[HN Gopher] Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone (2007)
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Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone (2007)
Author : shadowtree
Score : 61 points
Date : 2023-06-09 20:26 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.marketwatch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.marketwatch.com)
| notJim wrote:
| > On February 19, 1984, in an article in The San Francisco
| Examiner, Dvorak listed the mouse as one of many reasons Apple
| Inc.'s Macintosh computer might not be successful: "The Macintosh
| uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse'. There is
| no evidence that people want to use these things."
|
| Incredible. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Dvorak
| indymike wrote:
| This one was not John Dvorak's best predictions, and he really
| should have seen this one coming.
|
| The PC was a general purpose device that replaced a whole office
| full of fairly expensive specialty devices (word processor, fax,
| teletype, calculator, intercom system, etc...). iPhone was no
| different. General purpose that could replace a bunch of
| expensive specialty devices (anyone else have a PDA, phone, music
| player, camera, GPS, etc...) at a personal level. It was obvious
| iPhone would succeed and it was equally obvious that Android was
| running the Wintel play and Apple was playing the Apple play with
| iPhone.
| wenc wrote:
| I love contrarian takes but I don't love uninformed cynical takes
| not backed up by data or experience, especially the kind we've
| been seeing the past few days with Apple Vision Pro. (John C
| Dvorak was also commenting about the _unreleased_ iPhone at the
| time of writing)
|
| Reality is the best teacher and cynics (as opposed to honest
| critics) are best disregarded and downvoted. When unsure, I
| remind myself it's best to reserve judgement and see how things
| play out and not overgeneralize from my own limited preferences.
| I tell myself that I am one small speck in the market -- i do not
| represent the market.
|
| Because even if cynics turn out to be right, their reasons for
| being right are random and we learn nothing from them. In
| financial market for instance it's not enough to be right (it's a
| coin toss) but to have the right reasons for being right.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| > but I don't love uninformed cynical takes not backed up by
| data or experience
|
| Here's some data: When the iPhone was introduced, the global
| mobile phone market moved over a billion devices a year. The
| iPhone solved very real problems that people were having, and
| delivered a device that did everything better than the
| competition. They put a real browser in the thing, removing the
| need for WAP and other shitty technologies for consuming
| content on mobile. They got the form factor and keyboard right.
| It was expensive, but not 10x more expensive. The iPhone
| replaced a device that everyone was already willingly carrying
| around in their pockets, and had been carrying around for over
| a decade at that point.
|
| The global VR headset market moved 20 million devices last
| year. For most people, VR headsets are a gimmick, a novelty,
| they bought one, tried it, put it on a shelf. People aren't
| carrying one around, people aren't using it as their main
| computing interface, people aren't throwing away their monitors
| or TVs or gaming consoles. If someone has a VR headset, it's a
| non-essential plaything.
|
| The Apple Vision is ~10x as expensive, in a market that's
| 1/50th of what the mobile phone market was in 2007, and it's
| still not solving obvious pain points that are stopping people
| from getting a VR headset. What problems does it solve? What
| device does it replace?
|
| > When unsure, I remind myself it's best to reserve judgement
| and see how things play out and not overgeneralize from my own
| limited preferences. I tell myself that I am one small speck in
| the market -- i do not represent the market.
|
| "God^H^H^HApple moves in mysterious ways, it's best not to
| question The Lord!"
|
| Come on. Apple Vision entering the VR market is fundamentally
| different from the iPhone entering the mobile phone market,
| which is why posts like this, trying to make Apple Vision
| criticism equivalent to iPhone criticism, are completely wrong.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| The data does not have the growth of the ar market or that
| the current trend without Apple in it, so it is way
| underestimating it. If Apple continues to refine it, you bet
| the market is enormous. People love entertainment/work/social
| networks and this is just bringing it in a new level of
| immersion, experiences not possible with typical physical
| screens and convinence(once they down size it enough)
| wenc wrote:
| You assume Apple is entering the VR market. I already think
| this is the wrong take.
