From The Front End - ZDNet Edition
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Wednesday 14 November 2007, 10:26 AM
Have Apple got it wrong with the iPhone?
At this year's dconstruct conference Peter Merholz explained how just packing more features is not a good way of evolving a design and how the iPod and Wii are examples of that. Not the most technically advanced or feature packed compared to rivals but got the user experience part right and is a success as a result. ( here his lecture in the dconstruct podcast here)
The idea of not feature stuffing a phone seemed to be a great idea then. Especially when you consider 80% of people only use 20% of the features of their phones. However, at the price point Apple have launched with you would have to say the that it likely only the 20% elite/pro users that would pony up the record-breakingly expensive fee and contract combination.(see prices here)
Surely early figures will show great sales but hype and a shiny interface will only get you so far. Users that had basic handsets before will love the iPhone as it does the basics incredibly well. But if you have a top-end pocket-PC or symbian phone you'll be hugely under-whelmed and may see you're upgrade as a bit of a downgrade.
I've been using the iPhone since it launch in the UK a few days ago and the novelty has already begun to where off and I sorely miss my
XDA exec. It's not just the big features like video calling, 3G Internet, and picture messaging - it's even little things like being able to select text/numbers on a webpage and paste them into a word doc/email or being able to delete music/video/app without a computer. Also the camera seems to be such an after thought. The quality is so low - not just resolution but sharpness too. There are also no settings to adjust, or support for recording video.
These issues may cause iPhone sales in europe to reach critical mass sooner than Apple may have planned for. Once the mac fans that would buy a brick with the apple logo on and then those that are caught up in the hype/fashion statement of owning one have all purchased the price will have to drop to sub £50 for the real target audience - the 80% that like to use the basics - will start to lap it up. By then I am sure the novelty will have worn off for the serious phone users that like their features and so many will be looking to get out and buy a more feature rich phone. Perhaps by then the Apple iPhone 2 will be out - but will it be too late. Will the pro users be once bitten twice shy? Will Google Andriod be a serious rival by then? Will the next generation of windows mobile have surpassed the iPhone interface?
With all these questions hanging over the iPhone I wouldn't put money on the long term success of Apple in the mobile market as readily as some who seem to think they will take it by storm like the iPod has with the portable music industry.
The current kings of mobiles remain symbian and windows mobile based smartphones - watch out for the new 8GB Nokia N95 (black) and the XDA Exec if O2 still let you buy them now that they do the iPhone.
PreviousComments on this post
Actually, the current king of mobiles is Symbian (71.7% marketshare) and the runner-up is Linux (15%). Microsoft is a distant 6.9% in the smartphone stakes with Blackberry behind it at 4.7% and Palm a tiny 2.3%.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/27/10-fas-5-iphone-sales-vs-zune-palm-rim-symbian-windows-mobile/
In terms of individual manufacturers, since the iPhone launch, only RIM has sold more smartphones and even then, Apple has sold the same number of iPhones as new Blackberry subscribers so the big boys are worried.
If Apple was going to keep the iPhone at its current level of development, I'd agree with you that the shine would wear off quickly for power users due to lack of many smartphone features. However, you neglect to consider the iPhone has 500MBs of desktop-class Unix-based OS X on some pretty high performance hardware compared to the ~50MB of Windows Mobile, Symbian etc with a far more robust and easy to use software update mechanism to boot. It is far easier for Apple to add in the missing software features (as they have already promised several times) either themselves or courtesy of 3rd parties once the SDK is released in 3 months than it is for their competitors to scale their OSes up to a comparable level.
Just remember the iPod has now sold 120 million and counting despite having fewer features than many of its rivals but the iPhone (and OS X-based iPod Touch) is a far more expandable and upgradeable device than the old iPod architecture. I’ve had a $1000 HTC-made Windows Mobile PDA phone with a huge array of features and I’d swap it in a second for the iPhone that only does half as much but actually does it well. I’ve gotten to the point of tearing my hair out in frustration with the foibles and terrible design of this Win mobile device in the past that I’ve now switched back to my older (but still expensive when I bought it) Symbian-based Sony Ericsson P900 PDA smartphone which at least does the basics reasonably well.
-Mart
When I said King of the SmartPhones I mean best in terms of satisfying a power user rather than most units sold. Success with units sold is decided by the 80% basic users rather than the 20% of more demanding users.
iPhone initial sales figures are not surprising considering the amount of marketing, advertising and press coverage it has received dwarfs anything any other handset has received. That is how Apple can advertise features that have been in phones and other devices for years as new - since the creators of these features have not marketed their feature/product as well it sounds like Apple have been incredibly innovative an invented the feature. For example many people have told me they wanted to get it so they can access the full internet and not just wap on their phone! I've been browsing the full internet on my mobile for years - not with the Safari browser but with Opera, Pocket IE and with symbian's equivalent. None of which crash as often as the safari one. (try viewing this page on your iphone and zooming in - oops safari closed).
You make some very good points about the potential of the iPhone given its hardware. However, the same had been said of the Sony PSP and now the PS3 and yet months after the PS3 release it still has not much to offer compared to xbox360 and wii despite it's potential. Until potential is turned into actual apps I remain skeptical. The PSP promised so much but it took years before we started to see the accessories like the camera and GPS which were touted even before launch. With the average user changing their phone every 6-12 months the high turn over of handsets means that Apple have precious little time to make said promised improvements.
