I for one am excited, ecstatic, and overall just plain thrilled Apple has finally released such an incredible device with the iPhone. Yes it has over 200 patents, plays music, browses the web, checks email, takes photos, slices, dices and peels but while all that’s cool that’s not what’s revolutionary about the iPhone.
What’s revolutionary is that it’s created movement towards finally cracking the mobile service providers strangle hold on the mobile web. Steve Jobs and Apple made the mobile service providers bend. Even if it’s just a little it’s a big deal. Nokia, Motorola and other handset providers have been dying to do this for years in the US but haven’t had any luck. While the iPhone is still a crippled device Cingular made special concessions to Apple, and that is the hidden reason why the iPhone announcement is such a big deal.
Mobile Service Providers are the old Compuserve, Prodigy, and AOL of the Mobile Landscape
Now I don’t have years of Mobile experience, but I do have years of web experience and have spent numerous hours around the Blue Flavor office talking about the mobile landscape and parallels between the current state of Mobile Service Providers and the old “Online Service Providers” abound. No, not everything is the same, specifically the fact that Mobile Service Providers own the actual physical networks but there are many things that ring true.
The most compelling comparison I see, is the “walled garden”. Just like AOL had with their KEYWORDS and Compuserve had with their bbs like user groups and proprietary content these providers have the same thing with their “Decks”. Way back when we were all surfing on 2400 baud modems in order to get a lot of traction before the actual World Wide web was big you’d have to choose content or specifically write content to work with the different services like AOL, Prodigy and Compuserve. The same is true today when working with Mobile Service Providers. If you want a successful mobile site you’re going to need to develop things that play nice with the providers.
I see this content and connectivity strangle hold they’ve setup being doomed to failure. It’s not what consumers want. They want access to the web, the one web, not Verizon or Cingulars web. And by saying one web I’m not jumping into the one web camp many standards advocates keep striving for. Ignoring mobile context would be a huge mistake, the one web I’m talking about is just websites. No decks, no phone specific content, no carrier specific content. Just websites, whether they’re designed for the desktop or the mobile device they’ll be websites and they should follow the web standard community mantra of trying to be as accessible and usable as possible by developing the that way.
The iPhone is the Start
The iPhone is an incredible product, and just by being one it’s garnered a ton of attention into a space that’s needed developers excited about it. But that’s not the real revolution, the revolution the iPhone brought is the chink in the armor companies like T-Mobile, Cingular, Sprint and Verizon haven’t wanted to show. By being so popular web developers can get excited about developing for mobile, shifting exciting content away from the Mobile Service Providers walled gardens and out into the mobile web. In turn people will want devices that can browse that content.
And that sounds like a revolution to me.
This is precisely why (well, aside from general suckage) the ESPN phone failed. Yes, it was hyper-connected, but it was only connected to one data service. By locking out competitors ESPN suffered loss of trust and fanboy-ism.
I have read somewhere that Apple may have taken a few smackings over the iPhone development. One pundit posits (yeah) that the exclusion of 3g network connectivity is due to the potential conflict with Cingular’s video service.
And for the record, I’m holding out for the iPhone nano.
It’s just not going to happen with the first version of the iPhone. Without including 3G (and the reason they didn’t is because it adds too much to the cost, and drains the battery too quickly) what you have is basically the mobile equivilent of a 2400 baud modem. Noone is going to use the iPhone to surf the “regular” web with this thing. EDGE on Cingular is just too slow. Apple fanboys are going to buy this thing, and everyone else is going to wait for the next version. It’s just too expensive and too slow.
I think you hit it right on the head here Tome. The iPhone has started to crack the walls put up by the service providers. Now if they can tear it down is yet to be seen, but truely exciting.
I’m sure in a couple of years will know the answer.
It’s rather nice to see a view of the IPhone’s impact put into perspective in terms of it’s effect on Mobile Web, and not another review from a Apple fan oogling over the features of the phone.
I happen to agree that it’s a huge step in the right direction when it comes to Mobile Web, however it has many large hurdles it make it over before it becomes any sort of success. For that reason I really have to agree with David A. that the IPhone is just a pin hole in the damn that the Mobile providers have built. Eventually we all hope that hole works it’s way bigger everyday until the damn gives way.
The push for a better Mobile Web is already putting pressure on, so it’s basically a matter keeping the pressure on until the Mobile providers cave.
Great Article.
David, Kevin and Kyle: I’m in agreement that this version of the iPhone is more of a first step towards breaking down some of the mobile service provider barriers. I see the iPhone as more like the Declaration of Independence, and we still have the revolutionary war to fight. Which in my mind still makes the iPhone pretty darn revolutionary.
