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iPhonyWhy Apple's new cell phone isn't really revolutionary.

By Tim Wu
Posted Friday, June 29, 2007, at 11:54 AM ET
Steve Jobs with the Apple iPhone Click image to expand.

 When the word iPhone appears in Apple press releases, the word revolutionary is rarely far behind. But what counts as revolutionary? In Apple's case, the bar is high. Since the 1970s, the firm has changed both the personal computer and music industries. Will the iPhone fundamentally alter the structure of the wireless world as well?

Not yet. The iPhone's style and user interface are pathbreaking, and (as the iPod proved) aesthetics do matter. But the iPhone is—so far—not a product that will turn any industry inside out. Seen as a phone, the iPhone is striking. Seen as a small computer, it's limited, and compromised by the existing business models of the wireless industry. Saying the iPhone is a pointless gadget is a bit too strong. But it isn't yet a revolutionary device.

It is in some ways astonishing that AT&T and Apple are partners at all. AT&T is the oldest of the old school—the most ancient major high-tech firm in the United States, founded in 1878. Unfazed by spending the last 23 years in suspended animation (after the great breakup of 1984), AT&T is back to its classic business model: own the largest networks and everything on them. Apple, meanwhile, is the original hippie computer company, a child of the 1970s, not the 1870s. At least in its origins, Apple is an ideological foe of IBM and AT&T. (Remember that 1984 ad?) Considering that these firms were born on the opposite sides of the tech Kulturkampf, the iPhone cannot help but be a little strange.

Most obviously, the iPhone is locked, as is de rigueur in the wireless world. It will work only with one carrier, AT&T. Judged by the standards of a personal computer or electronics, that's odd: Imagine buying a Dell that worked only with Comcast Internet access or a VCR that worked only with NBC. Despite the fact that the iPhone costs $500 or so, it cannot yet be brought over to T-Mobile or Verizon or Sprint. AT&T sees this as a feature, not a bug, as every new iPhone customer must commit to a two-year, $1,400 to $2,400 contract.

If Apple wanted to be "revolutionary," it would sell an unlocked version of the iPhone that, like a computer, you could bring to the carrier of your choice. An even more radical device would be the "X Phone"—a phone on permanent roam that chose whatever network was providing the best service. Imagine, for example, using your iPhone to talk on Sprint because it had the best voice coverage in Alaska, while at the same time using Verizon's 3G network for Internet access. Of course, getting that phone to market would be difficult, and Apple hasn't tried.

The iPhone does have Wi-Fi access, which is a giant step forward. Wi-Fi has been kept off American cell phones for years, for reasons that have never passed the smell test ("for security reasons" or "to protect battery life"). The real reason the cell providers have kept Wi-Fi out? To keep consumers eating up minutes on the carriers' networks and to prevent people from grabbing ringtones and other media from their computers, which the industry calls "revenue leakage."

But while the iPhone has Wi-Fi, it doesn't let you do one very obvious thing with its Wi-Fi connection: make phone calls. In an ideal world, you might want to use AT&T when on the road and have your phone switch automatically to Skype or Vonage when at home, since they're much cheaper and can have better voice quality. But Apple hasn't yet hinted at this possibility. AT&T, meanwhile, probably prefers to cheer on Verizon's ongoing efforts to sue Vonage out of existence.

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Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School and co-author of Who Controls the Internet?
Photograph of Steve Jobs with the iPhone by Tony Avelar/AFP/Getty Images.
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Remarks from the Fray:

Forget about book smarts. The fact is this: there have few people in recent memory who publicly distorted reality as much as George Bush did, and got away with it for so long with so many people. But he's the President - he has some built-in credibility. How Steve Jobs does it is beyond me. All I can do is assume that it's a result of sheer genius.

It's not that he's only got ordinary people fooled, those who are still learning how to check their voicemail or getting their first cell phone with a camera. Every article about the iPhone goes on about its "revolutionary" design and the fact that it has finally "put it all together". Even this Slate article about the reasons "why Apple's new cell phone isn't really revolutionary" just focuses on things the iPhone doesn't have (like being unlocked, running third-party apps, etc.). Well that's like saying the first car wasn't revolutionary because it couldn't go as fast as a horse.

The main issue is much bigger. How has Jobs convinced almost every writer in America that those cool iPhone features are new and unique? Or that it's the most complete package ever provided in a cellphone? Almost no article worshipping, sorry, reviewing the iPhone mentions its competitors. And those that do, make the mentions so dismissive it's absurd. To those writers I can only say: that's not just negligent, that's pretty much a violation of your public trust as journalists.

What new things does the iPhone have? An innovative interface design. But you can download a copy of the iPhone interface for my phone here. I tried a demo - it's not bad, but there are others I like more. A longer battery life - I can't argue with that, though I'd like to see someone verify it. A multi-point touch screen? Fascinating, but almost every commercial I've seen shows the user only using one thumb. How much is this going to be used? The iPhone is a little thinner than my phone, but that's because it lacks a slide-out keyboard, which I love.

Are these things really enough to make it revolutionary? Please, please someone explain this madness to me. What is so exceptional here except the advertising? Stories about the iPhone belong not in tech magazines, but in marketing textbooks.

--pyroslice

(To reply, click here.)

The article confuses the concept of "unlocking" phones with the totally different concept of network incompatibility. Sure, if the phone was unlocked you could theoretically use it on T-Mobile's GSM network, but unlocking wouldn't help you at all if you wanted to use it with Verizon and Sprint which both use completely different cellular technologies. And the article misses the obvious fact that some of the features probably wouldn't on T-Mobile's network even if the phone was unlocked unless t-Mobile made specific changes to allow it.

--adamc387

(To reply, click here.)

I'm not sure why he's so surprised that the iPhone is "closed platform". All of Apple's products are on a "closed platform". You have to use their operating system (unless you really know what you're doing) on the iMac. You can't take you're iTunes purchases to any other portable player than an iPod.

--raymc5

(To reply, click here.)

I would presume the flaw of being closed is a result of the iPhone being hostage to a phone carrier and their "business models." It's pure speculation on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised if Apple considered the random-access voicemail as the key *phone* feature of the iPhone. This feature requires the carrier to implement a totally new voicemail protocol on their end. That is, to spend real money. I would wager that Apple went shopping for a carrier who would be willing to do this and that AT&T was willing to make the investment in exchange for being the exclusive carrier. Maybe that's the best deal Apple got from any carrier approached about this, so they took it.

It is reasonable to assume that the iPhone might, we can hope, serve as a Trojan horse, that after a bit of time with AT&T, the clout will shift to Apple, and they can negotiate better terms, and more freedom for consumers. This is more or less what happened with music. One can argue the value of Apple's DRM free music offerings, but does anyone think the music industry would, in a million years, have done this on their own? It was only when enough clout shifted to Apple that Apple could make such a move.

I certainly hope the Trojan horse case plays out because of my many pet peeves, the top of my list is companies who adopt a "business model" that seeks to handcuff consumers, to extort money out of them that a freer market would never allow. Ringtones are a perfect example, where carriers bring *nothing* of real value to the table, but simply extract money out of you by prohibiting you from doing something otherwise easy and free unless you pay the extortion fee. I'm all for rewarding genuine effort, bringing value to the market, but pox on anyone who makes money by limiting service, value, and innovation.

--kolmogorov

(To reply, click here.)

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