Reading this makes me think of Jobs as a Railroad baron of old. Kind of heartless, gruff, and willing to crush anyone in his way, but a guy with a vision so strong he will do anything. And it changed the world, it's hard to overstate that.
I remember seeing the iPhone unveiled and thinking "It's cool, but will people really buy such an expensive phone?". I think it was $600. That was pretty expensive at the time. I also remember thinking about how they wanted all apps to be web-based. A disaster for certain I thought. The phone market was all over the place and brand loyalty was in short supply. I'd seen compaq go from dominating PDAs and nosedive off the cliff. Motorola took their brand loyalty (remember how many people had Razrs?) and went into hiding. Time and again I'd seen phone platforms rise and fall. I was skeptical.
All I knew was one thing - I certainly wasn't going to buy one.
Years later and I now program for iOS a lot. Everyday pretty much. I'm a full blown Mac convert and I'll be honest, the iPhone was what caused it. I bought my first iPhone at version 4. Then I specifically bought my first Mac so I could use the SDK for that phone. I fell in love with the platform, in all its insane glory.
I might move to another platform one day, but I can honestly say I never imagined this is what I would be working on.
>> I'm a full blown Mac convert and I'll be honest, the iPhone was what caused it.
This will be Apple's saving grace. They're already entrenched several generations deep. For every kid getting an i-pod touch or i-pod nano today, in a few years, it's such a seamless jump to an iphone. Nothing to learn, no additional software to learn, no new interfaces to spend time getting familiar with. It's the same device, just with more functionality.
For me this is the most brilliant thing Apple has achieved. Being able to move a consumer from platform to platform with ZERO new investment on the users part? Genius.
That's exactly what Microsoft was counting on with their UI for Windows Mobile (even down to a Start menu) and why they make such a big deal about Office being available across all their platforms.
I'm sure that when the time comes, Apple will be prepared to throw away the UI and start over with whatever suits the next form factor.
> I think it was $600. That was pretty expensive at the time.
Just a few years before, people flocked to buy $599 Motorola RAZR flip phones on two years contracts. I saw the hordes lined up, myself. Next to that, the iPhone seems like a bargain
The lines for the Razor made me think the pundits who thought the iPhone was overpriced were crazy or not watching what was going on in the cell market.
Weren't the full-QWERTY Communicators within that price range? Any more interesting than that and we'd have credited to them a more full-featured OS barging into the range of PDAs - assuming we can rule out an Apple-style lateral leap.
Yeah, people forget how revolutionary it was. I bought an iPhone 3G in June 2009. I remember showing it to colleagues and friends, who were in awe about the whole experience. Their phones and smartphones looked primitive next to the iPhone.
This was around the same time the HTC Magic came out, although it was clearly a copy of the iPhone, it was a toy in comparison.
Now that Android has come a long way and even old ladies are carrying iPhones, it looks as if we had modern smartphones for ages :).
About the price - I say always pay full price. It is somewhat more than that even now (base model of 5s will cost over $1000 New Zealand). If more people treat the carrier as a dumb pipe, they might actually start doing that well to differentiate themselves.
Same here. Used to have a massive tower with Win7 and all sorts of Linux flavours booted onto it, 6 monitors and 2 laptops.
Sold it all, bought a single MBPr. Haven't looked back since. It literally took me 3 hours to become full familiar with it. Imported all my documents, installed my apps, good to go.
I remember seeing the iPhone unveiled and thinking "It's cool, but will people really buy such an expensive phone?". I think it was $600. That was pretty expensive at the time. I also remember thinking about how they wanted all apps to be web-based. A disaster for certain I thought. The phone market was all over the place and brand loyalty was in short supply. I'd seen compaq go from dominating PDAs and nosedive off the cliff. Motorola took their brand loyalty (remember how many people had Razrs?) and went into hiding. Time and again I'd seen phone platforms rise and fall. I was skeptical.
All I knew was one thing - I certainly wasn't going to buy one.
Years later and I now program for iOS a lot. Everyday pretty much. I'm a full blown Mac convert and I'll be honest, the iPhone was what caused it. I bought my first iPhone at version 4. Then I specifically bought my first Mac so I could use the SDK for that phone. I fell in love with the platform, in all its insane glory.
I might move to another platform one day, but I can honestly say I never imagined this is what I would be working on.