“A blue-ribbon panel of human behavior and technology experts at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain agreed that the best recent advance in the mobile telecommunications user space came not from a mobile telecom company but from Apple Inc. — the iPhone,” David Benjamin reports for EE Times.
“Anup Murarka, director of technical marketing for Adobe, cited a study showing that 77 percent of iPhone purchasers described themselves as ‘very satisfied’ with their user experience,” Benjamin reports.
“In an ominous note for mobile operators, the iPhone respondents credited their happy experience not to AT&T, the channel through which iPhone services were delivered in the U.S, but to Apple, the device maker,” Benjamin reports.
“The panel, whose title was It’s the User Experience, Stupid agreed that iPhone represents a model for mobile operators to follow, but they reached little agreement on how to follow,” Benjamin reports.
“One direction, advocated by Lucia Predolin, international marketing and communications director for Buongirono S.p.A. of Milan, Italy, is to manipulate users by identifying their ‘need states’ — including such compulsions as ‘killing time,’ and ‘making the most of it’ — and fulfilling them subliminally,” Benjamin reports. “Adobe’s Murarka proposed a more technological approach to improving the user experience, satisfying the mobile phone subscriber through better interface design. Sarah Lipman, co-founder and R&D director for Power2B, suggested an almost mystical solution, somehow tapping into users’ ‘neural networks’ to navigate a mobile phone interface ‘using touch and pre-touch input.'”
Full article here.
Instead of laughably over-thinking things, how about these “human behavior and technology experts” just repeat their own “blue-ribbon” panel’s title, It’s the User Experience, Stupid, over and over until they finally get it?
With other phones, the features simply aren’t usable. We’ve taken literally hundreds of times more photos and emailed them with our iPhones. We’ve browsed the Web hundreds of times longer on our iPhones than with any other so-called “Internet-capable” phone. With iPhone’s rate plans here in the U.S., the carrier (AT&T) is mostly out of our face (for once), so we don’t worry about incurring charges for every little thing we want to do with our iPhones. And, carriers take note, we don’t want your crappy extra “services” and “enhancements,” either. Just send us the monthly bill and get out of our way (meaning: don’t artificially limit our devices to pad your bottom line like you’ve been doing for years).
I may have to get one this year. My contract with V is up. Am waiting to see what comes out later. With the iPhone that is. Isn’t it about the user experience with most things that counts.
I may have to get one this year. My contract with V is up. Am waiting to see what comes out later. With the iPhone that is. Isn’t it about the user experience with most things that counts.
I may have to get one this year. My contract with V is up. Am waiting to see what comes out later. With the iPhone that is. Isn’t it about the user experience with most things that counts.
I may have to get one this year. My contract with V is up. Am waiting to see what comes out later. With the iPhone that is. Isn’t it about the user experience with most things that counts.
I may have to get one this year. My contract with V is up. Am waiting to see what comes out later. With the iPhone that is. Isn’t it about the user experience with most things that counts.
They’d all make more headway & profit if they just copied Apple and fired all their internal ‘experts’. Admitted, they would always be 3 years behind.
As the worldwide usage of iPhone in next few years progressively grows to 30-50 million range, I am sure the price of the unit will also come down gradually.
I hope these so-called experts remain stumped. That’s just more good news for Apple and bad news for its competitors.
“Users’ love affair with Apple iPhone stumps Mobile World panel”
Opening a fresh opportunity for Spanish prosthetics manufacturers.
`i will get an iphone this year, when a new version comes out. whenever that is..
When one considers the inevitable drive towards building a personality generator to live in virtual immortality after your passing, the mobile phone/device becomes the input to that tapestry of living moments.
That’s the billion dollar, killer app – integrate the moments of your life into a mechanism to grant you immortality by creating an increasingly self-aware non-corporeal existence out on the web.
Steve, I’m open for discussions. LOL.
MDN has it in a nutshell right here:
“…With other phones, the features simply aren’t usable. …”
The iPhone does about 20% of what other smart phones do. That 20% is all that 80% of users want to do. The iPhone does that 20% so exceptionally well that the vast majority of users are mindlessly giddy with the thing.
Some of us (the remaining 20%) are still stewing about things like copy and paste, using the phone’s storage, etc, etc. etc. etc. etc. but we don’t really matter because we are the clear minority of users.
See they keep looking at this from the wrong end of the telescope. The iPhone is not so much a mobile phone that does other things. the iPhone is a mini pocket computer and communications information devise that handles all the main forms of personal communications simply and with style.
chalk me up as one of the very satisfied.
