

John Dvorak: Apple Should Pull the Plug on the iPhone (2007) - pmattos
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/08/11/dvorak

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michaelpinto
What so many folks never get is that the joy of John C. Dvorak is that he's a
curmudgeon -- and in a world full of tech bloggers who fall under the spell
the newest shinny object that's always a bit refreshing. Sort of having
slightly bitter coffee with your sugar filled pastry. He makes a perfect foil
for sunny Leo Laporte (which is why he is always a great guest on TWiT).

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Anechoic
> _is that he's a curmudgeon_

No, he's a troll: <http://scripting.com/2006/06/09.html>

edit: sorry arn, I was revising the post while you were writing yours. The
scripting.com link above does have a link to the original .mov video, your
Youtube link will likely have better compatibility with non-Mac users.

~~~
arn
here it is on youtube <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOHzHVF-4Mg>

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yock
Ah, John Dvorak. I seriously think you'd be hard-pressed to find a man who is
so wrong so much of the time and be so well-paid for it.

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Anechoic
> _I seriously think you'd be hard-pressed to find a man who is so wrong so
> much of the time and be so well-paid for it._

There's always Rob Enderle...

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zinssmeister
What people saw back then is that Jobs was selling a phone. When in reality
Steve was selling a post-pc device that could also make phone calls. That's
why the usual fashion cycle didn't apply.

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mechanical_fish
The categories are still quite confusing, because Apple's products stubbornly
fail to fit cleanly in any of the old ones.

Is the iPod Touch a phone? No. Is it more-or-less like an iPhone? More, rather
than less. Is the iPad a PC? No. Does it replace a PC? Yes and no. Does it
replace an iPhone? No and yes.

It's reminiscent of the elder days when "microcomputers" were new, and one
could have an extensive debate over whether a microcomputer was a real
computer or just a toy. In the long run, of course, the very word
_microcomputer_ died out.

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andrewla
He's wrong, but eerily prophetic too -- all the reasons he says that the ipod
was successful are the reasons that the iphone was successful (I do disagree
with how important advertising was, though).

He just didn't realize, living in the moment, that all the existing
smartphones were crap. Just as people pre-ipod did not realize that all the
existing MP3 players were crap.

It's not until you see how much better something can be that the blinders can
come off.

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pohl
_He just didn't realize..._

Watch that Youtube video posted here by arn. He wrote it to get hits, not to
represent his actual world view.

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hapless
"The problem here is that while Apple can play the fashion game as well as any
company, there is no evidence that it can play it fast enough."

John Dvorak was right about the trends, he was wrong about the company. Apple
can play "the fashion game" better than any other consumer electronics firm.
With the iPhone, they've played fast for a sustained period.

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ddw
It's pretty amazing that there's only one iPhone and iPad at a time. Sure,
there's updated versions, but there's only one size and form that Apple
promotes at any time. They don't do this with their desktops and laptops or
even iPods. I can't think of any other leading device with such a "take it or
leave it" mentality that a large share of people conform to.

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nathanbarry
This just reminds me that, like Derek Sivers says so well, you can't predict
the future.

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ryandvm
I wonder if there are any John Gruber posts predicting Android to be a
complete failure...

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charlesju
Hindsight is 20/20

~~~
cryptoz
In 9 years, we'll look back on today with 2020 hindsight.

