Ever since the iPhone launched some years ago and ended up being, by most measures, a big success, I feel the tech press has been getting increasingly mean. And I don’t like it one bit. These days not a day goes by without someone reporting of an “iPhone-killer” device emerging.
What’s with all the negativity? Is Steve Jobs such a polarizing personality that all the hatred surfaced just because of him?
Alas, no. It turns out the iPhone is not the only thing other devices are out to kill, at least according to the press. Google for any even remotely popular mobile device + “killer” and you’ll end up with a depressing amount of articles. From the remarkable 2.5 million “iPad killer” items to half a million “iPhone killer” articles and pages to the tens of thousands of “Nexus One killer” items to thousands of rants about a “Droid killer”, it seems the industry is in a flat-out war. From Blackberries to Nokias, it’s kill this and kill that.
And it’s not just the press either. It’s the individuals also – so-called Apple fanboys who are seemingly blind to all criticism directed at Apple products have been joined by similar extremism from proponents of other platforms and manufacturers. As a result, it’s getting increasingly difficult to have a civilized, objective conversation about something as simple as mobile phones – that does not bode well when you think about the need for having such conversations about topics of far bigger significance.
One problem with this is that business is not, contrary to the popular analogue, war. The technology press shouldn’t be out there going from one “killer” device to another without really having even elementary understanding of the product positioning and other basics. For example, the upcoming Nokia N8 has been called the company’s “iPhone killer” in many, many publications. Except a quick glance at the portfolio strategy and pricing will reveal the devices are targeted at very different segments. The iPhone is meticulously positioned at the very top of the smartphone range (and priced accordingly), something where Nokia has explicitly said it will have MeeGo devices – on the other hand Symbian, which N8 is running, is about “democratizing the smartphone”. Second, the pricing? The SRP of the N8 is roughly half of the iPhone 3GS’s. They are hardly vying for the same user base – which is not to say individuals wouldn’t perhaps pit the two against each other and decide to get one or the other, but in general the N8 is not positioned as the “iPhone killer” the vast majority of the press sees it to be.
The iPhone does not need to be killed. It simply hasn’t deserved it – it or Apple hasn’t committed any mortal sins against anyone. Very few devices deserve to be “killed” and most of the time, the market takes care of their early demise just fine by refusing the adopt the monstrosities. If and when a clearly superior devices come out, the older models will be eased out, simple as that. And with most modern equipment designed to self-destruct soon after the warranty expires, fast rotation of the mobile devices is, unfortunately, guaranteed for the time being.
But unfortunately it’s not just about the killing either; the “killer” devices are just a symptom of a common lack of basic analysis and fact-checking which seems to be too much to expect from the press these days. That is a loss to all of us, and will lead us down a path even more dangerous than ignorance – one of misinformation accepted as truth.
