On October 4th, after months of speculation, Apple finally introduces the iPhone 5. The kommentariat are ecstatic and approvingly list the new smartphone’s strongest points: Twice the processor speed; seven times the graphics oomph; a new camera with an Apple-designed lens, 8 megapixels and improved image processing; the power of the new iOS 5; iCloud integration and synchronization with all your iDevices; a new smart antenna; Siri, the innovative intelligent assistant. And, courageously resisting the temptation of capricious cosmetic changes, the iPhone 5 stays with Jony Ive’s elegant, timeless design that was unveiled only last year.
The preternaturally modest Apple execs cringe at the gushing praise, but what can they do? It’s their cross to bear.
That’s what we expected. Now let’s consider the reality: Same phone, same features, same design, but it’s now called 4S instead of 5. This changes everything. The pundits are indignant: The iPhone 4S is a lame, evolutionary product; management’s presentation (video here) is flat, uninspiring. This dog won’t sell. Apple has lost its mojo.
(Regarding the “flat” presentation, Apple execs knew Steve Jobs was just a few breaths away from his last, but they got on stage and delivered anyway. When news of Steve’s demise came out the following day, many critics, such as blogger Robert Scobble, had the good grace to apologize to Cook & Co. for railing about their subdued performance.)
Despite these lamentations, strong pre-order numbers start circulating (more than 1 million on day one), followed by the first batch of reviews. Apple 2.0’s Philip Elmer-DeWitte obligingly provides a neat compendium of these first impressions, which range from “fair and balanced” to unabashedly enthusiastic.
The doubters begin to change their tune. In a Business Insider post on the very day of the announcement, Henry Blodget had dismissively concluded:
“So, bottom line, it seems reasonable to think that announcing the “iPhone 4S” instead of the “iPhone 5″ will hurt Apple’s sales over the next year, especially with Android phones improving all the time.”
And, to buttress his point, he quoted the following “statistic”:
“… in our initial survey, 45% of iPhone 4 owners say they will NOT upgrade.”
Lovely. The militantly anal seekers of meaningful data will inquire about the survey methodology, sample composition, size… And one wonders if the “survey” summary could just as meaningfully be written as:
“… 55% of iPhone 4 owners say they WILL DEFINITELY upgrade.”
Twenty-four hours later, Dear Henry could no longer contain his true feelings:
“After the change in the calendar rollout schedule from June to October and all the iPhone 5 hype, I was expecting the company to announce something bigger. And a phone that looks and feels just the same as the (admittedly awesome) iPhone 4 wasn’t what I was expecting.
But that said…
I cannot WAIT to buy a 4S!”
Some thoughts come to mind.
For the past few months, regions of the blogosphere had become a gigantic echo chamber for iPhone 5 rumors ranging from the bizarre (a new ‘‘teardrop” design) to saner extrapolations such as the use of the iPad’s A5 processor or a better camera. This is how Internet streetwalkers roll. Sites need strong pageview numbers so they can attract advertising revenue. And once this noise starts, the volume increases as the herd competes for traffic.
Should we ask if Apple could have done a better job pre-positioning its product? The vestal Apple jealously guards its product secrets, triggering an escalade of fantasies among inquisitive barbarians — what the French call l’hommage du vice à la vertu, vice paying tribute to virtue: Keeping everything under wraps might protect revenue, preserve flexibility, and increase mystique but the price Apple pays for totally clamming up is that they lose control of the public discourse about unannounced products. Alternating between lauding and trashing fantasy Apple products is fun and sometimes profitable, but it can create unreasonable expectations and, as we just saw, it exposes the company to the perception of a letdown.
It’s tempting to think that the unrealistic expectations could be avoided if Apple would simply tell one or two trusted friends, discreetly, to euthanize the particularly noxious rumors. Some companies buy such friends: a frequently quoted “observer” gets a discreet consulting agreement and dutifully parrots the party line in media interviews. I know: years ago, when I joined the Board of a tech company, I saw one such arrangement at work with a professional ‘‘quote machine”. And I was reminded of the episode when, watching last week’s 4S intro video, I recognized the individual in the audience. He still ‘‘comments’’, but definitely not on Apple’s behalf.
