iPhone is more than just a breakthrough mobile phone device. It is a strategy that may expand Apple's sphere of influence, from web browsing to social networking and even possibly search.
The iPhone is here. The blogosphere is echoing with both great praise and cries of problems. The hype was both met and a bit too much. Overall, it seems that both media and users are underwhelmed with the iPhone as the phone. And people are not overly excited about yet another iPod, because we've had plenty of those over the last few years. Yet, iPhone is important and possibly game changing - because it could be the first mobile device to truly bring a rich web experience to a mobile device. With iPhone and the latest release of Safari for Windows, Apple has openly jumped into the browser wars. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, iPhone could be Apple's foray into the world of social networking. Let's take a deeper look along each of these axes.
Until iPhone showed up on the scene, the web experience on Mobile devices was drastically different compared to PC access. For mobile, Web Sites and Services reduced the amount of the information on each page and displayed it using Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and Wireless Markup Language (WML). Even the Blackberry, known for its exceptional innovation in the wireless space, had to do a lot of heavy lifting to squeeze the Web into a small screen.
The worst part about the WAP solution was that each web site needed to present its results using a different format, if it wanted to be browseable from a wireless device. Doing double work for content owners is both time-consuming and error prone, so only large companies invested in doing this. Which means that the long tail of the Internet was, for the most part, inaccessible from wireless devices.
Apple took an entirely different approach and focused on making web sites work on the iPhone, as is. Since iPhone runs OS X Safari, for designers it is only a matter of figuring out how to make web pages fit onto a small screen. Naturally, there are already several technologies that exist to help people browse when the content does not fit onto a screen - scrolling, paging and zooming. So Apple combined its innovative multi-touch technology with some old ideas, to deliver a complete browsing experience to the iPhone users. How well it will work remains to be seen. Particularly, will people be able to master multi-touch and will they like the experience of looking at pieces of a web page? If the answer is yes, then the iPhone will break the Web out of the WAP prison.
Apple carefully aligned the launch of iPhone with the launch of Safari on Windows. There is no way this is a coincidence. Why does Apple want to jump into the browser wars? The answer is that anybody who has a shot wants to be part of this war; and with the iPhone, Apple actually does have a shot.
The current state of browsers is in a flux. Microsoft's Internet Explorer is receding, but not as quickly as some thought. Firefox is gaining, but again not as quickly. Apple sees an opportunity - because neither opponent is playing the perfect game. If iPhone becomes popular, Apple possibly has a decent chance of success in the browser wars, because people like to use the same application everywhere. Today's Safari is a no bells and whistles, quick and robust web browser. It has less features than Firefox, but it also has a lot of die hard fans in the Mac community.
You can get more details about the current state of the browser war battlefield from our reviews. We profiled Firefox 2.0 and Internet Explorer 7.0 when both came out. We also wrote two posts about the browser wars: Web Browser Faceoff and Why Browser Wars Will Heat up in 2007. The first post hit a nerve with Safari fans, because we described it as less modern than other browsers. The second post was focused on the economics of the war; and is very applicable to Apple's jump into this market. Winning the browser wars equals winning control over Web eyeballs and the precious search box. Apple knows this very well and is likely to have more tricks up its sleeve, like a new version of Safari.
Apple has not been very active in the social networking space so far. Sure it is a consumer electronics company, but still - a social network would be very complementary. Well, with iPhone hitting the streets, Apple might have pulled itself into this lucrative market with the speed of light. What better social network can you wish for than a phone book? Family, friends and business contacts all end up in our phones. Apple is very likely to tap into this huge network of subscribers. Because we take our mobile phones with us everywhere - and certainly this will be the case with the feature-packed iPhone - Apple has a chance at pulling off some serious upsets in the social networking space.
