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The second Apple debuted that smooth as fucking butter interface it was clear as day how badly behind people were at the time. Pre-iPhone the form of phones was incredible but the function was dogshit garbage. Small displays rendering everything in software and failing to hit 15fps on a good day because these poor little ARM chips were being abused to within an inch of their lives. If you were seriously lucky you might get blitting in hardware.
Then iPhone comes in with a high spec ARM, a GPU, and Core Graphics. If I was Nokia/SE/Motorola I would have been shitting myself watching Steve demo the iPhone knowing that I'm at least five years behind now.
I remember 2 audience reactions really, really clearly from the original iPhone launch:
1. the reactions to "flick to scroll".
2. reaction to pinch-to-zoom.
In both cases the audience was just gobsmacked: oohs, ahs and cheers all around.
For people saying there were other devices out there at the time with similar or better hardware specs, or even comparable feature sets, I think you are totally missing the point. That kind of comparison is making the same mistake as the infamous "Less space than a Nomad. Lame" Slashdot comment re the iPod. I remember trying out the original iPhone the second day it was on sale, and just being blown away - and I worked in the mobile industry at the time and was well aware of the features of other phones.
The overall experience of the iPhone was just legions ahead of anything else that existed at that time.
I once read an interview with Anssi Vanjoki, who was one of the top executives at Nokia. He said indeed that when he first held an iPhone he knew it was over for Nokia.
If I remember correctly, Nokia had good tech for smart phones, but no vision or courage to drive the market in that direction. It was not a well-managed company.
I don’t recall the precise details, but one of the key Android people was watching the keynote and had that immediate realization: their prototypes had just been obsoleted.
It was a lot less of a paradigm shift at the time than it seems like in hindsight, actually.
In fact there were competing phones with Windows Mobile or Symbian that did have similar hardware specs. (Really if you have to pick the single defining hardware innovation of the iPhone, it was the full slate capacitative touchscreen.) And in some areas the iPhone was clearly behind, shipping with a EDGE-only radio at a time where other networks were rapidly deploying 3G hardware.
But the big missing bit was the app store, which didn't exist yet. When the iPhone shipped, it was a very expensive phone with a web browser, and nothing else. Jobs was going on stage saying that web apps were all anyone needed, and people were laughing at him. When the app store was finally released it only barely beat Android to market.
It wasn't really until the 3G/3GS generation that the product really hit its stride, and a few more revs after that before it became the sine qua non accessory for the tech set.
In hindsight, yeah, that was a huge inflection point. But at the time there were a lot of reasons to prefer other devices.
Read the article before jumping into roasting. The author is NOT criticizing iPhone - he's skeptical simply because, at the time, network operators dictated which manufacturers enter the mobile phone market or not. It was a highly controlled market, and Apple not only had to build a great phone, but also had to punch through that stupid business barrier. In the end, Apple did make it.
> As customers start to realise that the competition offers better functionality at a lower price, by negotiating a better subsidy, sales will stagnate. After a year a new version will be launched, but it will lack the innovation of the first and quickly vanish.
Iirc Apple basically bribed Cingular I think to get a toe in the market, at the time Apple fans would go to great lengths to get things working (including installing FireWire to use iPods on windows) so it worked out. AT&T later bought Cingular.
Of course I'm writing this with the benefit of hindsight, but it's still an interesting position to read. They could make almost exactly the same claim for iTunes - that it's really not viable because you have no leverage over the incumbent publishers - that they're making for network operators.
And I really don't think this is a bad comparison, given that in 2006, iTunes is still very much fresh in the mind.
Apple didn't have to care. The telcos bent over backwards to accommodate job's phone.
Handspring built a modern smartphone and got roasted by the telcos. All jobs had to do was ask "do you want access to our millions of ipod and imusic subscribers?" and he got his way.
The iPad also had widespread predictions of failure.
Early that year pretty much everyone had introduced tablet PCs and convertible PCs at CES. Apple had announced the iPad but it wasn't going to ship until April.
Most major magazines, reviewers, bloggers, podcasters, and such had high praise for those tablets and convertibles, saying that they were going to change how we all worked with PCs, and said iPad was late to the party and was really just a bigger iPhone without the phone, and was fatally limited compared to the versatility of the PC tablets and especially the PC convertibles, and was sure to bomb.
