1. How iPhone Changed the World
(….in only 4 years)
Dr. Mazlan Abbas
MIMOS Berhad
mazlan.abbas@mimos.my @mazlan_abbas Dr. Mazlan Abbas
mazlan@gmail.com
2. Changed the world of cell phone
handsets
• When Apple shipped the iPhone in 2007, its
radical design and incredible popularity caused
not a ripple, but a tidal wave of change
throughout the mobile phone handset industry.
• One reporter covering Spain’s Mobile World
Congress in 2009 wrote that “the name on
everyone’s lips was Apple, despite the Californian
company playing no part in the show…. it’s little
wonder that many of the devices and services
unveiled in Barcelona owe more than a little to
the trail blazed by the iPhone.”
• Specifically, the iPhone prompted handset makers
to abandon physical keyboards in favor of all-
screen input and make thinner phones with much
better screens capable of multi-touch input.
3. Changed the world of software
distribution
• A casual observer might be forgiven for believing that
Apple invented the App Store, or even cell phone apps.
But cell phone app stores and apps had been around for
years before Apple showed up.
• But before the iPhone, installing phone apps was
relatively complicated and problematic. You had to find a
good store online, download the app to a desktop
computer and follow the unique and often complicated
directions for installation to the phone, which happened
through the sync process. Each app maker had to be paid
using PayPal or credit card. Uninstalling apps was rarely
straightforward.
• The iPhone App Store made all this obsolete. Apple
iPhone forced users to set up an iTunes account with
current credit card and password. To get software, users
just find the app in the App Store, press “Install,” enter a
password and watch the icon status bar for evidence that
the install was complete.
• The iPhone radically improved the processing for
discovering, installing, paying for and uninstalling
software. The process was so seamless and easy that it
forced Apple-style App Stores on smart phone
competitors and even desktop-software makers like
Microsoft.
4. Mainstreamed “Jailbreaking”
• Apple’s granting of national carrier
monopolies in the first couple of
years, as well as strong control and
censorship of apps, legitimized the
practice of jailbreaking — the opening
up of an iOS device to remove
limitations imposed by Apple.
• Users jailbreak their iPhones to use
them with non-approved carriers, install
non-approved software and to enable
capabilities that locked phones can’t do.
• The iPhone’s popularity and long list of
limitations made “jailbreaking” a
household word, and the practice of
jailbreaking widespread and
accepted, even among novice users.
5. Unified music and phones
• Everybody had been talking about
integrating music player functionality
into phones for years, but it didn’t catch
on among the majority of smart phone
users until the iPhone.
• Apple even made an iTunes mobile
application for other handset makers
like Motorola to pre-install on phones.
But most people didn’t bother.
• After the iPhone, music on phones
became standard for most people.
6. Made the world safe for software
keyboards
• Before the iPhone, the idea of using an on-screen
keyboard on a phone or tablet seemed unimaginable.
The biggest initial complaint with the iPhone itself was
about the screen-based keyboard.
• Rather than giving users what they were screaming
for, which was an add-on, peripheral or third-party range
of physical keyboards, Apple deliberately made sure they
were unavailable. If you wanted to use an iPhone, you
had to use an on-screen keyboard.
• Apple dragged the user community kicking and
screaming into the future of keyboards. After a couple of
years, everybody got used to the idea.
• When Apple shipped the iPad, with its much bigger
version, it seemed like a luxury.
• And ten years from now, when most computing is done
with an on-screen touch keyboard, historians will
remember that the iPhone made it possible by forcing
the user community to overcome their resistance to the
idea of an on-screen keyboard.
7. Addicted the world to motion and
orientation sensors
• Apple’s accelerometer in the original iPhone was something of an exotic
novelty to many users.
• The current model has accelerometer, gyroscope and compass, which
thousands of app designers rely on to create really amazing effects.
• Some apps, like games, can use these sensors to create all kinds of illusions
and innovative effects. Others, like Instapaper, use them for simple input (to
scroll text).
• Thanks to the iPhone, these sensors are now simply expected by both
developers and users.
8. Killed the stylus as a mainstream
input device
• It’s hard to imagine now, but before
the iPhone, most smart phones has
little pens for writing and pushing
on-screen buttons.
• They were clunky, inelegant and
easy to lose. And they still exist.
• But after the iPhone’s elegant
touch screen, styli on phones have
been relegated to the periphery.
9. Opened the door for PC-to-Mac
Switchers
• The PC-Mac wars have been raging since 1984. People
tend to choose sides and stick with them. Apple, which
had one-digit desktop PC market share for most of its
history, has always sought ways to get users to switch
to Macintosh. Apple launched a famous TV ad
campaign staring John Hodgman as “PC” and Justin
Long as “Mac” with the explicit message that PC users
should switch to Mac.
• In the past five years, Apple has in fact made enormous
gains in market share, thanks mainly to the iPod and
the iPhone. These devices served as a kind of “gateway
drug” for PC users to discover the larger world of Apple
products.
• The vast majority of both iPod and iPhone users were
and are Windows users. These devices gradually
introduce PC users to Apple’s way of doing things. They
get people into Apple stores. The constant iTunes
updates bring people to the Apple web site.
Eventually, some PC users make the switch, but not
after being softened by one of Apple’s mobile devices.
10. Shattered the myth that Japanese
consumers only buy Japanese phones
• The fourth largest handset market in
the world is gadget-crazy Japan. Before
the iPhone, it was common knowledge
that only Japanese companies could
succeed in that market. Nokia spent a
fortune trying to succeed in Japan, only
to reach the 2 percent market share
mark before essentially giving up and
going away.
• But by 2009, just a year and a half after
Nokia left in defeat, Apple had acquired
an astonishing 72 percent of Japan’s
smart phone market. It turns out
Japanese consumers will buy foreign
phones — if they’re cool enough.
11. All but killed the mobile gaming
market
• Before the iPhone App Store came along, mobile
gaming meant dedicated pocket gaming systems
from companies like Nintendo and Sony.
• Now, the mobile games market is rising to new
heights, and most of the growth is thanks to the
iPhone. The stand-alone systems are no longer
growing, as gamers and developers increasingly
gravitate to the iPhone, and to a lesser extent, the
Android platform. Some in the industry even
speculate that dedicated handheld gaming systems
are on their way out.
• When Nokia made a play for a handset that
combined cell phone functionality with mobile
gaming in their 2003 N-Gage gadget, a few experts
thought the convergence of phone and gaming had
arrived. They were wrong. The phone was
buggy, over-priced, clunky and ultimately rejected by
users.
• It wasn’t until the iPhone that cell phone gaming
really took off.
12. Accidentally brought the world’s attention
to the plight of Chinese factory workers
• A recurring problem of abuse and suicides at some Foxconn factories
where iPhones are manufactured has made the horrible conditions at
many Chinese factories common knowledge.
• While the iPhone factors are far safer and more humane than most, the
idea that the warm-and-fuzzy iPhone you carry in your pocket may have
been made by a worker driven to suicide has made the issue very real for
millions of people, and has driven improvements in conditions in
throughout China.
13. Launched the Touch Revolution
• Computer scientists and user
interface researchers have
been working on touch
computing for decades. And a
decade from now, most
computing will no doubt
happen on touch screens.
• It was the iPhone that brought
the touch screen into
mainstream acceptance and
use.
14. The Apple iPhone may be the most influential consumer
gadget ever, changing the way phones work, changing the
way people see the world and changing human culture.
Not bad for just four years…..
