Monday, January 22, 2007



Apple's New Calling: The iPhone
Time on-line Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2007 By LEV GROSSMAN


THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXCERPT FROM TIME MAGAZINE ON THE INITIAL REACTION TO THE iPhone. I FELT THERE WERE SOME POWERFUL LESSONS TO BE LEARNED THAT WE DISCUSSED IN CLASS.

THE iPhone IS AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF INTEGRATION INNOVATION –REMEMBER THE EXAMPLES IN CLASS WERE MICROSOFT’S OPERATING SYSTEM; THE SAP ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE; AND, HP’S PRINTER, FAX, AND COPIER COMBINATION. THE CRITICAL REQUIREMENT WAS THAT THERE MUST BE SIGNIFICANT ADDED VALUE FOR THE INTEGRATED OFFERING VS. THE COMPONENTS TAKEN SEPARATELY.
The iPhone breaks two basic axioms of consumer technology. One, when you take an application and put it on a phone, that application must be reduced to a crippled and annoying version of itself. Two, when you take two devices—such as an iPod and a phone—and squish them into one, both devices must necessarily become lamer versions of themselves. The iPhone is a phone, an iPod, and a mini-Internet computer all at once, and contrary to Newton—who knew a thing or two about apples—they all occupy the same space at the same time, but without taking a hit in performance. In a way iPhone is the wrong name for it. It's a handheld computing platform that just happens to contain a phone…...

Jobs's zealousness about product development— and enforcing his personal vision—remains as relentless as ever. He keeps Apple's management structure unusually flat for a 20,000-person company, so he can see what's happening at ground level. There is just one committee in the whole of Apple, to establish prices. I can't think of a comparable company that does no—zero—market research with its customers before releasing a product. Ironically, Jobs's personal style could not be more at odds with the brand he has created. If the motto for Apple's consumers is "think different," the motto for Apple employees is "think like Steve."
JOBS IS AN INCREDIBLE, INTUITIVE THINKER. REMEMBER WE DISCUSSED THE IMPORTANCE OF INDUCTIVE DATA FOR QUALITATIVE INSIGHTS VS. QUANTITATIVE, DEDUCTIVE DATA IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS.

WE CONTINUALLY TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF EXPERIMENTING AND LEARNING FROM YOUR FAILURES – MANAGE THE COST, NOT THE RATE OF FAILURE. THEIR EXPERIMENT WITH MOTOROLA AFFORDED A VERY VALUABLE LESSON
The last time Apple experimented with a phone, the largely unsuccessful ROKR, Jobs let Motorola make it, an unsatisfying experiment. "What we learned was that we wouldn't be satisfied with glomming iTunes onto a regular phone," Jobs says. "We realized through that experience that for us to be happy, for us to be proud, we were going to have to do it all." …..

ALTHOUGH THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE PHONE IS EXCEPTIONAL AS DESCRIBED ABOVE, THE REAL IMPACT AND POSSIBLE JUSTIFICATION FOR THE INITIAL HIGH PRICES IS THE IMPACT ON THE CONSUMER’S EXPERIENCE IN USING THE Iphone UNIQUE INTERFACE AND THE SEAMLESSNESS OF THE VARIOUS COMPONENTS. It's not quite right to call the iPhone revolutionary. It won't create a new market, or change the entertainment industry, the way the iPod did. When you get right down to it, the device doesn't even have that many new features—it's not like Jobs invented voicemail, or text messaging, or conference calling, or mobile Web browsing. He just noticed that they were broken, and he fixed them.

No comments: