Writing about writing about the iPhone

[chipotle]

INFOGRAPHIC
June 20, 2007 | Issue 43 • 25

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Apple's New iPhone

Apple is set to release the much-hyped iPhone Friday, June 29. Here are some of its most highly anticipated features:

• Nanotechnology enables it to reassemble itself when thrown against a wall

• Exclusive link to Google Street View so you can watch yourself using your iPhone at all times

• Takes Polaroids

• When moved from hand to ear, makes Lightsaber sound effects

• Prominent Apple logo

• Reproduces through asexual budding

• Has way, way more PRAM than the last thingy

• Comes with an iPhone hat, so people know you own an iPhone during the brief periods you're not using it

(From The Onion)

So what’s really interesting about the iPhone, at this point, isn’t the phone as much as the reactions to the phone. There may never have been a product before about which so many confident predictions of success or failure have been made before all but a few people have ever seen the damn thing in person. And there may never have been a product in consumer electronics before that’s making this big an entrance. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo wish they could have gotten this kind of buzz.

This doesn’t mean that there’s not a lot of slamming going on. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has all but been making a sport of tracking “iPhone Doubters,” most recently deconstructing a New York Times piece. The explanations for why the phone is sure to fail are predictable enough that most observers could have written half of them before the device was even announced: it’s too high-priced, it doesn’t do anything that other phones don’t already do, Apple has no experience in this market, the touch screen is a stupid idea for [pick one of a half-dozen reasons], the battery life will be terrible, the data speed is too slow. Only the wildly Apple-obsessive are going to go out and buy this when it’s first available and, well, nobody else will.

Other than the gratuitous Apple fan bashing (the psychology of that is best left for another post), most of those points are reasonable. It is a damn high price, you can get other devices (for less) that match the iPhone feature for feature or surpass it, the touch screen keyboard is a big unknown at best, and the cell data standard the iPhone uses is slow. What with all this common sense antidote to irrational iPhone hype, you’ve gotta wonder just what AT&T is thinking by telling their stores to beef up security and crowd control on June 29th. And what Sprint is thinking when they tell their staffers to expect up to 6% of their smart phone customers to abandon them immediately. What industry analysts are thinking when they write that the iPhone may capture 26% of the smart phone market. What financial analysts are thinking when they keep listing Apple’s stock as “outperform.”

Well, no, we don’t have to wonder what they’re thinking. They’re thinking the iPhone is going to be liquid money. Executives at the carriers who refused to deal with Apple are, at this moment, preparing their résumés.

So what does the iPhone actually have going for it?

Let’s look at the price a moment: $500 or $600, depending on whether the iPod is a 4G or 8G version. That is damn expensive for a smart phone, let’s face it. But think about it as an iPod alone for a moment: if you removed the phone part and just had this be a wide-screen iPod with the touch-screen UI they’ve demonstrated, you’d have a unit that Apple could probably get away with selling for $300 or more. This is arguably the best video iPod ever, not a phone that does MP3s as an afterthought. Is this $300 worth of iPod and $300 worth of phone? Before you write that off as completely irrational, ask how many people out there have spent more than $500 total on both an iPod and a smart phone already. Big number, right? That’s what Apple is betting the potential market is here, and on that point, I don’t think I’d bet against them.

But, okay. Is it really that good a smart phone, given what we know about it and what we know about smart phones on the market now? If I compare it to a Sidekick III, the iPhone seemingly gets its ass handed to it: the Sidekick has a web browser and e-mail client and SMS and camera and all those things, plus a real keyboard, plus an integrated SMS client, plus a large library of third-party applications you can get delivered to it over the air.

Of course, to actually make a phone call on the Sidekick, the process is something like: click the phone app, scroll to “look up contacts” and click, scroll down the contacts and click. In a phone call, you can mute it by, um, pressing the menu button and finding mute. I think. I’m sure there’s a way to do a conference call on it, but fuck if I know.

The takeaway point here is that the Sidekick is regarded—correctly—as having one of the good user interfaces for a smart phone. But from a usability standpoint, the iPhone kicks its ass.

I’m not going to wax rhapsodic and proclaim that the iPhone is a revolutionary reinvention of the mobile phone. The truth is, though, that a lot of consumer electronics products—car radios, video players, and definitely cell phones—have terrible human engineering. There’s little to no thought given to how self-evident a function is or how easy it is to access it relative to how often the function will be used.

And if there’s one thing that Apple is (usually) good at, it’s human engineering. The UI differentiated the iPod from its competitors; there were always MP3 players with more features, but it was just easier to use, and iTunes was easier to use library management software. At risk of linking to John Gruber again, he’s one of the people who’s gotten what the iPhone’s “killer app” is: it’s the interface, stupid.

