
Why the iPhone Will Fail - davidw
http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=117355
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cubicle67
2 points:

\- When anyone writes a story about something failing, they need to define
what they mean by fail. Do they mean loose Apple millions, or not sell a
zillion a week? I suppose the fairest means of judging failure here, is to use
Apple's target of 10m in the first 12 months. Which will of course require the
pundits wait 12 months before declaring failure...

\- In The Design (nee Philosophy) of Everyday Things, Donald Norman cites a
designer who says it takes about six iterations of a new technology before it
reaches a state where it has had most of the issues worked out and is ready
for public acceptance, but because of the initial failures, most new
technologies never get used more than once or twice (I'm unable to find the
quote in the book currently, but can look again if anyone is interested). To
put this in context, I don't think touchscreens have done their 6 iterations
yet, and the current failures are making pursuing this difficult. Some things
_are_ the way of the future, but they require someone to risk failure in order
to get them there.

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jsmcgd
He neglected to mention a massive convergent success: phones and digital
cameras.

~~~
mr_luc
I was just going to mention that.

Instead, I'll mention that he's clearly eating his own dogfood: press coverage
of the iPhone has been mostly glowing, and he expects success (readership)
through his divergent opinion.

I guess it worked. I read his article (up until it became obvious that he was
purposefully overlooking the cellphone camera counterexample), and I wouldn't
have read it, had it sounded positive. I don't have time to read any more
iPhone Messiah stories.

I feel the same way about the iPhone that I do about almost all Apple
products. They're great, they're usually the best, but I'm a freaking
pobrecito. I can buy a new surfboard, custom-shaped for my body by the best
pro in Ecuador, for half the price of an iPhone. A bargain-basement cellphone
is free with even the cheapest plans, I have a $60 mp3 player that works just
fine, and I've built capable linux laptops for $300.

I couldn't care less if the iPhone flops and I'm not the kind of person to buy
one. But if I had to bet, well ... I don't want to bet against Apple right
now.

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patrickg-zill
I notice that the author does not touch on the success of the Blackberry
devices. Further, the reason "convergence" devices never work is that only
failed products are tagged as being about convergence - if it creates a new
market segment, then it is not a converged device.

~~~
iloveyouocean
Precisely. Products do not fail _because_ they are converged. A product will
fail or succeed based on how well it is able to satisfy users' needs, etc.

~~~
staunch
One reason they may not satisfy a user's needs is simply because they're
converged. No one wants a cellphone/coffee mug or a pocket knife/baseball, no
matter how "well" converged. One reason the iPod was so great was precisely
because it did one thing. I do agree with the author that convergence is the
biggest risk, I just think Jobs can handle it. He's hyper aware of these
issues.

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gibsonf1
I was talking to one of the Iphone sw team members last weekend, and according
to him, what is phenomenal about the phone is the UI - unlike anything out
there. A complete change over all other phones on the market. He says the tv
commercials do not come close to capturing what it is like to use the phone.
We'll find out soon enough.

~~~
jamesbritt
Any idea (from anyone) on how easy it is to use while not looking at it?
Muscle memory, tactile feedback, sounds, mistake avoidance/forgiveness?

~~~
gibsonf1
The Ipnone sw team member mentioned that because the keys are created as
graphics with the touch screen, it would be very hard to dial the phone while
driving - not recommended. So I don't think there is any kind of tactile
feedback, but I'm sure there is an audio one.

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davidw
I'm not sure I agree with him, but his thesis isn't entirely mistaken, and the
guy (Al Ries) has been around the block a few times. I think the main problem
with his argument is that the iPhone isn't _primarily_ a convergence device.

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staunch
_"car phone...You might have thought it would eventually converge with the
automobile. It did not."_

Tell that to the companies making millions on onStar and similar services.
Though I'll admit it took a while.

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henning
steve jobs has failed massively before and it never stopped him. when john
carmack's Daikatana failed, he had over 20 years of experience in the game
industry -- people like them don't stop because one of the many, many things
they've worked on in their long careers don't pan out precisely they way they
would have liked. thank god for people like that.

i'm certainly going to wait at least a few months to get an iphone, though.

also, i'm skeptical of people who put raw ascii characters like "~ ~ ~"
instead of using an HR element. this is HTML, people, use what's available.
scoble does it too and i always mentally discount punditry bullshit from
people who don't understand the medium they make predictions about.

~~~
collision
1) He probably couldn't use HTML 2) HR sucks unless you can style it. 3) You
don't need to understand HTML to be a good pundit 4) The tildes look nicer
anyway. 5) The...

Actually screw it, I'm just going to downvote you.

~~~
earthboundkid
It is just being nitpicky instead of engaging the substance of an argument,
but if you ever go to a blog and see that the writer doesn't know how to use
the blockquote tag, don't you just think, "This guy doesn't know what s/he's
doing…"?

~~~
davidw
This guy doesn't seem to know much about HTML, and yet... I think I'd consider
that he's a guy who does know a thing or two about what he's doing, in his
areas of expertise:

<http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/experiments.html>