|
| To me the market is still being discovered. There are many
| products whose business models are not what is apparent. We
| make category mistakes when we pigeonhole new products into
| known existing categories. Right off the bat for me the
| Vision Pro is a multi monitor replacement that you can travel
| with -- that's just the one thing that hits my gut.
| DANmode wrote:
| and AR is not VR.
|
| Though it does seem like this also does AR things well, and
| with ease.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| > To me the market is still being discovered.
|
| The *WHOLE POINT* of this HN post is to poo-poo Dvorak's
| take on the iPhone *AS IF* the introduction of Apple Vision
| is comparable to the iPhone's introduction.
|
| "iPhone critics were wrong then, therefore Apple vision
| critics are wrong now" is *NOT AN ARGUMENT*. It's emotional
| manipulation where you are supposed to reminisce about the
| glorious smartphone revolution that Apple ushered in, and
| apply that to this product launch. That is what is going on
| here.
|
| And every time I press the point on what the hell the Apple
| Vision thing _is for_ , the only thing I get back is mealy-
| mouthed corporate bullshit like what you just wrote.
|
| "It's gonna be revolutionary, trust me, bro"
|
| No. There is zero reason to believe that these things won't
| end up collecting dust on a shelf somewhere, just like the
| majority of VR headsets are already doing.
| [deleted]
| felipellrocha wrote:
| You are missing the point... The Apple Vision also attempts
| to solve a problem: Create a computing interface that
| interacts with the real world.
|
| Will it be successful? No one knows. Pretending that they do
| by either calling it a success or not a success this early is
| bound to be wrong.
| thx-2718 wrote:
| I think with VR it's important to remember the major
| consumers of it aren't adults yet if they're even born yet.
| Despegar wrote:
| All that says is that the iPhone was a uniquely good business
| and opportunity that will likely never be matched by any
| product for the next few decades. There isn't anyone claiming
| the Apple Vision Pro will be as big as the iPhone in terms of
| sales or importance. It could however be a new modern
| computer that takes over many functions performed on a Mac
| today. The TAM will expand based on its capability, much like
| it did for the PC during the 70s and 80s.
| chickdilla wrote:
| > It was expensive, but not 10x more expensive.
|
| In 2007 carriers were giving away phones for free to those
| signing up for a plan, and the initial $500 price tag was
| mocked and lambasted as being way too expensive. There were
| all kinds of phones that it was far more than 10x pricier
| than.
|
| > VR headsets are a gimmick, a novelty, they bought one,
| tried it, put it on a shelf.
|
| Most shelf ridden cast off Quest 2s are there because they
| were found to be grainy and nausea inducing. A leap in
| latency and resolution could very well prompt revaluation in
| the space.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| I think the higher price tag is them signaling they know they
| won't move as many units like they did with the iPhone. It's
| economies of scale: if you can move huge volumes, you can
| afford smaller margins per unit, and vice versa.
| simulosius wrote:
| That definitely didn't age very well.
| josu wrote:
| >In fact it's gone so far that it's in the process of
| consolidation with probably two players dominating everything,
| Nokia Corp. and Motorola Inc.
|
| Even the closing sentence is funny; consolidated into bankruptcy.
| But hey, at least the article is consistent in getting everything
| wrong.
| westurner wrote:
| Competitors at the time included Nokia (Symbian OS), Palm,
| Windows Mobile, Blackberry, OpenMoko, and Android; but not Apple
| Newton OS (1987-1998).
|
| Cisco IOS (for network gear) was created in the 1980s.
|
| It was possible to run Linux on the 1st gen iPod (2001). IIRC the
| Archos Jukebox also had a 2.5" drive enclosure with audio (and
| then video on a color LCD) decoding.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I joined Nokia in 2008 about a year after the iPhone launch, and
| even at that late date, the general consensus was that it wasn't
| a big deal and/or just an American thing, similar to Japan's
| i-mode.
