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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/401116
MacDirectory 33 coLuMn APPLE AnALySIS When the iPhone launched, Steve Jobs introduced it as being three products in one: A wide-screen iPod · A phone · A breakthrough internet communicator When the Apple Watch launched, Tim Cook introduced it as being three things: A precise timepiece · A new, intimate way to communicate · A comprehensive health and fitness device. As in the Revolutionary User Interface story, the symmetry in approach to the launch is telling, but what I want to note is that the three things which the iPhone was defined as being are no longer things that it is most used for. Yes, the iPhone is still a wide-screen iPod which gets plenty of use but I don't think anyone thinks that is a defining feature. It's also a phone, but the Phone is just an app which, for me at least, is not frequently used. I communicate with my iPhone but the go-to app is iMessage or FaceTime or Skype or maybe Email or Twitter. Phone is something I use so rarely that the interface sometimes baffles me. And yes, it's an Internet appliance. Browsing is something I do quite a bit but many of the browsing jobs-to-be-done are done better by apps. News, shopping Facebook and maps are "things which were once done in a browser." So I wonder whether the tentpole product-defining anchors used to introduce the Apple Watch will be faintly amusing a few years from now. Of course, the reason iPhone outgrew its tentpoles is because of the app economy. 1.3 million apps does that to a product. When it becomes a platform a product invites collaboration on the problem of innovation. Collaborative innovation explodes the opportunity to discover new needs and uses. How, when and why people use the product changes beyond anyone's imagination. TEnTPoLES I included in the graph the various other launch volume data we have available. I also included lines showing how pre-order volumes relate to weekend values for the products where we know both. It therefore does not seem improbable that had China been available (and at the time when it will be) the iPhone launch weekend rate for the 6/6Plus combo would have been about 4 million/day. A rate consistent with the history for the product. Notes: 1. Considering that this year China distribution includes China Mobile a 30% increase from two years ago is, in my opinion, conservative [↩]