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12/02/09
12/02/09
[www.engadget.com]
Is Phil an assclown too?
12/04/09
12/04/09
12/02/09
I suppose Anssi Vanjoki could still be correct, if, say, 5-10 years from now the iPhone is as esoteric as Macintosh computers in 1997. I love the iPhone now, but will it be relevant in 5 years time (the future iPhone, not this current one, which will be junk in a landfill or melted for scrap by then)?
12/02/09
Um... how's Windows Mobile working out for you now Steve? Oh, and I owned a Q, and hated it from day 1.
12/02/09
It would be only a basic strategy for a competing company.
Moreso, it would be an intelligent way of marketing their own product, and even a bit "cool" and "ballsy".
Predictions are made all the time by all companies. Lots of them get it wrong.
In Ballmer's case here, like it or not, he had lots of good points there which are still valid today.
12/02/09
12/02/09
Why isn't that guy on TV?!
(aside from this one time.)
12/02/09
12/02/09
"Looks like she got the short end of the stick there, America."
12/02/09
12/02/09
I kid, seriously. I like having four different ways to exit apps with or without closing them. I'd get bored if there was just one, obvious way of accomplishing things.
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It was, however, a very good touchscreen phone, and the iPhone 3G rightly recified all those hilarious oversights.
12/02/09
12/02/09
Exactly darn right. Back in 2007 Apple managed to sell 270,000 iPhones in two days, despite the fact that the phone was GSM and $600.
Let me repeat: the original iPhone was $600 and they still sold 270,ooo in two days.
You compare that to any current phone, like the Droid selling 100,000, but at a measly $200 and it doesn't look that impressive at all.
12/02/09
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12/02/09
Look at this...
The iphone was popular but it was by no means the success it has today.
12/02/09
12/02/09
Both phones were huge successes, which is why Ballmer and crew were wrong, which is the point of the original article.
12/02/09
It's easy to laugh in retrospect, but a quick Google could tell you that these "assclowns" as Diaz so eloquently put it were in very good company.
12/02/09
Again, I think you guys are trying to reframe the argument. It's really simple guys.
A bunch of CEOs and tech writers said the iPhone was going to be a failure. It wasn't. It doesn't matter too much why they thought it was going to be a failure, they were still wrong.
That was the point of the article, in case you still don't understand.
12/02/09
If they were going to pooh-pooh the iPhone regardless, then there's no discussion to make. That's certainly a possibility, but it's a boring one.
12/02/09
12/02/09
Jon Rubinstein said that the iPhone was going to be a failure because it wasn't a specialized device.
Ed Colligan said that the iPhone was going to be a failure because he didn't think PC guys could figure out how to make a good phone.
John Dvorak said the iPhone was going to be a failure because he's just an asshole. He has a history of predicting Apple failures (for instance, he said the Apple Stores were going to fail).
Anssi Vanjoki said the iPhone was going to fail because the Mac had failed and was "niche" product.
Just about all these guys gave their reasons why the iPhone was going to fail and yet you still insist on saying they thought it was going to fail because it didn't have 3G and an App Store.
Well, your conclusion makes no sense.
12/02/09
Which is to get back to my original thesis, "It wasn't moronic to be dismissive of the iPhone when it was announced".
(You're the one who said that "[t]hey said it was going to be a failure just on general principle". Thanks for rebutting yourself.)
12/02/09
12/02/09
So I guess we've gotten to the root of your disgust for the article.
Sorry, but you were an assclown too.
Why? In January of 2007 there was no reason for you to believe that there wouldn't be an iPhone 3G in the future. If you watched the keynote closely, you would have heard Steve Jobs say this:
"iPhone is a Quad Band GSM+EDGE phone. We have decided... (clapping) ...we have decided to go with the most popular international standard, which is GSM. We are on that bandwagon, headed on that roadmap and plan to make 3G PHONES and all sorts of amazing things in the future."
Furthermore, most of these responses above came right after MacWorld 2007, which was in January 2007. Steve Jobs didn't announce his plans for an iPhone SDK until WWDC, which was in June of 2007, that's six months after the keynote.
So there was absolutely no reason for you or Steve Ballmer and the others to think there was not going to be an App Store, because Steve Jobs hadn't announced it yet.
So based on this information we can confidently say that you guys are a bunch of assclowns.
12/02/09
No, my whole point is that there were perfectly good reasons, echoed in the press and elsewhere at the time, and easy to bring to mind now, for thinking that the iPhone was a gamble. Ergo, they weren't assclowns, just wrong. There was hubris, but we're not talking nobody-wants-to-play-online hubris. The iPhone could've been the next Newton.
To your specific points: Giz, and everyone else, were explicitly told that there would be an iPod-style closed system during their hands-on time, so there was no reason to expect an SDK. Apple talked up "all sorts of amazing things", but they did not exist yet.