|
| For those of us who knew what a leap ahead it was - the
| capacitive touch screen alone changed everything, let alone the
| usability and functionality like the physical mute switch - it
| was an uphill battle to convince decision makers how much of a
| paradigm shift it was. In fact my first boss, the CTO based in
| Palo Alto where I worked - had a boardroom showdown about it and
| lost, resigning immediately after.
|
| Dvorak wasn't the only one with his head stuck in the sand. A lot
| of actual industry players just couldn't get it either.
| Blackberry for example.
|
| The most amazing thing to me, honestly, is how quickly Google
| shifted gears. Android first launched with an emulator that
| looked exactly like the Nokia E71, Symbian phone with the exact
| same UX. I posted a video of it on Vimeo back then [1] (it's
| still there!!!). Within the year they had turned 90deg and copied
| the iPhone in almost every way. That's Silicon Valley flexibility
| and drive which Nokia and other established mobile companies just
| couldn't match.
|
| 1. https://vimeo.com/384481
| drewbeck wrote:
| So tasty. And useful, to remind us what "smart" "sober"
| commentary looks like in tech -- mostly negative, mostly missing
| the mark.
|
| > What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that
| can do no wrong. If it's smart it will call the iPhone a
| "reference design" and pass it to some suckers to build with
| someone else's marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of
| any marketplace failures.
| outside1234 wrote:
| John Dvorak was such a moron about everything...
|
| No surprise here
| brandonmenc wrote:
| Before you get mad, understand that John C. Dvorak does it just
| for the clicks:
|
| https://youtu.be/gOHzHVF-4Mg
| holoduke wrote:
| Off topic, but this site has literally 6 advertising blocks in
| the article and still it asks for a subscription. I am running a
| multi million user platform, but in no way i need to have such a
| destructive monetization model. My users would flee. My platform
| would die quickly.
| mistersquid wrote:
| John C. Dvorak is an admitted anti-Apple troll who went all in on
| click-bait to drive advertising revenue: a pioneer, if you will.
| [0]
|
| Eventually, he pissed of his editorship about 5G advertorial and
| was fired. [1] [2]
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMQv0j29WHA
|
| [1]
| https://web.archive.org/web/20181007013846/https://medium.co...
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18157869
| i386 wrote:
| John C. Dvorak is famous for bad takes. But if you're alluding to
| Apple Vision being successful because he was an iPhone naysayer,
| you're wrong. Reality doesn't work that way. The jury is still
| out on VR and it changes little when Apple enters the market at
| that price point and there's not a killer problem for it.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| I agree. The iPhone came out in 2007, and that year over a
| billion cell phones were sold. That's a solid market that Apple
| entered, and the iPhone brought obvious improvements over
| existing devices. Apple solved the problem of wanting a large
| screen, a full keyboard, in a small device. That was an
| existing pain-point, they solved it, everyone understood that
| this was the future of cell phones.
|
| In 2022, there were 20 million VR devices sold globally. Apple
| has now entered this market with a device that's 10x as
| expensive as the competition, and one that doesn't solve any
| existing obvious pain points.
|
| The iPhone out-competed dumb phones and communicators and
| blackberries and stylus notepads and, eventually, pocket
| cameras. It did all of that, better, in one device.
|
| What _exactly_ is the Apple Vision replacing in an obviously
| better way? If I buy one, what device can I throw away? I have
| yet to see an answer to that question.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Not to put too fine a point on this, but by talking about the
| size of the market, you do realize you're committing the
| exact same mistake as Dvorak, but in reverse:
|
| >Apple Inc.'s past successes have been in markets that were
| emerging or moribund. Its biggest hit has been the iPod.
|
| Recency bias aside, Apple clearly has experience to take on
| markets like this.
|
| >doesn't solve any existing obvious pain points.
