[IxDA Discuss] iPhone Ads

[Will Parker]

On Jun 4, 2007, at 10:37 AM, pauric wrote:

> Will, granted Apple could market mad cows to farmers,

Another one to go along with Tom Bridge's "Steve could sell  
rollerskates to velociraptors".

> a story beats a solution every time

Depends on whether the story beats the solution, and which one  
actually fits what the user wants. We Shall See.

> and  I'll accept open source is an engineering
> centric dysfunctional clusterfark.

OK. So what, in the current state of open source, is going to lead to  
a better UX story than the current mobile phone clusterfark? I'll  
stipulate for the sake of argument that the costs may be considerably  
lower, so let's focus on UX.

> The Openmoko hardware is unlocked, software is free, they'll have
> GPS etc.  Yes its being designed by german alpha geeks with hardware
> from taiwan, aside from the issues that implies, I feel confident
> that open-mobile will play large in the long term.  Just look at what
> happened with DRM on the iPod.

I could argue that open source had zero effect on DRM until one  
company had a headlock on the market, but let's please stick to the  
phone issue.

> It can be argued that UI's, Hardware & design -do not- sell product
> I'll point at ~6% of the PC market.  Cheap sells.

My current bedtime reading is Henry Petroski's "The Evolution of  
Useful Things" (ISBN 0679412263). In it, he quotes Josiah Wedgewood  
(of Wedgewood china fame) on the effect of cheap goods on innovation.

I don't have the book in front of me, but the thrust of Wedgewood's  
comment was that pottery was being sold so cheaply in his time that  
no potter could afford to put any extra care into the design or  
manufacture of his goods, so the buying public was becoming more and  
more tired of shoddy and uninspiring goods.

When someone (Wedgewood, as it happened) dared to place innovation in  
design and manufacturing methods in the lead, the public leapt upon  
the new products.

Cheap does indeed sell, until -- as The Master says -- "the bare lies  
shine through".

> In my negative viewpoint the only reason the ads are UI focused is
> that price, performance & coverage are shocking, average and poor
> respectively.  Yes the UI rocks but are you willing pay $2000 for it?

Oh, yeah. As I mentioned recently to one of the local tax-cut  
apostles, I believe in paying for what I get, as long as I get what I  
thought I was going to get.

- Will

Will Parker
wparker at ChannelingDesign.com

“I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If  
that were the case, then Microsoft would have great products.” -  
Steve Jobs