The iPod is illustrative here. Some pundits and technophiles still don’t get why someone would “put up” with a device that has fewer features and costs more, and figure it must just be because they’re uninformed fashion-conscious sheep. In some cases, that’s probably true, and of course now the iTunes Store has the network effect going for it (which also applies to the iPhone, of course). But the idea that people might be choosing to buy iPods because they don’t want to “put up” with a device whose multitude of features are painful to use seems to be off the radar. It shouldn’t be.

So will I, your humble coyote, be in line to get an iPhone, to pony up $600 initially and $70 a month onward? (Not much more than I’m paying now, mind you, but even so.) I don’t know. I won’t say I’m not tempted, although I won’t say that I don’t have reservations, either. I trust folks who’ve actually used the iPhone, like Andy Ihnatko, who’ve said that the touch-screen keyboard works surprisingly well, but I’ve been known to hit 100 wpm on a normal keyboard and upwards of 30 wpm on a thumb board, and I just don’t see that happening without tactile feedback. (I suspect my Sidekick has also given me first stage RSI, so I’m not sure slowing me down wouldn’t have positive side effects.) I use my Sidekick a lot for IM.

And certainly not least, there’s an inherent risk in being an early adapter. A lot of the iPhone will crash and burn! articles are based on facts not in evidence or projection (“I’m not interested in an iPhone, so it can’t have that big a market”), but the million-dollar question is how well the iPhone’s been executed. The advance reviews are starting to pop up now, of course, and so far they've been pretty good, although not without criticisms.

But whether or not I’m actually in line on Friday (no, I’m not definitively ruling it out), I’m definitely going to be watching.

Comments

Touch Screens on Smart Phones

[bluedeer.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people underestimate the usefulness of a touch screen on a phone. I've owned a Treo, I've owned a PPC6600 and I've owned a regular Cellphone. Navigating a Cellphone's basic menu with a D-Pad is very simple, not too complex and pretty straightforward. But when you begin adding features like the ability to add a ton of programs, especially those that may need a keyboard, a touch screen is a MUST. I think the Motorola Q is an incredibly useless device. Over half of the unit is taken up by keyboard, and it has the /SAME/ OS as a Treo 700, and NO touch screen. I use my Treo a lot, and the touch screen is indispensible.

Compare that to my PPC6600, which was /all/ touch screen and had a slide-out keyboard, and you had an outstanding device. It had a huge screen, all of which could be taken up by the phone app, you could easily select your programs, and it wasn't taken up by an always-out keyboard. The only downside to the 6600 was that it used a version of Windows Mobile that they didn't want to upgrade even though it could, its hardware could use 3g even though they didn't want to upgrade it, but it could be expanded by cheap and easily available SD cards. You can get 8GB SD cards now, and a lot of phones have a dedicated MP3 player function as a part of them (Most Windows Mobile phones can run a gamut of MP3 apps if it doesn't have them built-in already and they do just fine) plus, it's removable so you don't have to juggle around your music, videos and photos.

I think a touch screen is really an incredibly indispensible option, as well as removable storage media. The industry seems to have this unusual idea of what people need or want, and in my opinion, certain features of a phone are rock-solid necessary. The ability to easily dial out a number or contacts. The ability to easily access your phone's features, and the best sound and connectivity you can get. Everything else is an afterthought regardless, but the more afterthoughts you add, the more afterthoughts you need in order to properly support them.

Add the ability to add your own software to your device, and you need an improved method of accessing it. Include a large screen, and a touch screen is nearly a no-brainer. Add the ability to text, type, or compose emails, and a keyboard becomes an easier solution which is unfortunately usually horribly implemented. Compare the iPhone to the PPC6600, 6700, and the new 6800 (Which I think is probably the best smartphone out there, with a slide-out keyboard, a very large screen, and the ability to add expanded media cards as well) and it comes up short, especially considering that IIRC, you can't add your own tailored software to the iPhone yet. Will I get an iPhone? No. I will be spending my $500 on a PPC6800 from Sprint.

Re: Touch Screens on Smart Phones

[tugrik.livejournal.com]

When it comes to WM, keep in mind that the PPD and Smartphone editions have two different core UI design targets. If you're used to one you'll most likely hate the other.

I find the Q easier to use than the PPC full-screeners because I want the bias of my smartphone to be "phone" more than "PDA". When it comes to dialing, answering, quick-contact-lookup and call management and one-handed use (like a cell), it rules. Faster, more optimized.

But if you want actual WM apps or more involved bits and pieces? Yup, it blows. That's what the PPC editions are for, which is why the split the codebase's front end like that.

My biggest issue with potentially moving to the iPhone is that I'm a Smartphone-edition WM user. It makes me worry about the touchscreen issues when using the phone more like a phone. However, I believe Apple's doing things the right way. The accel-sensor lock when you hold it up to your head is a big thing. So is the "finger, not stylus" design requirement that hovers touched-info *atop* your finger's size, as well as makes predictive use of touch-area sizing. It might actually get a touchscreen-avoidant person like me (or most Crackberry users) to stop hating touchscreens.

