In response to the previous article on the iPhone being Time’s Invention of 2007. We’re covering the two published responses Time received to the iPhone article.
“In naming the iPhone the best invention of 2007, you forgot about Windows-based PDA phones. They’ve been out for years. Touch interface? Big deal. As you noted, it’s been done before. A miniaturized operating system? Done. Windows-based phones are everything the iPhone is and more. The phones can text, MMS, email (through POP, IMAP, Exchange), surf the real Web at broadband speed on EVDO networks and open, edit, and save documents. The iPhone is for kids. Windows Mobile PDA phones are for adults who need to do real work” -Eagle Bear Morgan, Seattle
“What a brilliant piece of writing from Lev Grossman. I don’t yet own an iPhone, but I plan to in the near future. Like Grossman, I’m sick of the sour grapes from naysayers who moan about what the iPhones doesn’t do and ignore what it does do and just how well it does it. I hate my conventional cell phone with its 100-page, four-language manual that I can’t begin to understand. I’ve used the iPhone without having to look at the manual. And the only language required is intuition.” -Brad Cathey, Wheaton, IL
Let’s examine the letters.
Our first reader has an apparent “I can do anything you can do. I can do anything better then you.” towards iPhones with Windows-based phones. What he forgot is Apple isn’t an inventor or even a re-inventor. They innovate. Remember Apple’s trademark saying - “Think Different”. Apple took the touchscreen interface and made it into a new interface. An interface where you just don’t press things with your fingers. You manipulate the content right in front of you with your fingers.
Next is the miniaturized OS. Windows-based phones are far from being a complete OS. It’s a MOBILE version of the OS as it says in the actual OS name - Windows Mobile. Apple tells you right from the technical specs. Operating System: OS X. You are running a compressed form of OS X capable of working and running applications exactly like a “full-blown” computer.
The reader does mention a weakness of the iPhone in his next point. MMS. The iPhone can not MMS. Is it coming? Yes, it will come to the iPhone in time when Apple deems it important. In my opinion, lack of MMS is one of the critical flaws of the iPhone. One that turns off a lot of teens who view the ability to send pictures or other media as a must.
The last point made is the iPhone is a toy and Windows-based phones are for adults. This has a basic amount of truth. The iPhone wasn’t made for a business executive in mind. If so, it wouldn’t have needed all the “Just for fun” features Apple though in for the normal consumer such as the iPod functionality or even the ability to expand in the future to use applications that have no business use. Chris Pirillo touches on this with one of his recent videos, “Why Your It Department Doesn’t Love the iPhone“.
The next letter makes an important realization that is true. People skip over how Apple truely did innovate the phone industry. If other phone manufactures want to have the “next big thing” they will have to incorporate some of the improvements Apple made with the iPhone. This includes easy-of-use. We shouldn’t have to read a manuel to learn how to send a text message. (Exaggeration, true, but not for all.)
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