Apple's 1984?

Back in 2007, I camped out for the original iPhone to buy the newfangled device. At $599 on a 2-year contract, it was no small price to pay—especially as a 15-year-old kid that had accrued several months of paychecks as an elementary school janitor. Having used a Mac my whole life, I knew Apple. I knew their strategy. I knew their philosophy. I knew their motive. Even through the bankruptcy scares in '98 and '01, I knew that Apple would stop at no bounds to create something brilliant and life-changing. I had bona fide faith that Apple was truly going to disrupt the ground in the utterly stagnent cellular market. Apple's iPod had become not only synonymous but prolific in the MP3 player industry, and though the rest of the market thought it was crazy for a computer manufacturer to enter the mobile market, I had faith. I knew that Apple was going to create something big.

Nearly 5 years later, we've seen the living testament of this. Nokia, Motorola, and Palm—companies who first mocked the iPhone—have gone through the wreckage of this disruptive force. Some have made it. Others have not. Even if you hate Apple with every drop of blood in your veins, you cannot deny the fact that the iPhone changed everything. For the better. Android, Windows Phone, webOS, and MeeGo are all "me too" responses to iPhone OS.

"But Quinn, Android was being developed before iPhone was announced, so you're dumb."

Neat story. Guess what? The first demo of Android was comically bad. The iPhone kicked Google (as well as other manufacturers) in the pants to get them to develop a faster and more streamlined mobile OS to create a more diversified and competitive industry.

The problem with iOS (for me) is simple. Since I've been using it since the early days, I am so dreadfully sick of it. iOS has hardly changed since day 1. Sure, many improvements and features have been added; however, the operations and nuances (such as the springboard) have remained ultimately unchanged.

Jon Rettinger of TechnoBuffalo posted an article today that conveys a similar message as this article. It isn't that iOS sucks—in my mind it still reigns king in the mobile OS war; however, it has become so incredibly dry and lacks character.

Jon switched to Windows Phone whereas I have switched to Android. Despite our variance in change, I think the underlying message remains the same. Google and Microsoft caught up. Fast. It was less than a year ago that I had my first Samsung Focus running Windows Phone 7.0. It was a nice thought, but lacked some crucial (basic) features such as multitasking and cut and paste. It was not a practical switch—especially not from an iPhone 4 user. It was less than 9 months ago that I had my HTC Inspire running Android 2.2. It was a decent phone spec-wise, but I was constantly lambasted by unstable, unscaleable applications running atop a lackluster OS.

Things have changed. Big time. Android is no longer unstable. Windows Phone is no longer limited in functionality. The mobile OSes have come full circle, and really accelerated into the realm where Apple has stayed relatively stagnant. In countless ways, both WP7 and Android have superseded iOS in many areas. Android gives you the ability to upload or view any file to any Web site, email client, or application. There is an actual, tangible filesystem that the user can choose to take advantage of, or leave it be if things need to be simple. Windows Phone has beautiful transitions and integration with Exchange and other Microsoft services that are crucial to many.

I'm not saying that iOS sucks. I'm saying that iOS's time as the dominant platform is quickly slipping, and that it is fallacious to assume it will remain king if Apple doesn't make some seriously big additions in coming updates. Because guess what Apple, you're not only one innovating. This might be your 1984, if you stand still.