of fact based on your assumptions.

# Jonathan Richard said on October 22, 2008 9:44 PM:

@johndpalm

You obviously have not tried an iPhone.  I'm sitting here listening to U2 and have Safari up and running on my iPhone 3G.  The reason the iPhone is a success is the same reason the iPod is a success - Apple didn't make new technology, but put it together in an easy to use way and made it work.  App Store monopolistic?  5,500 apps in 62 countries.  200 million downloads from the App Store.  Some developers have made $250K with $4 apps.  This is obviously more than just "hype"and "wow-me" marketing.  More iPhones sold in last quarter than Blackberries.  And this is even before it has gained much of a foothold in enterprise.

# SinnerBOFH said on October 22, 2008 9:46 PM:

There are several reasons: not everybody requires a work-smartphone; the User Experience; management application; attention to details.

For example: Smartphones, before the iPhone, were of no use for current iPhone users. Why? Not everybody needs Exchange support, nor VPNs, nor remote wipe (and with firmware 2.0 all this gotbsupported too).

Also many needed to have their phone *really* supported on OS X.

Then there is the easy to use UI, one that works. And a real browser.

MobileWindows is a joke after you've used the iPhone. It's awful, I'm sorry to say.

Then, there are all those web 2.0 sites that just need a browser, a real one.

And you can say whatever you want about iTunes, but Apple managed to make it a very easy interface.

Then, the 'experience'. Apple payed lots of attention to detail, to integration, to consistency.

Then, the smashing success of the AppStore is something to be reckoned.

The iPhone is more than a list of bulletpoints: the whole thing (handset, UI, iTunes, customer care level, quality, consistency...) justvworks well. And it can do a whole lot of stuff.

In short, this is the IBM Personal Computer of this decade.

And using big words: a paradigm shift the size of Texas.

Salut,

SinnerBOFH

# EricG said on October 22, 2008 10:14 PM:

Wow, nice non-admission that you were completely and utterly wrong. Thank god you're at Microsoft working on "the future".

# batrico said on October 22, 2008 11:11 PM:

@johndpalm:  You clearly have never used an iPhone, and read poorly, focussing on what you want to see (negative assertions), and worse, spread these falsehoods as facts rather than researching a device and making a fair report against competing technology. Do I, too, make too large an assertion against your intelligence? Perhaps. However, for the entire history of the IPhone, you can play music and do just about anything else at the same time (that does not *require* the audio system, such as, duh, making a phone call).

And this is not new with iPhone 3G or the 2.1 software which ushered in the AppStore. Do you really think so little of Apple that you would believe they would create a multi-purpose phone including a music player that could only play music, or do something else, but only one thing at a time? Oh, wait, you just think people who buy Apple products are stupid and indiscerning and buy inferior products because they are suckers for a pretty TV ad.

Please. The first wave of owners are smart enough to earn enough to pop $400-$600 on a phone, not to mention the $65-$100 per month for two years to use it. Are you saying they are all just stupid rich people who cant find a better phone or multi-use device? OK. Fine. We'll grant you a few hundred thousand, maybe even a million "fanboys" who will buy anything on the Apple label.

But 12 million users? Really? All dumber -- or less demanding -- than you?

Since that tack is not working, you'd better go ahead and mention the "lack of keyboard". Here, I'll do it for you, but I'll be more accurate: it lacks a phsical, mechanical keyboard... but let me rephrase even that: it contains a superior, advanced, predictive text -- indeed, predictive KEYSTROKE -- virtual keyboard on which I have learned to type at an average of 70wpm.  Many, many enthusiasts report numbers even higher (and have online test scores to prove it), while most users report scores of at least 25-40wpm, which is pretty much the going average for even full size keyboards.

How is this even possible if the iPhone "lacks a keyboard"?

As for the App Store being "monopolistic and anti-competitive", well, I'd say at the most the verdict is still out on that one. Monopolies are complex arguments to make, and until (perhaps even when) the iPhone owns 80+% of the market, it is irrelevant. It's a closed platform, and you do not have to choose it, and have more than plenty of other choices for a phone (just not the best one, in some of our opinions).

