Reaction to the iPhone reveals how the electronics industry failed to beat the iPod.
To many observers it is one of the great mysteries of the electronics world. Not how the iPod became such a huge success, but how other manufacturers have still failed to effectively compete against the white ear bud toting little player from the company formerly known as Apple computer. Yet with each passing year, the total dominance of Apple Inc.’s humble little player continues to baffle experts. As each new device from competitors is hailed as an “iPod Killer” and promptly fails to live up to expectations analysts seem to have finally given up on the term altogether. But why hasn’t anyone been able to create or market a music player that can effectively take on Apple’s iPod?
It was the recent launch of the iPhone, and more important the reaction to it that made me realise what the key is. I think most manufacturers simply still cannot grasp that the iPod could have ever been a success, even though the reality is staring them in the face. I think that there is this feeling among many boardrooms is that the success of the iPod is a fluke; after all, this is the company that in the minds of many business people, failed so spectacularly with the mac. What makes me think that? Well, much of the reaction to the iPhone is the same as the reaction to the iPod when it was released. Manufacturers are assuming it will be a failure because they offer devices with similar functionality for less money.
The electronics industry is obsessed with features, while Apple is accused of form over function, but Apple’s supposedly “form over function” iPod has been a huge success. When the iPod was first released there were other mp3 players on the market. None were the size of the iPod or as easy to use, but manufacturers didn’t think it would matter to consumers because the iPod was more expensive than their players, which offered pretty much the same basic functionality. I think part of the problem too, was that many early mp3 player manufacturers saw their products as computer accessories rather than an “appliance” type of pure consumer electronics product. It never seemed to occur to anyone other than Apple that the “user experience” was an important issue; after all if you could use a computer you could use an mp3 player. So why didn’t anyone learn that lesson before it was too late? I believe it is because companies are so set in their ways that they simply failed to grasp the simple truth of why the iPod has been a runaway hit. The answer lies in a nursery rhyme that is taught to children the world over. “It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it”.
Last week, Apple once again showed a better way of doing something. Not a way of doing more things, but a way of doing things better, and once again everyone scoffed. “Sure it’s pretty but my cheapo smart phone deluxe can do all those things for half the price.” One of the things that struck me while watching the keynote at Macworld, was it was not that any other company couldn’t have come up with the user interface on the iPhone, it’s that they wouldn’t have. It’s almost as if everyone else seems to be only capable of thinking in terms of raw features, rather than how those features are implemented. It’s as if everyone is wearing “feature” goggles. They think of smart phones as a computing tool, in which the number of features are more important than the user interface. Take the iPhone’s touch screen for example. There have been touch screens before, and everyone has written off the iPhones touch screen as “nothing new” because they can’t conceive that someone could change the rules and make a touch interface from the ground up. They can’t seem to see past the touch screen “feature” to the way that it’s implemented. Look at much talked about LG phone. It has a touch screen and a relatively nice graphics, but there the similarities between it and the iPhone ends. The LG’s user interface is a standard computer interface with scroll bars folders. It took Apple to see that the interface needs to be re invented for the touch screen rather than trying to meld two existing functionalities together.
Electronics firms are not going to respond to the iPhone, because in their eyes, the iPhone couldn’t possibly be a success. Just like when the iPod was released, they will sit back absolutely convinced that device will to fail to capture the market. Even if in the first year, Apple is incredibly successful with the iPhone, other cell phone manufacturers will still be in denial that the company that let Windows take over the world could possibly sell a device that could be a market leading success. When they realise that crudely trying to bolt features onto their products in an attempt to out do the new rising star isn’t working, everyone will be collectively scratching their heads once again wondering how this could have happened. By that stage, history will have repeated itself and it will be too late.
Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPod, technology
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First of all, I want to apologize for my english. It isn’t a language I am used to speak.
This is one of the most simple and clever explanations. The keyword you used, “denial”, says it all. I, as a psychoanalyst, am aware of how much such a psychic mechanism can have huge effects, simply because the logic of the psychic (unconscious) is not the same that manage the conscious.
