Popular Series »
Power of Information »
Michael Koby »

*YAWN* aka New iPhone Announced

Written by Michael Koby on June 9, 2008 – 5:09 pm

Today, Steve Jobs used this years World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) to accoune the release of the second generation iPhone, also known as the “iPhone 3G” and all I can say is “so what?”

Seriously, lets look at the latest features for this next generation smartphone from Apple.  We have 3G data speeds (something Nokia, Sony Ericsson, & even LG have had for years), GPS, and a new low entry price.  These are some of the features Steve made the center of his announcement.  Some others include Exchange support (and more enterprise worthy features), third party applications, and a nice new look.

So we have some features that have been in other phones for at least 2-3 years now and yet Steve Jobs demonstrated these features like they were extremely cutting edge.  Features like 3G and GPS have been in phones for the better part of 2 years (not all phones mind you) so these things are not new.

I guess the best the way to describe this latest generation iPhone is a true iPhone 1.0.  If Apple had wanted to be cutting edge on all fronts, they would have released the iPhone a year ago with at least 3G data speeds.  I’ll give Apple that GPS in phones is just now getting popular and a year ago wasn’t a deal breaker like it is now (though this should be some sort of testament to how fast technology moves).

In case you can’t tell, my general overall opinion on today’s announcements is lackluster at best.  We have features that people up and down claimed should have been in the first iteration (but I’m sure the Apple fan-boys will back-pedal on these previous statements under the guise of “Apple can do no wrong”).  I’m overly unimpressed, and was honestly expecting more from Apple.  There was nothing truely groundbreaking (though the service push for things like IM is nifty).  But I’m sure I’m a lone man on this opinion as I have already seen several blog articles touting the new iPhone’s supposed greatness.


Tags: , ,
Posted in Apple, Commentary, Technology |
Like this Article? Subscribe


Viewing 4 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    I think that Apple has done a great job with the iPhone, the new phone will have the features that everyone expected from the old phone, 3G & GPS being the major technology enhancements. The REAL announcement is the Application Support (This is a Developer Conference) and to show off the 3rd Party Applications, because these 3rd Party Apps will be the key to the iPhone's success. Additionally, AT&T's 3G network was not quite ready for a 3G iPhone, this is probably the reason for not having 3G capabilities sooner, but that's just my opinion. Truth is, I'm buying the new iPhone come July 11th, I've put off buying it until now, because I like most people know that adopting a new technology like the iPhone is usually expensive and generally lacking of features. I've seen this with so many other devices in the past, first generation is always risky business for both consumers and manufacturers. So, I think you were overly critical of the Apple iPhone, because the iPhone 1.0 came with innovations that the majority of the cellphones do not have, like a Multi-Touch Interface, and Wi-Fi support, Accelerometer and Proximity Sensors, and in general the User Interface completely changes the way people interact with their phone. Every other phone manufacturer is struggling to compete, and now Apple has taken things a step further. You may not see the impact of these seemingly minor features, that when you put everything together, it will be hard to beat the iPhone in the next year or so. I do imagine that when Google Android becomes widely available it will be a heavy competitor. RIM will probably maintain a niche business market, but with Microsoft Exhcange, Cisco VPN, and Enterprise WPA2 support, as well as the development of Enterprise-level Applications, the iPhone will prove to be the most capable mobile device of the year. Additionally, this may be the BIGGEST announcement was the fact the iPhone will be available in 22 Markets on July 11th, and more than 70 Countries within a few months. This is BIG because this will skyrocket iPhone sales, I would be more afraid of them having trouble producing that many iPhones, Apple is likely to break records with this release, and will also drive more individuals to the Macintosh Platform, which will also boost Apple's market share which has already grown quite a bit, thanks to the iPod, iPhone, and Vista. I personally would like to invest money in Apple's stock, as this iPhone announcement is going to make investors very happy. Personally, as a developer, this announcement has got me downloading the new 1GB iPhone SDK, to begin developing my very own applications.
    • ^
    • v
    The iPhone is feat of engineering. I will almost never argue otherwise. My
    issues with this whole "enterprise readiness" when it comes to the iPhone is
    that bosses are not going to just hand their employees devices that have a
    ton of features designed as "time wasters". Yes, there is exchange, vpn,
    and security support on the new iPhone firmware but I do not see a bunch of
    companies replacing their BlackBerry/Windows Mobile devices with iPhones.
    Especially with infrastructures that already exist. IT deparments are SLOW
    to move towards new technology.

    And I wouldn't say that Apple took things "a step further" they might have
    taken a "nudge" but it's not really a step for this generation. Third party
    support is something other mobile OSes have had for a while (Symbian, WinMo,
    BlackBerry, etc). Like I said in my post, they're really just bringing the
    device up to the level of their current competitors.

