Let’s face it-we no longer look at our mobile phones the same way after the iPhone launched. Sure, there were many previous attempts to mesh phones with the Internet. What makes the iPhone different is that it is the first phone to mesh Internet and phone integration so smoothly.
Wrapped in a sleek design one can only expect from Apple, the iPhone is not just a pretty device. It embodied three key hardware design and communication system elements that can teach the rest of the tech industry a thing or two about technology strategies.
While the iPhone might soon be replaced by phones that are run on Google’s Android operating system, Apple’s lasting legacy will revolve around how it revolutionized telephony and mobile computing with aps, touch technology, and cloud computing.
Apps
Traditional computing involved the following steps: buy software physically, install it on your computer, run it. Simple enough, right? Well, there are a lot of issues with each step. First, in the Age of the Internet, more and more users are not happy with physically picking up software. They’d rather download it.
Apple gave consumers what they want with easy to download light software called apps. As will be explained below, these software packages may look light but they pack quite a bit of functionality. Moreover, Apple released the specifications for app building to its developer base.
As a result, a flood of custom-developed apps hit the market. ‘There is an app for that’ instantly became a meme as more and more consumers got on the app bandwagon. If it weren’t for apps, the iPhone might have easily become a failed project like many previous attempts at Internet phones. Apps are light so they don’t take too much storage space but they pack lots of power.
Apps teach the rest of the tech industry that add-on features must be light, developer-friendly, and yet powerful. In other words, developers should focus on building a platform that can accommodate third-party add-ons The more add-ons, the more useful the platform.
Touch
One of the reasons the Blackberry was so popular was because it was email-friendly. By allowing users to tap out emails on their iPhone screens, Apple stole Blackberry’s thunder, and it’s all downhill from there for Blackberry and its manufacturer, Research in Motion.
Besides tapping out emails, the iPhone’s touch interface allows users to do a wide variety of things on the iPhone. From playing games to playing music to manipulating fields, the only limit to the things you can do with a touchpad is your imagination. The tech industry can learn to focus on wide input versatility from iPhone’s touch capabilities. The more ways users can input into your platform, the more attractive your device will be to consumers.
Cloud computing
While apps may be small, they do a lot of their computing in the cloud. This allows the iPhone to be light and highly portable-it saves on storage space unlike traditional computing. This means users can store many apps on their phones while preserving the apps’ power.