One of the few major podcasters who said it would succeed was Leo LaPorte. On one of his podcasts he said it would sell about 5 million in its first year, and everyone else on the show told him he was insane.
It actually sold 5 million in around 4 months, and 20 million in its first year.
>As customers start to realise that the competition offers better functionality at a lower price, by negotiating a better subsidy, sales will stagnate. After a year a new version will be launched, but it will lack the innovation of the first and quickly vanish.
Any other great insights Bill Ray?
>Mobile phones are not complex to use because of bad interface design, they are complex to use because they are complex devices with a myriad of features.
Reminds me discussions about how "shells are fine" and couldn't possibly be much better.
> Some have suggested that Apple will simply set up their own Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) and just fund the subsidy…
I was one who believed this up until the announcement. I grossly underestimated Jobs’ ability to negotiate/strong arm the carriers, who were and remain one of those industries who fear and proactively hate their customers.
(Side point: I accidentally typed “nagotiate” which was autocorrected but surely is a word every parent could use)
Jobs actually wasn't that good at negotiating - every carrier had rejected their strategy of "we just sell iPhones" rather than "we sell the Verizon $RANDOM_WORD powered by V-Cast". The carriers wanted to sell features piecemeal and control the user experience so they could extract more money out of you.
The only company that bit was Cingular, aka "the new AT&T", because they bought AT&T Wireless and took that brand for themselves. Before that Apple was actually considering an Apple MVNO[0], which was a fairly popular business arrangement in 2006 for some reason. The cost of getting their control was a five year exclusivity deal with AT&T, which would turn out to be a huge pain in the ass for iPhone users as AT&T's network was not at all designed to handle everyone being able to use data at the push of a button. In fact, it makes me wonder if the carriers were deliberately designing their other phones to make it more of a pain in the ass to use data...
[0] Mobile Virtual Network Operator. Basically any company that sells mobile service by renting out another company's network.
> Mobile phones are not complex to use because of bad interface design, they are complex to use because they are complex devices with a myriad of features. The fiercely competitive mobile phone business has driven interface development at an astounding rate: it has become de rigueur for every new handset to feature a revolutionary new interface mechanism.
> Apple is extremely good at creating simple interfaces, and it is likely that the Apple phone will have a pleasing interface which is relatively easy to use and recognisably iPod branded, but it won't need to appeal to the iPod users, it will need to appeal to the network operators.
e.g. adding a camera to the phone can justify an additional price to the phone.
I'd say it's somewhat interesting this was wrong.
IIRC, the touchscreen, mobile internet, and (walled-garden) app store allow for a shift from "phone + widgets" to "smartphone".
One of the ways Apple managed the issues was by selling a handheld computer which could make phone calls, rather than selling a “phone”. If they’d sold something with the limited interface of a flip phone or iPod like the author expected them to, his prediction would probably have been more accurate.
I think they just demonstrated that buyers would easily drop hundreds of dollars on an Apple product. Steve Ballmer also famously scoffed at the price of the iPhone.[1]
In the US, they went for exclusivity. You could only buy iPhone on AT&T, and they committed to that for 4 years.
In Europe, people buy phones SIM-free as well, so it wasn’t exclusive, but many networks offered subsidies — undoubtedly because of commercial arrangements.
>Mobile phones are not complex to use because of bad interface design, they are complex to use because they are complex devices with a myriad of features.
I'm reminded of Linus Torvalds' rant about CVS[0] and SVN giving people brain damage. While this quote is obviously hyperbolic to the point of being offensive and demeaning, there's some truth to it. People whose only experience is with CVS and SVN might just assume that all version control has to be built in that weirdly clunky and centralized way. Likewise, people who have only ever used the garbage UIs on underpowered phones confused user hostility for essential complexity.
[0] Concurrent Versions System, not the US drugstore that used to be called Consumer Value Stores
I liked Ballmer's "500 dollars for a phone" reaction the most. He looked scared enough to the point of having something warm and moist in his underwear.
Personally, I don't like iPhones very much but all I needed to know was observe other people. And many they were truly awed at the time. Even nvidia's APX 2500 looked like something wrapped in a hurry.
