iPhone Inevitability?

by Chris Seibold Oct 04, 2005

Ed Zander knows cell phones and, considering he is the CEO of Motorola, is refreshingly candid. While most CEOs speak purposely in the most ambiguous terms imaginable (“Our greatest challenge is recasting the mode of discreet operation vis-à-vis the continental area of North America excluding Canada”). So when Mr. Zander predicts, in very certain terms, that Apple will introduce a Smart phone it is sorely tempting to assume Mr. Zander is correct. While Apple might introduce a smart phone one suspects it is not the foregone conclusion Mr. Zander believes.

To the average Apple fan the mere notion that Apple would make a cell phone is ample reason to work oneself into a lather of equal parts anticipation and fantasy. The fantasy part is where the Apple fans are setting themselves up for disappointment. They, naturally enough, assume that if Apple were to turn its collective attention to a cell phone project they would assuredly churn out something extraordinarily great. Imagine a phone where: the contacts are really easy to edit, a phone that is just a phone, a phone that is impossibly small and energy efficient, a phone with great big buttons for easy dialing, a phone with a scroll wheel to access your full library of iTunes, a phone that plays multimedia stuff on a large screen and a phone that replicates all the functionality of the most advanced PDA. By now you’ve grasped one of the problems: people use their cell phones in such a wide variety of ways that the notion of one cell phone that the masses will love seems to be a bit of a stretch. But, much like the joke* where two hikers meet the bear, it not necessary for Apple to produce the perfect one-size fits all phone. In theory Apple merely has to make the best phone when compared to competing products.

Making the best phone around seems like a challenge that Apple would relish. Imagine combining the industrial design skills that the Cupertino campus seems to have been monopolizing with the excellent software that has been an Apple hallmark of late. Consumers, one would imagine, would go nuts for the thing. Or they would if they had their pick of phones. Unfortunately consumers aren’t generally allowed to choose just any cell phone. Unlike picking a new car or a new computer when it comes time to choose a new cell phone you’re (unless you are willing to jump over hurdles that would have left Jesse Owen’s groin bruised) forced to choose from the options presented to you by you cell service carrier. The practice, known as the razor and blades model, is not unusual but it would leave Apple trying to cater to the whims of the cell provider while still producing a product a consumer actually desires.

Producing a phone that satisfies both the draconian cell service provider and the consumer might be possible. Well, it would be possible for most companies besides Apple because most companies display a little more flexibility than Apple when dealing with their corporate brethren. Most of us probably recall the recent falling out with IBM but a less well-known but more telling example is the withdrawing of iMacs from Best Buy. For those who don’t remember the story unfolded something as follows: The original iMac was a constant feature of Best Buy circulars and other advertising pushes. When the iMacs begin shipping with multiple flavors Best Buy requested that Apple send them more of the Indigo models than the rest of the colors. Apple demurred and Best Buy stopped selling Macs until the mini was released. Other examples abound but the point can be stated thusly: Apple is very secure in their view of the consumer world, real world sales and reseller requests be damned. One can only imagine the trouble this mindset would cause when, say, Cingular wanted to charge $399.00 for a new phone and Apple wished it priced differently or, perhaps worse, when there was a technical issue about the phone between the two companies.

One last reason why Apple wouldn’t want to enter the cell phone market brings us straight back to engineering. Apple has no experience designing a cell phone and would thus be pretty far behind n the learning curve. It is easy to think that as soon as Apple touches a device it becomes magically cool and indescribably hip but the cell phone market is hyper competitive and there have been plenty of companies trying to make cell phones better for quite some time. Competition is generally a very good driver of innovation and Apple has not been the beneficiary of all the trials and tribulations that the cell manufacturers have been through. Hence it is doubtful that Apple can just jump into the game at this late point and produce a phone with great looks, fantastic ergonomics and stellar software.

With some of the reasons laid out why Apple should not make a cell phone the idea that they will actually produce one might seem farfetched. This was the case before the nano rolled out along with the well advertised but under-designed ROKR. The nano proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that a full featured color screen iPod can be made diminutive enough that a phone could easily incorporate everything in the nano with plenty of room left over for silly cameras and befuddling buttons. With the inclusion of iTunes on the ROKR Apple has given up the last chance to deny the world of cellular communications iTunes goodness. Undoubtedly Steve Jobs could have spun such a move in a manner that would have the pundits nodding their heads in agreement and ensured that any iTunes goodness on the road was only coming from Apple’s iPod. Yet that was not the chosen path which paints Apple into a bit of a corner: they can either leave half hobbled moto iTunes phones on the market which will please no one in the long run but maintain sales of iPods or Apple can go for the mainstream brass ring by releasing a iPod/PDA/iPhone combo. Newton fans will be happy and people with overburdened pockets will rejoice. The safer choice is keeping iTunes primarily on the iPod but Apple is known for occasionally taking the path less traveled.