Needless to say that I completely agree with you.
Have a good day!
Another aspect is the way Apple are able to seamlessly match hardware with software. Many nicely designed phones have awful menus and options. It seems that companies with a good reputation for hardware design often can’t appreciate how software has to work.
Having worked in the electronics industry before, one of the key factors that engineers (even the exceptionally bright ones) have difficulties with is developing simple to understand interfaces. A simple/spartan interface tends to be looked as being dumbed down so there often times seems to be this line of thinking that more options and choices is better leading to cluttered and complex options. Why? How often are electrical and hardware design engineers able to convey their technical knowledge into laymens terms? How many consumer electronics firms actually seriously employ product designers who look at thinks from a non-technical perspective? If the company as a whole isn’t grounded in a simple user friendly philosophy, creating the kind of products Apple does can be difficult. Imitating a look is one thing. Trying to get the way everything works together requires a different sort of corporate DNA.
Another thing many of these companies also tend to not recognize is that integration factor mentioned before regarding hardware and software (and it helps if both are developed by the same company). Apple has been doing that since it started but this simple fact is often overlooked by industry pundits; look at how often they tended to label Apple as either a hardware or software company when the reality is that they are a vertical integrator. This is one of their key strengths as to why they are able to create the sort of products they do.
When Apple first made the second generation of the iPod available to Windows users in 2002, it had no USB and they initially had an agreement with Musicmatch for the software. The user experience for a Windows customer was far from what it was on the Mac. It wasn’t until iTunes for Windows and the 3rd generation iPod (with USB syncing) released in 2003 that brought the user experience up to Apple’s expectations for the player and the online music store buying experience. This also coincided with the start of the climb in iPod sales which really took off in 2004. If Apple had not created each of these parts, the level of success would be nowhere close to what people know today. Some more technical folks derided iTunes for having too little options compared to WinAMP but for the larger majority, that wasn’t an issue.
The iPhone’s main challenge will be dealing with the mobile service providers and getting the backend changes needed to support the features of the device. As for the device itself, it is classic Apple (leveraging hardware and software in an integrated manner). While the first version of the phone may not sale like gangbusters, the user interface is probably a precursor to future devices which can only benefit Apple and consumers. Other companies like Synaptics have also been working on touch/gesture interfaces (competition is a good thing) so I believe we’re only at the beginning of the whole touch/gesture sort of UI for electronics and computing devices. Even in this area, it is going to be a matter of how to consolidate various input schemes to create something which leverages the strength of each. My Logitech NuLOOQ is a good example. It’s iPod style touch sensitive top (the tooltuner) and movable navring is great but it doesn’t supplant the need for a mouse in order to point and click (if the NuLOOQ had an optical laser at its base, then it would be one heck of a input peripheral).
Personally, I’m one of those who still don’t own an iPod nor am I going to buy an iPhone (at least in its 1st version). But if Apple were to come out with a portable computing device sans cell phone in a similar form factor, I’d definitely get one of those.
Read this asinine Newsvine opinion piece that exemplifies the “iPhone will fail” mentality. These people underestimate the potential for the iPhone. Although the “high” of the announcement has worn off, the real buzz will start again with even greater noise when people get these in their hands and show them around.
Urusai, that vertical integration– which has been proven time and again to work well– is seen as somehow “bad.” I suppose the theory is that since Microsoft made software to run on a wide array of hardware, and became the dominant OS in the process, that that is the only way to be “successful.”
krove, I commented a few times in that article. I’m starting to get sick of the iPhone op-ed. It has its strengths and weaknesses, as do all products. Most especially I’m tiring of complaints that it doesn’t do X, Y, and Z. Sure GPS would be nice, but that doesn’t seem to be a killer app in the mobile market as a whole. It’d be great if it was powered by a cold fusion nuclear reactor the size of a dime and had a battery life of 2.5 million years, but those pesky laws of physics get in the way. Facial recognition software sure sounds nifty, but who needs it? It should run Office, since everyone loves working on spreadsheets on a 3.5 inch (or smaller) screen.
