The iPhone

With the kind of reality distorting statement we’re usually only accustomed to hear from Apple keynotes I’d like to present the exclusive on the iPhone: It has 3G and you heard it from us first.

Apologies for the cynicism, I don’t hate the iPhone, or any Apple product. I think they’re great, but just not the brilliant works of art slash genius slash infallibility slash technology breakthroughs so often proclaimed. They are incredibly good for browsing the Internet and watching media on, but as far as using it as an mobile phone every day would drive me crazy.

One of the commenter's over at ReadWriteWeb provided the following entertaining rant which got a few people going, however I do agree with a lot of what he said:

I'd like to voice an opinion that is likely to make me look like I'm an old dinosaur that is just bitterly jealous over Apple's success.

Well in fact, I'm not. But I am still looking for words to describe how pathetic Bubbleland looks like from a higher perspective, buzzing crazily around Apple, their conference, and the new iPhone.

Just look at that : an army of bloggers "liveblogging" what ? An event primarily addressed to people who write programs working on products of a (still) relatively small company that until now addresses only the 10% of the richer people in the world with their fancy gadgets.

And writing about what ? A BIG event : the second release of a phone that until now lacked what 80% of the phones sold in Europe and Japan have had for the last 2-3 years - 3G connectivity. And guess what : it also does portable music playing and GPS. Woaaah ! Excellent ! Nobody else does that on the market, do they ?

Now, don't tell me guys that the iPhone was a revolutionary phone : it wasn't, except maybe for its stylish look. And this release is anything but exceptional. It basically is a "survival release". Adjust the competition or die. And also adjust the competition's pricing or die.

People are talking about this as the latest genius move from Apple's Steve Jobs. It's not a genius move. It's the only strategy to avoid the short-term failure of the product. Except to Apple groupies (which are numerous in Bubbleland's crowd), this phone had been bought until now for its stylish look. And that wouldn't have gone much further than it was.

However one of the responses to this was equally valid in many ways as well.

Obviously Ralph cares more about quantity than quality. He just treats functionality as laundry items from a checklist as if the mere presence of those items is enough. It's more important to look at the substance of each functionality. What mobile browser compete with Safari? Play music? hold on let me pop in this SD card first. Nice! What cell phone has capacitor-sensor that automatically shuts its screen off to conserve power when the user holds it near his ear then turn right back on if it's far away? There are tiny little details that adds up to the whole simple and elegant user experience.

Yea, I used to own cell phones that make and receive phone calls too. But they also beeps like crazy at 3am in the morning because someone just sent me a text message or when it's about to run out of power.

May be it's not so wise to just look at the army of bloggers flocking to cover the release of the iPhone. What about the hundreds of thousands of developers, or the eBay price that people in Europe and Asia are willing to pay for the iPhone, or the knockoff release of countless handset makers following the first iPhone.

It's good to deflate all the hype surrounding the iPhone, but it's jealous, arrogant, and ignorant to call this phone a "survival release".

I’m interested at what you all think of this? I know there will be a lot of Apple supporters out there, and just as many haters as well, let me know your opinion on this one.

Advertisement