You can keep the silk purse, I'll take the donkey

There's a difference between a rant and a tantrum. Ewan McLeod of SMS Text News says he's writing a diatribe about, and shunning, Nokia but he's actually stamping his feet and tossing all his toys out of the cot because his big sister got a shinier newer knickknack. One quote from the argument says everything about his persecuted mentality -

"There’s a raft of issues with iPhone, I know. Keyboard typing? I wonder. Non-replaceable battery? Strange. Greasy finger prints all over the screen? Heh. The ‘issues’ not withstanding, the device works nicely. NON mobile phone users can understand it and use it."

Huh? What country is this guy living in? I'm living in Ireland and can only think of one relative who is a NON mobile phone user - an 80 year old aunt. And I can guarantee you she's no more likely to grok an Apple iPhone than she is to rewrite the Linux kernel. In fact, what percentage of non mobile phone users do you know who'd ever want to do anything other than make and a receive a call anyway?

Truth be told this kind of flawed argument highlights a generation gap between those who grew up with electronics all around them and those who didn't. My nephew is a regular (read: non geek) teenager who loves playing rugby as much as with his Nintendo Wii. Yet he changes his mobile nearly every year with no loyalty to any particular brand (it's all about fashion, not UIs). He's gone from Sony Ericsson to Nokia to Samsung in the last few years. And I've never once heard him grumble about the user interface on any phone. Why? Because his generation have a DIY mentality when it comes to electronics - they've been showing their parents for years how to set the VCR, program the microwave and add contacts to their mobile address books. They don't need to be spoon fed or instructed to RTFM. They just do what kids are good at - push all the buttons and see what happens.

My first phone was an Ericsson (pre Sony), then I had two Nokias and now I'm using a Sony Ericsson P1i. Sure it took me a while to get my head around the touchscreen UI having been institutionalized by the Series 60s interface for a few years. All of about two days I'd say. Of course my advantage was that Bernie deliberately withheld the manual when loaning it to me so I just had to push all the buttons and see what happened. It works for teenagers and it works for me.

From all the demos I've seen (and I've seen alot) Apple's iPhone UI looks incredibly sexy but is the equivalent of a doting parent, a hand holding paranoid that steps you through 40% of what you need to do on a mobile but makes it difficult for you to, er, experiment, with the other 60%. Apple is clearly a first time parent, and doesn't want it's kids to grow up.

Nokia and SonyEricsson on the other hand have been through it all before and treat their customers as intelligent adults by giving them the freedom to 'access all areas'. They may fall down the stairs or burn a finger in the fire but such accidents are a catalyst to maturity. And independence.

Apple has basically pulled off that wonderful trick of making a sow's ear look like a silk purse. While Nokia et al still struggle to present their race horses as anything other than donkeys. But you can keep the pig (with lipstick), I'll take the donkey.

Technorati Tags: iphone, nokia, n95, apple

Comments

[Chris Byrne]

Indeed. A classic example of "do you think everyone else thinks like you do". It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who think yes when they see that question. As you know there are people who would rather cut off their arm than hand back their old 6110. So Ewan needs to familiarise himself with the term "fit for purpose".

[John Collison]

Granted, the iPhone is limiting in a lot of ways (Web 2.0 SDK anyone?) but sleek/good/intuitive UI isn't synonymous with limiting. Look at Mac OS X. It's excellently designed, and a delight to use. Everything's slick and intuitive and where I expect it to be. I never have to look up the help. Is it limiting? Not at all.

To compare the phones, take the example of surfing the web at home. On my Nokia e61 it took me a while to discover I had to create a "profile" for our home network. I could then assign settings to this profile (static IP, DNS), save it. Then when I go to surf the web I can choose which profile I want to surf on.

On the iPhone, it asks me for the relevant details and remembers they relate to my home wifi network. It then jumps onto it when available, or uses EDGE otherwise.

Both have the exact same functionality of 100% of what I want to do. But the well-designed UI makes it happy and painless.

[David H Dennis]

I think you have to use iPhone to truly appreciate it. I've used every single feature of my iPhone, gone into its darkest corners, and I haven't done that with any other phone that I've owned. Its design and interface really makes the phone a fun thing, it feels almost like a living creature that responds to your commands.

The keyboard isn't as easy to use as a T-Mobile Sidekick's, but it is much easier to use than a regular phone keypad. Call it a compromise, well worth taking for that lovely screen. I've typed a lot of emails on it and it works quite well for me. Not nearly as well as my computer's keyboard, but I can tap away at it faster than I thought I'd been able to, and I've only had the device a week.

Try it before you knock it. There's a very good reason for that 95% customer satisfaction rating you may have heard.

D

[Bernie Goldbach]

Here are the show-stoppers I still have with the iPhone:

1. No easy software add-ons. I have become addicted to one-button sharing with software like Zonetag on Series 60 Nokia phones. If you believe the social web extends into your pocket and purses, you need to be able to interact with that network in as simple a fashion as possible. The Apple iPhone UI does not factor that kind of meaningful social interaction in its feature set.

2. No removeable battery. This is not just a convenience factor for someone who flattens batteries during long business days. If you cannot pull out the battery, you have no hope of drying the phone after a toilet dunk or a Guinness splash. I am prone to both, as are several of my ham-fisted friends. I do not have the budget to replace a high-priced phone out of my own pocket. That's what happens, unless you have a special relationship with your insurance company. Standard phone insurance packets do not cover damage from wet events.

Fair play to Apple for earning its high satisfaction ratings. But I sincerely doubt an iPhone launch in Europe is going to dent Nokia's march to 40% market share globally. And that means there are more than 900m phone users who will continue quietly appreciating the donkeys of phones that they own.

[James Corbett]

Great comments all, thanks for the feedback.

In addition to Bernie's reason, the demos I've seen and all that I've read in general Martin Varsavsky made two posts to his blog which capture the essence of how I know the iPhone won't appeal to me -

(1) http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/general/harry-potter-and-the-iphone.html

"As a lean forward device the iPhone is simply bad (and I say this as an Apple fan, owner of at least 12 iPods over the last 6 years and a MacBook from which I am blogging this post). So what´s wrong with the iPhone? The problem is that the person who is missing when using an iPhone is You."

Martin goes on to explain that the iPhone is firmly at the 'consumer' end of the prosumer consumer spectrum. Me? I want a prosumer phone.

(2)http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/internet-technology/my-iphone-was-stolen-and-i-ain%c2%b4t-getting-another-one.html

"So let me explain, Jesús, my experience with the iPhone. I was just as enthused when I started to use the iPhone, but within a month I had already gone back to the old combo of the Blackberry and a Nokia that I’ve been using for the past few years."

Again Martin goes on to list in great detail the reasons why the iPhone is a terribly poor prosumer device.

Those reasons are a slam dunk as regards convincing me I don't want one. But of course, depending on what your needs are, your mileage may vary.