12/02/09
but i truly love your effort to use the whole "they couldn't have known" argument for men running companies worth millions and billions of dollars...doubt their investors would count that as valid though.
12/02/09
The App Store was more than something they "couldn't have known about", it's something Apple explicitly misdirected them about, either by chance (if they never intended native app dev) or design (if they just flat-out lied when they told people it'd be closed to development). Everyone knew, because Apple told them, that it was a closed system. In that respect it was no threat to Nokia, and Blackberry, and all the other companies who had phones that could edit Word documents. Now, we know that's not the case, but that's what they must've thought at the time.
As far as 3G goes, it was a perfectly good reason to bet against the original iPhone as a product. I'm sure they were well aware that a 3G iPhone was going to turn up eventually, but they weren't commenting about that, and Apple's own stance was that it was a non-essential feature. In a rational market, where no amount of ease of use could've made up for that price tag and featureset, it would've flopped, and its 3G replacement would've have been anything to worry about. It didn't flop, though, because Apple's got a heroic capacity for exploiting the apparent irrationality of the market, and realising the value of ease of use.
12/02/09
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12/02/09
Please explain why my argument hinges on Steve Ballmer and the others thinking that the iPhone was going to be a failure because of the lack of 3G and the App Store.
I think you'll find that it doesn't.
12/02/09
the original iphone 2.5G was 499/599 and most average people wouldn't throw that much money down on a phone.
Once the 3GS came out with a more reasonable price at 199 then it exploded.
In the end you can say it was the prince and a little marketing that sold the phone.
12/02/09
lets all face the fact that your arguments hold absolutely no water and your insinuation that these things could have been part of the thinking for people like ballmer et al only makes them look like bigger assclowns.
and lets get into companies like msft not doing their due diligence.....a 16 year old hacker hacks the iphone and suddenly independent devs are starting to show the potential power of the OS......you mean to tell me that msft doesn't have the resources to do the exact same thing from purely a research standpoint?
12/02/09
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12/02/09
You have to remember that Apple Didn't release the App Store until 2008. They gave no indication that there were going to be apps for it in 2007. All it did in 07 was make calls, browse the web, take pictures, and text. Businessmen all over couldn't install what they needed.
This isn't an entirely a fair comparison.
Also, it is pretty old news. Do you really need to bring this up? really? slow news day? its 8am.
I just dont see the point in this story at all.
12/02/09
If Steve Ballmer had said, "Yeah, yeah, the iPhone is nice and all, but without apps, it's going to totally tank," then yeah, I could see your point, but none of these guys said that.
12/02/09
12/02/09
Apple sold 1 million of the original iPhones in two months, when it was still priced $600.
What other smartphone in history has done that?
Developers were climbing the walls for an SDK because it was overwhelmingly SUCCESSFUL. The App Store was just icing on the cake.
12/02/09
iphone sales were leveling until the App Store came in.
12/02/09
So what? I still don't see what that graph has to do with the article that Jesus Diaz wrote.
The point of the article is this: a bunch of CEOs and tech writers said the iPhone was going to fail. It didn't.
Get it? That was the point of the article. So who cares about that graph? Do you think for one second that Apple didn't plan on releasing another phone?
Steve Jobs said in his original keynote that they were going to make 3G phones in the future.
A quote from Steve Jobs, MacWorld Keynote, January 9, 2007.
"iPhone is a Quad Band GSM+EDGE phone. We have decided... (clapping) ...we have decided to go with the most popular international standard, which is GSM. We are on that bandwagon, headed on that roadmap and plan to make 3G PHONES and all sorts of amazing things in the future."
So again, Steve Jobs laid out the iPhone road map from the very beginning and Steve Ballmer and others were wrong about its success.
So again, what part of this article are you just not getting?
12/02/09
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12/02/09
I gave you a quote showing that Steve Jobs promised 3G phones in the future, so that disproves your first notion. And the fact that Apple didn't release details about their SDK plans until six months later, disproves your second notion.
Furthermore, apps were not a relevant measure of success for smartphones before the iPhone. So why would any of these CEOs use that as a criteria for the iPhone's success? That doesn't make a bit of sense.
12/02/09
There was an iPhone 3G on the way. That didn't mean the iPhone was going to fly off the shelves. If anything, it would've been a reason for people to sit on their hands and wait it out, in much the same way that knowledge of the GBA SP would've killed the GBA.
Apple did not merely omit details about an SDK. It flat-out stated that there would not be thirdparty app development. Given the paucity of functions built into the iPhone compared to other smartphones at the time this was an issue. (Giz, again, described it as rather more of a super-dumbphone after its first hands-on.)
12/02/09
12/02/09
Well, good to know that all evened out.