Supremely wrong: Getting the iPhone wrong at its birth
What That's not weird. You're weird.
Just for fun, though, the Macalope called Fabian down in records (records don't necessarily have to be stored in the basement, but Fabian is actually a mole man so he's just more comfortable there) and had him dredge up one of the worst iPhone reactions from 2007. So put on Fergie and take yourself back to read the stylings of Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader.
Apple had the opportunity to go into the MP3 market and basically reshape that market and create the standard for customers' tastes and preferences.
Those things have already been done by the myriad players in the cell phone market. Apple can do a very limited amount of reshaping.
Like the above, most of Fader's comments seem more appropriate if you read them in an old-timey radio voice.
Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea. NEWSFLASH, CUPERTINO: Apple powerless to alter cell phone market landscape.
Of course, what actually happened is that Apple completely disrupted the smartphone landscape, laying the groundwork for its own success as well as that of Android.
I think that when this phone actually hits the market, some of the grand visions that Steve Jobs has as well as some of the Apple zealots are going to be rather disappointed.
Such disappoint. And six years before doge even hit the scene.
Apple zealots, lol. The phone was a bit pricey and Apple was able to knock it down enough and get the carriers to "subsidize" it to make it successful.
And, I think on the feature side, it doesn't really have that many features.
[blank, endless stare into the vast nothingness that is the dark matter strewn across the universe]
In fact, it's missing some really, really important features.
Ah! And what should it include, shaper of young minds
Well, MBAs. Not really young or minds.
...one of the things that it must include is a key pad.
That is so adorable. It's only eight years ago and he might as well be banging a bone on a rock in front of a black monolith.
And, it's quite surprising what wasn't announced at Macworld, which was anything about the Mac. As far as I know there were no announcements about the Mac. That really is the bread and butter of the company.
It actually wasn't at the time as the iPod was already more of a revenue generator. Apple never gave up on the Mac, of course, and only focused all of that keynote on the iPhone because Steve Jobs thought it was a big deal. And it was. But pundits like Fader had a blind spot about Apple. "Apple is closed and proprietary and too expensive and will never be more than a niche product seller."
Make customers happy; give them what they want. And that means to Apple, open up the systems to try to accommodate other formats and try to work with other firms. That's really, really important. When you constrain people--when you tell people, "We can give you anything that you want but here are the limitations on it"--that's going to be a real limit to a firm's growth and success.
And if there's anything the last eight years have been it's an object lesson in how limited Apple's growth and success are.
Mmm-hmm.