I myself was quite hesitant about touchscreens back in the day, when I was debating whether I should buy myself a Motorola Milestone (Android 2.1) after seeing a HTC Dream at work, or whether to get a BlackBerry Storm (with the tactile screen) since I wasn't sure how good a touchscreen will be or even if Android will survive.
Reading these articles is always amusing. The iPhone became one of the most successful products in modern history. With that, doomer articles like these are bound to be used for decades as examples of how predictions can backfire catastrophically. No journalist wants to be known as the guy who predicted the iPhone would fail.
Back then you could use what phones were available from your carrier. There was no such thing as BYOD. You had to have the carrier support the Apple device and that was only possible through the AT&T deal. Without that deal the iPhone would have died a quick death as it wouldn't be usable.
Matches the same prediction for Tesla - the hardware companies ‘will catch up’ to the software ones.
Yes cars and phones are hardware, but that’s relatively easy compared to the software. In cars people think software is just infotainment, but it’s really hundreds of controllers all networked and often each written by different vendors.
Tesla has brought most of them in house, and made them updateable. Enabling features like watching your dog safe and live in your car as you eat at a restaurant. Or turning down the cabin fan so the noise doesn’t interfere with a phone call.
It’s funny in like 15 years, everyone who has tried a phone OS has failed except Android.
I think the interesting thing with respect to Tesla, and which is why I disagree with your analysis, is that they are winning not because other car companies couldn't catch up to software, but because Tesla saw the writing on the wall early and caught up with hardware.
Tesla has been slashing prices recently, and they can do that and still be profitable because, especially when it comes to batteries, they have some of the lowest production costs in the industry. This is the thing that is pretty shocking to me: Tesla has managed to build in a lower cost of hardware production, which everyone else said they were so bad at. In addition, Tesla was the only one with the foresight to build out their Supercharger network, and that is a huge competitive advantage for them. For disclosure, I despise Musk and will not by a Tesla, and I own a non-Tesla EV. I love my car, but most of the other charging networks (especially Electrify America) are downright dogshit compared to Superchargers - half the stations are randomly busted, their charging speeds max out at like 50 kW when they advertise 350 kW, etc.
I think the thing that's instructive about both Tesla and Apple is they are winning because they control entire "ecosystems": software plus very-well integrated hardware. Despite all the complaints about Tesla's shitty QA (which seem totally valid IMO), this seems like a situation that should improve over time, while it will be really difficult for legacy car companies to match Tesla's costs when it comes to battery production.
Whew, I'm so happy I've always been right in my predictions, unlike this poor fellow, who has probably been unemployed since this inexcusable prediction failure.
That's why I only predict that things that should kill me, won't. If ever I am wrong I will not have to suffer the consequences. So far I've always been right. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I am immortal.
A commenter at the time wrote “Speculation for titillation.”
That rightfully deserves scorn and ridicule. It’s relevant 15 years on for those predicting huge failures for nascent ideas and markets—-if you want to make a big statement for the future, back it up.
If you predicted that Theranos was a total scam, you’d be vindicated. The jury is still out on Bitcoin, etc.
[+] [-] pushcx|2 years ago|reply
The outlet's snarky responses to reader letters are also available: https://www.theregister.com/2007/01/09/apple_iphone_letters/
[+] [-] dang|2 years ago|reply
Submitters: it's suitable to post archive links in comments but not as submissions—so please don't submit archive links unless you've googled around for a current rendition of the article and have satisfied yourself that there's really no other way.
[+] [-] Veliladon|2 years ago|reply
Then iPhone comes in with a high spec ARM, a GPU, and Core Graphics. If I was Nokia/SE/Motorola I would have been shitting myself watching Steve demo the iPhone knowing that I'm at least five years behind now.
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|2 years ago|reply
1. the reactions to "flick to scroll".
2. reaction to pinch-to-zoom.
In both cases the audience was just gobsmacked: oohs, ahs and cheers all around.
For people saying there were other devices out there at the time with similar or better hardware specs, or even comparable feature sets, I think you are totally missing the point. That kind of comparison is making the same mistake as the infamous "Less space than a Nomad. Lame" Slashdot comment re the iPod. I remember trying out the original iPhone the second day it was on sale, and just being blown away - and I worked in the mobile industry at the time and was well aware of the features of other phones.