Hear, hear, great take, MDN. I love the fact that I now pay exactly $89.95 per month (for our two phone lines), not a penny more. When I was using Sprint + Treo 600 and 650, my supposedly unlimited rates were all over the place each month, and were $115 at their lowest ebb. The cost of the iPhone itself pales in comparison to the lower cost per month–and headache reducing consistency of the bill–than previously.
Good job to AT&T;, and especially Apple for making them create a consistent and mostly invisible billing process!
@January 24, 1984,
Are you my girlfriend?
If not, this idea is right out of a book we’re working on. lol.
elegance, ease, and freedom from mounting user fees…
quite simple no?
A relatively measured , reasonable response not, for a change, declaring the really fine iPhone as some kind of life-changing miracle. Even though there are plenty of phones out there claiming iPhone-like characteristics that aren’t worth owning, there are others now and more coming that will be every bit as wonderful as Steve’s phone and at lower cost.
Saying that Steve’s is great, wonderful, pretty, cool and all that is fine and correct. And, oh, his marketing skills are truly genius although bordering on dishonest – his products DO NOT ‘just work’ – they are full of problems pretty much like all the rest of the competition.
The really worrying aspect of this story is that there are currently 4 million people who know why the iPhone works so well for users, but nobody on that panel who has a clue – and they’re the people who call themselves experts.
You might imagine that Apple bringing a markedly better product to market might have provided them with a clear example of what they should be doing, but all they can talk about is nonsense like “pre-touch input”.
In case y’all are just noticing, we live in a world where almost no one is who they pretend to be. Politicians don’t give a damn about the welfare of their constituents; “experts” make pronouncements about subjects about which they are woefully ignorant. Families pretend that the world isn’t falling apart right in front of their eyes as they toodle down to the mall to buy more stuff. The proliferation of incomprehensible amounts of information on the internet has made it more essential than ever for people who value the truth about anything to separate fact from fiction. Rotsa ruck!
Sarah Lipman, co-founder and R&D;director for Power2B, suggested an almost mystical solution, somehow tapping into users’ ‘neural networks’ to navigate a mobile phone interface ‘using touch and pre-touch input.’ It’s amazing how clueless these people are. If you need help to navigate a mobile phone interface by tapping into users’ neural network, you already concede that the mobile phone interface is way, way to complex for practical purposes. IOW, don’t use the goddamned mobile phone interface. Design something else. Duh!
@ Alansky:
Very true – but its the stunning level of pretense that counts now.
My customers think I am an expert in my field, and they also think I am a nice guy, because I play this role so well.
Funny thing – the more I play these roles, the more I am becoming them…..
If truth becomes lies, then lies become truth…er..I think.
I can’t count how many products in my life I have used for the first time and it seems like no one at the company actually tried it before they sold it.
I can’t believe these cell phone makers actually thought they had good products until they tried the iPhone. Or, did they really know that it was “just good enough”?
The problem is that most companies rush their products out with the goal to making a fast buck.
Apple spent over 2 years developing the iPhone and have over twenty years experience in user interfaces.
That’s the difference.
iPhone is the first, and current, incarnation of the fabled “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”.
Simple, elegant and practical.
Don’t leave (your) home (galaxy) without it.
I’ve been anti-cellphone forever.. however I’ve finally decided to get an iPhone once the new version comes out (which I would assume is sometime this year).
@ January – Fascinating idea!
@ Congrats -“more coming that will be every bit as wonderful as Steve’s phone and at lower cost” – not possible, really, due to Apple’s combined extreme hardware/software expertise + iTunes mature, established ubiquity & functionality + OS X’s mature. established functionality (over a decade in the making since you must count NextStep development) + Apple’s patents.
So, no, it will not be equalled or bested nor offered at any price for years to come. And if by some remote chance someone gets close, Apple will have moved WAY beyond.
It is quite evident that during the current and foreseeable time period, in which this field is totally owned by Apple, the iPhone & iPod Touch will become an entrenched and un”touchable” mobile platform.
Want proof? The ideas knocked about in this panel discussion. These ideas so very much illustrate the extent of the industry’s massive cluelessness.
Clearly the bullet train has shot down the tracks leaving the competition standing on the loading platform scratching their collective balls wondering how to catch up to it with their handcar.
The MDN take is sort of copied from FSJ blog that appeared yesterday…..
