Instinct Vs. Intuition: iPhone competition not getting it right
With Apple’s iPhone raising the bar for the entire industry, wireless phone makers have been scrambling to catch up over the past year. We’ve encountered numerous announcements of touch screen phones, and of handsets with built-in accelerometers, for instance.
Businessweek’s Stephen Wildsrom has a detailed analysis of what iPhone competitors are doing, and why it’s not enough. Imitating the iPhone’s hardware capabilities–something all the competitors are obsessed about–will not be enough to compete with the iPhone, he says.
Such efforts largely miss the point. Certainly, the beautiful hardware design adds tremendously to the emotional appeal of Apple products. But it’s the software that makes the iPhone, the Mac, and the iPod stand out from the pack of wannabes.
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve found people who’ve never been keen on technology, and hardly ever access the Net borrow my iPhone to quickly look something up, happily tapping away, and zooming in and out of pages as if they had done it all their lives.
Stephen’s comparison between iPhone’s Safari and Instinct’s browser really drives the point home.
One nagging little question, though. Stephen says:
TomTom has announced a program that will turn an iPhone into a full-featured GPS navigation unit.
That can’t be right. I believe there’s a clause somewhere in the Apple SDK’s license agreement that specifically bars developers from making applications that use the built-in GPS chip to provide navigation services. In other words, you can’t build a Tom Tom. I’m sure there will be a full-fledged GPS app for the iPhone one of these days, but it looks like Apple wants to do it on its own.
Comments
At this price, I wish I had ordered a couple more to use as gifts. Saved me several times already, even if you make wrong turn it will alter the directions to set you onto your destination again. When “lost” just select “HOME” and you get directions to take you there.
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