Yeah there are phones that are cheaper and have similar features (similar is the keyword there) and that are available on your favorite carrier. If you don’t want one then don’t buy one, but I’m fairly certain there are 10 million people in the US alone who will buy one between June and December of ‘08, so Apple should get their 1% marketshare quite easily (though perhaps somewhat slowly). And since Apple will achieve the goal they set, they will be, by definition, successful with the iPhone.
This sort of “feature vs. function” mentality can also be clearly seen in packaging. I’m reminded of that “If Microsoft did the iPod’s packaging” video that was floating around last year. (Or was it the year before?) Microsoft’s packaging was all about bullet points for features, regardless of how useful those features are. In the end, you just get cluttered packaging where you don’t know what the hell is in the box.
Well Most companies are a bit stupid…
PS Would you like to write for my site opening in two weeks http://www.superbigtech.com thanks.
Also
I work for Apple actually, The call center in Real Crap Manager I sort all the calls and they suck.
LOL
This blog misses the point the. This time, I’m afraid the industry is right, the Iphone will be a failure, at least in the short term, because Apple isn’t following what made the Ipod so successful. The Ipod was so successful for two reasons (and I agree most businesses just can’t come to grips with this): 1. It does (or did) ONE thing REALLY well. and 2. It CHANGED the entire model for finding and getting music. Did the form factor help? sure, but not to the extent insinuated here. The first gen Ipods were rather bulky and ugly. The fact that the Iphone moves away from doing ONE thing REALLY well, and in no way will change the way people go about finding, buying and using the phone, will cause its failure. Maybe a couple of years down the road if apple can open it up to all wireless users. But limiting your customers to one wireless company, where maybe 50% may actually pick up the phone is a bad business model.
Do other companies have something to learn from the actual hardware itself? absolutely..other smart phones are terrible…but the casual electronics user has voted many many time against the electonic swiss army knife, only businessmen will want this…and they will stick with their smart phones.
While it’s true that competitors underestimated the value of user experience an interface design, that does not mean the iPhone will be a hit.
Apple said that they’re “revolutionizing” the cell phone and the industry.
If forcing a 2 year contract while eliminating hardware subsidy is what they consider revolutionary, they’re deluding themselves.
If I’m going to agree to pay a provider $1000 or more for a 2 year contract, they need to offer me something in return.
Artificial scarcity {exclusive distribution through Cingular}is not compelling enough and is a false-value proposition.
Now if Apple would have offered the iPhone unlocked, unbranded, and ready to go on any GSM network, that would have been revolutionary.
If the iPhone used VoIP GSM and could pass calls between cell networks and WiFi automatically, that would be revolutionary.
If the iPhone came with a Skype-in phone number, and only used EDGE/WiFi data access to make calls, bypassing the reliance on the carrier’s system, that would be revolutionary. Then all you’d need is raw data access whoever can get it to you the cheapest.
If the iPhone had a built in voicemail on the handset, so you could use visual voicemail without network support, that would be revolutionary.
I like the iPhone, and might get one someday {needs GPS and 3G} but I will not be seduced into a contract without consideration for my part of that contract’s deal, the $1000 .
What an absolutely brilliant analysis. Absolutely brilliant!
I wrote something similar ( http://tinyurl.com/yvdpax ) within hours of the keynote. It’s not the features, it’s the user experience. Really frustrating that many people still don’t get it.
Hey Thomas, I’ve send you this message a couple of times, but I keeps bouncing so I’ll copy it here:
Hi Thomas, my name is José Félix Scott, I have just finished reading
your article on the reaction of the Electronic Industry towards the
iPhone and I think it’s perfect, it’s all I think but better written.
That’s why I’m contacting you, to ask for your permission to translate
(in spanish) and publish the article in my blog.
(www.blogueandito.com) I would obviously give you credit for it, and
link to the original, never be presented as mine, and also with a
disclaimer about the translation.