I do hope that Apple make good on their promises as I have invested close to £300 and tied myself to the phone and network for 18months. However, since the US launch so far the only add-on I've seen is the iTunes button which although nice is mainly a way of Apple making more money rather than a feature that would make my phone more useful.
One feature I desperately hope is addressed is SMS. When you want to SMS 10 friends about a party or news of a baby birth etc. With standard phones you can compose a message and send it to every one at once. On a more basic handset you can at least forward a message once you've sent it to another person. With iPhone I have to re-type that message for every person I want to send a message to. Little things like this are signs of Apple's inexperience in Mobile phones. However, it is well within the capacity of the device to have this corrected by a firmware update - but until this happens the iPhone can be a very frustrating experience.
Also interesting is that most stores will allow you to return you handset and cancel your contract within 14 days of your purchase however, Carphone Warehouse told me my iPhone cannot be returned once activated. Is this to stop mass returns when users discover tools and features they have come to expect are not available on their new expensive handset that had been touted as "5 years ahead of any other phone" and "able to do anything".
Does Apple deserve this kind of screwtiny? Surely other handsets have their issues but they are not banded about so publically? Yes all handsets have their issues and problems - however, Apple iPhone is getting such strong comments and blog posts because of the massive hype, PR, Marketing/advertising that has pretty much shoved the device in everyone's face and promised the world. Now everyone wants to here if it's as good as it claims - if it is £269 better than any other free handset out there.
David,
I've also used the Symbian web browser and Opera's improvement on my SE P900 and Pocket IE on my O2 XDA IIs as well as on a number of other more recent PDA smartphones and you neglect to mention they suck.
Apple hasn't said no-one has ever done a web browser on a phone before - they are saying no-one has ever done a usable desktop-class web browser on a phone before - and they are right. Please don't tell me you really think those older browsers are as WYSIWYG or easy (and fun) to use as mobile safari? (fair comment on the bugginess of Safari, though in my experience Pocket IE is no paragon of virtue either). There are plenty of users out there describing how the iPhone is the first phone to be able to run their corporate Web 2.0 apps, something no Blackberry, Treo or Win mob device has ever been able to do before.
A lot of the time, Apple isn’t saying they have invented new features – they are saying they have just finally done it right: implementing a feature that other phones have in a way that is finally actually usable by mere mortals, accessible and even fun.
It takes 3 different screens and multiple attempts to get the Windows mobiles we support here at our campus to connect to our corporate wifi and most users have given up using it because it is so flaky. We have more support problems from our a few dozen staff using windows mobile devices than the thousands of PCs we support thanks to synching problems, slow-downs and hard resets etc etc.
Turning on speakerphone, connecting a 3-way conference call, putting the phone in silent ringer mode, the ridiculously tiny Start menu, being forced to go thru a stupid click and drag tutorial everytime after a hard reset on older versions of Win mob, having to use a tiny stylus that gets lost all the time because of microscopic on-screen buttons, tacky plastic physical buttons that stop working after a year of use, slide out keyboards that go all loose and dodgy, low resolution 320x 240 screens (or less) that can’t fit a decent web page even if the browser was up to scratch – the list of poorly implemented features just goes on and on.
The magic is that Apple does so many of these things right – with great ease of use and elegance. This is what resonates with the average user.
I understand and sympathise with your concerns and agree the iPhone is currently missing vital features. However, I'd really emphasize patience – the iPhone is obviously a v1.0 product and Apple is mainly fixing bugs at the moment. They are very strongly committed to a wealth of updates for existing iPhones as they specifically booked revenue for the iPhone to be realised over 3 years to allow them to roll out new features without getting on the wrong side of Sarbanes-Oxley. The same can not be said of the PSP or the PS3. Absolutely, we need to keep highlighting to Apple the issues they need to address, but don’t despair that it won’t happen as all signs point to the fact that now Leopard is out the gate, the new iPhone features should start flowing soon.
As far as users changing phones every 6-12 months, I think you’ll find the iPhone changes that practice as it puts far more value into the handset compared to your average free “piece-of-crap”. Users of Apple’s computers hold onto their machines for far longer than the average PC as each version of OS X has sped up their old hardware and added new features – I think the same will likely happen with the iPhone – it is after all running OS X as well and on hardware that despite all the eye-candy is far more responsive than any competing smartphone I’ve ever used.
-Mart
hi mart
I agree with you that the Safari browser is (or will be when they work out there when they work out the bugs) but the opera browser for pocket PC wasn't as far behind as you'd think. You are also right in saying Apple don't say that its the first to bring full Internet to a phone but if you watch their current tv ads you'd understand why the less experienced users would think that they were the first.
I think we are both a little biased coming from support backgrounds. I used to hate that 30% of the issues reported were from mac users although they only made up 1% of the users. You having to support pocket PC are no doubt inimately aware of every issue with the devices, weather user error or not.
As you likely have more experience than me with regard macs I'll take you word that Apple won't abandon the iphone 1 in favour of putting any cool new features into iPhone2. Until then I will make the most of what the iPhone does do well - and try not to scratch it :)