This type of complicity is a slippery slope: You know when you start but you might not be able to stop and it always ends up creating a smell as, over time, the media figure things out. In addition, such practice carries with it serious potential for insider trading.
Paying customers, on the other hand, march to a different drummer. We saw it last year with the Antennagate scandal: Lots of noise and dire predictions, but no visible effect on the product. The iPhone 4 logged record sales quarter after quarter, reaching 20.3 million units for the last reported period. Likewise, the 4S “snafu” isn’t likely to have an effect on Apple’s numbers.
As for the iPhone 5, errr 4S, I don’t have a second impression yet. I’m particularly curious to see how my gut will react to Siri — and how it/she will react to my French accent. I should know in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, Apple 2.0, again. offers a selection of Web sites dedicated to Siri’s humorous utterances. I can’t help but admire how Apple uses clever humor to ‘‘humanize’’ Siri and, in so doing, defuses negative feelings arising from the inevitable imperfections of an ‘‘intelligent’’ computer system.
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6 Comments
Along with a mix of contempt and pity for “Internet streetwalkers,” let me suggest the tragedy that their hubris led them to believe that their small-mindedness was better thought out than Apple’s business plans. For while Android providers continue to tout zillions of variations, choice to have the exact mix of ingredients in your phone, Apple recognizes that game is not one in which its talents will be realized.
So rather than offering a model with this year’s tail fins, Apple gave some thought, as they seemingly ALWAYS do, to where they can have a clearly-differentiated offering. The existing design does that just fine. (Did I see in Wired that the frame is forged on machines normally meant for prototypes?) But a 1GHz+ CPU, 1GB of RAM, NFC and so many other features that the Blodgets of the world would casually throw in to beef up the checklists: no those only serve to emphasize that some Android is better than the iPhone.
iCloud has something resembling an analog in Google’s current offering, and was widely discussed. While Apple obviously thought it was necessary to move strongly into services, and Apple WAS playing catchup, they cleverly branded it and priced it and featured it so that it’s NOT directly comparable.
Siri, on the other hand, was little-mentioned, and everybody seems to have been caught off guard that Apple put as much energy into it as they have. Even its beta form, the buzz about it has raced through the inter tubes due to its unexpectedly strong connection between the robotic software, and people’s emotional responses.
Emotional connections are not exactly expected as the strength of streetwalkers, so I guess you could say Apple totally blindsided them. Even as the only difference in Apple’s thrust was the absence of Jobs from the stage.
Jean-Louis,
the course of events you so well describe and explain above resonates with what I had recently read in Guy Kawasaki’s blog “What I learned from Steve Jobs” (http://goo.gl/jcvxf).
The first “lesson” Guy learned is the following:
“Experts are clueless – Experts—journalists, analysts, consultants, bankers, and gurus can’t “do” so they “advise.” They can tell you what is wrong with your product, but they cannot make a great one. They can tell you how to sell something, but they cannot sell it themselves. They can tell you how to create great teams, but they only manage a secretary. For example, the experts told us that the two biggest shortcomings of Macintosh in the mid 1980s was the lack of a daisy-wheel printer driver and Lotus 1-2-3; another advice gem from the experts was to buy Compaq. Hear what experts say, but don’t always listen to them.”
QED. Once again, Steve knew well what he was talking about.
@ Walt French and @ Francesco Lacapra: I shouldn’t say these “experts” are a bunch of eunuchs gathered around the caliph’s bed and kvetching in high-pitched voices: Your “doing it” wrong. But they can’t “do it”…
Jean-Louis
Your response to @ Walt French and @ Francesco Lacapra made me laugh aloud, and brought back memories.
It is early 1979, in our Sunnyvale store, I was demoing something on the Apple ][ to a group of about 16 people standing behind me...
From the back of the crowd a loud voice says: 'Your “doing it” wrong.'...
Then, this guy comes up and gives the best damn Apple ][ demo I'd ever seen.
...That was my first encounter with Steve Jobs!
Why don’t you just set Siri to French instead of struggling with accent issues?
N’est Pas?
straightforward installation and repairs, too as a
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