Re: [tlug] About to break down and get an iPhone

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Edward Middleton writes:
 > Martin Killmann wrote:

 > > The achievement of the iPhone is that it did introduce "modern
 > > smartphones" to many Japanese customers who never new that cell phones
 > > could display normal web pages, do GPS, or load custom applications.
 > 
 > My impression was exactly the opposite, i.e. it got a lukewarm
 > response[2] because it didn't have all the features of existing phones
 > (like digital tv) and was little more then an incremental improvement on
 > those it did have.

Those aren't "opposites", those are different market segments.  Those
"existing phones" are for geeks who don't eat because they're saving
up for more widgets, and executives with more money than brains.  What
Apple is so good at is convincing "the rest of us" that they[1] want,
nay *need*, these products.  And like the Colonel, "they do UI right".

Footnotes: 
[1]  I was a grad student in Silicon Valley in January 1984, and used
my special student coupon from Apple to acquire Macintosh #1635, which
I gave to my mother (a life member of "the rest of us").  I first
acquired a Mac for personal use a millennium later, finally joining
the ordinary people after a life of geekhood.