FSJ’s take “It’s not rocket science people”
@ Ron–
“They’d all make more headway & profit if they just copied Apple and fired all their internal ‘experts’. Admitted, they would always be 3 years behind.”
Well sure, but that would still make them two years ahead of where they are now.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
@ alansky who said:
«”experts” make pronouncements about subjects about which they are woefully ignorant.»
I’ve lately been writing on student papers the phrase:
You are guilty of willful ignorance here
They quote a statistic and then make an opposite conclusion to support their original (flawed) premise. Sigh.
MDN’s take is probably one of the best ones I’ve read in a long time.
To steal a line from another personality written about here recently, “ditto!”
A few points:
In a posting on 11 April 2007, I noted that:
“Apple has shifted the basis of competition well beyond its competitors to the point where it can now set the tune leaving others to merely mimic in a half-baked clumsy manner. Afterall, the originator of an idea being more passionate about it will always render a better result than one who stole it and tried to copy.”
In a recent artical in the Harvard Business Review entitled ‘Mapping your Competitive Position’ the author (Richard A D’Aveni) has an excellent analysis of mobile phones where he maps the Price of of the phone against its Primay Benefit/Advanced Functionality. In his analysis Apple, with the iPhone , has created a new very high-end ‘Ultra Premium’ category in which there are no other competing companies.
In a further post that day, I noted that:
</i>”The really astute bit is that in this way Apple has shifted the basis of competition well beyond its competitors to the point where it can even dare venture into an area it has never been in before and deliver a seismic shock to an entire industry based on a mere presentation back on 9 Jan 2007. The way Apple is going, there will soon come a day when all it has to do is sneeze and some industry or sector is gonna catch cold!</i>
Well they’ve caught a cold alright. Apple was not a participant at this event and yet here are a panel of experts jabbering on about what they should do next when the title of their session says it all:
t’s the User Experience, Stupid
In my view, at its root Apple has a purpose that connects with the human spirit and its need for progress, innovation and excellence.
Based on this purpose is the offering: the complete widget – OS and hardware, seamlessly welded together with style and finesse.
That is all Apple have done – deliver to the consumer an offering that connects in a very basic yet profound manner.
Forgive me fellow Apple fans…
…but in my humble opinion the iPhone fails miserably in functionality.
It takes so long just to do anything on it, making mistakes and then going back, accidentially hitting links and so on.
Sure the Chinese might like it because it gets them the information they need without having to buy a computer, plus they have small hands and fingers anyway.
But nothing beats a 15″ screen and a real keyboard, I’m sorry. I’m just not a tiny keyboard/screen smart phone user.
Now if anyone has hooked up a iPhone to something like a pair of video goggles?
BTW ZUNE TANG SUCKS BALLERS @SS
@Ben Dover
Call me.
bunch of fscking fools! Every day with this lovely window on the world leaves me thanking apple for the pleasure. From day one it has given me what I’ve wanted, knowing that the best is yet to come with the updates (loving mine jailbroken BTW).
Bought mine today!!!
Despite what negative press I’ve seen, the Multi Touch works far better than I’d ever expected, and I can type on it MUCH faster than I could with my old phone
Too bad Verizon passed up on iPhone, because they’re going to see people like me migrating to AT&T;for a long, long time.
iPhone, I ♡ you
The World Mobile Conference phenomenon of stupidity is further explained at:
ripragged.blogspot.com
@ Hm…
Grammer and logical thinking at an academic level are not what you are wont to find in these forums.
@ tyk & ors…
dont hold you breath waiting for a new model iphone – Apple’s built hardware to last, with many software updates to support it. The point is while you are trying to be smart, and may eventually buy one down the track, other people will have already enjoyed the phone for 12 months… they are 12 months more evolved than you… btw I don’t have one… Australia is always behind
@ Mac Maniac
No need to apologize, mate. You merely represent the other 23% who are not “very satisfied.” I’m sure there’s a good Windoze mobile option out there somewhere that’s just right for you.
“Forgive me fellow Apple fans…
…but in my humble opinion the iPhone fails miserably in functionality.
It takes so long just to do anything on it, making mistakes and then going back, accidentially hitting links and so on.”
With all due respect, I think your second sentence is not correct. Even though you experience these problems, that does not mean the “iPhone fails mieserably”, it means that the interface is not suited to you.
@ elgruga: a friend of mine once said, when I was doubting my skillz, “Fake it ’til you make it.” It works.
@ ../.: this is precisely why these “experts” don’t get it. I dunno what drug this Sarah chick is on, but I want some!
