Apple opted for a closed architecture, which allowed them to completely control the hardware and hence immensely simplified the OS. While it may be true that Macs hardly ever crash, those who praise this feature tend to ignore that it is quite simple to create a very stable system when you have only one set of hardware to deal with.
The fantastic thing with the PC was the open architecture, which allowed tens of thousands of companies to produce hardware for this architecture which could be assembled in every imaginable way. This pushed down prices to ridiculous levels while performance and features expanded. It also meant that it was extremely difficult to create a reliable OS. Of course it was possible to do better than the first incarnations of MS-DOS and Windows and some problems were clearly inherent in design errors of the original PC, but the complexity of an open system is breathtaking.
Ultimately, and after several dangerous cliffs, Apple re-emerged as a global player with new Macs, then the iPod and most recently the iPhone, which both became global trend-setters and hugely profitable for Apple.
They are an amazing combination of perfect engineering and hype. Admittedly, I wouldn’t have wanted any other MP3 player but the iPhone. It had an amazing interface, reduced to the max, and it was the first to have a decent recording capacity – 60GB, enough to contain my entire CD collection. The competition was virtually invisible. Microsoft’s Zune was a marketing disaster starting with the name. But even the experienced consumer goods companies like Sony and Toshiba just never managed to come up with a really seductive alternative to the iPod.
Tens of millions of people paid highly inflated prices for very simple devices in nice packaging. So far so good. It is 100% Apple’s right to sell their products at whatever price will sell. Amazingly, Apple’s profits rose to levels very close to Microsoft, despite much lower volumes, i.e. their profit margin on each item is huge. That is of course beneficial to the customers as well as it stimulates the production of more high quality, innovative products.
Indeed, without the global iPod triumph, we probably would never have seen the iPhone. But that’s where the love story ends. Steve Jobs decided to milk the iPhone cow twice – once through the sale of the iPhone and then again through profit sharing with the telecom companies licensed to sell iPhones.
In the US, the only carrier that is officially allowed to sell iPhones with subscriptions is AT&T. It is not an attractive option for cell phone users and it forced the users of all the other networks who wanted to have an iPhone to make a choice: switch over to AT&T or pay for 2 networks if they couldn’t cancel their old subscription or switch networks. It was not officially possible to purchase an iPhone as any other commodity and start using it. And the rule was enforced with technical obstacles and legal threats.
Again, let me state clearly that any vendor is free to impose any contractual conditions he wants.
And the client is free not to buy if he doesn’t like the conditions. Which is what I did. I wanted an iPhone since the first model came out in the US, but I still don’t have one. And it’s not a matter of price. I could have purchased one from the US, but I would have had to alter it, taking the risk that the next update would make it again unusable.
Last year, it finally arrived in Switzerland, but it was not available through my network operator. So I still couldn’t buy one without incurring a huge cost of switching to another carrier (a $500 penalty if cancelling the contract before the term) or alternatively of losing my old phone number by getting a new subscription from another carrier while still maintaining my old subscription.
So Apple’s strategy puts the users in a huge dilemma, which is totally unnecessary. When I buy a phone, I do not want to be told what carries it will work with and what I may do with it, what software I will run on it etc. That’s a totally intolerable intrusion into my property rights and the only possible answer is NO iPHONE, no matter how much I may want one. Or I’ll have to buy an unlocked one and hope that Apple won’t try to break it with future updates…
I seriously resent Steve Jobs’ strategy. And I’m sure I’m by far not the only one. There must be millions of people like me around the planet who simply can’t or won’t buy the iPhone because of the carrier connection. I do wonder if the added carrier-based profits are worth the loss of sales for Apple.
There are other huge problems: in the US, AT&T is under massive strain because of the increase in their network use due to all the iPhone internet users. It would of course be immensely preferable to spread that traffic over several carrier networks – ideally all of them. Another negative side-effect Steve Jobs apparently didn’t consider.
Ultimately, we can only hope that Mr.Jobs or his successor will reconsider the kind of conditions they impose on their customers. Sooner or later, this will backfire. People don’t like to be treated like chumps. We should be free to buy products without strings attached, even if it should cost a few extra dollars.
And speaking of price: to charge close to $120 – $140 for a 16 GB memory increase is robbery, but it explains why Apple didn’t include a memory slot in the iPhone, which is annoying on so many levels.
