iPhone ODM Frenzy

By Tsahi Levent-Levi

Categories: Clients

June 12th, 2008

iPhone 3G is not out. As I have predicted, it doesn’t include any video conferencing technology. Instead of starting to analyze and explain what this new version is going to do to the market, I’d like to step back and look at what the first iPhone already did. Simply put, the iPhone has placed the ODMs and the handset vendors in a UI-frenzy.The iPhone came out as an innovative handset. Apple boldly decided not to try and compete in the same feature-list game of the other handsets and instead of going directly to 3G, went to a 2G phone but came up with two unique features: multi-touch screen and great web browsing. The end result? They won the market.

In all of my last engagements with customers, there is one thing that is evident: everyone today is trying to focus on the user interface. Features are not important. Stability is not important. Interoperability is not important. UI is.

The only problem I see here is that most are trying to copy what Apple already did - develop a 3D UI, add a multi-touch interface to it and viola - you have a phone. I am sorry to say, but the iPhone requires two hands to operate. You can’t just dial without looking at the screen. There’s no way to quickly skim through the menus to start writing an SMS message. While this is a good solution for some, I wouldn’t be happy with it. I want a handset that has buttons and menus on it - buttons that I can press without looking at the phone and menus that I can operate without having to think about. With my current mid-range Nokia 6120 handset, I can do these things. It is not the best of handsets and I have a lot of criticism about it, but one good thing I can say is that it is a working horse for me. So please - don’t develop an iPhone for me - I want a REAL phone.

The iPhone ODM Frenzy effect in action

As a friend of mine recently told me:

“In the 20^th century, when SMS 1^st came out in South Africa, I’d go to tech parties and IT journalists were staggering around, cell phone in one hand, a drink in the other, competing with one another to see who could accurately type out SMS’ without looking at the screen - this after having downed LOTS of Jack Daniels shooters! Try doing that on your iPhone!”

Handset vendors need to think about the users first. They tend to forget about them. Most handsets have complex user interfaces. I hope that this iPhone frenzy won’t make them do complex visual menus where the flexibility of the fingers is a requirement from the user. A multi-touch 3D UI is NOT important. The user experience is.