*Following that link will take you to a list of completely safe, yet utterly unfunny, jokes. Proceed at your own risk.

Comments

  • There is a lot of speculation going on about this right now, all over the internet.  I have to assume that no one is really satisfied with their current cell phone or provider because just about everyone is drooling over the possibility of an Apple-branded phone. 

    Is the ROKR underdesigned? Well, not really.  The iTunes portion of it is, I mean, all they really did here was eliminate the need to carry a $99 iPod Shuffle around while you have your phone with you.  The rest of it works just as well as any other Motorola phone I’ve used.  The press has sorely overlooked anything this phone does other than iTunes becaues that’s what sets it apart from the already flooded cell phone marketplace.

    What could Apple bring to the table here that isn’t already available, other than the obvious: more songs?  Can they incorporate the click wheel into a 10-key dial pad?  Can it access the iTunes Music Store directly?  I agree with the assessment that it’s VERY late in the cell phone game to bring out a phone, let alone a service.  However, maybe they’ve noticed something lacking - hopefully something other than just music playback?  The ROKR fails because it just isn’t exciting now, what could possibly be exciting in a cell phone these days?

    dickrichards2000 had this to say on Oct 04, 2005 Posts: 112
  • The main problem Apple faces is that there is the restricted GSM phone used in the States, with locks to ensure it only works with the telco you get it from and then there is the global GSM phone that is used in the rest of the world.  It’s easier to take care of the rest of the world than it is to work with a US carrier.

    The benefit Apple presents is there design teams in BOTH hardware and software.  Apple could design a hell of a phone and then leave it to Moto, Samsung or Nokia to build.  (Scratch Nokia - they love MS.)  There is no real problem partnering with Apple if Apple is at the head of the table.

    At least it would be fun to watch.

    MacKen had this to say on Oct 04, 2005 Posts: 88
  • Nothing the size of a cellphone could make a true Newton fan happy, it is all about the size. We like ‘em big.

    Anyway, if Apple were to introduce phones, there would have to be at least two, if not three models. One very simple, one all business, one with a touchscreen.

    And please, Americans, do something about your carrier problem. If you pulled this “you cannot just buy any phone and use it on any network - because we don’t want you to” nonsense in Germany, people would go all classic horror flick on you, complete with angry villagers, torches & pointy things.

    Bad Beaver had this to say on Oct 04, 2005 Posts: 371
  • The biggest problem with the Moto phones is their terrible GUI. Apple could really score points if they added a scroll wheel and better navigation to this phone line. I switched earlier this year from Samsung to a Moto V600 and the phone is a dog. You can only target the first letter of a Phone book entry and then must click, click, click… forever to find the entry you want. Definately not the ease of use one looks for in a mobile device. Samsung allowed you to spell out as much of a name as you wanted. Moto also stores each number for a person as a separate entry rather than clustering multiple phone numbers for a single name in one place , this entails duplicaing the name for each entry, a complete waste of space. I am a business user and have lots of names and multiple numbers for each stored so this is a constant annoyance.

    MarcHawk had this to say on Oct 04, 2005 Posts: 2
  • Had the “pleasure” of syncing up a V3 to sbds Mac, and I second everything you said. If you want to have a usable phonebook you either have to reverse all your contacts first name and sir name in addressbook, then you may use iSync, or you spend $13 on 3rd party software that does that trick for you. All because Moto thinks a singel name field is sufficient. Great hardware, crap software. One could almost think it was a Sony.

    Bad Beaver had this to say on Oct 04, 2005 Posts: 371
  • Sanyo phones have a similar issue… Just one “name” field so everything is alphabetized by the first word in the entry.  However, I don’t find it particularly difficult to navigate to the name I want.

    It sounds like most people here don’t really care as much about the “iTunes” part of an iTunes phone as much as they’d like a phone with Apple design in the hardware and software so that all of it (not just music) would be easy to use and look good while doing so.

    vb_baysider had this to say on Oct 04, 2005 Posts: 243
  • You name it vb. Unless said phone was as easy as an iPod, had as much capacity as an iPod, and an enourmous battery to sustain both functions - so what? Some 100 songs would be a great bonus for those few places my iPod doesn’t go, but that’s about all. What I want if *perfect* sync with OS X and a *fast* GUI, even when displaying say a PDF, even when there are a lot of calendar entries… even if I dare to use a “smartphone” the way it was intended to be used so to say.

    Bad Beaver had this to say on Oct 04, 2005 Posts: 371
  • I posted my analysis of Apple’s likely mobile product strategy on my site, http://www.ndgold.com/?p=509

    dylapoo had this to say on Oct 04, 2005 Posts: 3
  • Hey, dylapoo, just had time to read your take - excellent observation! I just don’t believe Steve “accidentally” pressed the wrong button on the ROKR.

    Bad Beaver had this to say on Oct 08, 2005 Posts: 371
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