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My review
Things I Can't Do: Use gmail properly, insert a non-distorted TextBox diagram into a Word document, drive a stick shift, attach a zip drive, explain the distribution of prime numbers, set up a directory in a Verizon cell phone.
Things I Can Do: Blog, order books on Amazon.com, drive and parallel park on the left side of the road, set up, use, and type on an iPhone.
Enough said.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 4, 2007 at 07:35 AM in Education | Permalink
Comments
Cool! Could you then please explain for the rest of the world how copy/paste works on your ne iPhone?
Posted by: Joe T at Jul 4, 2007 8:05:39 AM
Based on that first comment, I will be interested to see how many MR readers will find the iPhone awakens their inner Galbraithian, Marxian or Veblenian economist, discount the judgment of hundreds of thousands of consumers, and insist that advertisers have duped all those buyers into overpaying for a product that allegedly has perfectly good market substitutes; that the masses just have the wrong set of preferences when it comes to assessing phones because necessary feature x is missing; or that people only want this new product because it will impress their friends. Perhaps EP approaches will offer a way to save face, because I'm pretty sure having shiny objects on one's person was adaptive in the EEA.
Posted by: Kieran at Jul 4, 2007 8:31:37 AM
Do economists believe in "money burning a hole in one's pocket?"
(I didn't get a iPhone, but I did get a Santa Cruz Superlight ...)
Posted by: odograph at Jul 4, 2007 10:03:40 AM
Before the release of the iPhone there were a lot of Galbraithian, Marxist and Veblenians who provided expert commentary on why the product would be a bust. But there is a funny thing about the market - it does not listen to the experts very often. As I have used my iPhone over the last several days I think there is not a reasonable substitute for its capabilities. Indeed it is designed well - as Postrel has pointed out shiny objects are not simply a way to manipulate the consumer - but the design also goes to functionality. I resisted the Blackberrys and Treos because they did not have the basket of things I wanted - the iPhone seems to.
Steve Ballmer looks a lot like a disciple of Galbraith in his predictions about the potential success of the iPhone - so do some of the rest of the "experts" but there is this annoying thing called the knowledge of time and place and a whole lot of individuals who said stuff it to the experts. I did a series of posts on my own blog about sales which seem to have been in excess of 500,000 units in the first couple of days. You can see all four posts by going to
http://drtaxsacto.blogspot,com and then clicking back on the posts beginning with one titled More on iPhone sales.
Posted by: drtaxsacto at Jul 4, 2007 10:14:10 AM
Surely drtaxsacto you will admit that the specific success of the iPhone has a lot to do with the sub-culture primed to accept it. I think there is some economics (experimental or otherwise) on what makes a "hit." I mean, the lines formed before people experienced the product.
Now, I'm not immune. The Santa Cruz Superlight has a supporting sub-culture of its own.
Posted by: odograph at Jul 4, 2007 10:21:58 AM
You can't drive a stick? Come on...
Posted by: TO at Jul 4, 2007 11:00:55 AM
Be sure to let us loyal MRers know when you figure that distribution of prime numbers part out.
Posted by: lee at Jul 4, 2007 11:43:18 AM
Isn't it illegal to parallel park on the left side of the road? I remember learning that one must park facing the flow of traffic or risk being ticketed.
Also, I'm kind of surprised about the gmail claim. If you can blog, set up advertising, etc., gmail's a walk in the park.
As for the iPhone, I would agree that a handful of loyalists would buy a dried up turd if it had the Apple logo on it. But come on, there were tons of commercials and pre-release reviews on this thing showing at a very minimum that the interface is strikingly original in the mobile phone universe (for now). And if Apple excels in anything, it is in UI and ergonomic design.
This is probably a similar crowd to that which camped out for the Wii. I honestly don't know what drives some of these people other than perhaps extremely empty lives, but to each his/her own.
Posted by: fustercluck at Jul 4, 2007 11:57:11 AM
"Isn't it illegal to parallel park on the left side of the road?"
What about one-way roads?
Posted by: reader at Jul 4, 2007 12:05:25 PM
Umm...what about New Zealand?
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Jul 4, 2007 12:06:54 PM
Attaching a zip drive? Zip drives are dead, usb keys have made them obsolete.
