The introduction of the iPhone has been the most-hyped product introduction since... well since the Mac really. But does it live up to the hype? Early reports say, mostly yes. Does it have some quirks and shortcomings that all first generation products have? Certainly. The non-user replaceable battery is a biggie. But on the whole reviewers seem to agree that it is just as cool and paradigm-changing as the marketing hype makes it look. And quite frankly, if the thing does 80% of what is looks like it will do in the ads, as easily, it will going to do some major paradigm shifting. It is "a breakthrough," in the words of WSJ tech commentator, Walt Mossberg.
The iPhone's true measure will probably be more greatly felt a few years down the road, when the exclusive deal with AT&T expires and when the second (third?) generation iPhone starts to really move into the masses, when and if the iPhone installed base starts to push into say, the tens of millions.
How major an innovation is the iPhone? Well, let's look at a recent New York Magazine profile of Steve Jobs.
With the iPhone, in particular, he is hurling Apple into foreign waters. His motivations for doing so aren’t difficult to discern. Somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion cell phones are sold worldwide every year; in terms of scale, ubiquity, and relevance, it’s the mother of all consumer-electronics markets. The chance to upend this sprawling industry, bend it to his will, is one that Jobs, being Jobs, finds irresistible.
Apple’s competitors, by contrast, find the prospect of the iPhone terrifying. “The entire [expletive] Western world hopes that it’s a case of imperial overstretch,” says the CEO of one of the planet’s largest communications companies. “But everybody is quietly saying, er, what if people want to buy a $500 phone? What if, er, people have been waiting for a device that does all these things? What if this thing works as advertised? I mean, my God, what then?”
Indeed. What then? What if Apple starts moving iPhones in numbers comparable to the iPod, at 16 million a month.
What then is that the mobile computing industry -- and increasingly, that is what cellphones are morphing into; Apple has merely finished the job that was started by the Blackberry and the Treo -- is going to have to get really serious. Serious about innovation, serious about quality, serious about customer service and serious about interface design and function.
One of my favorite business bloggers, Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture, posts the big lessons and hard questions that are going to be asked not only of cellphone companies, but of all of us who run businesses in the wake of this.
- 1. Committees Suck: The old joke is that a Camel is a Horse designed by a committee. As we have seen all too often, what comes out of large corporations are bland-to-ugly items that (while functional and reliable) do not excite consumers.
When a company decides to break the committee mindset and give a great designer the reins, you get terrific products that sell well. The Chrysler 300 does not looks like it was designed by a corporate committee. Think of Chris Bangle's vision for BMW -- and its huge sales spike -- and you can see what the upside is in having a visionary in charge of design.
Better pick a damned good one, though . . .- 2. Present Interfaces Stink: How bad is the present Human Interface of most consumer items? Leaving the improving, but still too hard to use Windows aside for a moment, let's consider the mobile phone market: It was so kludgy and ugly that the entire 100 million unit, multi-billion dollar industry now finds itself at risk of being completely bypassed, all because some geek from California wanted a cooler and easier to use phone.
What other industries may be at risk?- 3. Industrial Design Matters: We have entered a period where industrial design is a significant element in consumer items. From the VW Bug to the iPod, good design can take a ho-hum ordinary product and turn it into a sales winner.
- 4. R&D is Paramount: While most of corporate America is slashing R&D budgets (and buying back stock), the handful of companies who have plowed cash back into R&D are the clear market leaders this cycle: Think Apple, Google (Maps, Search), Toyota (Hybrid), Nintendo (Wii). A well designed, innovative product can create -- or upend -- an entire market. Even Microsoft did it with the X-box;
What other companies have the ability to disrupt an entire market?- 5. Disdain for the Consumer can be Fatal: As we have seen with Dell, Home Depot, The Gap, Sears, etc., the consumer experience is more important than most corporate management seem to realize. Ignore the public at your peril.
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