Forgive me for saying this, but how fscking dumb are all these people? Apple has been top notch for years.
@Mac Maniac
Thank you for the kind words. And you’re right. The I-Phone is a piece of crap. The experts know it too. That’s they are stumped like me. Who the hell would buy a one button phone with a glossy screen?
What I’m hearing of the Zunephone interface is that it is out of this world. The phrase “I-Phone Killer” comes to mind. Microsoft has shown the world what they can do in terms of user experience with Windows for years. Prepare to be blown away by the user experience on the Zunephone.
Your potential. Our passion.™
The whole bunch of ’em, cell phone providers, telephone companies, cable companies, etc., think of themselves as content providers. They really don’t see themselves as what they really are: just a series of pipes. Transport. The content and how it’s used/accessed has very little to do with them.
But nothing beats a 15″ screen and a real keyboard, I’m sorry. I’m just not a tiny keyboard/screen smart phone user.
Hold that 15″ screen and real keyboard to your ear to take a call sometime.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
Different devices, different purposes. Ideally Apple wants to sell you both.
Wonder if the next step is the return of an eMate-like device, with a bluetooth headset for doing calls. Or cell integration in regular laptops for doing the same…
The report from Google about 50 times more searches from iPhone users than any other phone, says it all. Since iPhones are still relatively small in number compared to other Internet-capable phones that have been on the market longer, the fact that there are so many more searches from iPhones means one thing. EVERYONE who has an iPhones uses it regularly for Internet access. Almost NO ONE with another phone bothers to use it regularly to access the Internet. Why? Because iPhone is useable. The others are not. That’s not going to change anytime soon, even if the others make copycat iPhones, because the others do not have OS X, multi-touch, and Safari.
To ken1w: I agree with you but please stop the e.e. cummings explanation. Stream of conciousness also worked for Hermann Hesse. Simplify.
I agree with Ting. It’s the user experience, plus the advance in the underlying technology.
Use the Blackdingleberry, then use the iPhone and you’ll see a big difference.
All our iPhones work flawlessly for email, web, tracking orders, contacts and everything we need for our Mac IT support business.
iPhone. Real Intelligent Design.®
Who can resist this about you know who?
“Thank you for the kind words. And you’re right. The I-Phone is a piece of crap.” And since MacManiac also says that ” ZUNE TANG SUCKS BALLERS @SS” we can see that the iPhone is going to be a delicious addition to ZT’s diet.
However, while the experts know that the iPhone is the model to follow, what is stumping them and others is how to follow up on it. Unlike ZT many many many others have been buying up the iPhone, the Chinese, and hey the iPhone is even giving Blackberry a run for the money.
Of course I certainly do agree with Zune Thang’s phrase of “iPhone killer.” it has such a nice ring with all the dead “iPod killers” on the wayside that believe the idea of subscription music. Maybe the Zune should include a warning saying that the device may cause mental constipation, it certainly would help rationalize the colour choice they made.
One button, many functions.
More “just wait and see….” Zune Thang, methinks you read the boy who cried wolf just one too many times. Why don’t you tell us all about the X-box recent performance and how getting surpassed by the competition is good for the company and not an indication of a sinking ship rearranging the remaining rats.
The only day MS will blow anyone away is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
Shame then… that it didn’t win any of the awards at Barcelona! Not even nominated in the music category
Yeah nice take MDN … But
“We’ve taken literally hundreds of times more photos and emailed them with our iPhones.”
WTF, that is one bad ass sentence construction
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
Just imagine how many people have figuratively taken hundreds of photos with the iPhone.
“The only day MS will blow anyone away is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.”
On the plus side, a MS vacuum would attract viruses.
@Ampar
The actual quote should be, “The day MS stops sucking is the day they start making vacuum cleaners.”
@ Ben Dover: “The MDN take is sort of copied from FSJ blog that appeared yesterday…..”
That’s that great thing about truths. They tend to be universal.
Thanks, Van Vaals. But I was I was trying to put a new twist on something trite. And I failed.
And sorry about the stuttering.
The weak internet browsing experience and the contrived plans that discourage cellphone users from using data is finally being addressed. It took Apple to force the industry to look in the mirror and face their weaknesses. Forthcoming changes should benefit consumers, particularly when it comes to plans, but I doubt if the industry has an answer to the iTunes/iPod juggernaut.
Now, about them roaming charges….
“…manipulate users by identifying their ‘need states’ “, …”fulfilling them subliminally”, “…tapping into users’ ‘neural networks’ ” etc, etc, Hehehehe!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />)
Hold that 15″ screen and real keyboard to your ear to take a call sometime.