Driving a stick shift? That's easily fixable if you value it isn't it.
Posted by: walter at Jul 4, 2007 12:35:32 PM
In response to odograph - sure. I think the reality of markets today is based on the concept first advanced by Chris Anderson in the Long Tail. What interests me about this particular phenom is that the sub-markets keep redefining themselves.
At one point, Apple was a sub-market. There were a group of enthusiasts (in the Amelio and Spindler period they were called Evangelistas) who said "My Apple, right or wrong." But the iPod and the iPhone have helped to redefine that sub-group. This is in part a result of self-publishing (Blogs, Podcasts and Vodcasts) and in part because of the intuitive functionality that Apple builds into its design.
The reason I have kept my office on Apple all these years is because of the critical nature of what the technology offered. We were able to do very specialized publications with lots of bells and whistles and we were able to design brochures which told our story better than any PC product could allow us to do. That same kind of functionality comes in music, video and photos (although PCs do a now reasonable job with photos). What I see happening is a mutation of the original purpose(s) into things which the designers and the original members of the sub-group had never thought of.
In the case of the iPhone I think there were two basic groups primed to purchase. They were the Apple buyers (like me who like Apple products) and the technocools - those people who need (for whatever reasons) to have cutting edge technology. In the case of the Newton both groups bought but the device was under-engineered and so it failed. In this case, based on five days use, I think Apple did it right - they engineered a set of interfaces which work quite well together.
For those of us interested in the intersection of technology and economics - the iPhone is a prime opportunity to try to understand how the market works.
Posted by: drtaxsacto at Jul 4, 2007 12:53:30 PM
drtaxsacto, read The Innovator's Dilemma? It's the other side of the Apple story. And borrowing from that, note that it was the Palm, with significantly less engineering that built market past the Newton. Anyway, I generally agree. Though as an ex-mac user (1984 through 1995) I have some disdain for "screen candy" in place of interface.
Posted by: odograph at Jul 4, 2007 12:58:44 PM
Ah, there's my culture bias.
Posted by: fustercluck at Jul 4, 2007 1:03:04 PM
That said, one thing *I* can't do (haven't tried and even the idea induces angst) is drive in a left-lane country.
In Australia, India, and the UK I was constantly on edge whenever in a taxi or bus and a turning/yielding situation was involved.
Posted by: fustercluck at Jul 4, 2007 1:08:40 PM
;-), comp-sci bias maybe. You know, I actually did suggest in an Apple forum long ago that "screen candy" was the way to go, that "screen candy ruled" for market share. That just doesn't make it good UI. It is the (by now) age old dilemma between what demos well, and what plays well in the long term.
Ah well, the other thing I learned after a dozen or so completely different GUIs is that I can just start working in any of them. We all can, as we navigate through a hundred different web-sites with similar-but-different UIs.
The fact that we can run eBay or Marginal Revolution on "first contact" is not something 1980's UI researchers really expected. That they'd be so radically different bug the heck out of them ;-)
Posted by: odograph at Jul 4, 2007 1:50:24 PM
New Zealand was a hoax perpetrated upon an unsuspecting populace with disastrous results.
Posted by: McLoving at Jul 4, 2007 1:55:21 PM
Shorter: what would you do as a computer executive (BGates or SJobs) and you found that highly functional interfaces did not look as "neat?"
Posted by: odograph at Jul 4, 2007 1:55:30 PM
I can't cook...
Posted by: zlguocius at Jul 4, 2007 3:38:25 PM
The issue with g-mail is that you need to realize that 'labels' are actually 'folders' - you just have to force them to act that way. First, create a label you want, say 'family'. Then, create a rule such that any e-mails from 'mom' will 1. be labeled as 'family' and 2. skip the in-box. Aha! This will clean up your in-box in a jiffy and let you see very quickly (much like in Outlook), which 'folders' have new e-mail you need to attend to.
Ta da.
Posted by: Alex Ambroz at Jul 4, 2007 5:29:11 PM
Odograph - I actually was thinking about disruptive technologies in my earlier post. The Innovators Dilemma is a good book!
Posted by: drtaxsacto at Jul 4, 2007 11:07:59 PM
