The pace of iPhone development
John Gruber has a post that contains this astute observation on the pace of Apple's iPhone development in comparison to the iPod:
"In short, if you want to know what to expect from the iPhone product platform going forward, consider the iPod. Given how successful the iPod has been, I can’t see any reason why Apple shouldn’t follow a similar timeline with the iPhone.
The original iPod shipped in October 2001. The second generation model came the next summer, and the only signficant difference was that it switched from a moving click wheel to a touch-sensitive one. Most notably, Apple didn’t expand to a second form factor until January 2004 with the iPod Mini. Photo support in the fall of 2004, video support in 2005. One new thing at a time.
In one year with the iPhone, we’re getting three: 3G, GPS, and a full-fledged third-party SDK. The iTunes Music Store didn’t appear until April 2003, and it didn’t support Windows users until October 2003, two full years after the debut of the original iPod. So with the App Store coming just one year in, if anything, the iPhone platform is moving faster than the iPod did.
So, patience. "
He brings up good points and I think he's fundamentally right. However, there is one crucial difference between the iPhone and the iPod: the iPod was in a league of its own when it launched, with little to no competition. The iPhone is playing in an intensely competitive market where Apple cannot afford to move at the same pace it has in the past.
posted by Jeff @ 6/24/2008 09:52:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Another critical difference is that the software platform and tools for the iPod really sucked. If you haven't had to deal with that environment, you probably can't even imagine how primitive and clunky the tools were.
By comparison, Xcode and the iPhone OS are a dream to develop with, and you'll see that the pace of innovation on the software side is going to be *much faster* for the iPhone family than it ever was for the iPod.
Similarly, the iPhone applications are isolated enough from the underlying hardware that you can even run them on Mac OS X (with the appropriate libraries), so any hardware tweaks they decide to do will be no big deal, either.
Very good points, Mark. Thanks for the comment. Moving forward, I wonder if Apple is going to focus on making hardware improvements that bring the basic platform and capabilities forward evolutionarily (i.e. thinner, lighter, more battery life, etc.)- or if they're going to "re-invent" the platform every few years to keep several steps ahead of the competition.
I originally thought they would take the re-invention route, but it seems like they're going more the steady platform route. I'm sure we'll see a little of both.
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