I think, at least in the United Kindom, we’re still very much at that stage in the movie, the Life of Brian, where the Peoples’ Front of Judea ask “What have the Romans ever given us?”
The underlying assumption is that the Romans are rubbish. Until each of the ‘Front’ members pop-up with suggestions unhelpful to the broad argument, like the aqueduct, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, education…
That’s how I felt the other day when I was standing amongst a group of friends of friends.
“What kind of new phone should I get?” a girl asked.
I did a quick analysis in my head and said, “iPhone”. I reasoned that she’d enjoy the interface, she’d love the apps, the maps, the user-interface — and that it would really blow her Nokia-N95-bearing-mind. And it’d be a good experience for her.
For me, for tech geeks, the iPhone’s almost Fisher-Price-like lack of background processing begins to annoy pretty quickly.
“Hold on a moment, that’s a monopoly!” declared a chap next to her.
The conversational attention moved to him as he ranted at the ‘grip’ wielded by Apple and their exclusive operators.
“Right, but the features, the potential, what you can actually DO with the device, it’s brilliant,” I argued, my underling point being that the device would actually increase the girl’s quality of life, in a small yet meaningful manner.
“All I need is to be able to call and text,” said the girl.
Somewhere, a pretty little mobile industry angel popped out of existence.
“Precisely!” said the monopoly chap, “It’s a monopoly!”
“Apple needed to do a deal with the mobile operators to get them to accept and implement ‘unlimited’ mobile data,” I explained, “Plus they needed to be able to install some software/services to deliver visual voicemail at the operator level, hence the initial exclusivity.”
The argument continued.
Before somebody mentioned ‘TomTom’ and the girl picked up, “Oh, maps on my mobile would be good.”
And almost immediately — exactly as per the script of the Life of Brian, everybody listening into the conversation started listing benefits of the iPhone. (Or, benefits of an advanced mobile platform, over and above the call/text basics).
Maps.
Sending pictures easily.
Train times.
Cocktail instructions. (Another chap promptly got out his iPhone, downloaded a cocktail video app and proceeded to follow the instructions to make a Caprina).
Here’s a video of that Life of Brian scene I found on YouTube:
To end the conversation, before we got onto more interesting discussion themes, I gave an illustration to how I’d used my mobile that day.
1. Alarm clock in the morning
2. Check train times
3. Find Thorntons chocolate shop in the High Street
4. See where my friend was, currently, with Google Latitude and rendezvous
5. Deal with some technical support perspective from a colleague via Facebook
6. Use the National Rail Enquiries iPhone app (priced at a steep £4.99) to ‘Find my next train home’ — a genius, genius offer.
7. Looked up and ordered a book on Amazon
8. Watched three episodes of The Wire
9. Listened to 60 minutes of Terry Pratchett’s Making Money audiobook
10. Took a photo and blogged about the fact that you can get an Entire Wedding Day Package for £1,799 at a venue in Billericay (walked by the poster).
At the end of my list, the chap didn’t say much for a few moments, before affirming that he, “Only wants to call and text on his mobile.”
Which is perfectly fine.
But the girl in question — and a few other on-lookers were sold. And they’ll be heading out to buy iPhones shortly.
The Great Unwashed — the mobile masses — are slowly realising that they don’t just need to restricted themselves to calling and texting.
There’s actually a lot more you can do with your handset…
“Apple needed to do a deal with the mobile operators to get them to accept and implement ‘unlimited’ mobile dataâ€
Except that many carriers never actually did that… The best I could get from Rogers was 6GB for $30 CAD/month — certainly better than the measly 12MB I was getting for $10/month previously, but still an International embarrassment!
I thought Apple's biggest innovation with the iPhone was getting additional post-sales revenue from the carriers 😛
Aye, post-sales revenue was a biggie too. But goodness me Canada… what is going on in Canada?
6gb is pretty good. But $30 is rather steep, isn't it? Still, at least you *can* get 'unlimited' data now. That 12mb offering was a total joke!
To conclude they should have witnessed the “CRACK SUICIDE SQUAD” , they came, they annoyed is with their ring tones, and the Threw Motorola Mobiles at us….
Oh!
You can only do that with an iPhone?
Well blow me down – I thought I'd been doing all of that for years with Symbian and WinMo phones. Ok the interface sux, but the features, functionality and freedom have been there for ages.
And all that bull about iPhone/AT&T introducing unlimited data? I've had an unlimited data plan from AT&T (initially Cingular) for 5 years, for $20/month.
Sheesh. And let's not forget that the iPhone is the “most advanced phone ont he planet”.
:-/
yep, read the list of things Ewan listed and thought “that girl's N95 can do all of those things”.
I have to admit it is a *bit* easier to do using the iPhone, but not that much, and without the cost of a handset in the “package” it will be even cheaper.
Yeah, it was excruciating, from a geek perspective. I didn't even bother explaining, 'but listen, your N95 can do this, let me show you,' because the experience is so bad for normobs. :
My carrier, Fido (now a Rogers property) has a $12 “unlimited browsing” option, but only through their antiquated WAP gateway. You might not even be able to use a third-party browser, and be stuck instead with their portal — which probably hasn't been updated since 2001…
At least no one tried to tell her that the camera was any good ont he iPhone … 😉
“Apple needed to do a deal with the mobile operators to get them to accept and implement ‘unlimited’ mobile dataâ€
Except that many carriers never actually did that… The best I could get from Rogers was 6GB for $30 CAD/month — certainly better than the measly 12MB I was getting for $10/month previously, but still an International embarrassment!
I thought Apple's biggest innovation with the iPhone was getting additional post-sales revenue from the carriers 😛
Aye, post-sales revenue was a biggie too. But goodness me Canada… what is going on in Canada?
6gb is pretty good. But $30 is rather steep, isn't it? Still, at least you *can* get 'unlimited' data now. That 12mb offering was a total joke!
To conclude they should have witnessed the “CRACK SUICIDE SQUAD” , they came, they annoyed is with their ring tones, and the Threw Motorola Mobiles at us….
Oh!
You can only do that with an iPhone?
Well blow me down – I thought I'd been doing all of that for years with Symbian and WinMo phones. Ok the interface sux, but the features, functionality and freedom have been there for ages.
And all that bull about iPhone/AT&T introducing unlimited data? I've had an unlimited data plan from AT&T (initially Cingular) for 5 years, for $20/month.
Sheesh. And let's not forget that the iPhone is the “most advanced phone ont he planet”.
:-/
yep, read the list of things Ewan listed and thought “that girl's N95 can do all of those things”.
I have to admit it is a *bit* easier to do using the iPhone, but not that much, and without the cost of a handset in the “package” it will be even cheaper.
Yeah, it was excruciating, from a geek perspective. I didn't even bother explaining, 'but listen, your N95 can do this, let me show you,' because the experience is so bad for normobs. :
My carrier, Fido (now a Rogers property) has a $12 “unlimited browsing” option, but only through their antiquated WAP gateway. You might not even be able to use a third-party browser, and be stuck instead with their portal — which probably hasn't been updated since 2001…
At least no one tried to tell her that the camera was any good ont he iPhone … 😉