I want to do this because if I write a new one, it would basically be
the same article but in a different language. So what do you say?
You can check out my blog at http://www.blogueandito.com. And write me back
whatever your decision is. Oh and I’m José Félix Scott, Venezuelan
studying in Spain, but most of my readers are from my home country,
just so you know.
Cheers.
JFS
Yeah but the one thing the bean counters can’t emulate is Steve Jobs.
It seems to me that he don’t make things for money (per se), but gets a kick outa building cool useful gadgets.
Reaction to the iPhone is very interesting because, as has been said elsewhere, there’s precious little that’s actually new and nothing that’s revolutionary. What is different, and this is what the ‘rest’ don’t get, is that the seachange in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) has finally reached industry. As computing is taken out into the ‘real’ world, away from the desktop, we need to focus our attention on how we interact with devices that have some computation embedded in them – the interface (at least in the traditional software interface sense) is not that important in ubiquitous computing. We want devices that just work, not computers. In fact, we don’t want to e reminded that there is an embedded computer in the device – we don’t actually care any more. Anyone who’s interested should read Paul Dourish’s book – “Where the Action Is” written in 2001 and then realise that we’re 5 years further down the track!
Both Apple and Nintendo have begun to ‘get’ it. And they’ve generated a buzz which we haven’t seen for years. AND, they’ve both done it with remarkably conservative products (in HCI terms) – a sensible approach, if you will. Someone once told me that it takes about 15-20 years for UI research to make its way into actual products, and that seems about right! But, hey, I’m very happy that they’ve finally taken the plunge – maybe the rest of us weren’t ready until now…
Nicely written article, but the point of view may be a bit narrow. It’s not like Apple’s products were only created by developers and engineers, there also happened to be designers and marketers that actually made heavy contributions to the success of the iPod.
Most music devices employ very similar UI elements, including the iPod. I personally feel that they aren’t that most of them aren’t much more different on the base level of playing and transfering music. What Apple’s competitors don’t get is that aesthetics and emotion factored itself into the success of the iPod.
Form Factor aka Bling: Apple’s designers took their cues from mid-century modern furniture design as well as haute couture (fashion); the past and present design of the iPod line is very timeless. Use of materials and the tactile quality of the iPod don’t feel “cheap”. Plus fashionably, it can be accessorized with pretty much most outfits.
Cool Factor: Apple went all out with their advertising with some of the most memorable TV and print ads. It helped to establish Apple as a lifestyles brand akin to Nike, Coke, and Louis Vuitton and not a stuffy technology company. People relate to products if they can visualize how it makes their life better not what it could potentially do. Also, influencers (public figures like celebrities or respected sources) helped to proliferate the iPod’s demand; it’s not uncommon for companies to “gift” products to an influencer to passively advertise their products when they are in the public eye.
Some tech companies are starting to understand that design and user experience are very important because of how it effected the rebirth of Apple, but they are unfortunately too afraid to do things that aren’t already supported by pre-existing facts and figures, and/or in a lot of cases, managed by people who lack a sense of creativity and imagination plus empathy for the consumer experience.
This happens to be a designer’s point of view with experience working for two well-known Seattle area companies (you can guess who one of them is), so take it for what it’s worth.
I agree whole heartedly. I remember having a conversation with a salesman once, I was in a store looking at the new iRiver MP3 player (was acouple of years ago) he ambled over and said: “ah, the new iRiver, this is set to be an iPod killer!” So I took out my 2nd Gen 20Gb (which was about 6 months old) and offered to let him have a go, within 5 minutes he had listened to some music, tried out all the features and agreed that it was a thing of beauty…….
My point is this: What other mp3 player could you have achieved that with as a complete newbie? Anyone can learn to use an iPod in minutes. This is the reason they sell by the truck load, no complicated instructions or steep learning curve required!
Apples’ iPhone will be the same. Everyone who is lucky enough to own one will know how to use all it’s features, which I’ll bet cannot be said for the latest ‘other-brand’ smartphones.