Try giving someone at the other end of your iPhone verbal directions from MapQuest sometime.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
Ampar: “Just imagine how many people have figuratively taken hundreds of photos with the iPhone.”
LOL
Ampar, who are you?
tuno: Thanks for the LOL.
@alansky–true and very sad, for the day will come will all good things must come to end
Yeah, the iPhone is great, but Apple is not getting the full bennefit of it. They just are not good at marketing. They should have had more telecom parners by now. The iPhone is still not in Canada. They just pave the way for others, similar to what happens with personal computer. Apple open up the personal computer market, Microsoft and other benefited from it. I just hope history is not repeating itself with the iPhone.
@alansky:
Er, you said, “Families pretend that the world isn’t falling apart right in front of their eyes as they toodle down to the mall to buy more stuff.”
You might want to consider some medication. At the very least, you might want to download some relaxing meditation music from the iTunes music store to listen to on your iPhone.
<< “Yeah, the iPhone is great, but Apple is not getting the full bennefit of it. They just are not good at marketing. ” >>
You’re kidding me right- Apple is NOT good at marketing???
Yes and Tiger Woods can’t golf either.
I see my previous facetious comment in another thread about “precog prefetching” may actually be catching on! Go Sarah Lipman!
When it comes to Apple-hating eggheads, it has always been their mantra that, when the public loves something that Apple produces [which is most of the time] it’s a mystery of epic proportions – After all, only a fanatical few like to use anything but Windows, and the only real alternative to Windows is the Mac OS, and everything that Apple produces will only be accepted by the fanatical few that choose to use Apple products – AND, ultimately, the only reason Apple survives is because of those that have been duped by Apple and are now locked into its products. So of course it’s a mystery as to why anyone but the fanatical few would buy anything from Apple!
This has quietly been MS’s best marketing tactic – to convince everybody [and I mean <i>everybody</i] that anyone who uses anything except Windows is either fanatical or stupid. And it should be obvious by now that MS has been very successful with this campaign strategy.
John-
I have a Treo 650 through Sprint, and my bill for my phone, my wife’s phone, and my Mom’s phone, all of which share the same pot of minutes, and all of which have unlimited data, is never higher than $90 after taxes and fees. Sounds like you had a crappy plan for your Treo…
Then again, the three of us don’t spend hour after hour on the phone, and never go over our alloted anytime minutes.
I just upgraded from the 8GB to the 16GB last week. I love how much more I can take with me now!!
Th only problem was doing the upgrade. You cant just take the sim out and transfer it from the 8GB to the 16GB for some reason. It doesn’t allow a “soft activation”. You have to activate it like it were a brand new phone plan. You just have to choose to “replace an old phone” on your plan. Then the sim in the old phone dies and you have to find an ATT store and fight with them to give you a new sim (so you can sell your old 8GB phone).
It wouldn’t have been a big deal if I knew all of this, but none of the Apple store people knew this either. I was at the Apple store for 2 hours before one of the Genius bar guys finally figured out that it would not extend my contract or change my rate plan etc by activating the 16GB like it were the first time I had done it.
I wish they made upgrading from an 8GB to a 16GB easier! Usually the point of a sim card is to make switching over to a different phone a snap.
I had my 8GB replaced once before and they had it all set and activated in seconds. Supposedly those replacement phones come partially activated, but new phones do not (for obvious reasons).
Doh! With an intuitive software interface, only what you NEED to see comes up, and the rest goes away. Buttons when you need to type…no buttons when you don’t need to type. Let’s not forget OSX.
If the Macbook Air can use that tiny new Intel processor, could the iPhone use it. Futurewise, first better battery life, a mobile Core 2 processor, greater capacity. and a camera good enough to record even cheesy video to include iChat. I want a Jetson phone, and I expect the iPhone to be the first to do that. It can go on my wrist later on.
@theloniousMac
I’m pleased to hear you’re working on such an idea. I wrote a short story in 1992 entitled LifeSeeker concerning this route to immortality, and have since written four novels that explore different aspects of achieving that Holy Grail of Ambitions.
I have 10 TB of data accumulated thus far, and have been constructing a personality generator of sorts using FileMaker as the backbone and iLife data as the content.
Quite rudimentary so for, but…..
“(meaning: don’t artificially limit our devices to pad your bottom line like you’ve been doing for years).”
They’re talking to you, Verizon.