[Isu570-f08-rpf] The struggle to compete creating new designs - interesting article - Apple and "the others"

[Bob Futrelle]

Agreed. It will be fun to follow this over the next decade or so.
I've followed computing for 50+ years, and it continues to be full of
fascinating changes, year after year after year.

 - RPF

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 8:02 PM, Alex Simoes <alexandersimoes at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think this is a very interesting article as I have always admired Apple
> for their intuitive minimalist designs. This article is quick to point out
> the success of the iPod in light of competitors (such as Microsoft's Zune)
> coming to market and trying to compete directly with similar products, but
> I'm not sure this author has investigated all the iPhone's competition.
>
> It is not just Nokia that is coming out with competing touch screen phones,
> there is also T-Mobile's G1 that will be running Google's new open OS -
> Android. With Apple using a proprietary OS on their iPhone and restricting
> many community developed apps, they seem to be shooting themselves in the
> foot much the way they did when Windows first came out. Users like options
> and with the iPhone, they just may not be getting them. But I guess we'll
> see soon enough.
>
> - alex simoes
>
> On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 2:52 PM, Bob Futrelle <bob.futrelle at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> From
>>
>> http://www.thomas-fitzgerald.net/2008/10/05/the-rush-to-add-touch-screens-to-cellphones-demonstrates-that-innovation-in-the-industry-is-further-than-ever-behind-apple/
>>
>> Oct 5, 2008
>>
>> The Rush to Add Touch Screens to Cellphones Demonstrates That
>> Innovation in the Industry is Further Than Ever Behind Apple.
>>
>> When Apple launched the iPhone nearly two years ago at Macworld Expo
>> in San Francisco, Industry insiders and competitors were quick to
>> decry the signature feature of Apple's new phone, the use of a
>> touchscreen. Until then most touch screen devices had been
>> unresponsive and clumsy. With the iPhone Apple showed that this did
>> not have to be the case. Fast forward to today, the iPhone has been a
>> huge success and every major cellphone manufacturer is rushing to add
>> touch screens to their cellphones. An element of fear has gripped the
>> massive cellphone industry, that the company they had all ridiculed 18
>> moths earlier was quickly becoming a behemoth, and they need to
>> counter the Apple juggernaut by taking on the iPhone head on.
>> Unfortunately the rushed responses show that the Industry clearly
>> doesn't even understand why the iPhone has been such a success.
>>
>> Case in point, the new Nokia Touch Screen 5800 XpressMusic Phone. What
>> Nokia have basically done is shoehorn a touchscreen onto their
>> existing symbian mobile platform in the hopes of gaining some momentum
>> against Apple. Clearly in Nokia's, as well as most other manufacturers
>> eyes, what has made the iPhone successful is that it has a touch
>> screen, so If they add a touch screen to their own phones and cram in
>> a bunch of other features, then they'll be even more successful,
>> right? But matching features hasn't exactly worked for all the iPod
>> competitors out there, and now here's a whole new branch of the
>> electronics industry lining up to make the same fundamental mistake.
>> They are spending billions of dollars / euros / yen to make devices
>> that may appear to compete very well with Apple on paper, but when it
>> comes to the real world they fail miserably. What makes the iPhone so
>> appealing to people is not it's feature list, or even it's design.
>> It's the whole package, the synthesis of form and function and that's
>> something that, in the twenty first century very few companies outside
>> Apple seem to comprehend.
>>
>> I think for a large portion of the electronics industry, product
>> development is broken into three areas. Hardware Design, Engineering
>> and Software, and priority is usually in that order. For the vast
>> majority of companies these are separate discreet disciplines. For
>> most the term "Design" refers to the physical look of the device. For
>> Apple, however, the term "Design" is all encompassing. It is, as Steve
>> is fond of saying, in their DNA. It permeates all disciplines of
>> bringing a product to market, from hardware design to the engineering
>> of the electronics to the software that runs on it. For Apple Design
>> is not just the look, but the feel, the emotion of a product, the way
>> it works and its ease of use. Every aspect is carefully thought out,
>> not just in isolation but how it will interact with other aspects of
>> the product. The hardware design compliments the software and visa
>> versa, and all are given equal priority. In the end it is (most of the
>> time) the perfect blend of form and function (occasional bugs aside).
>> And unfortunately (for the industry), no one else seems to get that
>> concept.
>>
>> In fact most other companies deride Apple for focussing too much on
>> the design of their products. They are stuck in the twentieth century
>> view that products are sold based on their spec sheet. That's simply
>> not the case any more. The success of the iPod has shown the world
>> that an electronics device doesn't have to be a collection of
>> disparate functions and features. I think many competitors fail to
>> realize this because they think Apple's success is down to dumb luck,
>> because Apple doesn't play by the accepted rules of the industry, and
>> therefore couldn't possibly be successful.
>>
>> Out in the real world however, people now realize that form and
>> function go hand in hand, that form can be function and function can
>> be defined by form. For Apple this has led to unprecedented success
>> that continues to confound experts and competitors alike. For everyone
>> else it's become a constant struggle to stay relevant with their old
>> world views of how the electronics industry should work.
>>
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