|
| I mean, if you pay attention to _any_ of the people that have
| tried hands-ons, they all say the UI interaction is leaps and
| bounds better than anyone else. Hand tracking, clarity, and
| pass-through too - this isn 't a Meta Quest competitor, it's
| an improved Varjo XR3 for _half the price_. This price isn 't
| really a blunder as much as a signal as to who this is for.
|
| But really, the point is that this isn't the device Apple
| wanted to make. They wanted to wait another 5-10 years to get
| the miniaturization and price down so it can just be a pair
| of glasses. But they don't have that luxury; Zuck is trying
| to own the market, and Apple needs developers now rather than
| later. They know _this device_ won 't have high volume (and
| they've told shareholders that for months) but they're
| investing for 5-10 years from now when the tech is at the
| point where it does.
|
| >If I buy one, what device can I throw away?
|
| I mean from the way Apple is currently marketing it, the
| answer is "Your tablet, probably laptop, and even TV, (and
| eventually, your phone)"
| henrikschroder wrote:
| > They wanted to wait another 5-10 years to get the
| miniaturization and price down so it can just be a pair of
| glasses. But they don't have that luxury; Zuck is trying to
| own the market, and Apple needs developers now rather than
| later. They know this device won't have high volume (and
| they've told shareholders that for months) but they're
| investing for 5-10 years from now when the tech is at the
| point where it does.
|
| This is the best defense of the device that I've seen. I
| can _absolutely_ see the appeal of AR in a pair of glasses,
| that 's a form factor and convenience that makes sense.
|
| But how will Apple retain excitement for this device and
| retain developers doing stuff for it, if the install base
| is tiny compared to the competition? Over ten years? Once
| this thing ends up on people's shelves, why should any
| company develop for it? "Trust me bro, Apple Vision Air 5
| is finally going to kick off!"
|
| The iPhone introduced the app store, which allowed for a
| literal gold rush, it suddenly became a whole lot easier
| for developers to earn money for their software, of course
| developers flocked to it, even though the install base was
| small. There's no such mechanism in place this time, all
| the other VR headsets have app stores. So what's the draw?
| All the Apple Vision owners are rich, so you can price your
| apps higher?
|
| I _understand_ the long term goals of Apple, they have to
| make this bet in case VR becomes the next revolution, but
| VR has been a solution looking for a problem for thirty
| years now at least, and this product is not going to become
| successful, and yet this thread, and every other one like
| it, is full of people predicting the VR revolution.
| ekam wrote:
| Apple isn't there right now, but the ultimate goal appears to
| replace computers, phones, and monitors, which is why Vision
| has a laptop card and operates independently. It's not born
| of the same concept as eg, a Meta quest which is more gaming
| oriented.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| > but the ultimate goal appears to replace computers,
| phones, and monitors
|
| This is a completely empty statement. That's a flimsy
| corporate wish.
|
| Do you not understand how completely different the
| introduction of the iPhone into the mobile phone market
| was, compared to the introduction of Apple Vision to the VR
| market?
|
| The iPhone introduced with _concrete_ examples of what it
| could do that the competition could not, it wasn 't half-
| baked and aspirational, it solved existing problems, it was
| better than the devices that billions of people were
| already carrying around in their pockets _from the start_.
|
| I'm writing this comment from my home office. To my right
| is a window where I can look out on the street below, I see
| cars and people, I see birds flying over the trees, and a
| couple of blocks away is the beach and the ocean. It's a
| pretty view. I can relax my eyes and my brain and look away
| from work or HN for a bit. How does Apple vision improve
| this experience?
| ekam wrote:
| I agree that the Vision is half baked right now, but the
| point is they aren't seeking to compete with the VR
| headsets or market today. Unlike other VR headsets, Apple
| seeks to augment, eg your home office by replacing your
| TV, laptop, etc. I haven't used the headset yet as it
| will be released next year, but first impressions
| uniformly attest that the headset is concretely able to
| perform those functions. If the execution is there over
| the next years, I would expect this to greatly improve
| every experience that is screen-related, such as having a
| 3D IMAX screen in your house instead of a TV
| nelsonsflagpole wrote:
| When I first saw the Apple Vision my first thought was that
| this isn't a new form of VR headset as much as it is a new
| type of display device. My work environment is somewhat space
| constrained and I would welcome having what is effectively a
| massive monitor without any space requirement. Imagine
| working in a (stationary) car, in a hotel room, anywhere you
| can't carry a massive monitor and this becomes an attractive
| idea. Whether that is what this device offers remains to be
| seen.
