Feel > Features: Why the iPhone Dominates Devices That Do Far More
By Daniel Miessler on July 16th, 2008: Tagged as Gadgets | iPhone
I made a prediction a couple months before the original iPhone came out that features would not be the deciding factor in whether or not the device was successful. I also refined that argument here. I think time has shown me to be right on this one. Here’s what I wrote in May of 2007:
My point, which I feel is Apple’s direct strategy with this device, is that you can actually blow away the market without playing the features game. The concept being that it’s possible to actually win with fewer features as long as you do each of them extremely well.
This includes the stuff we normally don’t pay any attention to, such as: the size and shape of the device, the look and feel of it in your hand, how it feels to navigate the interface, and how the system looks and feels when you use the basic functions such as making and receiving phone calls.
In other words, their bet is that doing a few things beautifully is going to be beat out doing many more things in a “regular” way.
I think this is precisely what has happened — both with the original iPhone and with the 3G version. The iPhone is still way behind many phones on the market with respect to features. Not only does it lack key functionality, but many things it does have, e.g. it’s camera, are violently underwhelming compared to the competition.
It doesn’t matter.
When people complain about their iPhone having a crappy camera it’s always in the context of, “I wish my iPhone had a better camera.” In other words, they want their iPhone to have a better one, but the option of going to another device isn’t even on the table. On the other hand, there are many Nokia N9x users (e.g. Scoble) with a 47 megapixel beast on their devices who end up wanting and/or getting an iPhone. That’s the difference.
The thing that got me thinking about this was this “iPhone 3G Killer” article that just hit my feeds. They talk about the latest Samsung, HTC, Sony and Nokia offerings. Here’s a rich piece of comedy:
The HTC Touch Pro is the most powerful and feature packed phone ever on Earth. It sports 288 MB RAM, coupled with a very powerful 528 MHZ processor. It runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro…
Buh bye. All that power — the Mini-Hubble they used for the camera — it’s all pointless if you don’t love using your device. And very few people “love” to use their Windows device. Powerful? Sure. Features? Sure. But do you love to use it? Uh, no.
The iPhone isn’t winning because it’s better at the game that HTC and Windows Mobile are playing. The iPhone is winning because it’s playing a completely different game, within a completely different sport, and it’s the only player on the field.
If you need any more evidence of this, just look to Japan. Their phones and networks make ours look like car phone bricks from the 80’s. You’ve heard the comparisons: “their stuff two years ago is better than our will be next year…” Video conferencing, teleportation, yadda yadda. Well, if that’s the case then why did they go batshit crazy for the iPhone when it’s already so far behind?
Answer: it’s not about the features. It’s about the feel.:
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It’s “success” (and I use that term loosely) is strictly a matter of fanboys run amok. Apple has a long way to go before this phone really matters.
Comment by dale — 7/17/2008 @ 4:15 am
Dale, you’re not paying attention. When you sell one million phones in three days it’s a success. Especially when you’re getting very close to selling 10 million in a year, which most thought was an impossibility.
Also, if the phone wasn’t something that matters, everyone wouldn’t be trying to copy it. They’re doing so because it DOES matter.
Comment by Daniel Miessler — 7/17/2008 @ 11:55 am
What are people trying to copy? Some certainly are going for the case design (which isn’t strictly unique to the iPhone but their industrial design has always been a step above the rest).
A million phones in a weekend is not a success when you look at the rest of the market. Nokia sells more than that every single day. Apple doesn’t keep that pace going either.
Maybe it is a success for Apple but it’s not really in the market. What they have done (maybe) is raise awareness and there are a lot of better phones out there and coming out this year by all the manufacturers.
I am paying attention and am looking at it, not with blinders on, but with what else is going on and how Apple fits in.
Funny you should mention Scoble, that guy is exactly the type of person who would buy an iPhone - a loser who feels he needs some status symbol to compensate for his small penis/ego/whatever. They don’t buy it for thinking it’s the best mobile computing platform out there (well, they justify it afterwards).
Comment by dale — 7/17/2008 @ 2:56 pm