You also do not have to choose to develop for it. Don't like competition? Then don't develop at all. Oh, wait, you like competition. Well, then develop an app, and include it with the other roughly 8K applications, and near as many developers. They don't seem to upset about Apple having advertised, hosted and sold over 200,000,000 apps for them as of last week.  

Are there a few malcontents, and are there even a few apps that have been questionably killed by Apple censors? Yes. But the IPhone's App Store is also a brand-new, revolutionary concept (or at least implementation thereof that every other platform is scrambling to duplicate) that has been living for less than five months, and will go through some mistakes and growing pains.

They have already responded to the single largest complaint of developers (NDA issues constricting development), and made changes that have satisfied most everyone. Did the change come as quickly as some would have wanted? No. But one thing you can count on is that Jobs and Apple do not rush to make ANY major, game changing decisions; they will take the required time to assess all the ramifications and act accordingly; and this is in part why they are not only market leaders in three distinct venues, but are making huge dents in their core markets and growing at a rate faster than the rest of (at least the domestic) players.

@sprague: I don't really know what to tell you without being as smarmy and as snarky as I just was to JP.

I don't know you well enough from reading one, totally off the mark and clueless post and reckless prediction about a product you clearly still do not get to tell you what's wrong with your perception intake. My gut is to just tell you that if you don't get it, it's good you work for Microsoft, who clearly doesn't get it, either. IOW thank goodness for deep pockets and job security, because neither you nor Ballmer nor the rest of your leaders would last ten minutes at Apple under Jobs. That you worked there under Skully/Amelio says nothing.

Ill just wrap this up as a smart phone user before phones were really smart enough tobe called smart, that the iPhone changed not only the game, but my game, and in a big way. It is not just a phone, or a music player, or a game player; it is simply a mobile computing platform that has allowed me to leave my office and expand my business where only a phone *and* a laptop could before. There is very little I could do with that combo that I cannot do with just my iPhone, and, more so, because you can't always stop to open and use a laptop wherever you are.

Are there features from other phones I've owned that I miss and crave? You bet. And I'm pretty confident that either Apple or a thirsty third party developer will give them all to me soon enough.

Are other manufacturers working hard to catch up, and provide even cooler features? Indeed.

And if nothing else, you can thank Apple for changing that game, and bringing you more, better, and cooler features in a way you want them packaged. Without Apple, we'd all still be jumping from MOTO to Nokia to Kyocera to RIM every six months trying desperately to gain all the features we want.

Now, we just pick one *PLATFORM* and let the developers give us TOOLS we can install along with all the rest, tailored to our needs, as we need, or don't, need them. And the phone carriers no longer dictate to us what our phones look like, work like, or act like; we no longer suffer them pushing their crap services up front and make us dig to use what we really want.

Android, RIM, et al, get this, and will give you the same model as Apple all too soon. Choose, one, and enjoy.

# MattA said on October 22, 2008 11:35 PM:

I won't go over the fact that you pretty much got it all wrong. I do want to relate an experience however to point out your 1 big miss:

I've been helping a buddy of mine w/his Windows XP system on and off for over 2 years. He's a smart guy but the computer confuses him. He didn't even want to consider a Mac when we purchased his computer. I'm over there about every 3 months helping him do some pretty simple stuff - deleting applicaations, files, doing printer install, embedding spreadsheets in word docs, etc..

I see him the other day sporting a new iPhone. He's so excited about it he can hardly contain himself. He's happily writing emails, surfing the internet, making phone calls, taking pictures, etc.. Oh, he's had a cell phone that did all that but not in a way that integrated it all for him. As I talked to him about it, he didn't realize 3/4 of the potential. He had NO music loaded, no custom apps, nada except the stuff it came with. When I showed him a few simple items he was blown away. He's still not a Mac guy, but he's solid on the iPhone.

He and the other millions of new iPhone, non-Mac users are what you missed the most. Ya, the faithful bought but you knew they would. Jobs and Co knew that the appeal was bigger than the faithful. And those users don't give a darn about Java, the app store, music, Flash, etc. They just love the experience and the feeling of control that this device gives them in an otherwise out of control technical world.