| acdha wrote:
| > Apple has now entered this market with a device that's 10x
| as expensive as the competition, and one that doesn't solve
| any existing obvious pain points.
|
| 1X - they're in the same market as the HoloLens, not low-end
| gaming VR like Oculus, which is why the hardware costs more.
| It's definitely far from a proven market but I would treat
| this class of device as the first serious contender -- for
| example, the infinite display concept is appealing but a
| device like the Oculus Pro doesn't have the resolution to
| make sharp text or refresh quickly. If this lives up to the
| promise, it might tempt anyone who wants a portable or
| private alternative to setting up a bunch of external
| displays, especially if they work on 3D things or
| collaborate. It's not going to be an instance best selling
| gadget but I think a lot of the people I've known who have
| jobs involving things like mechanical engineering,
| architecture, interior design, medical or scientific imaging,
| data visualization, modeling, etc. are going to consider it
| and these devices are cheap when you're paying more than that
| annually for software licenses and it's a few days billable
| time.
| D13Fd wrote:
| The market they are disrupting is PCs, Macs, and tablets.
| Not VR.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _The iPhone came out in 2007, and that year over a billion
| cell phones were sold._
|
| Most of which were dumbphones -- in 2007, 122 million
| smartphones were sold worldwide, which represented only about
| 10.6% of cell phones. In other words, the iPhone entered a
| product segment in its infancy, then helped define and grow
| it just as Apple Vision will.
|
| > _What_ exactly _is the Apple Vision replacing in an
| obviously better way?_
|
| This sounds like Dvorak in 2007, who clearly looked at the
| iPhone as a "faster horse". Like the iPhone in 2007, Apple
| Vision will never have greater unrealized potential than it
| has today. This first Apple Vision Pro will sell fewer units
| than any subsequent generations, and that's fine -- it's a
| line in the sand, a call to arms, and a place for innovators
| to play.
| Someone wrote:
| > That was an existing pain-point, they solved it, everyone
| understood that this was the future of cell phones.
|
| Not everyone. The article being discussed is an extreme, but
| there were many similar opinions along these lines, for
| example form people claiming the lack of a physical keyboard
| would kill this as a business phone.
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| Many analysts and pundits aren't acting like the jury's still
| out, though. Similarly to the iPhone, many who haven't touched
| it are reporting it DOA, even as some people are leaving actual
| demos with intensely positive reviews.
| coldcode wrote:
| It's not out yet, anyway. Dismissing something that won't
| ship for another 8 months is not useful. The Dvorak article
| was likewise before shipping. I've heard this for everything
| Apple ever did since the Bondi iMac.
|
| I don't look at it as a headset but as a new kind of
| computer-like device with included display, and it's not even
| 1.0 yet. The cost seems crazy, but my Mac Studio+Display cost
| me more. If you think of it as equivalent to that, it's not
| all that out of line.
|
| Now imagine what it will become, similar to how the iPhone
| changed massively over the years.
| i386 wrote:
| The iPhone solved an incredibly useful problem because it put
| the internet in your pocket. No one has a "computer room" at
| home. What is the problem that the vision solves? I can watch
| TV on a huge screen in my living room? I already have a large
| screen in my living room. It's like stuff I can already
| easily do but with extra steps and a $3500 US price tag.
| rado wrote:
| It's the next step in Apple's consistent strategy to
| diminish the physical device and enhance its services
| (computing). iMac: where did the computer go? Vision: there
| is no TV, but the TV watching experience is great.
