Comments on: The Curious Case of iPhone 3.0

By: Rui Ferreira

Rui Ferreira — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:21:14 +0000

Hi,

Well, as a developer I can give an answer to why Apple didn’t released a 3.0 in the 1.0

Because its just too hard! Look, to design just a breaktrough device and not focus on Core Features on day 1 and instead spread your resources thin all over the map is just another way to say “Samsung”; “Nokia”, and all the other lower-than-average companies out there.

This version has over 1.000 APIs! You have no idea what it takes to make such an endeavour on software development. A thing called “Cut/Copy/Paste” can be daunting from a design and implementation details perspective. Imagine to actually suppport that all over the place and make that work with ALL OTHER relevant APIs out there, and make actually software requirements aspects there to create functions and bindings to this system.

You just don’t place a feature on a screen and be done with it. Thats the 20% of the 80% iceberg under the water…

Its hard folks, if it was easy we would not have issues with Microsoft….

Apple is King, because they make the hard… simple.

And, yes… Even their APIs are beautiful!

By: iPhone 3.0: It’s Here! | Technologizer

iPhone 3.0: It’s Here! | Technologizer — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:29:23 +0000

[...] approach to the the iPhone’s development still makes me think of Benjamin Button: The OS was dazzling from the start, but only Apple intentionally put off implementing some of the [...]

By: Arriving Shortly: Quickoffice, a Real Office Suite for the iPhone | Technologizer

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 01:47:03 +0000

[...] had to come up with its own cut-and-paste interface for use within its applications, since Apple just announced native cut and paste and won’t release it until this summer. Quickoffice’s approach isn’t identical to Apple’s, but it looks pretty [...]

By: Kontra

Kontra — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 09:59:09 +0000

The chattering class has a fetishistic indulgence with smartphones bordering on techno-porn.
[...]
While analysts and competitors were busy making feature-level comparisons (of mostly hardware), Apple consolidated its platform lead and laid the foundations of a new growth engine the likes of which the mobile industry has neither yet seen nor fully comprehends.
[...]
While [the iPhone OS 3.0] garnered a collective yawn from the features-fetishists, barring a product introduction disaster, the iPhone OS 3.0 will do to iPhone-killers what it did do to iPod-killers half a decade ago. Apple consolidated its gains, marked its territory of 30M users+25K apps+800M downloads and built a very deep and wide moat around it. A moat so formidable that there’s not a single smartphone player capable of overcoming it.
[...]
By the end of 2009, we expect the virtuous cycle to kick in and the moat strategy to reveal just how difficult it will be to compete with Apple’s touch platform, thereby ushering in consolidation in the rest of the smartphone industry.

iPhone OS 3: The moat strategy vs. features-fetishism
http://counternotions.com/2009/03/19/moat/

By: jmmx

jmmx — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:59:19 +0000

WELL SAID!

It is exactly what I have been thinking, and you say it so well.

(See my comment in:
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/03/17/major-iphone-upgrade-coming-this-summer/
begins: “Look y’all” )

We just have to realize that there are a lot of people who – for some crazy reason or other – just hate Apple with a passion. Well – at least they have some passion. :)

By: tom

tom — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:38:45 +0000

I believe you’re right. I also believe that Apple had to release the first iPhone before it was completely ready due to other touch-screen phones like the LG Prada popping up. I believe if the Prada hadn’t been released when it was, the iPhone would have stayed in development longer, and then would have included these basic features when it was finally released.

By: Lava

Lava — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:37:32 +0000

Wow, an actually insightful analysis! So tired of all the inane comments scattered across the blogosphere about how iPhone is a loser because it can’t do copy and paste. How about not seeing the forest for the trees, hmmm? iPhone would have been nothing without multi-touch and the app support while these “trivial” features, if they had pushed back the release of things like the App Store, would have certainly made the iPhone seem like a “me too” phone. Something 99% of the vacuous blogosphere can’t understand.

I also found it interesting that Apple was willing to drop everything and rearchitect Push Notifications from scratch after realizing the original model would collapse under the demand. Kinda puts efforts like WinMo 6.5 in perspective.

By: Harry McCracken

Harry McCracken — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:29:25 +0000

My point exactly–I think they knew that it was important to get the sizzle right before the steak…

By: spoon

spoon — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:21:24 +0000

Interesting take. But I don’t think Apple would have released a phone that didn’t wow. Otherwise, why bother to enter what was a hypercompetitive market even back then?