3 Reasons Why the iPhone Is Already A Huge Success

So now that we know the iPhone is going to be officially released on June 29th we can all sit back and watch how Apple is yet again going to force the market to adapt vs. Apple adapting to the market. Although the iPhone is far from perfect, the implications of at least three technological advances are going to force just about every cell phone manufacturer to completely reevaluate the high end handset market. Since Apple will be effectively raising the bar for what will now be considered “top-of-the-line” handsets the likes of Nokia, Motorola, and LG are going to have to step up to the plate or face an uncertain future. Ultimately the impact will be a positive one for everyone, even those who don’t buy an iPhone since other manufacturers will begin to adopt similar types of technology into their own phones as demand for those features increases.

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Three technological advances make the iPhone especially unique as Apple readies this cell phone handset for it’s June 29th debut:

1. Using Only A Touch Screen Interface
In a way this is really two advances combined into one basic concept. By using a larger than normal (soon to be normal….) LCD display combined with a touch screen Apple has created something that is both simple and yet seems to imply something much more complex. The general consensus among most analysts regarding this new design is that it simply *must* be expensive and that’s why the iPhone costs upwards of $499 for even the basic model. I beg to differ, this innovation is actually a cost-reduction move by Apple. The fewer moving parts, the fewer problems with wear and tear plus it also significantly lowers your manufacturing costs. As an added bonus you now have the means to create an interface that can adapt to changing conditions as Apple has already touted in their advertising. Ultimately this concept of an integrated single point of interaction with the device will likely become a standard for devices of this type from here on out.

2. Delivering A Full Featured OS
Although this is not an Apple first, the idea of using a pared down version of OSX on the iPhone is yet another technological innovation that other cell phone handset manufacturers could find themselves imitating in the near future. Like the AppleTV the iPhone runs a simplified version of the full OSX product, which allows for cross-platform development without having to drastically rewrite core components of the application. Many will point to the Windows Mobile product as being the same thing but that’s not completely true. Microsoft has a slightly different take on how they implement “Windows” on mobile devices which involves significantly more work vs. the platform Apple appears to be working towards. If my gut feelings are correct, Apple will soon be showing the world how you can write a dashboard widget for OSX that will also work on the AppleTV and the iPhone with virtually no modification. This concept will have a huge impact on the overall mobile device market since it will demonstrate that this type of single-platform concept is actually possible with the technology available today.

3. Style
Sometimes it’s not about the technology but what you do with it that matters. I know this is a bit subjective but it can’t be denied that Apple always seems to have that strange ability to take an idea that by itself is ordinary and typical (such as a cell phone or a mp3 player) and turn it into some swanky design that we simply can’t get enough of. In the case of the iPod that’s exactly what happened. They produced a device that did exactly the same thing as numerous other devices but did it with style. On the iPhone Apple has squeezed in OSX style zooms and touch screen magic to what is really the same basic hardware as other smartphones. But this is exactly what the market is looking for! People want something that is not just functional but also a work of art that says something about the owner and they are not afraid to pay top dollar for it. I agree that in the business market Microsoft (Windows Mobile) and RIM (Blackberry) are likely going to be top dogs for a while but in this horse race my money is on the new horse with the flashy moves.

Ultimately all of the three above will serve to drive the cell phone market to adopt the same standard as the iPhone. Many handset manufacturers will initially produce me-to knock-offs of the iPhone, something that has already begun. In the long run the “iPhone effect” will be to move the market along the evolutionary path of wide-spread adoption of the iPhone’s features in the same way the iPod pushed other mp3 players to imitate that device.

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