| dharmab wrote:
| I have both a media room and work computer room. My parents
| have two computer rooms. My sister want a room when she can
| get a house. Many of my friends have dedicated rooms for
| computers.
| Scotrix wrote:
| Let's assume it's comfortable to wear (Oculus and Quest
| weren't for the long run), works without issues and smooth
| and that I would expect at least from Apple even though it
| seems that they put every year a little less attention to
| detail (okay it's still 90% better than anything else but i
| think this matters for a device and state of this category
| really a lot) it will have a good chance to replace all my
| screens (3 plus laptop and tv) and I'll get very excited
| and buckle up the hefty price...
| geon wrote:
| The keynote was certainly weird. It seems they imagine it
| being used to run regular 2d apps.
| WTFruit wrote:
| I'm at a job where, for the first time in my life, I'm
| desperate for screen real estate. Up until now I've been
| quite happy with a 15" laptop, I never even felt the need
| to have a bigger screen than that let alone multiple
| monitors, but just yesterday I set up a third 24" monitor
| because the two my job started me with didn't feel like
| enough.
|
| Replacing those with a headset would not only give me even
| MORE room to work with, but it would also save room and
| clutter in my home because I have a small desk in a small
| space.
|
| As for TV, it doesn't matter how big your screen is... a
| headset can always go bigger, give you better 3D, and do
| better sound as well unless you already have a surround
| sound setup. Which you may, but many of us don't have any
| of those things. The only real downside I see is the
| inability to watch with someone, but if my wife and I could
| both wear headsets and sit on the couch together while ALSO
| both being in a shared virtual space, somewhere exotic with
| a giant theatre-size screen? Sounds pretty compelling to
| me.
| layer8 wrote:
| But are you willing to wear a front-heavy pound of tech
| on your head all day for that? Maybe you are, but I wager
| few will. The counter then is that the tech will get more
| compact and lighter. Well, maybe, or maybe not as much,
| let's see in a couple of years.
| wenc wrote:
| If there's a good "why", the "how" is merely iteration
| and execution. Apple has been known to be extremely good
| at materials science and hardware engineering so if it's
| within the bounds of physics and economies I don't think
| that's remotely a concern.
| layer8 wrote:
| Yeah, I think the bounds of physics and engineering will
| be a serious challenge.
| wenc wrote:
| I have a different view on that.
| [deleted]
| dan-dan wrote:
| This puts screen real estate in your pocket/bag. Also
| gesture and eye control.
| zipster90 wrote:
| My first thought before I clicked this was "I bet Dvorak wrote
| this" and whaddaya know...
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Thanks for clicking through and TOFTT.
|
| Sometimes opinions are wrong in hindsight but they could have
| been totally logical at the time. But that guy.
|
| This is not really worth then.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| John C. Dvorak is the Jim Kramer of technology journalism.
| harry8 wrote:
| Oh come on now that's not fair. No matter how utterly woeful
| and corrupt tech journalism had been (and horrific is the
| adjective I'd use) drawing parallels to Jim Kramer is just
| unseemly.
| gtop3 wrote:
| > Now compare that effort and overlay the mobile handset
| business. This is not an emerging business. In fact it's gone so
| far that it's in the process of consolidation with probably two
| players dominating everything, Nokia Corp and Motorola
|
| I've never seen someone be so right and so wrong at the same
| time.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Imagine seeing his on investment portfolio if he makes dumbazz
| predictions like that
| [deleted]
| chrgy wrote:
| People who are crazy enough that think they can change the world
| are only the ones who do, so when Steve Jobs has to deal with
| these non-sense so he never said what he is working on, he
| focused on shipping great products: "There is no likelihood that
| Apple can be successful in a business this competitive. Even in
| the business where it is a clear pioneer, the personal computer,
| it had to compete with Microsoft and can only sustain a 5% market
| share."
| ttul wrote:
| "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." -
| Steve Jobs.
| amelius wrote:
| He was more a religious leader than anything else.
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