Rants And Ramblings About Mobile Technology
Anders Borg writing about the fun and crazy world of mobile and Internet service technologies.
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Sunday, March 11, 2007
The Apple effect in the marketing of the iPhone
Here are two ways Apple has affected the market with the iPhone, even before it exists, and even before anyone has concluded the first incarnation of the iPhone is worth buying.
Gizmodo: iPhone Generated $400 million in Free Publicity
Deserved or not: 'No other company has ever received that kind of attention for a product launch...It's unprecedented'
Mobility Weblog: The future of handset design: from hardware to software
My comment: By using this form of UI paradigm, the software will determine more of a mobile phone's functionality (at least the kind that doesn't require special hardware) and more or less all of the UI. Application developers definitely like this ... if they had a possibility to add any software to the iPhone that is. Phones with this form factor will often be used in landscape format for browsing, viewing videos and TV etc.
A bit sad for those that already have iPhone-like phones is that due to the power of Apple's marketing consumers get the impression they clone the iPhone, which they obviously don't. The same with the iPod: Many seem to think Apple invented the MP3 Player, while rather such devices existed well before the iPod, yet not as easy to use, and probably not as well integrated with a media download service, even though Sony tried. Apple was more pragmatic though: By adding support for the favorite 'music pirate' format MP3 instead of holding on to a proprietary format (in Sony's case ATRAC), even non-iTunes users liked the iPod.
What I think and hope Apple has done better with the iPhone than competitors have, is to more consistently make use of the 'clean slate' UI to provide overall better functionality and ease-of-use. I hope they haven't forgotten the 'if you press the phone to your ear, you don't want to accidentally hang up the call' and 'if you have the phone in your pocket you don't want to call or message the whole world in the process' issues. There's also the issue of tactile feedback when pressing 'keys'.
Gizmodo: iPhone Generated $400 million in Free Publicity
Deserved or not: 'No other company has ever received that kind of attention for a product launch...It's unprecedented'
Mobility Weblog: The future of handset design: from hardware to software
My comment: By using this form of UI paradigm, the software will determine more of a mobile phone's functionality (at least the kind that doesn't require special hardware) and more or less all of the UI. Application developers definitely like this ... if they had a possibility to add any software to the iPhone that is. Phones with this form factor will often be used in landscape format for browsing, viewing videos and TV etc.
A bit sad for those that already have iPhone-like phones is that due to the power of Apple's marketing consumers get the impression they clone the iPhone, which they obviously don't. The same with the iPod: Many seem to think Apple invented the MP3 Player, while rather such devices existed well before the iPod, yet not as easy to use, and probably not as well integrated with a media download service, even though Sony tried. Apple was more pragmatic though: By adding support for the favorite 'music pirate' format MP3 instead of holding on to a proprietary format (in Sony's case ATRAC), even non-iTunes users liked the iPod.
What I think and hope Apple has done better with the iPhone than competitors have, is to more consistently make use of the 'clean slate' UI to provide overall better functionality and ease-of-use. I hope they haven't forgotten the 'if you press the phone to your ear, you don't want to accidentally hang up the call' and 'if you have the phone in your pocket you don't want to call or message the whole world in the process' issues. There's also the issue of tactile feedback when pressing 'keys'.