# Hakime said on October 22, 2008 11:52 PM:

@johndpalm

Yeah again, windows fan boy speaking and pretending to ignore the reality.

"Many of the technical specifications are inferior to other handsets (i.e., Samsung's SCH-i730) are more than 3 years old. "

Really, lets compare shall we?

- No camera on the SCH-i730, the iPhone has one.

- The SCH-i730 has no 3G, the iPhone has.

- The SCH-i730 has a 240 x 320 pixels screen, the iPhone has a 480 x 320 pixels screen.

- The iphone has a much bigger screen.

- The iPhone comes with 8 or 16 GB of memory for storage, the SCH-i730 comes with 128 MB plus 64 MB RAM memory. A world of difference!!!!

- Th iPhone has a faster processor, and a much faster chip for graphics.

- The iphone has three kind of sensors (Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor), the SCH-i730 nothing, nada...

- The iphone has GPS, the SCH-i730 does not.

- The iphone uses Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR and Wi-Fi (802.11b/g). The SCH-i730 uses older technologies, Bluetooth 1.1 and only 802.11b.

- The iPhone sync with a computer with a modern application, you know it is called iTunes, the SCH-i730 uses the horrible ActiveSync.

- The iPhone has a multitouch screen, the SCH-i730 has a nothing whatsoever about touch technology.

- The iphone has modern media software built-in, the SCH-i730 runs crappy applications.

- The iphone has modern contact, mailing applications, the SCH-i730 has crappy applications.

- The iPhone has up to 5 hours of talk time, the SCH-i730 has up to 2.2 hours !!!

- The iphone has up to 300 of standby. the  SCH-i730 has up to 130 hours.

- The iphone has a modern design, the  SCH-i730  looks awful.

- The iphone has a full and modern browser, yes Safari. The SCH-i730 runs IE, it is ridiculously weak, you can't surf the modern web with that, it is slow, unstable, ugly, Microsoft does a bad browser for computers, we can expect them to do a nice browser for mobiles.

- And we should not forget, that the SCH-i730  runs a crappy, bloated outdated operating system named Windows Mobile, the iphone runs a modern, stable, fast, operating system with a modern and appealing user interface for phones , oh yes OS X!!!

- And shall i recall that the  SCH-i730  can not even make call while the wifi is activated!!!!!!

So what did you say???

Lets continue shall we?

" Even the latest iPhone hardware lags behind competing models (i.e., AT&T Tilt)"

Really?

- Still the Tilt runs the Windows Mobile 6 that makes it already a bad product.

- It can't surf properly the web.

- It has a slow processor, a QUALCOMM 400 MHzMSM7200. that is terribly slow compared to the modern Arm Core in the iPhone.

- The Tilt has poor graphical capability compared to the iPhone.

- The Tilt has 240 x 320, 2.8 inch screen, the iphone has a 480 x 320. 3.5 inch display.

- The Tilt only 128 MB of installed RAM and 256 MB of installed ROM, the iphone offers out of the box 8 or 16 GB of memory, a world of difference!

- Th Tilt has up to 192 hour of standby, the iphone has up to 300 hours of standby.

- Th Tilt offers up to 4 hours of talk time, the iphone offers up to 5 hours on 3G or 10 hours on 2G.

- The Tilt has no sensors of any sort, the iphone offers three kind of sensors (Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor).

- The iphone interfaces with Itunes, the Tilt is stick with the limited ActiveSync.

- As said the Tilt comes with Windows Mobile 6, so with all the crappy applications with it. The iphone comes with modern apps, with modern user interface.

- The only thing that the Tilt has better is its 3 MP camera. That's it......

So i fail to understand then that the iphone falls behind the Tilt. Oh maybe...., yes if course, you just don't know what you are talking about.....

"The SDK allows only one app at a time (you can't listen to music and surf the web).  "

This has been proven that running a ton of applications is bad for battery life. and you see it very well in the phones with Windows Mobile with their poor battery life compared to the iphone. That being said the iphone allows some apps to operate at the same time. And yes it is absolutely possible to listen to music and to surf the web, i do it every day, you don't know what you are talking about again....

"Do I need to even mention the lack of keyboard?"

