Apple’s iPhone 2.0 Shows Folly of Early Adapters

Apple has just announced that its 3G iPhone will cost less than the first model. The 8-gigabyte version will go for $199, the 16GB for $299. The current version hit the market at $599, and its price has been reduced to $399. The new version is also three times faster in downloading content. It also has a GPS function. Those who jumped in early got exactly what early adapters always get, less for more.

Quite why a person needs the latest and greatest gadget is hard to say. It has less to do with the device itself and its ability to solve a given problem and more to do with the purchaser’s personality. The one-upmanship of “My tech is hotter than your tech” is about the only way it makes any sense. There could also be a cultural dimension to this phenomenon; there was a time not too long ago when “new” meant “worse” -- e.g., furniture, houses, literature, philosophy. An antique still is valued in part for its age. But there are few antiques in the world of electrical gadgets.

In the case of the iPhone, Apple came out with a killer device because Apple paid attention to how people will use it. However, when it came time to design and build the thing, the company was working in the dark. Would it really sell, or was Mr. Jobs’ enterprise making a white elephant? The first edition of any item is inherently the victim of originality. The first generation answers the question “can we make it?” The following versions answer the question “how can we make it better?”

The new iPhones arrive in 22 countries on July 11. Those with the old version may feel a sense of vindication, but their phone doesn’t do what the new one can. Nicole Martin writing in Britain’s The Telegraph, stated, “The new 3G device is better suited to our domestic market, while the highly competitive pricing brings the iPhone nicely in line with other high-end smartphones. On the surface, little has changed, but look closer and you will see that with the launch of iPhone 2.0 software to go with the new 3G device, the iPhone has become less a mobile communications handset and more a pocket computer.”

For those who bought the iPhone when first it came out, there was a bit of pioneering spirit. They waited outside stores for hours to get their hands on the thing. And now they have learned something any historian could have told them; pioneers have a rather high attrition rate. As a general rule, it is far better to be on the trailing edge of technology as the cutting edge causes all the wounds.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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