iPhone first impressions: does software choice still matter?
I got the chance to spend some quality time with an iPhone, and I must say I was blown away with the quality of the experience. It lives up to the hype and glowing reviews. (One exception was the on-screen keyboard, but for most consumers that’s not going to matter.)
It’s not an inconceivable stretch to imagine the iPhone becoming as dominant in the consumer mobile space as Windows is on consumer desktops. Advances in technology plus lower cost nano editions of the iPhone will make it accessible to a broad swath of the market.
Apple has done such an incredible job with the iPhone that many are inclined to trust their wise and benevolent dictatorship.
But if software choice is real and valid principle, then we ought to apply it consistently.
For example, is it acceptable that Safari is the only browser that runs on the iPhone? Would it be acceptable if Internet Explorer was the only browser that runs on Windows?
John Lilly of Mozilla has critiqued Steve Job’s keynote speech, which showed Safari gaining market share at the expense of all other third party desktop browsers (but not Internet Explorer!) He called this “out-of-date, corporate-controlled, duopoly-oriented, not-the-web thinking.”
If the iPhone remains closed and becomes dominant, we won’t even have a mobile browser duopoly, we’ll have a virtual monopoly. The same argument applies to other categories of mobile software– music (will iTunes have a privileged position on the iPhone above all other music sources), video (YouTube only?), and so forth.
One company, even Apple, can’t have all the good ideas in the world. Even Apple will sometimes favor the interests of shareholders and its carrier partner above its customers (as seen in the iPhones crippled wifi support and lack of a Skype client.)
Choice matters, and competition matters, but we will only have them if we as mobile users insist upon them.
5 Comments so far
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Well, go buy a Microsoft smartphone, or a blackberry. You have choice in mobile phones.
You’re acting as if the iPhone is a whole market in itself, which is not the case. You should also understand that the Apple way of innovating is design-oriented, not systems-oriented. You simply can’t get the level of Apple quality without controlling the full underpinnings of the experience.
Finally, Apple is proving the point that choice and competition only matter for products that suck. Like blogs! ;)
By Antoine Valot on 07.04.07 10:09 pm
It’s important to understand that I’m extrapolating into the future, supposing that the iPhone achieves the same of success that the iPod or WIndows have. This won’t necessarily happen but it’s not wildly implausible either, given Apple’s track record with the iPod.
I’d be curious to know which of the following stands most closely matches your view.
One possible stance is that a company like Apple can bundle it anything wants, regardless of market share, as long as enough people think the bundle has “quality” and provides value to the customer.
(It’s not clear who gets to make these judgments. There were certainly some who would argue that tightly integrating Office and the browser into the Windows experience added value to the user.)
Another possible stance is that a company should be able to bundle and limit choice, as long as their market share doesn’t get too large.
Suppose Apple attained 90% market share in the mobile market, would that change your stance? What about 80% or 70%?
At what point of market dominance does bunding and tieing and limiting choice become unacceptaptable? Do we wait until the company has achieved that dominance to raise the issue?
When Microsoft attained that level of near monopoly, it certainly was not acceptable to limit browser choice by bundling or not providing full access to platform to third party ISVs.
A third stance is that software choice is a good thing even on an Apple platform, and that we ought to raise the issue even now to ensure that users have choice in the future.
Apple is not the only company doing valuable work in browsers, to continue my example. The Opera Mini does server side content reformatting, for instance, which conserves valuable bandwidth.
I’m always a little surprised at the strong reactions I just by suggesting that choice might be a good thing even on the iPhone. Is choice just a synonym for “Anything but Microsoft” or is it a real principle we can apply consistently to a range of companies?
By Phillip Bogle on 07.05.07 1:46 am
John Lilly is just complaining. Mozilla Foundation makes a ton of money from opening up the search bar to Google and Yahoo. He’s just afraid that with Safari out, they’re getting less of the gravy train. One of the advantages is that a lot of sites have Gecko compatibility, but have not spent that much time on Safari. Now with a platform that will bring in a ton more users on Safari, sites will now have the incentive to make their sites more Safari compatible, lessening their advantage, even on the Mac platform.
His diatribe on choice is no more than an attempt to deposition Safari — it’s all marketing and nothing else.
By Henry on 07.06.07 3:02 pm
Phil, do you use a Mac as your laptop/desktop machine?
I’ve just made the transition over from XP to a new MacBook Pro, and OS X is just a breath of fresh air. If the iPhone can make the mobile computing experience as pleasurable as my MBP has for my desk based computing, I’m all in.
As for the Safari browser monopoly, I don’t think even Jobs has the power to control this, and the more popular the iPhone gets, the closer it’ll be to it’s equivalent of the iTunes/DRM removal situation. Jobs will have to budge and allow for third party browsers. However, until then, web developers the world over can celebrate having only to support a single browser (and all it’s CSS quirks) on the most promising mobile Internet platform out there.
By N.Cauldwell on 07.07.07 4:35 am
I’m glad you liked the iPhone. So when do we get a webified iPhone version of Beyond411? It’s a glaring need :)
jason
By Jason Ehrlich on 07.07.07 7:42 pm
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