The iPhone Killer

It seems every day there is talk of "the iPhone killer" coming soon.  Today's entry in the iPhone Killer sweepstakes is the Verizon Voyager. The Voyager, made by LG, sells for $299 and has a touch screen and a flip open keyboard and tries to copy the iPhone's UI.  Here's a review (conclusion: not an iPhone Killer), and another (conclusion: best Verizon phone).  There's also talk that the RIM 9000 series, coming next year (pic?), is out to kill the iPhone.  And of course, there was the much rumored Google Phone that then failed to live up to the hype.  The supposed iPhone killer list goes on:  there's a linux contender, handset maker HTC's entry, samsung's entry, Nokia's got one too.  But nobody seems to be asking the right questions - if the iPhone can be "killed" how can it be done? 

It seems strange to me that there even needs to be an "iPhone Killer".  I mean, my guesstimate based on Apple's latest iPhone sales numbers is that there have been about 2 to 2.5 million iPhones sold to date (based on Apple's released numbers and a guess factoring in approximate daily sales and the European release of the iPhone).  That's a drop in the bucket compared to the total number of cell phones sold (38 million in the U.S. last quarter alone) since the iPhone was released.  Even if you only compare the iPhone to other high end "smart" phones, the iPhone has 27% of the smart phone market but its not yet in a dominant position based on sales.  So why would you need to  have an iPhone killer?  two words: mind share.  The iPhone has simply come in and transformed the consumer mind share about what a smart phone should be.

Now, without disclosing details regarding my "day job", I get to spend a lot of time playing with many models of smart phones - including some of the "iPhone Killers" mentioned above, some that are not even available in the U.S., and a few that are not available anywhere yet.  Some are very cool.  But when you compare them to the iPhone in my pocket, they pretty much all suck.  Most are like small bricks - they are heavy, boxy and clunky - nothing with the sleek lines and minimalist feel of the iPhone.  Even if they have a nice design, they are generally running an operating system that just kills the user experience - Linux, Symbian, RIM or Microsoft (Microsoft is the worst of the bunch.  It takes several "clicks" to get even the most basic things done. Don't even get me started about RIM - an OS only a network administrator could love).

That is the first, most basic, reason there will not be an iPhone Killer anytime soon.  The other Mobile OS and UI designs are just not ready to compete.  Apple's OS X base is several light years ahead of everything else and the IPhone "noun" UI is just perfect for the touch interface.  Of course, the iPhone has its flaws too - it desperately needs voice dialing and/or a better way for hands free use on the phone side, the iPod "scrubber" needs a better UI, it needs "disc mode" like all the other iPods have - just to mention a few of my pet peeves.  But here's the thing - all of those things can be fixed with a software update when Apple works them out or by 3rd party developers when they get the SDK in February 2008.   If you have a crappy OS, then no amount of tinkering is going to be able to fix that.

That's the beauty of the OS X base - Apple has its own experience on the desktop side to draw from as well as all of its 3rd party developers.  The iPhone is just an extension of the Mac ecosystem - a reservoir that Symbian or RIM can't tap into.  Microsoft can't, to a large extent, make this claim either, given its specialized - and sometimes incompatible - flavor of windows for smart phones and PDAs.  Linux, well, is Linux - theoretically I suppose its part of the "Linux ecosystem" - if one even exists - but Linux is just not a player yet as there are very few Linux smart phones right now.  Despite my dismissal of Android, Google has the right idea to go after the mobile OS market instead of releasing an actual phone because that's the key advantage the iPhone has.

The other major advantage Apple has is that it is "Apple, the brand" and all that entails.   If Motorola introduced a phone with the exact same feature set as the iPhone a year ago, they would not have gotten the same amount and quality of attention that Apple did.  I don't see how the maker of any "iPhone Killer" can get around that anytime soon.

The final major advantage is the iPod.  There's no doubt that Apple is a monopoly in the digital music business and is not going to be caught there anytime soon.  Apple's video business is also up and coming.  Until someone can kills iTunes, they are probably not going to "kill" the iPhone.  That's why I have to laugh every time a supposed "iPhone killer" comes up with a phone tied to some minor "music store" or to the cell carriers ridiculously expensive "media store".  Please stop (and I am looking at you Verizon) the madness - iTunes has won.

Everything else is just features - screen size, touch screen, wifi, bluetooth, the webkit based safari web browser (and don't underestimate the iPhone's advantage here even though other manufactures can and do use webkit.  The web browsing experience on the iPhone is better that everything, and I mean everything, else right now).  The iPhone killers keep focusing on features and fail to realize that to "kill" the iPhone, features are the least important thing to concentrate on.  To paraphrase James Carville - its the OS stupid.  Until somebody can come up with an OS that rivals OS X, there will not be an iPhone killer anytime soon.