Why did Apple launch a bad phone?
If if the 1st Gen iPhone was so "bad" - what was Apple thinking when they launched it?
There was much complaining about the shortcomings of the iPhone 1.0. And vocal user complaints are not usually a great recipe for a popular product and strong sales. In fact often, companies that rush products out to be "first to market" end up having their lunch eaten by products that arrive a little later, but offer a better UX. Apple themselves demonstrated with the ipod that late-comers can steal the the show by being "best-to-market."
Here are 5 reasons I can think of why Apple launched a "bad" product, braved all that negative publicity, and gave companies like Samsung and HTC a chance to take a shot at them.
1. Launch simple products first.
Apple like everyone else had to launch a version 1.0. Business reality and human psychology demand it. At some point you have to get something out the door becfore you run out of cash or go insane. iPhone 1.0 was a product of controlled project scope.
2. Get feedback from beta testers
Getting live market feedback works well - but mostly with early adopters. So perhaps Apple didn't want go mainstream yet. Did they elect to keep sales constrained and stay with the iPhone *BETA crowd until they had perfected the product?
3. Move the focus to UX
The iPhone caused a stir because it moved the focus to a different aspect of the mobile UX. Were Apple deliberately saying "it's not about hardware. Stop competing on hardware. This new phone is all about the user experience." So in a way, the hardware shortcomings drew attention to the UX. People complaining about missing hardware could be accused of "missing the point/having no vision" - and frequently were.
4. No competitors stand a chance anyway
Apple decided it didn't matter if their product wasn't perfect, because they were confident that none of the existing mobile manufacturers could get their act together to compete on Apple's UX turf nearly fast enough. Efforts from HTC and Samsung were hardly mind-blowing. Nokia's device is still in development.
And realistically, that wasn't hard to predict. For traditional electronics companies to try to squeeze into the Apple mold seems to be all but impossible. So Apple put their money where their mouth was and went first to market with an incomplete product. They knew they would get away with it.
5. And now they can generate more buzz by launching version 2.
All publicity is good publicity.
Are people going to buy iPhone2? Some more will. I suspect that question doesn't matter to Apple too much. We're still, arguably, in beta 2. One more release and it's going to get interesting.
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Since when had the iPhone v1 attracted vocal user complaints? A few technology journalists got their knickers in a twist about it lacking some features (yawn), but last I heard the iPhone had set the consumer world on fire and set a new standard for mobile phone design.
Lots of people wittered on about the lack of 3G and the lack of 5 megapixels etc. You can see exactly that in the Telegraph article and the engadget forums I linked to above.
And as for taking the consumer world by storm... Kinda sorta. Lots of people said it looked nice. But not so many people actually bought one. 6 million units or so isn't that great a figure. Apple are going to have to drop the price a little. One analyst says that relative to Nokia's sales even 15 million units would be "marginal".
http://gigaom.com/2008/06/10/inside-the-3g-iphone-money-machine/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jun/10/iphone.stevejobs
I think it's fair to say that the iPhone so far has failed to stretch beyond the Apple "fanboy", unlike the iPod.
There's also an interesting stretching of credibility about the term "user experience" when used in relation to the iPhone. I don't own one, but friends who do have complained about the relative difficulty of simple tasks like making a call! It's clearly good aesthetics don't make for a good "user experience" in themselves, though it clearly enables its admirers to try to look beyond it's practical limitations.
As for a lack of features, we're not talking obscure features here but ones that have been standard for several years on other handsets. Apple relied on their aesthetics making customers ignore all of this AND pay substantially more than their competitors. So far this approach clearly hasn't worked.
Tee hee. You just have to mention the iPhone's feature list an the debate starts to rage!
I wish I could see Apple's balance sheet for this project. It may be that by launching the iPhone as they did, they generated a comparatively large amount of revenue from a limited user base. That might have been exactly what they wanted.
Alternatively, they might just have been a bit cocky.
'Bad' phone my arse!
It's bloody brilliant. My wife has one and after I had borrowed it for a while it felt like going back to the stone age when using my Sony Erikson.
It took minutes to set up here complete calendar, email servers, address book, web gallery and start surfing the net. I believe of the the Nokia models take 40 odd steps just to set up one email account.
In addition, using the phone is a dream. You would have to be brain damaged not to make a call easily on it. Visual voicemail, mapping, SMS, email, web browsing, etc. every one has been seamless. I haven't read a single manual and every feature has been intuitive and a pleasure to use.
On every single level (well maybe not price) Apple is light-years ahead of the competition. Considering they haven't ever made a phone before either!
Their sales may only be in the millions, but most people are locked into long term contracts with their antiquated bricks.
I can't wait for the day that Apple rules the world and Big Steve is on every screen watching me!
Signed.... Apple Fan Boy
To paraphrase Churchill, the iPhone was the worst phone to date, except for all the others.
The iPhone is and was phenomenal. It's difficult to name one that even comes close.
It certainly lacks some features (e.g., MMS), but that's not the point. The features that the iPhone has are very well executed. I'm more than willing to be missing a few minor features here and there if it means I have a great user experience for every existing feature.