Open email to Steve Jobs. iPhone - 1985 all over again?

10 days ago, I sent an email to Steve Jobs, I'm not daft enough to believe he will have received it, but I feel passionate about the mistake I believe Apple is making for a second time. I've copied it below.

Discuss!



Dear Steve,

I am writing to offer feedback re the magical iPhone.

I bought an iPhone ten days ago. I believe it is arguably the greatest product Apple have ever produced. The interface is sublime. For the first time a device exists that actually manages to make all of it's function equally as easy, and fun, to access and use. People have complained about the tech spec of the phone, and to be fair it is poor, but they're missing the point. Its about the interface and the effect that has in enabling the functions for the average user.

All the above aside, today I returned my iPhone and got a refund.

The reason. It's cost of ownership is making me feel like a mug. I can comfortably afford it, but I don't enjoy being made to feel like a mug.

Apple, I can see, are about to repeat history and lose the advantage once again. Apples apparent greed will , once again, result in leading a revolution in interface design, whilst presiding over a dwindling market share.

Other manufacturers will produce poor copies of the iPhone. Touch interfaces that are not as good....but good enough. Note the new LG Viewty.

Phones that are nowhere near as elegant or intuitive to use as the iPhone, but are good enough.

Competitors will borrow ideas close enough to the iPhone to provide the 18-25 market, the market that has made the iPhone 'cool', with phones that are 'iPhone'ish' enough, and crucially, are affordable, with tariffs that are around 35% lower yet with FAR more included talktime.

I understand Apple's reasons for not wanting to give away the phone. I agree wholeheartedly. People are always willing to pay a lot more for a desirable product, but don't overestimate the iPhone Steve, it's not so much better than some of the new phones it's inspiring, that people will be willing to be made to look stupid. No one likes to be made to look an idiot.

Apple charges for the phone.
In addition it takes the fee from the network that would usually subsidise a free handset.
In addition it takes an additional iPhone 'royalty' which actually increases the cost of the tariff.

Apple makes it's customers look dumb when they buy an iPhone. Apple make us look like mugs.

I believe Apple could charge for the phone AND take the usual phone subsidy fee and make a huge amount of profit on each phone. The iPhone would retain it's cachet, Apples earns lots of money, and it's customers don't feel so dumb.

You'd also sell a whole lot more.

I don't expect you to take any notice of this message of course. I'm just one guy. But I can see Apple repeating the Mac/Windows mistake all over again. Someone has to say something!

All the very best.

A long time admirer and Apple user.

Mike Free

Well put Marvin. I think *if* Apple did read my message, and all they took from it was 'Apple is greedy..(whine, whine, whine)*, then yes, of course they'll ignore it & just enjoy another ride in the Learjet.

But that was not my point. Perhaps I made it poorly.

Apple have made three industry changing products in their history. The Mac , the iPod & the iPhone. All three have been industry changing because of their user interface. For the Mac is was introducing the concept of windows and mice. For the iPod, was it's the scroll wheel interface. For the iPhone, it's the 'magical' touchscreen interface.

Apple blew it's chance of making the Mac the world's default computer interface because it refused to license it's OS. Microsoft said thank you very much and built a OS that was nowhere near as good, but crucially, was good enough. The rest is history.

The above theme is now being repeated with the iPhone.

In both cases, the public were/are being asked to pay a very high premium for a better (I'm only talking interface) product.

Interestingly, the iPod is the only product that Apple has ever made whereby it's cost of ownership is about the same as that of it's competition. There's no 'penalty' for owning an iPod, and it benefits from, unquestionably, the easiest user interface. This has resulted in a home run for Apple.

So my point to Apple is simply this. Remove the penalty or be happy with a 1-3% market share.

At present they are heading for 1-3%, and I'm not talking about in the first year, I mean full stop!.

The industry will (and is already starting to) learn from Apple's innovation and mimic it. Their products won't need to be as good as an iPhone because they'll have no ownership penalties, they just need to be good enough. The Viewty is a good example of this.

If you were to offer people the Viewty v the iPhone, on the same contract, with the same choice of networks (ie any), I would bet that from my experience of people's reaction to actually handling the Phone, 90% would go for the iPhone despite the Viewty's far superior technical spec.

I have a lad who works for me, he's 20, on a decent wage with very high disposable income (lives at home). He LOVES the iPhone, but refused to live with the penalties that come with it, ie O2 with a poor yet expensive contract, so he went a got a free Viewty. He knows it's not as good, but he's delighted because it's good enough.

Enough said.

You're talking about 'spec features' again. Apple has never built any product that has led on 'spec features', everyone always get's hung up on tech features and are missing the point. It's about the interface!

Mac - Mac OS
iPod - Scrollwheel + iTunes
iPhone - Multi-Touch

The interface is so important to the iPhone because 'most' people just want an mp3 player to play their music collection. You can keep adding all the features you want, the point is most people aren't that bothered. They just want to play their music collection & the iPod makes that job easier than any competitor because of it's interface. The iPhone won out because it's does it's core job better than any other product (thanks to it's interface) and ( re it's core job) there are no disadvantages to having one.
People who wanted a radio, bought a competitors product. Which kinda shows you what % of people are bothered by the radio thing.

I'm really not so sure he has. I can't help suspecting that the success of the iPod kinda took Steve by surprise in a way. It was not a core product to him when he launched it. As a result, he didn't bother adding any financial penalties to it in the way he always does when he believes he has a 'revolutionary' product. To be honest, I think it's success took Steve initially by surprise.

With the iPhone, Steve is behaving exactly as he did with the original Mac. He utterly believes he has a revolutionary, industry changing product. I happen to think he's right. Unfortunately though, with the Mac, this belief led him to overestimate, by a very large margin, the value of his revolutionary product to the market.

I think he's doing exactly the same with the iPhone.

LOL, no, but I wish I had four years ago!!! I just want Apple to win with iPhone like they have with iPod.

It's the total cost that bothers me, not the cost of the unit, which i actually think is very reasonable, but you're right, the network restriction thing is the REAL sales killer. As for the guys shouting about what a huge success it is, time will tell, but it ain't the case in Europe I can tell you right now. US has, in European terms, a very backward mobile telecommunications market, both in terms of it's phones & it's network. The iPhone simply does not impress as much over here as I'm sure it does in the states. Early indications are the sales are slow, very slow.

But I'm sure Steve planned that, right?