Great points! I’m excited to see what this changes in the ways you mentioned over the next few years.
Although it is only EDGE it’s a step in the right direction whether it’s slow or not. It will get there eventually and we’re not quite at the point anyway where we’re all expecting to browse from a phone the same as we do at our desktops. It will be more than enough and a way better experience to get the content we need while mobile, once again it’s the context.
Another revolution - a usable UI - for not only the web, but calls, saving contacts and everything - SWEET!
Mainly because I’m a born-and-bred Windows man, I’m not too hot on any of these iProducts (iPod, etc.)
So, the least I can say about the iPhone is that I hope Cisco sticks it to ‘em when Apple comes knockin’ for the naming rights.
I don’t see it as breaking down any barriers. If anything, the iPhone is as or more tightly coupled with a network operator than a Blackberry. The value added services like visual contacts require premium services offered by the carrier. I do think the UI looks very interesting and I am interested to see how well it works. I don’t give apple too much credit for the UI because it looks to be just a subset of what others, such as Jeff Han have been working on for some time. As far as “full-web” browsing goes, there are quite a lot of devices available that have the some functionality as the iPhone: Blackberrys, High-end Nokia phones, Pocket PCs, etc.
Waht barriers are you referring to? If you pay for any but the cheapest data plans, there aren’t any walled gardens anymore. I’ve got a 3G data plan on Cingular and I can browse anything on the web with it. The transcoding isn’t fabulous for my phone, but quite good for my Blackberry.
I’m just not sure the a $600, pocket PC sized phone with no high-speed network connectivity is going to propel the use of the web on mobile phones forward the way that a lot of the Web 2.0 pundits think it is. I have a feeling that this sentiment is driven by the desire to avoid the mobile learning curve.
David: The two areas where I saw Cingular bend where I hadn’t heard of them bending before was with the new visual voice mail and with the lack of a Cingular logo on the actual device itself. While yes these are small concessions it’s a start.
Tom:
With your last comment, please explain:
<a href=”http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20070110/tc_zd/198403” rel=”nofollow”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20070110/tc_zd/198403</a>
Quote:
When asked about a give-and-take leading to the Apple-Cingular partnership, Lurie said, “I’m not sure we gave anything.” Later, he commented, “I think they bent a lot.” That bending included allowing the phone to be locked to Cingular, just one of several restrictions on the new iPhone.
“If you want an iPhone, you are going to get the luxury of being on the Cingular network,” Lurie said.
While the Cingular logo will not appear on the body of the iPhone, the word “Cingular” will appear on the screen at all times.
So really, nothing about the deal shows Cingular bending. In fact, when you look at it, Apple bent to Cingular.
So aside from the neato phone with an expensive price tag, I’m asking, where is the revolution? Safari on the phone? Webkit has been on Nokia Series 60 phones for quite some time now. Also, from a UI perspective, the LG KE850 looks strikingly familiar.
<a href=”http://www.generation-phonehouse.fr/?2007/01/12/167-podcast-episode-21-presentation-du-lg-ke850” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.generation-phonehouse.fr/?2007/01/12/167-podcast-episode-21-presentation-du-lg-ke850</a>
It’s a revolution in control. In the same way that iTunes software forces a user to have an iTunes store account for simple things like album art, the iPhone gives both apple and cingular more control over how we connect with each other. You can’t install ichat and write for free over wireless. You have to pay a penny for every two characters you send. $5000 for a megabyte. <a href=”http://www.brash.com/brash_dot_com/2007/01/watch_steves_de.html” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.brash.com/brash_dot_com/2007/01/watch_steves_de.html</a>
The phone is beautiful. The interface intuitive and logical. But only a fool would think that you’ll win in a deal between to money making powerhouses. The only one to who’ll get bent is you.
Jay Z and David,
Initially I was going to respond talking about wifi connectivity and consumer perceptions of the device but really I think we can just agree to disagree.
Thanks for the comments and I appreciate your opinions, but at this point it’s all just speculation since the phone isn’t even out yet. About a year from now we should truly know one way or the other weather the iPhone is truly as revolutionary as I think it is.
extatic???
j: Oops meant ecstatic. It’s been fixed. Thanks!
The phone is beautiful. The interface intuitive and logical. But only a fool would think that you’ll win in a deal between to money making powerhouses. The only one to who’ll get bent is you
Excellent informative article on this wonderful technology. Can’t wait until these are up for grabs.
iTunes doesn’t force you to have an account for album art. Just so you know.
I like the iPhone multi-touch technology for easy navigation. This will be the next PDA generation.
Get iPhone Converter
http://www.iphoneconverter.com/
The iPhone definitely is a product well worth getting excited over.