I’ve been really intrigued by the changing iPhone reactions over this week.
It all started on Tuesday with the grand announcement. This was followed by a lot of people going – “wow”.
It’s now Friday and the stories are radically different:
Why Cingular by Omar Shahine
Chiming in on the iPhone vs. Treo vs. Symbian vs. RIM vs. … by Marc Orchant
Let OS X developers at the iPhone. Please. by Merlin Mann
The Five Biggest Issues with iPhone by Paul Kedrosky
I’m not actually going to comment here on the technology or political issues, what intrigues me is the predictability of it all. Many, many technology announcement are accompanied by a “wow” and then followed by a set of negatives. Why do we do it? Why do we listen to the “wow”? Why do we expect anyone to be able to perform miracles?
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Graham Chastney 
Hi Graham. I’ve personally long since stopped expecting miracles from technology companies. Epiphanies on occasion, yes and cause for celebration of small victories quite often. But not miracles.
Apple, in particular is an interesting and unique case. I was actually just talking with Andy Abramson this morning about the like/dislike posture that longtime Mac users who have evolved beyond the rabid fanboy stage and try to eschew platform bigotries have reached. Apple is an important company. They push the envelope, raise the bar, etc. for the industry in a lot of ways. But they are every bit as capable of getting it wrong as any other tech company.
And, they are unique in having managed to build and sustain a walled garden in an industry where everyone else has accepted the fact that customers have options (something even Microsoft has been dragged kicking and screaming to understand). There’s real power in being able to be as arrogant and monomaniacal as they are. You get to pursue vision with less thought about market reaction when you hold all the strings.
If you haven’t seen Steven Colbert’s editorial on the “whatever Phone” as Andy has now dubbed it, head over to Comedy Central and have a laugh.
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Thanks for the reply Marc. There are a number of technology areas where people get really religious about the tehchnology or the company. Have you ever tried criticising Lotus Notes/Domino, you get a really good reaction then 🙂
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