    I think the iPhone is a nifty device, but this "generation" is nothing more
    than a little nudge to where the device should have been to start with. I
    personally have no current desire to own one because I really dislike the
    touchscreen keyboard (I'll stick to my BlackBerry). I thought that
    developing iPhone apps would be cool, but they made the thing Mac only.
    This seems like a nice way to boost Mac sales, because a large percentage of
    iPhone users own PCs, which would stand to reason that most of the people
    that would want to develop on one own a PC as well. For the record I don't
    own a Mac (yet).

    There is one nice little fact that Steve forgot to mention (and I understand
    why, obviously) the iPhone fell in sales in the the first quarter of this
    year. And with the new version coming out the second half of Q2, it will be
    interesting to see if they surpass RIM (who was number 1 by almost 2x
    Apple's sales percentage). So while the iPhone might be capable, it still
    has inroads to make before it can become an enterprise "winner".
    • ^
    • v
    Well, as far as IT departments being SLOW to adapt, I had several clients inquire about switching to a Mac platform, and a few had considered iPhones for Sales Consultants. At the time I could not recommend iPhones over Blackberry, which is what they were currently using. You are right about IT departments being SLOW, but it doesn't mean that it won't work well in the corporate environment, I think it will.

    There is an obvious reason for the SDK being only Mac OS X compatible, well for one, the iPhone OS is a slimmed-down version of OS X, and the iPhone SDK takes advantage of the built in Frameworks, thus development and emulation is likely to be more suited for the Mac OS X environment. I believe that Apple has done a great job with their software development tools, and if you read much developer blogs, those who switch from developing Win32 to Cocoa (Objective-C), find that it is much easier to develop Apps for Mac OS X. Well, for a while, the main problem with Mac OS X, was not having enough Applications, well now there are tons of Apps, and it's such a pleasure to work on a Mac. By the way, I have 2 Macs, one being a Hackintosh, and 5 PC's. Both, Windows XP & Vista are present, as well as Ubuntu Linux. I've worked with just about every flavor of OS there is, and Mac OS X is by far the most superior. My prediction is that the iPhone will more than take over RIM as #1 Mobile Platform, and this success will drive more developers to the Mac Platform, which is built off primarily open-source unix software. I believe the key to the stability of the OS is the proprietary hardware, and since they switched to Intel Hardware (and the addition of Bootcamp/VMware/Parallels), there is little reason why people would not try Apple hardware, which tends to be sleek and stylish.

    The iPhone has been amazingly successful if you consider the success of other first generation phones, this is just the beginning, Blackberry has been around longer and has more phones to choose from, and that is a major factor in keeping it's #1 position. The iPhone's slowed sales the beginning of the year was probably due to the fact that rumors about the iPhone 2.0 (first, announced March 6th) had started circulating, and many people were waiting for the second version, because if history has shown us anything, the second version is usually substantially better than the first, and early adopters always pay the most and have to deal with whatever bugs or quarks the device may have. If you look back at the first generation iPod's and how the iPod has evolved to become the #1 portable multimedia player. Additionally, RIM did not start out as the #1 mobile platform the first year, in fact, it's success is relatively recent. As far as mobile platforms go, I don't see many developers flocking to Symbian, Windows Mobile, or BlackBerry, as what will be the case with the iPhone & possibly Google's Android (which I believe will pose a bigger competition to the iPhone than RIM's BlackBerry.) RIM will have to compete with them both, and the key here is establishing a Mobile Computing platform that appeals to everyone, I think that if the iPhone had a slide-out keyboard it would be much better, but who knows what the future holds. But as a developer, the iPhone and Google's Android are the newest, hottest and most enticing platforms. I still think that the iPhone will do better than the Android, Google's style tends to be lacking, it's usually fairly simplistic/minimalistic (just look at most of google's services and there isn't much there as far as design goes, this good for those who like that sort of thing) but Apple user interface design tend to have a little more flare & style. Google will have greater integration of Google's Services and Apple will have MobileMe, (Cloud computing/social networking features will probably help drive sales of these two platforms, beyond RIM or anyone else.) Google Android will likely have Skype, Google411, Grand Central, etc integrated. I would really like to see VoIP on the iPhone and Apple has already said they would not block VoIP programs, I hope there will be Skype for the iPhone. Anyways, there is so much that can be done with this, now if Apple would open up the AppleTV for Applications, there's lots that can be done there too.
    • ^
    • v
    I agree with you that Android is probably the bigger threat to the iPhone.
    Google is really trying to do things right with their SDK and some of the
    stuff that's been showing up looks more than promising. I downloaded the
    Android SDK a while back but due to lack of time between work and family
    life, there just aren't enough hours in the day (if I want to be functional
    at work).

    Where I see Android failing is in the same way WinMo fails, in that it's an
    OS rather than a device. Apple benefits from it's "appliance" concepts but
    it hinders it in many ways as well. I think where that model really works
    well is in the smaller devices like the iPods and iPhones. If Google can
    keep Android from becoming an open source WinMo, then it might stay a
    fierece competitor to the iPhone for years to come.

    Only time will tell if Apple can maintain it's break-through design and
    "wow" factor over time.

Trackbacks

blog comments powered by Disqus