You know why I love the iPhone?
It’s not because it’s the greatest single device I’ve owned (rivaling my love for the 650 when I first got that bad boy). It is because of what it’s done to the market. Competition is good. Think back…. waaay back… to a time before there was an iPhone, let’s say a year ago. Remember what a thriving, innovative niche the smartphone market was back then? All those ground breaking products? The handset makers all striving to one up each other?
Oh, no? You can’t remember? That’s because it was largely the same niche as it was the year before, and the year before. Palm is the most obvious example - re-releasing the same hardware and software again and again for years - but pretty much that’s what everyone was doing. Right around the time of the iPhone launch a couple phones came out that were maybe one step forward, the Helio Ocean comes to mind - but it failed to live up to expectations.
Now the iPhone has come out and what has happened? Well, obviously we’ve got Android. Well, we sort of have Android. There’s a new SDK that people seem to think is better than the last one. But whatever, it’s definitely new and ambitious.
We’ve got the LiMo foundation, hooking up with Access and promising an SDK this year. Sure no one’s expecting that much from another competing mobile Linux thing, but it does have the advantage of Access (advantage?) and Garnet which will bring a world of apps immediately to the platform, sure kinda old mostly not updated apps, but apps nonetheless.
Even Palm seems to have focused a little bit and is talking about their new Linux based OS, Nova. They’re set to make some announcements later this year. No idea if this is going to be good or not - but I’d like to hope it is - I suspect their taking some of that Foleo experience with the connectivity front and working some angle with that. I hope this is an interesting contender (I hope it actually comes out!)
Now we’ve got Microsoft buying Danger. Seeing the success of the iPhone dwarf WinMob’s instantaneously must’ve been tough food to swallow. So they dropped $500k and bought Danger (they make the popular with the kidz Sidekick). Who knows what the plans are for them, I guess a Zune phone is imminent. But the question is will they keep the Danger OS distinct from WinMob or try to combine the two in some way? If it were me, I’d take the Danger people and put them in charge of WinMob and Zune and let them figure it all out. They clearly know more about how to make a product that people want than either of those two groups.
The handset makers are all scrambling to figure it all out. Nokia’s launching that whole doomed-to-failure but interesting nonetheless “Nokia Comes with Music” thing where buying particular hardware gives you a free (but you paid more for the hardware, so not really free) unlimited subscription to a big music library. Motorola, well, I guess they’re still trying to figure out what went wrong after the RAZR. Sony Ericsson’s getting their Xperia X1 ready to go, which has people about as hot and bothered as a WinMob phone’s going to get people. The interesting thing is that SonyE doesn’t tend to do WinMob.
So crap is happening. And that doesn’t even account for any shaking up of the carriers. Apple’s mind bending power over AT&T is probably the most amazing thing given that the carriers wield godlike influence over the handset makers. Handset makers are building new and fancier phones in a bid to compete with Apple but also in the hope that they’ll be able to get some sort of hand in the faceoff with the carriers. But don’t feel bad for AT&T - they are getting mad new subscribers, a hint of cool to their rep and look they even took TMob out of that Starbucks deal and are getting ready to offer free WiFi to customers in all them coffee shops! As if that would have happened without the iPhone.
All this because Apple released a smartphone that just didn’t suck. Seriously. That’s awesome. You gotta admit, even if you don’t like the iPhone that Apple did you a solid by shaking up a market that was just stagnating to death.
February 14th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
It’s a shame they limited it to AT&T. A lot of friends of mine who have the iphone swear they don’t mind it but you can tell that they do. They just have an overpowering love for this device. I want the new ipod that is basically an iphone with no phone. Good stuff.