Jeff Wright wrote:
With 65,000 apps available for the iPhone and less than a dozen for
the competitors it is going to be very hard to catch up. The
competitors are still making some of the mistakes Apple made in its
early days and they will need to fix those first. Right now Apple
appears to be its own worst enemy with a nutty approval process at its
App Store. If they don't fix that soon there will be developer leakage
to the other platforms. I bet Apple will fix it soon.
Recent history is littered with those who were there "first" in their
particular field.
Palm, Sony, IBM, Apple, Xerox, etc. Being first isn't first is no guarantee
of being the last man standing. All of these companies were innovative, all
had a dominant lock on their market and all were soon surpassed by
competitors with better products. In fact, if recent history is our guide,
being first with a successful, standard setting product is a high order of
probability that you will be the first to drop as the market matures.
This discussion is pretty much pure speculation but:
The iPhone wasn't just first, it was about a generation and a half
ahead. Given Apple's history of innovation it's more likely that they
will innovate again than drop from popularity.
That said, I'm happy with a regular iPod and the simplest of phones. I
can ooo and aaah over the latest iGadgets and Palms without really
wanting one.
I also don't have chunks of time, like a commute, where I could use one.
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