The overall experience of the iPhone was just legions ahead of anything else that existed at that time.
[+] [-] Seanambers|2 years ago|reply
Steve Jobs Introducing at Macworld in 2007 is a classic for the ages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQKMoT-6XSg
[+] [-] karmakurtisaani|2 years ago|reply
If I remember correctly, Nokia had good tech for smart phones, but no vision or courage to drive the market in that direction. It was not a well-managed company.
[+] [-] macintux|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajross|2 years ago|reply
In fact there were competing phones with Windows Mobile or Symbian that did have similar hardware specs. (Really if you have to pick the single defining hardware innovation of the iPhone, it was the full slate capacitative touchscreen.) And in some areas the iPhone was clearly behind, shipping with a EDGE-only radio at a time where other networks were rapidly deploying 3G hardware.
But the big missing bit was the app store, which didn't exist yet. When the iPhone shipped, it was a very expensive phone with a web browser, and nothing else. Jobs was going on stage saying that web apps were all anyone needed, and people were laughing at him. When the app store was finally released it only barely beat Android to market.
It wasn't really until the 3G/3GS generation that the product really hit its stride, and a few more revs after that before it became the sine qua non accessory for the tech set.
In hindsight, yeah, that was a huge inflection point. But at the time there were a lot of reasons to prefer other devices.
[+] [-] esjeon|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zuhsetaqi|2 years ago|reply
> As customers start to realise that the competition offers better functionality at a lower price, by negotiating a better subsidy, sales will stagnate. After a year a new version will be launched, but it will lack the innovation of the first and quickly vanish.
[+] [-] bombcar|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soneil|2 years ago|reply
And I really don't think this is a bad comparison, given that in 2006, iTunes is still very much fresh in the mind.
[+] [-] jakobson14|2 years ago|reply
Handspring built a modern smartphone and got roasted by the telcos. All jobs had to do was ask "do you want access to our millions of ipod and imusic subscribers?" and he got his way.
[+] [-] tzs|2 years ago|reply
Early that year pretty much everyone had introduced tablet PCs and convertible PCs at CES. Apple had announced the iPad but it wasn't going to ship until April.
Most major magazines, reviewers, bloggers, podcasters, and such had high praise for those tablets and convertibles, saying that they were going to change how we all worked with PCs, and said iPad was late to the party and was really just a bigger iPhone without the phone, and was fatally limited compared to the versatility of the PC tablets and especially the PC convertibles, and was sure to bomb.
One of the few major podcasters who said it would succeed was Leo LaPorte. On one of his podcasts he said it would sell about 5 million in its first year, and everyone else on the show told him he was insane.
It actually sold 5 million in around 4 months, and 20 million in its first year.
[+] [-] throwaway2990|2 years ago|reply
https://www.theregister.com/2007/01/09/apple_iphone_letters/
[+] [-] Liambp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bonestamp2|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|2 years ago|reply
Any other great insights Bill Ray?
>Mobile phones are not complex to use because of bad interface design, they are complex to use because they are complex devices with a myriad of features.
Reminds me discussions about how "shells are fine" and couldn't possibly be much better.
[+] [-] nikanj|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumby|2 years ago|reply
I was one who believed this up until the announcement. I grossly underestimated Jobs’ ability to negotiate/strong arm the carriers, who were and remain one of those industries who fear and proactively hate their customers.
(Side point: I accidentally typed “nagotiate” which was autocorrected but surely is a word every parent could use)
[+] [-] kmeisthax|2 years ago|reply
The only company that bit was Cingular, aka "the new AT&T", because they bought AT&T Wireless and took that brand for themselves. Before that Apple was actually considering an Apple MVNO[0], which was a fairly popular business arrangement in 2006 for some reason. The cost of getting their control was a five year exclusivity deal with AT&T, which would turn out to be a huge pain in the ass for iPhone users as AT&T's network was not at all designed to handle everyone being able to use data at the push of a button. In fact, it makes me wonder if the carriers were deliberately designing their other phones to make it more of a pain in the ass to use data...
[0] Mobile Virtual Network Operator. Basically any company that sells mobile service by renting out another company's network.