The fact that Apple is going to have control of the native iPhone applications for phone and chat will give it big leverage. As people interact with each other, the software can learn a lot about user behavior and build a social system that leverages this behavior. A simple example is a filter that is currently missing in Facebook. Currently in Facebook all updates from my contacts are treated equally. Anytime anyone does anything, I get informed. This is already annoying to many users. With the iPhone, Apple can quickly gather data about how much interaction we have with each other - and so build a heuristic for filtering information based on that.
iPhone is more than just a breakthrough mobile phone device. It is a strategy that may expand Apple's sphere of influence, from web browsing to social networking and even possibly search. If iPhone users embrace the multi-touch interface for browsing the web, then WAP will become obsolete. If Safari on iPhone and Windows manages to win peoples hearts, then Apple might gain a position in the browser market - perhaps as strong as Firefox. Incidentally, for now this plays in Google's favor, as Google is friendly with both Firefox and Apple. And if Apple starts building a social network around the iPhone, then MySpace and Facebook will have to start paying attention.
All of these things are of course 'big ifs'. But we have no reason to doubt either the seriousness or ability of Apple. Since Steve's job return in 1997, the company has not disappointed. So are all and any of these possible? Definitively - and very likely too. Apple is playing this game to win and to win big. Lets see what happens next and in the mean time, please share your thoughts on what part iPhone will play in Apple's business strategy.
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Apple may be the first mobile phone designed by American's to have the full mobile web, but the Finn's have had it for a long time with their S60 operating system that sits on Nokia's high end models.
Opera Mini just released beta 4 of their web browser that delivers the full web experience to ANY cell phone.
I even made a commercial about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwrE5UCUf7s
Posted by: Stefan Constantinescu | July 2, 2007 2:48 AMGreat article Alex, I was thinking the same for a few days. I don't think Apple's purpose is to enter social networking or search areas (they have Google there) but this can really be a great opportunity to evangelize Safari. And by leveraging the unique UI interface advantages of Safari, iPod, iPhone, they can increase Mac's market share tremendously.
Posted by: Emre Sokullu | July 2, 2007 4:12 AMI echo Stefan's comment.
I haven't heard anyone mention WAP in years over here in Europe. I've been happily browsing the web using my N70 and Opera Mini for a long time.
I'm sure the jesusphone will sell very well to the Prada/Manolo/Prius/Sushi/Poloneck brigade.
3's X-Series phone in Europe is a far more disruptive device and approach since it challenges the incumbent telcos rather than doing exclusive deals with them. They just need a Steve to flog it.
Posted by: Conor O'Neill | July 2, 2007 4:17 AMIt's not entirely true that iPhone brings a whole new class of applications and dismisses WAP and WML; both technologies are designed specifically to fit into low-bandwidth connections (e.g. EDGE, GPRS). Also, optimizing applications to fit into iPhone's screen, isn't much different than converting them to WML. Both are slightly annoying, necessary evils.
iPhone does well in bringing a bigger and brighter screen. It is, in many ways, a game changer to other mobile manufacturers. But it's still going to face many difficulties in the future, because, I believe, competitors will catchup soon.
Posted by: Rami Kayyali | July 2, 2007 8:09 AMAlex -
Regarding your below excerpt:
"A simple example is a filter that is currently missing in Facebook. Currently in Facebook all updates from my contacts are treated equally. Anytime anyone does anything, I get informed. This is already annoying to many users."
Are you aware of Facebook's filtering feature for News Feed, in which you can control what type of information & updates, as well as the degree & amount of that information, are fed into your News Feed? Equally, you have the ability to specify which friends you would like receive the most notifications and updates from, and like-wise regarding receiving less notifications and updates from other friends.
Perhaps I simply misunderstood your point and incorrectly read that particular paragraph. If not, you can check out these filtering options for yourself by clicking "preferences" on the top right of your home page News Feed.
Cheers, and great article.
Brandon Mullins
Posted by: Brandon Mullins | July 2, 2007 10:42 AMCo-Founder/CEO
BookMesh.com
"Underwelmed" ?
What intarweb are you reading?
Posted by: Jumango | July 2, 2007 3:45 PM@Brandon
I think the point was that the phone would learn the people that you communicated with the most instead of having to "set" filters and preferences.
