In 2005 I was working on a commercial for Motorola. Being Motorola and all, they had prototypes of phones that had not yet been released, one of which was a rectangular phone with only one button and a touchscreen—sound familiar?
I thought it was great, and the client said that it was already popular in Japan, but according to their test marketing, the US wasn't falling for a phone with no buttons.
The product in question was a phone that was both an MP3 player, and would stream music via the internet—sound familiar?
The iPod already had a monopoly on MP3 players and it hurt to know that all this work I was doing was futile. When they decided on The B-52's song "Roam" (absurd even without the negative cell phone implications), the death knell was deafening.
So, obviously, that didn't fly, nor did their touch-phone beat Apple to the punch. And now, I, and the millions, have an iPhone and
freaking love it. I can't imagine life without it—I can update this blog, control my home or studio computer from anywhere in the world, record a song demo, read a book, shoot and edit a video—maybe I'll use it to make a call someday.
With Apple's ultra-hyped tablet being officially announced this coming Wednesday, I can already see the future of mobile communications, and it has a big Apple logo on it—and I'm glad of it.
People who complain about Apple don't
know Apple. They do things right, and right is worth paying for. And they've outdone themselves year after year.
It's not so much the technology, really, it's the heart that Apple puts into everything they do, from the simple and beautiful packaging to the products themselves to the advertising to their retail stores to the software that runs on their products—it's a shining example of a brand done right.
As with the iPhone I'm sure there have been people walking around Japan with similar touch tablets for some time now—more power to them. They will make valuable collector's items one day.
