In response to a post on Shacknews regarding woeful state of so-called competitors to Apple’s iPad, a former Research In Motion employee shed some light into what really went on inside RIM, Microsoft and likely every other cellphone maker on the planet, right after Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced iPhone to the world on January 9, 2007.
All these companies were fighting over what amounts to overgrown PDAs with phones and wireless stacks strapped on. Everyone assumed power density was no where even close to what was needed for general computing, that a full featured browser and heavy duty Internet services were impossible due to bandwidth and latency. Take a look at how our Java expert groups named standards, how people at the time talked about what features smart phones should have, and its clear that no one thought an iPhone was possible. Even Danger, which eventually [led to] Windows Phone 7 and Android, was just working on a better Blackberry.
The iPhone did many amazing things, but what stands out in my mind was how it proved that these assumptions were flat-out wrong beyond any reasonable doubt. Apple pretty gave everyone the finger and said, “Fsck you guys we can build your distant impossible future today.”
I left RIM back in 2006 just months before the IPhone launched and I remember talking to friends from RIM and Microsoft about what their teams thought about it at the time. Everyone was utterly shocked. RIM was even in denial the day after the iPhone was announced with all hands meets claiming all manner of weird things about iPhone: it couldn’t do what they were demonstrating without an insanely power hungry processor, it must have terrible battery life, etc. Imagine their surprise when they disassembled an iPhone for the first time and found that the phone was battery with a tiny logic board strapped to it. It was ridiculous, it was brilliant.
I really don’t think you’re giving Apple enough credit here. They did something amazing that many very prominent people in the industry thought was either impossible or at least a decade away, and they did it in a disgustingly short time frame.
Full post via Shacknews here.
MacDailyNews Take: Unsurprising. As always, anyone who tells you their device is “as good as” an iPhone, iPad, iPod, or Mac are lying and/or in denial. Which reminds us:
[Attribution: Electronista. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
All you have to do is look at Device Central to see that Adobe was in the same boat.
You either have an iPhone,
or a RIMDoze LackDroid of some type.
I love that video. More blood on the touch screen.
I’m in denial, am shocked and think that someone is lying when eluding that RIM, MS et al. think tanks are over their denials, shocks and lies in almost 4 years and counting now.
The TRUTH starts to rear it’s ugly head. Bloodbath take 2.
Suck it, MS and RIM. Suck it.
If RIm merges into Nokia, it can be renamed NoRIM.
“You can get a Motorola Q for $99, it’s a very capable machine… it’ll do music, it’ll do internet, it’ll do email, it’ll do instant messaging…”
That whole flow of thought from Ballmer has always summed up Microsoft to me. There is no excitement, no innovation, none of the thoughtfulness placed on the extra little things that make the user experience a joy. Windows phone = capable. Oh. Wow.
I read somewhere a discussion about Android becoming the number one os for smart phones in the market. Of course it will. They give out a free os that allows carriers to regain control. In the same discussion, someone mentioned that Android phones will likely become cheaper, thus attracting more buyers because that’s what they really want. Maybe these thoughts are true. Perhaps the world is filled with standards of mediocrity and submission.
I never want Apple to be the preeminent of anything (I cold care less about market share) other than innovation. Being the best innovator – and, arguably, best marketer – will guarantee they sell enough to be successful in this day and age, but once you start selling the most for an extended period of time, complacency sets in, standards regress, attitudes go bad. As Android, Microsoft, etc. fans like to claim, Apple is niche. Give me niche anytime. Apple has always done what “cannot” be done. The copycats will always be second-place in the most important niche, innovation.
If you’ve read my posts over the years, you know I’m an “iPhone on Verizon yesterday!” kind of guy. In my area, AT&T is not just a bad connection, it’s completely unusable.
As a result, many people around me are enamored with their new Android phones because it’s the best they can get. One of them actually said to me recently the iPhone is nothing but a rip-off of his HTC piece of crap (which sounds insane but how would this person really know not being very techie and aware of only the items he can actually buy and use locally).
Being an Apple fan and knowing about the iPhone since Day 1 back in 2007, I’m living a mini nightmare as some people who don’t have the option of an iPhone when they go to buy a cell phone just don’t know what they’re missing. The ignorance is disturbing but also understandable given the circumstances.
So bear with me when I whine for my Verizon iPhone, because in my market it’s long overdue. I want the day to come so I can show my Android-drooling fool friends, “See! THIS is what I’m talking about.” Because showing them an iPod touch and saying, “Well, if I was within wi-fi range I could show you more . . .” just isn’t cutting it for me.