The iphone has a multi touch technology that has proved to be very efficient also for typing. Also with the virtual keyboard i can type in English, French or Japanese all on the same phone with the proper optimized keyboard. This is huge..... nothing like this can be achieved with a physical keyboard.

"And the AppStore is monopolistic and anti-competitive."

Does not make sense to say that, what is monopolistic or anti competitive when in the same time there is not such distribution model for Windows mobile. So you surely don't understand what are the compromises to sell so much applications and on the same time to guaranty security for the iphone users. And by the way 200 millions of apps have been sold on the App Store, in few months.

Do we have such working model to provide applications for users to use on their phone on Wondows Mobile, surely not, nada.....

"These fine details are lost most iPhone users.  The number of iPhones sold is a reflection of the perception that they are more advanced technically rather than a creation of slick design and wow-me marketing."

Talk proper english, what you say makes no sense at all.

@Sprague

"  What did I get wrong?  Was it the technology--the phone itself is just far, far better than anything else?  Was it the marketing?  Was it something else?"

Well first, instead of making your fact based on what you don't know, why don't you use the devise? I guess that it will allow you to get much more feeling on what the iphone is.

What you got wrong?

The fact that the iphone is a revolutionary product that really reflects what the users want. A super design phone with super software and cool technology. The iphone is much like the ipod, it has a cool factor, that makes you cool to own it. This is typically the class of product that your compagny is not able to create.

Was it the technology--the phone itself is just far, far better than anything else?  

Well OS X, that's the key technology. Combined with the multitouch technology and the hardware, you get the iphone. The iphone success is primarily a software success....

"Was it the marketing?"

The same as the ipod. Create a cool product that everyone wants to have....

# JodyB said on October 23, 2008 12:31 AM:

The game changed. It's always been hard to see game changing events...especially when you are so vested in a particular model of thinking. It's IBM and mainframes all over again.

When you're making money...you think you know much more than you do.

MS is making money due to monopolistic behaviour...but has convinced itself that it is innovative. The game will change again.

Will MS see it coming?

I doubt it.

# Jeremy W said on October 23, 2008 10:26 AM:

I used 11 WinMobile handsets.  Each was junk; each was clunky (drill down through 4 menus to see the battery indicator? three iterations to get it to the top?  what were they thinking?).  It was overwhelmingly junk, unenlightened by any innovation, a shrunken version of the lamentable Windows, itself a glued up pile of kludge.

The internet rendering was piss, the email never worked right; it was constantly abending with the need to redo all the settings, often taking hours.  In short, the MSFT version of a mobile handset was dung in the hand.

I gave up on WinMobile and went to an iPhone.  

The difference is like night and day.  I enjoy the iPhone; I hardly tolerated the SX66, AT&T 8125, Tilt, etc.  All were an exercise in futility powered by monopolistic junk from a company which cannot do anything right because it has a F You attitude.  

Can you say PlaysForSure, SPoT, Zune, Xbox, LiveSearch, Surface, VIsta, WinMobile, etc.  One would be bad enough but taken together, they are a robust indictment of a company that is in a power dive to failure.

You can have no appreciation what a frustration it is to use MSFT products unless you used a WinMobile handset, one the world's truly awful pieces of trash from a company with a storied history of foisting world class trash on the public.  

Good riddance to anything from MSFT!

# John said on October 23, 2008 12:50 PM:

What is so funny is that you say that most of the comments are just "Ha, ha, you blew it." when a cursory reading of 97 comments indicates that people took a LOT of time to spell out EXACTLY what it was you missed and how. But, just like Microsoft in general, you're still blaming everyone else for your inability to READ the customer comments and respond to them. Thus, Vista.

# Richard Sprague WebLog said on October 23, 2008 12:53 PM:

We all know extremely good and cool technology products that never seem to catch on, while there are

# homba02 said on October 23, 2008 2:44 PM:

I think we know why you don't work for Apple anymore...

# Thom said on October 23, 2008 5:08 PM:

Simply put? Its sold more than you or any other "analyst" claimed it would, including CEO Steve Ballmer. I use Macs but don't own an iPhone, and am not some crazed must own everything Apple fan. But a little over a year ago people were claiming the iPhone would be an absolute failure. Not just sell badly - fail. Well, I think we can see how that turned out.

