Verizon vs iPhone
Continuing our attempts to understand the ramp up of the iPhone (good concept, poor product) we came across this today over at wikonomics.
It’s a post by Gautum Lamba about the Droid – Verizon/Motorala’s competitor to the iPhone which is being publicised through a list of the iPhone’s shortcomings on the droid website. Apple fans however have done it better (see the pic).
The phenomenal pleasefixtheiphone website has a couple of thousand ideas for a better iphone which is a) gratifying I am sure if you are an iphone designer and b) surely indicative of the phone’s shortcomings.
The site is not actually an Apple site – it is a fan site which makes it all the more remarkable.
Anyway enough said. We are a little closer to describing the iPhone phenomenon if not to understanding it. These comments represent, in previous ideas about product and customer service, something of a condemnation – many thousands of people saying many thousands of things are not good enough. Yet they sit in a perfumed garden of Apple adoration.
The final point is that iPhone has grown through the kinds of skewed dynamics typical of web information markets. It is remarkable to see that popularity persisting through fan efforts rather than the iPhone marketing department.