Death to the stylus!

Re: Touch Screens on Smart Phones

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Tugrik beat me to more or less the same observation I'd have made -- I think while the iPhone and the PPC6800 are both in the "smart phone" category, the iPhone is placing more of an emphasis on the phone part and the PPC6800 is placing more of an emphasis on the "Windows computer in your pocket" aspect.

I think Apple's whole approach really hinges on whether people will look at the iPhone as being a great video iPod with some really well-designed smart phone capabilities, or as a snazzy smart phone that happens to be an audio/video player. The first approach (possibly) justifies the high price if customers look at it as "the amount I'd have spent on the iPod plus the amount I'd have spent on a separate phone"; judged solely on its merits as a PDA, though, the iPhone gets lapped by several competitors. (I hadn't seen the 6800, but I'm pretty sure I've seen one of its earlier relatives, and liked it.)

[dajagr.livejournal.com]

I think some of what's going on here, at least from my own perspective, is that for those people not in the target market—and I consider myself firmly outside the target market (I tend toward "as cheap as possible" for cell phone use, and I'm hanging onto my money in the vain pretense that one day I'll be able to own real estate)—is that the level of hype is just...baffling. Okay, it's a phone and an MP3 player. And...so? No offense intended to anyone who's seriously considering getting one. But I'm having trouble justifying spending around a month's rent on the first month of having a portable phone, and then a tenth of that thereafter, unless the device can actually start working miracles. It's felt an awful lot like the main argument I've heard in favor of it is, "It's an Apple iPhone! Come on, don't you get it?" To which the answer is a perplexed, "...um, no, actually!"

I don't necessarily think it's going to die on launch, and I don't actually begrudge anyone a desire for it. But...it's not that big a deal, is it?

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Well, this sort of mass consumer hysteria doesn't actually happen very often. And this is what's fascinating in an armchair sociology way; it's easy to write it all off as marketing-created hype, but if marketing alone could actually create this kind of publicity storm, we'd be seeing this happen quarterly, not once every few years. Furthermore, when this happens, I can't recall another time it's been over something as seemingly utilitarian as a phone.

It's hard to know what effect the iPhone will have on the cellular phone industry, but no cell phone has had as much potential to turn a *lot* of things in the field, from user interface design to the business relationship between carriers and phone makers, completely upside down. The buzz about the iPhone seems to signal that there's a pretty significant segment of the market that's dissatisfied with current cell phone offerings and/or business models.

[dajagr.livejournal.com]

There seems to be a bit of an Ouroboros thing going on here, though: there's a lot of hype because a lot of hype was generated. Where did it all start, though, and why is it such a big deal? I acknowledge that Apple has made some interesting and innovative products before (and has also coughNewtoncough done some things that haven't quite worked out), but...well, maybe it's my overall introverted nature that makes me not quite go gaga over a phone. I simply can't justify that sort of cost on something like that, given the amount that I use a phone in normal day-to-day operations. (And I've been dissatisfied with cell phone business models for a long time, but $70/month is not the direction to go to address that! :-)

[wendingo.livejournal.com]

On reading the specs of the iphone, they almost looked dumb-downed for the reason that they can upgrade it. No built in IM client (give third party support a week for this though), it runs off the EDGE network instead of the G3, it's memory is a fraction of that of a real ipod player.

Give it a few months for the ipod upgrades to come out, the price to drop, and the specials and software to be there. This release is for the techiephiles that are in the hi-end market segment. The ones that have to have the best and newest the day it comes out. Everyone else needs to sell the hype and wait 6 months. Especially if you already have an established sidekick :)

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

The 4/8 gig of memory is the same as the iPod nano. Whether we'll see a hard-drive based version of the iPhone down the road remain to be seen. (My guess is that a future iPhone will just have more flash memory, but the widescreen touch woo woo parts will show up on an iPod.)

My guess has always been that Apple started designing the iPhone without knowing what carrier they were going to be successful at bending over negotiating with. If they'd put higher-speed data in it initially, that would have limited their choices, and they needed to be able to say they could just walk away. I have a suspicion that Apple at first figured they'd be ending up using T-Mobile; last year, the two companies were making vaguely friendly statements at one another, and T-Mobile has been explicitly pushing the EDGE and Wi-Fi combination on their smart phones. But T-Mobile is used to being able to get their way with everything, and Apple is used to being able to get *their* way with everything... and from all appearances it's pretty damn hard to beat Steve Jobs in a stare-down contest. Cingular, on the other hand, is desperate.

None of which means it doesn't kind of suck that they don't have the higher-speed network, whcih is something they're probably not going to be able to just turn on with a software upgrade. :)