[+] [-] rgoulter|2 years ago|reply
> Mobile phones are not complex to use because of bad interface design, they are complex to use because they are complex devices with a myriad of features. The fiercely competitive mobile phone business has driven interface development at an astounding rate: it has become de rigueur for every new handset to feature a revolutionary new interface mechanism.
> Apple is extremely good at creating simple interfaces, and it is likely that the Apple phone will have a pleasing interface which is relatively easy to use and recognisably iPod branded, but it won't need to appeal to the iPod users, it will need to appeal to the network operators.
e.g. adding a camera to the phone can justify an additional price to the phone.
I'd say it's somewhat interesting this was wrong.
IIRC, the touchscreen, mobile internet, and (walled-garden) app store allow for a shift from "phone + widgets" to "smartphone".
[+] [-] tzs|2 years ago|reply
https://www.theregister.com/2006/12/23/iphone_will_fail/
[+] [-] Zealotux|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prewett|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bandergirl|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] signal11|2 years ago|reply
In Europe, people buy phones SIM-free as well, so it wasn’t exclusive, but many networks offered subsidies — undoubtedly because of commercial arrangements.
[+] [-] kmeisthax|2 years ago|reply
I'm reminded of Linus Torvalds' rant about CVS[0] and SVN giving people brain damage. While this quote is obviously hyperbolic to the point of being offensive and demeaning, there's some truth to it. People whose only experience is with CVS and SVN might just assume that all version control has to be built in that weirdly clunky and centralized way. Likewise, people who have only ever used the garbage UIs on underpowered phones confused user hostility for essential complexity.
[0] Concurrent Versions System, not the US drugstore that used to be called Consumer Value Stores
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] beebeepka|2 years ago|reply
Personally, I don't like iPhones very much but all I needed to know was observe other people. And many they were truly awed at the time. Even nvidia's APX 2500 looked like something wrapped in a hurry.
[+] [-] hxii|2 years ago|reply
I myself was quite hesitant about touchscreens back in the day, when I was debating whether I should buy myself a Motorola Milestone (Android 2.1) after seeing a HTC Dream at work, or whether to get a BlackBerry Storm (with the tactile screen) since I wasn't sure how good a touchscreen will be or even if Android will survive.
[+] [-] tail_exchange|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sys_64738|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|2 years ago|reply
Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly (2006) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9051005 - Feb 2015 (5 comments)
[+] [-] bottlepalm|2 years ago|reply
Yes cars and phones are hardware, but that’s relatively easy compared to the software. In cars people think software is just infotainment, but it’s really hundreds of controllers all networked and often each written by different vendors.
Tesla has brought most of them in house, and made them updateable. Enabling features like watching your dog safe and live in your car as you eat at a restaurant. Or turning down the cabin fan so the noise doesn’t interfere with a phone call.
It’s funny in like 15 years, everyone who has tried a phone OS has failed except Android.
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|2 years ago|reply
Tesla has been slashing prices recently, and they can do that and still be profitable because, especially when it comes to batteries, they have some of the lowest production costs in the industry. This is the thing that is pretty shocking to me: Tesla has managed to build in a lower cost of hardware production, which everyone else said they were so bad at. In addition, Tesla was the only one with the foresight to build out their Supercharger network, and that is a huge competitive advantage for them. For disclosure, I despise Musk and will not by a Tesla, and I own a non-Tesla EV. I love my car, but most of the other charging networks (especially Electrify America) are downright dogshit compared to Superchargers - half the stations are randomly busted, their charging speeds max out at like 50 kW when they advertise 350 kW, etc.
I think the thing that's instructive about both Tesla and Apple is they are winning because they control entire "ecosystems": software plus very-well integrated hardware. Despite all the complaints about Tesla's shitty QA (which seem totally valid IMO), this seems like a situation that should improve over time, while it will be really difficult for legacy car companies to match Tesla's costs when it comes to battery production.
[+] [-] zbrozek|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] indigoabstract|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charles_f|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smugma|2 years ago|reply
That rightfully deserves scorn and ridicule. It’s relevant 15 years on for those predicting huge failures for nascent ideas and markets—-if you want to make a big statement for the future, back it up.
If you predicted that Theranos was a total scam, you’d be vindicated. The jury is still out on Bitcoin, etc.