Posted by: Enoch | July 2, 2007 3:49 PMyes i would second the comment about the filters in facebook. you can set filters to regulate your feeds on certain people. i, for example, do not care as much what my random friends added to facebook just for the sake of adding people when no one was on facebook are doing, so i made them a low priority. what is neat about the settings is that if nothing is going on with my top priority people, it will show go down my priority list to the next priority people. this way no matter how slow people are updating some days, i still have new things in my news feed, so i can stay constantly distracted from what i should be doing. (=
i didnt even know this option was added for a few weeks. i know facebook releases info about its updates somewhere, but i go to my account and only my account. so if something is added, i sometimes dont know right away. i found out about this option when i started job searching and thought i would increase my security. i stumbled onto it.
Posted by: keri | July 2, 2007 3:51 PM@ Rami
Re: "But it's still going to face many difficulties in the future, because, I believe, competitors will catchup soon."
Will be interesting to see. By the venerable 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, "1. It is better to be first than it is to be better." Is the Zune player better than an iPod? Who knows and who cares. iPod won the race. I predict the same will happen here.
Posted by: Brian McNitt | July 2, 2007 4:41 PMI wouldn't buy that phone for now, it could have some problems, we need to give it some time.
Posted by: WD-NYC designer | July 2, 2007 6:36 PM@Enoch -
You're absolutely correct. The theory that the device can "learn" who it should "filter" based on actual usage and communication with those people is the ideal and hopefully future implementation of social platforms.
Just wanted to make sure that Alex was aware of these manual filtering abilities currently on Facebook, as many people are unaware of their existence.
Brandon Mullins
Posted by: Brandon | July 2, 2007 7:23 PMCo-Founder/CEO
BookMesh.com
WAP phones in the US ? In 2007 ? For what ? The three websites that created a WAP interface ? Yeah, no one has had one of those since 2000. Let's do a little research before we base our articles or comments on this.
Most people that browse the web here in the US probably have a Blackberry or Treo and use their built-in browser (Opera, Blazer or the Blackberry browser).
But for those of you thinking that the Apple phone won't cause massive ripples in Nokia's sales, you are mistaken. I've played with my friend's iPhone today and it kicks my Nokia E61i's ass. Flawless look and feel, the touch sensitive display actually works really well, snappy response and some breakthrough features. However, the biggest problem for the iPhone's competitors is the developer community. Today Nokia S60 owns it (which took it from Palm). Already, you see developers begging to hack it -- even without a API (iphonedevhouse has over 200 developers coming this weekend). And you know you will eventually see the APIs. The ball is now in Nokia's court.
Posted by: slashk | July 2, 2007 8:02 PMIt's absolutely true that the mobile phone book is the most valuable property when it comes to mobile social networking. If Apple is truly interested in social networking in itself, it will have to consider how the networked phone book extends to other mobile devices- just like Safari on Windows.
Posted by: Eduardo Sciammarella | July 3, 2007 5:55 PMI agree that Apple has an opportunity to make serious headway in social networking, but as I argue on my blog (http://petersmagnusson.com) there is little (yet) to show that they have understood this.
Posted by: Peter S Magnusson | July 6, 2007 10:33 PMI don't know. Representational Physics has been around as long as tools have. What makes selecting an item from your iphone playlist any different from choosing the floor to go to in an elevator?
Sure, the iphone might have some imaginary "inertia" or other cutesy 'look and feel' addition to your gestures, but so too an elevator can have nice clicky buttons, soft silent buttons, or perhaps even a slider the represented the elevator that you could move up and down.
Nice post though - I'll be trackbacking.
Posted by: Walter Sear | July 9, 2007 3:31 PMWhat is certain is that when an MP3 player enjoys a 78 percent market share in the United States, a plethora of products and content spring up just to serve its users.
www.ipodconverter.com
Posted by: jackie113 | July 14, 2007 1:37 AM