6. 3 Reasons why i hate the iphone
I’ve always been told hate is a strong word when describing one’s feeling towards something and boy am I glad it is. The anticipation, the suspense, the rumors, and the speculation all get to be too much and I’ve about had it. Even though I’m ready to punch the next blogger in the face who so much as suggests Apple is piling on new features before June 29th, I’ll still buy an iPhone, but that doesn’t mean I can’t describe my feelings about the wait.
Too Much Hype
Since January 9th, 2007, the amount of noise generated about Apple’s iPhone, a device we have yet to hold in our hands, has been unprecedented. There is no review of an iPhone yet, little to no benchmarks and no videos of what it can really do, but there is an occasional morsel of information that slips through only to be debated upon for what seems like an eternity, and a teaser put out by those who are very close to Steve Jobs. But who is creating the hype? Not Apple, not AT&T, but us. We don’t know enough to truly judge the iPhone or to make an accurate buying decision; this thing could be the buggiest 1.0 product Apple has ever released. Yet we still talk about, we still give Apple the free marketing they want (guilty as charged) and through this we saved them oh, about 400 million dollars in advertising. But throughout the hype, there has been massive confusion. False facts have been tossed around and our attempts to make corrections have been neglected by a wave of uncertainty. I’ve considered delaying my iPhone purchase until either the next revision or major update and no doubt others have considered the same course of action. All this hype has done for Apple and AT&T is keep people anticipated for June 29th when you can finally buy an iPhone in stores or possibly online. Both of these companies didn’t have to lift a finger, just keep things under wraps but not so tight that potentially false information couldn’t crawl out.
Even though people will want the iPhone more and more, the massive hype machine may persuade buyers to purchase other devices. If someone was comparing smart phones for a potential purchase they’d either have to wait a while, only to possibly be displeased by the lack of features generated by the hype machine, or rely on rumors and speculation for the basis of their decision. Very little has been confirmed about the iPhone, and this could ward off not-so-serious buyers. Even the amount of confusion is very annoying. I honestly never thought there would be enough news per day to fuel our iPhone-focused Blog iPhone Matters, but I seem to be wrong.
The Contradictions
When announced in January, Steve met all of our expectations regarding how a mobile device should be designed...well, almost all of them. One of the most heralded features of the iPhone is that it’s capable of displaying the full Internet, not the half-baked version nor the watered-down version but the fullInternet. Yeah, right: the iPhone does not support Flash or Java. These are major components of web browsers and by skipping on them you do not have the full-featured Internet that other desktop-based browsers allow. A lot of videos and applications are in the Flash format (YouTube being a prime example) so the lack of this totally contradicts Steve Jobs and a recent commercial touting the iPhone’s advanced Internet capabilities. Skipping Flash in order to promote a better format for video content is not a valid reason to exclude it, a Flash Plug-In as well as H.264 support could both exist on the iPhone without conflicting. Another contradiction Apple has made regarding the iPhone is the status of their applications. They claim the iPhone will sport true desktop-class apps but last I checked this isn’t an easy goal to reach without a real SDK for developers. True web apps are gaining capabilities left and right but hardly measure up to their offline counterparts. These apps can only be free while containing a certain number of features for so long before advertising comes into play or even a subscription model. I’d love to see how a Google ad wouldn’t bother your browsing experience when using online applications.
Lack of resource utilization
I’ve got to hand it to Microsoft for one thing regarding their hardware: they sure know how to utilize their resources better than Apple has. The Zune has wireless sharing enabled, allowing you to send songs and photos, and the Xbox 360 can stream media wirelessly to your TV. And what can the iPhone do? None of these, but I’m sure Steve wouldn’t have forgotten an important feature such as this. Nonetheless the iPhone should be able to stream and interact with devices via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. How cool would it be to include something like this into the iPhone, allowing it to possibly control an Apple TV. Or why not stream content from an AppleTV or Mac to an iPhone? And why forget 3G on the launch model, eh? Edge and Wi-Fi are our only real options to get an Internet connection, but hotspots aren’t everywhere. Perhaps I would like to use Google Maps in no man’s land when traveling where a wireless internet connection does not exist. EDGE would be perfect because it might be available in the area but I cannot justify paying 30 to 40 dollars a month for near dial-up speeds.
Still, Apple needs to get its act together on the iPhone’s wireless functions. If they would allow Software updates from the phone itself and downloading from the iTunes store then this would be a perfect option for anyone wanting a computer in their pocket. Apple could even offer a high-end version of the phone that accomplishes this. Surely you think I jest but I’m serious, if Apple knew how to better utilize the resources of an iPhone, every other mobile media device would be blown out of the water.