# Sam123 said on October 23, 2008 7:56 PM:

I'm familiar with phones. In the past I've used mobile phones of various smartness: many many Nokia phones including the very first Mobira Cityman 900 back in 1987, the classic 2110 brick in 1995, the gunmetal cool 8890 in 1999 (still the coolest Nokia of all time) through Communicator 9300 and last the E61i, many Treos (180, 270, 600, 650 - all now used as toys by my toddlers), Blackberries (7200, Pearl), Windows Mobile phones (AT&T Tilt was last).

When Apple introduced the iPhone I watched the webcast.  They had me at 'slide to unlock'.   I purchased the iPhone on day 1, stood in line and all.  From the first day of using it it became crystal clear that iPhone was simply the best cell phone that I had ever used, purely as a phone.  Calling people in the address book, dialing new numbers, mute, holding a call while answering another... ALL of these were much easier, clearer and less confusing than on any of the other mobile phones I had ever owned and used in the previous 20 years.  Was it perfect? No. Is it perfect now? No. Just the best one available.

It made the AT&T Tilt feel like a East German Army field telephone.

Usability matters.

Then all the other stuff that came much later (SDK, AppStore) made the iPhone strategic plan come more obvious; it's a new computing and communication software platform. The new list in order of impact:

- Windows

- Mac

- iPhone

- other (Linii, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Wii, ...)

And iPhone has a chance of being the #2 on the list.

@johndpalm:  The AppStore is almost the absolute opposite from being monopolistic and anti-competitive. My cousin is the founder and CEO of a 300+ employee mobile development company previously focusing on contract work on porting apps to Symbian and in his words: "This changes the game for us completely; for the first time we can truly go after a huge, unified, global market with one click publishing access without having to wine and dine carrier executives to beg access to small pieces of the pie country by country. And we get a much larger percentage of the revenue to boot."

# His Shadow said on October 23, 2008 10:28 PM:

I'll weigh in, because I've been having this conversations with my brother about Apple/Microsoft/RiM...

What did you get wrong? Generally, the same thing all analysts who bet the farm on Microsoft: the myth of Microsoft's invincibility.

How many more times will the sycophants proclaim the demise of every competitor in whatever market MS decides to enter? Because most of those predictions have never come true. While everyone stands agape at the success of the iPhone, everyone forgets that RiM carved out a highly successful niche right under Microsoft's nose. So anyone in the know realised that if MS couldn't stave off RiM's advance with WinMobile, what *possible* chance did they have against Apple's aesthetics should Apple decide to make a phone? Several pundits said "none" and they were right.

Microsoft's miserable commercials bring the whole issue to a head: Microsoft cannot advertise successfully because they don't compete. They never have. Because for the most part they don't have customers. They have prisoners.

In those markets where they have no guaranteed share, they have no real presence, the only success being the Xbox, and that took how long to make any money?

# KenC said on October 24, 2008 2:08 AM:

If you don't get it, and have to ask, you are really out of touch. Fact is, no one should be surprised, seeing as your original assertion shows that you are not the person to determine what should or should not be sold or included in a piece of technology. You didn't perhaps give advice to Dean Kamen to sell the "Ginger" did you?

# Mark Ayers said on October 24, 2008 7:59 PM:

"Was it the technology--the phone itself is just far, far better than anything else?  Was it the marketing?  Was it something else?"

The deal is, it is a great phone, a great media player and a great hand held computer. It looks good, it feels good, it works right. Apple just got it right, thus the hit in the marketplace.

In part, I believe, that came from keeping AT&T out of the case. The phone companies don't have a great track record there. Notice how much better RIM's BlackBerry did for a time.

# Katrina Stonoff said on October 26, 2008 12:50 PM:

I've been using Macs since 1985, but I use and own PCs also. In fact, in my home, we have five computers, and three of them are PCs (though admittedly, my primary computer is a Mac).

I didn't buy an iPhone because it was an Apple product. I bought it because it made my life easier. Before the iPhone, I was carrying (all the time, in my little purse): a Palm Pilot, a digital voice recorder, a digital camera, a cell phone, and an iPod. Now I carry one machine that does all those things.

