More Apple than an orchard


Delving into success
By now, you've probably heard about Apple's record setting earnings this last quarter. And if you haven't, you should have.

Two years ago, I told you that Apple worked their magic by delivering computers that just worked. They sell the experience. Especially the iPhone. It's the computer as an appliance that Steve Jobs has been pushing since at least the days of the original Macintosh development team. Although the original father of the Macintosh project, Jef Raskin, should get some kudos there too.

Well, I saw a couple of interesting posts today.

Here's a bit from Steven Frank.

It’s not just that the iPhone has fancy woo-woo transitions and purty graphics; it runs all the way down the software stack. For example, when I tap on something, I don’t have to hover for five seconds wondering “now did it get that tap, or do I have to do it again?” This is something other platforms are still struggling with. When we say you have a bad experience, this is the sort of thing we mean. It has little to do with features, and everything to do with core functionality.

And for Mac users, that great experience goes double. I add an event on the iPhone, it gets MobileMe’d and it’s on all my desktops without some disastrous intermediate desktop syncing software. Same with contacts, bookmarks. I don’t have to think twice about it. I remote control my iTunes library from anywhere in the house from my iPhone. I can even pick which speakers the music comes out of thanks to Airport Express.

Worryingly, iPhone competitors have less reason than ever to provide a stellar experience for Mac desktop users, as the iPhone has that angle sewn up. I expect future non-Apple smartphones to scale back Mac desktop support even further than they already do, as it will cost them a fortune to provide an experience that’s even half as good as the iPhone provides with the iTunes/MobileMe ecosystem.

Short term, I think he's right. It's going to be very hard to match the integrated experience that Apple delivers out of the box.

Long term, I think he's wrong. Apple has been pushing for open standards. As other computers and other smartphones become the appliances they should be, proprietary data formats will disappear. Every company will have to offer a competing experience to sell anything at all.

My favorite line comes from Jamie Zawinski in his post Dear Palm, it's just not working out. Emphasis in original.

So why would I get an iPhone? Because it's an appliance that just fucking works.

Be sure and check out the rest of his entry and the comments there.

Apple Inc.'s "secret" is that user experience and the integration that backs it up. That's all.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - October 20, 2009 at 02:49 PM  Tag


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