The saga of the Apple iPhone vs. the Palm Pre continues. (To read my first blog post on the matter, click here.) One week after Apple issued the iTunes 8.2.1 update, which blocked non-Apple smartphones (i.e. the Pre) from syncing with iTunes, Palm issued an update of its own. Among other features, the Palm webOS 1.1 re-enables iTunes synchronization. Of course.
I like Apple. It's a good company; it makes good products. Apple rose to fame for good reason - it consistently offered excellent functionality and beautiful, simple design, all for the purpose of providing the best possible user experience.
In personal computing, Apple's graphics remain unparalleled. In digital music, Apple's iPod is to MP3 players as Kleenex is to facial tissues. But in mobile communications, as Anders Bylund of The Motley Fool points out, Apple's iPhone is not the only viable smartphone anymore. The iPhone may or may not remain the best option, but it is certainly no longer the only one.
Mr. Bylund's article of yesterday reminds readers of Apple's famous "1984" Super Bowl commercial, which introduced the Macintosh computer to the world. In the ad, Apple was presented as the young, independent hero who would free the world from the reign of an Orwellian "Big Brother" IBM.
But 25 years later, as Mr. Bylund notes, Apple's recent actions seem more characteristic of "Big Brother" than of the young hero. Bylund has some intriguing speculation into why Apple might be acting this way, but I'll let you read his thoughts on your own.
My only comment is that Apple just needs to stop being so unfriendly. Stop doing things like preventing non-Apple smartphones from syncing with iTunes, and shutting down iPhone apps that use Google Voice. These actions may be within Apple's rights, but they are unbecoming to a company that once prided itself on fighting Big Brother.
So other smartphones are now competitive with the iPhone. So what? Apple knew it would happen. The proper response is not to try to stop the progress of competitors' models - progress which, by the way, attests to the excellence of Apple's products by piggybacking on iTunes and the iPhone. Rather, Apple should stop worrying about competitors and return its focus to pursuing excellence and innovation in function, design, and user experience.
That focus is what made Apple great, and that focus will enable Apple to keep pushing greatness forward. To borrow words from Satchel Paige, don't look back to see what might be gaining on you. Keep pushing forward.
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Actually, Apple just makes products that look pretty. Past that, massive marketing campaigns aside, they're nothing special.
ReplyDeleteFor example, in terms of spiffy graphical interfaces, Apple's been superseded for a couple of years now. The iPod is actually a fairly mediocre media player (the only reason that it sells so well is that it's [until now] the only one that works with iTunes--which is shady legally).
Certainly, Apple's actual computers are well-designed and built from quality components--but they don't really have any defensible sdvantages in the market besides their lock on the iTunes Music Store, and that's why they're freaking out about the Pre.
For you iPhone users out there, beware if, after Thursday 7/30/09 you receive a text containing only one square character. It's the symptom of a hack. This Forbes article has details: http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/28/hackers-iphone-apple-technology-security-hackers.html
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