I balked at moving to an iPhone because I didn't want to switch networks. I looked into a lot of smart phones, and in the end, there simply wasn't one that both worked with my cell provider and with my Mac at home.

I had gone through four cell phones in three years also -- they broke, one after another (and no, I didn't drop them or mistreat them; they just stopped working). Each time, I purchased a more expensive version in the hopes that it wouldn't break. Each time, I purchased a model the clerk assured me wouldn't break, and each time, when I went to replaced it, the clerk (always a different person) nodded knowingly and said, "Yeah, that model's had some problems. But THIS one won't break." After owning umpteen Apple devices, I had some confidence that their phone might not break every six months.

I'm definitely not a rabid Apple fan. I'm annoyed with some of their practices (like limiting what cell service I have to use and their pirate protection stuff on iTunes). But in the end, Apple meets my needs.

I'll be delighted to see some competition. The G1 phone is a good start, and hopefully the Storm will be ever better.

But I have to admit: after carrying an iPhone for four months, it'll be hard sell to convince me to switch. I'm really, really happy with my phone.

# jmkk said on October 26, 2008 1:34 PM:

The fact that i'm reading this entire article on my iPhone is rather ironic..

# Rene said on October 27, 2008 2:24 AM:

My brother a windows guy doesn't get the whole Apple fanatic little brother (me) and he bought the first version iPhone. He loves his phone but hates the two year contract with ATT so he jailbroke it and is currently using it with some little company and gets everything for 50 a month. The phone itself he says is amazing has some issues but very minor compared to the rest of the phones he used. I couldn't even offer to buy it off him when he switched it off until he found a new job. That's dedication and it has nothing to do with iBling and everything to do with excellent hardware and amzing software. No one has managed to top Apple in the two years that its been out on the market. So show some respect and give credit where it's due.

# Bert said on October 27, 2008 8:50 AM:

it s a good phone

the way it organizes sms messages per receiver is great

the email works well

the ipod is fully fledged

there s itunes store behind it with games

and most important, it s the only touch screen that works well, meaning especially how it takes the letter on release not on touch

Finally it s design is great and stylish

# You B0rKed said on October 27, 2008 9:11 AM:

Here's what you got wrong: you looked at the iPhone as a collection of features (and non-features), not as a user experience.

It's the same mind set that allowed Nokia, Samsung, LG and others to get completely blindsided by Apple.

# AV said on November 6, 2008 4:37 AM:

you got EVERYTHING wrong. All above comments have prove it and I don't need to add anything more !

I wonder if MS/you has done any such analysis and can tell us What Apple got RIGHT ?

# Dom said on November 18, 2008 12:51 PM:

Exactly what "interesting problem about technology" do you want to understand?

Define the problem. I'm not aware of one.

# Paul said on November 20, 2008 1:26 AM:

If you can't understand why the iPhone would be successful the first time, can you *ever* understand?  It's clear that your priorities are out of touch with consumer priorities (hope you aren't in product development!).

The iPhone succeeds because of two things:

1. Usability

2. Hype

I assumed you've tried using a windows mobile phone?  Have you touched an iPhone?  In all my previous phones before an iPhone, I never could figure out how to put someone on hold while I answered another call.  With the iPhone, I didn't even need a manual to do this!

The BIG difference is usability.  The "features" in the iPhone might already exist, but it's how you put it together and make everything easy to use that's the magic.  Most discoveries, most breakthroughs are rarely new.  All the parts of the iPhone already exist.  Apple didn't invent any new chips as far as I know.  

What's genius is how you fit the pieces together.  Apple knew how to fit the pieces together with a focus on making it easy to use.  You failed to recognize that point.  You kept focusing on the individual pieces and seeing nothing new, without realizing just how NEW it was HOW they put those pieces together and how much that makes (how much it ALWAYS makes) a big difference.

Then, of course, you need to get the word out so everyone knows about it.

PS. In regards to your comment about needing version 3 to get things right, well, Apple got it almost right with version 1.  That makes a big difference.  They also kept it flexible enough that they can make adjustments on the fly (ie. software updates, price cuts, etc.).  Put you are right in that you also need marketing.

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