IPhone Will Fail in a Late, Defensive Move (2007)

When you get past the author's ridiculous pooh-poohing of Apple's products, the actual analysis of the cell phone industry that he quotes is pretty well right on the mark and sadly still applies to the industry in 2012.<p>While the iPhone 1.0 lagged well behind established smart phones like the BlackBerry in a lot of areas, the iPhone was revolutionary in its overall quality, its user interface, and its web browser. It's often hard to predict how important those things will be. And all people had seen at that point was a demo from Steve Jobs.<p>But what the market research really failed to predict was that average consumers would start dumping their carriers and switch to AT&#38;T just to get their hands on this new iPhone. That led virtually all other major carriers to jump through whatever hoops necessary to get the iPhone on their networks to avoid being left out in the cold. And the rest is history.<p>In an industry where it's the manufacturers who have to jump through all the hoops to get support from the carriers, this role reversal between Apple and carriers turned the industry on its head. Nobody would have predicted that in January 2007.

Hindsight, of course, is 20/20--but to be fair to this journalist, there were some very real reasons to think the iPhone wouldn't really succeedn (at least not in an industry shifting way). At the time, the carriers maintained almost full control over the whole ecosystem and if entrenched players like Nokia couldn't force their hand on anything, what reason did people have to believe Apple could? Moreover, the initial price point was exorbitant for a phone in that day--and people should remember that the real explosion of iPhone sales didn't happen until the 3g brought about the subsidized model.<p>What <i>was</i> underestimated was the public's desire for a smart phone catering to people as people not people as employees.<p>And let's not forget that it brought about a "touch-revolution." In 2007, all the anti-Apple group could talk about was how "without a physical keyboard, it's just going to suck."<p>With all of that said, reading this piece suggests the author was more drumming up pageviews by presenting a contrarian view than actually writing an article he believed in.

Keep in mind this was right after the iPhone announcement. Although he lays it on a bit thick with the "Apple cult" nonsense, it's understandable given the extreme level of hype at the time. The analysis of the state of the industry was good, and really it's an amazing accomplishment that the iPhone was good enough that none of the powers that be could stop it.<p>The only part where he goes off the rails is this:<p>&#62; <i>Lastly, the iPhone is a defensive product. It is mainly designed to protect the iPod, which is coming under attack from mobile manufacturers adding music players to their handsets.</i><p>This is just a blatant misunderstanding of how Apple operates that anyone could have refuted in 2005, 2000, 1995 (maybe not quite as strongly here), 1990, or 1985. The potential of the iPhone as a smartphone was obviously a lot more than a simple music player even if its feature set seemed weak compared to Blackberry.

People get so caught up in existing paradigms and the resultant hegemonies which enforce them that they become blind to the obvious.<p>This journalist is not alone in this. Examples permeate both media history and just criticism in general. For anything that is "obvious" there is always a contrarian who seems unable to see movement which we see as obvious.<p>Anyhow, the iPhone announcement in 2007 was interesting from my viewpoint being in a major record label because of how it portended the complete and utter end of control. It brought domestically something that was already happening in South Korea, where "ownership" of content meant little to the average consumer.<p>Of course the label folks thought it would mean more money from ringtones, and were bitterly disappointed that it didn't support custom ones out the gate.<p>Basically people saw what they wanted with the iPhone announcement, not what was actually there.

The original 2007 iPhone was ridiculously good. It's five years later and it still feels ahead of its time. There's no way Apple would put that amount of effort into their version 1.0 if it was just a "defensive" move.

Clearly these people did not see the same Jan 2007 demo that I did. Grown men were going apeshit in the audience and millions around the world were glued to their computer frantically refreshing live blogs. My entire office officially stopped working to "watch" the keynote. Hundreds of thousands were already talking about dropping Verizon for the iPhone. Hindsight is 20/20, but no one in their right mind would've predicted it would fail. Apple sealed the deal when they finally subsidized the iPhone in Sep 2007.

To this day it's remarkable how big a chance AT&#38;T took on the iPhone and how big a departure it was (and is) from how the industry usually works. They only went to AT&#38;T after Verizon told them to take a hike.

i wonder if he still works in tech journalism!!

This one hits all the bullet points for clueless Apple punditry, including calling Apple a cult and asserting that people will buy anything Apple makes, however stupid and useless. Nothing has really changed in this regard, there are still tons of bloggers and other assholes lazily tossing out the same old talking points about Apple selling overpriced toys to vain idiots.

I had my doubts too, until the minute I used one at the Apple store. I walked out with it, $599 poorer.