The Speculative Pre-History of the iPhone 195
harrymcc writes "The blogosphere is abuzz with rumors about 'iSlate,' Apple's supposed upcoming tablet. It's constructive to look back at coverage of the first iPhone in the months before it was announced. A high percentage of what was reported turned out to be hooey — as I remembered as I reviewed stories that said the iPhone would have a click wheel, a slide-out keyboard, and two batteries, and would run on an Apple-branded wireless network. I'm guessing that much of what we 'know' about iSlate is similarly off-base."
How does Apple use rumors? (Score:5, Insightful)
How much do we know about the ways in which Apple uses rumors to gin up interest in new products?
It seems likely to me that they leak stuff to keep us all talking, but I don't have any proof of that. It also seems likely to me that if they're going to be leaking stuff, they might not always leak accurate information.
There was a story awhile back that quoted Yoko Ono as saying that the Beatles were coming to iTunes. Does anyone ever bother to dig into those stories to see what happened? Did Yoko actually say that? Was there a deal that fell apart? Did the reporter just make it up? If so, why? Was Apple trying to get us talking?
Despite all of my suspicions about leaks and promotion, I'm really excited about the tablet. It will be really interesting to see what they do with the interface.
Wait? (Score:4, Insightful)
To be frank, most of the apple (iphone/tablet/whatever) stories are already annoying. It's nothing but a huge fanboi echo-chamber or a giant fanboi orgy.
iSlate name (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How does Apple use rumors? (Score:3, Insightful)
How much do we know about the ways in which Apple uses rumors to gin up interest in new products?
I thought it was pretty clear -- it's a cheap way to gauge interest and reactions to a product before it's release. People weren't excited about two batteries in the iPhone... whoosh, it doesn't get that. People get excited about wifi blamo, it makes it into the final product. It saves millions in market research, focus groups, etc. Oh yeah, and everybody talking about a product, getting all excited, even though they haven't the foggiest what it'll be -- that's free word of mouth press. That's the kind of publicity that Google has paid tens of millions for with Droid -- and people still only shrug at it.
Re:Wait? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, that must be why there are so many Windows and Linux stories, right?
Like it or not, Apple is important. (And for the record, I don't like it.)
Re:Wait for it... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather be a social outcast than someone so desperate for the approval of others that they'll buy a gadget just for the status it bestows.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
limited imaginations (Score:3, Insightful)
This pre-history is fairly entertaining in that it exposes the low-effort groupthink of these tech bloggers/pundits/opinionators. The limited imagination is evident by most just putting together the iPod and the iPhone in the most obvious of ways: click wheel iPod with phone dialing functionality. Oh wait, how do you dial? Let's propose a slideout keyboard, yeah, that's it! And half those interface mockups look like a PocketPC screenshot with an Aqua theme.
Imagine if Apple did actually put out such an iPod + clickwheel + keypad combo, behaving like an iPod + dialing features or behaving like a PocketPC/Windows Mobile phone of the era. It would be a flop in comparison to how well the iPhone actually sold.
The moral of the story is that it takes critical thinking to truly innovate (that, and a massive design effort that's focused on user experience and not a feature list).
Shouldn't we ask why OTHERS are failing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Um. The iPhone is the only phone I've ever had that I didn't want to grind into the pavement with my heel. It's the only phone that I haven't actively hated. It's the only phone that was honest about what it could do well and what it couldn't do well. It is a great phone. A great phone.
The iPod was the only MP3 player I've ever had that wasn't a total piece of cheapo plastic Chinese junk. For some reason Slashdot people seem to want to drag folders to their MP3 player, which is fine for them, I guess, but I, like most people, really like having a nice piece of software that facilitates syncing what I want where. This is especially important when I have multiple family members going off of the same library. Add a music store that is now great (having a good bitrate and no DRM), and I'm a happy camper.
Whenever I see these bah-humbug posts about Apple's innovation, I just can't get my head around them. This is a company that--yes--has developed very little from scratch, but that's not the point. They've taken the theory of others and put them into useful practice. This is much, much harder. The phone I had before my iPhone had a way longer feature list, but many of those features were either such a hassle to use that I never did, or whenever I tried to use them, it crashed. In the iPhone, Apple created a phone that actually worked. In fact, they created one that "Just Worked," in a market where working at all was hard to find.
It isn't fanboys who have propelled Apple to the top of the heap in the markets they've entered in recent years; it's average people who just know that their products work well and are easy to use. It's sad to say, but that right there is innovation in a world where companies often push garbage out the door that isn't really ready to go.
Rather than deride the leader for not being technologically innovative, I wish people would scrutinize those who are technologically innovative, yet somehow manage to have their collective rear ends handed to them time and again by a company that skips a lot of the technological aspect in favor of QA and testing. What is wrong with everyone else?