That’s Corporate Culture in a nutshell.
You have a great idea and everyone around the table makes jokes and exhaustive lists of how it’s impossible, ridiculous, disruptive, farfetched, not cost effective, etc.. They’re all very intent on NOT making a thing it happen.
Of course, they’s steal your idea and take credit for it in a heartbeat given half a chance.
RIM and Microsoft should have been capable of creating an iPhone before Apple did, but they could not. The reason all boils down to one factor: Steve Jobs. There is simply no equivalent to him at any of his competitors.
Jobs has vision and is driven to create products he wants to use. Balmer is only concerned with shareholder profits. That’s the gorilla in the room. When CEOs seek profit as the sole reason for their corporation’s existence, then they have lost what made them successful in the first place.
Who doesn’t believe that. 1.5 or 2 years later these morons started spitting out copies, after disassembling the original iPhone. Then Goople does them a favor and copies IOS and gives it to these losers. All that hard work from Apple copied and distributed in less that two years. Worse, these dorks have the balls to brag about their crap being in development for years and that Apple iPhone is a piece of crap. Laughable.
Monkey Boy is delusional but also talks out of both sides of his mouth. Egg on face big time. I think they should appoint him CEO for Life:)
@wiredzen: your comment reminds me of that old line from Babe, where the farmer says, “that’ll do, pig; that’ll do.”
I agree with you. These other devices will do…without soul.
@ Mr. Reeee
You hit the nail on the head. With few exceptions, that is why most innovation comes from small companies and from individuals. Most ideas do not succeed because of a lack of funds, or one failure in the chain of events that must be built on the way to success.
The biggest reason big ideas do not succeed is because as a society we strive toward mediocrity. No where is that more true then in large multi-national corporations (with a few exceptions such as Apple).
To release a new product into a crowded market, most companies copy the existing successful products and sell it for slightly less. Apple’s way to re-define the market. The definition of “smart phone” changed completely because of iPhone, giving Apple a “head start” in a race that others had been running for many years.
@TowerTone
Let me try this one….
You either own an iPhone or you’re a nobody.
I’d say Lackberry, Lackdroid, Winlows.
@ montex
“Jobs has vision and is driven to create products he wants to use.”
AND THAT is the very nut of the whole business. That’s what Sony had in the 80’s and has since lost. Apple wins because the very first thing it thinks about is the user, and that’s the very last thing on anybody else’s mind.
Hmm link is dead?
“… at the end of the day… he’s going to have to keep up with an agenda that we’re driving…”
Steve Ballmer- ya baby – You rule!
Dear cell phone industry. You got OWNED!
The reason all boils down to one factor: Steve Jobs. There is simply no equivalent to him at any of his competitors.
In some respects, I agree, however, had you taken a moment to flesh out your thoughts as to why RIM and M$ were incapable of creating a better smartphone, you’d discover there was no market for one.
As Mr Reeeee pointed out, no one ever considered a more expensive phone, and if you’re going to slap a six-hundred dollar price tag on a phone, it had better do a lot more than what’s expected of a cell phone.
Computer people have been waiting in the wings for years for the merger of computer tech and appliances. M$ completely missed the boat because they’re not hardware guys and RIM because they’re not computer guys.
The first hand-held computer made by Apple ALWAYS lacked the one feature that held it back; telecommunications. Newton was the inspiration for iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Newton was the inspiration for Bill Gates’ tablet, but him being a software guy had absolutely no idea what it took to develop a hand-held computer. He couldn’t even build a stable OS to run his tablet and today all his tablets are still running Windows XP.
Apple didn’t make a phone!
They simply built a hand-held computer and added telephony and I believe the computer aspect of these iDevices will eventually eclipse the functionality of the cell phone and marginalize telecommunications and everyone associated with it.
In other words, Voip is the future.
Link isn’t working. : (
“many very prominent people in the industry thought was either impossible or at least a decade away, and they did it in a disgustingly short time frame”
My guess is that even now, they underestimate Apple’s foresight and development timetable, which they are able to stretch out much further than others, partly because of their amazing talent for finding amazing talent, and partly because they’ve got significantly better financial resources to be able to think further out AND act on reasonable ideas, and develop those that turn out to be not just great, but astounding ideas.
On another iPhone note:
I just won an online auction for a $199 iPhone Gift Card. My competion confessed it wasn’t because he wanted me to have it … for $10.30 … but rather because his HTC Desire couldn’t get another bid submitted in time.
Now, I have a GREAT comeback to those Androids who think they’ve got something better than an iPhone 4.