The iPhone in 2007:

The iPhone was undoubtedly the big news ticket item of 2007 for Apple. No other consumer electronics device, save for maybe the Nintendo Wii, garnered as much attention from the media in the plethora of articles and news stories that built up its hype before release, and continue to this very day.

Even we here at Homotron are not immune to the the almost black-hole pull the iPhone has on all journalists. It's fun to write about, just as it is fun to use.

But what brought about the iPhone? Rumours of an Apple branded phone had been circulating for many years; they were a favourite among a myriad of prediction articles before every Steve Jobs keynote. So why now? Why 2007?

Ignoring the aborted horror that was the Motorola ROKR E1, a failed product of both Motorola and Apple that no one felt Apple had put any real effort into, the iPhone represents the final materialisation of all those years of rumours.

The reason for the iPhone's final arrival on the world stage this past year, in my opinion, are threefold:

1. The technology finally arrived to make a revolutionary product.
2. The mobile phone market was starting to cut into iPod sales.
3. The market was ripe for change.

#1 is fairly obvious, given the emphasis Apple has placed on the groundbreaking way in which a user interacts with the iPhone: entirely through a multi-touch sensitive screen.There is only one button on the front face, and it brings you back to your home screen. Everything else is done through interacting with the screen directly with gestures and multiple touches.

In order to make this new interface a reality, Apple had to wait until the technology for multi-touch displays (displays that allow tracking of more than one point at the same time, e.g. two fingers moving on the screen) became mature and cheap enough to integrate into a mobile phone device. Single touch displays had been around for a long time, but Apple needed that extra bit of interactivity that only a multi-touch display could deliver in order to realise that little bit of Apple magic that makes using the iPhone such a joy.

And that's where reasons #2 and #3 come in: the market (i.e. mobile phone users) was ready for change. Users were ready for something new. A mobile phone that didn't make them hate to use it. A mobile phone where you wanted to use its features. A mobile phone made for people.

In his recent article, Fred Vogelstein of Wired wrote:

For decades, wireless carriers have treated manufacturers like serfs, using access to their networks as leverage to dictate what phones will get made, how much they will cost, and what features will be available on them. Handsets were viewed largely as cheap, disposable lures, massively subsidized to snare subscribers and lock them into using the carriers' proprietary services. But the iPhone upsets that balance of power. Carriers are learning that the right phone — even a pricey one — can win customers and bring in revenue. Now, in the pursuit of an Apple-like contract, every manufacturer is racing to create a phone that consumers will love, instead of one that the carriers approve of.

"A phone that customers will love" is the key.

The trend had started where more and more manufacturers were integrating music functionality into their mobile phones, allowing people to carry their music libraries without having to carry a separate music player like the iPod. From Sony's music phones to Motorola's popular RAZR and SLVR lines, every mobile phone manufacturer was getting into the game.

This would not do. You can almost see the planning meetings, where Apple was watching this trend with a bit of trepidation, seeing a future where the mobile phone swallowed the portable music player market and made it irrelevant. After all, why carry a music player if your phone is a music player?

So Apple had to get into the the mobile phone game. In order to continue their dominance as a consumer electronics giant in the face of this change, they had to make their own competing device.

Fortunately for Apple, the other manufacturers made Apple's entry into the market relatively easy. They had made phones that were awkward to use. Phones with features buried under screens and screens of menus; they had bad button placements and bad designs. Most users weren't even aware of many features their phone had simply because they were so hard to get to and use.

It was this combination of bad phones in the market with a need for Apple to get into the mobile phone game, plus the arrival of relatively cheap multi-touch displays that led to what we now know as the iPhone.

And what a change it's made. It breaks a lot of the rules of the mobile phone game: it doesn't have a physical keyboard; it's expensive; Apple requires a revenue sharing deal with AT&T for every iPhone subscriber (something completely unheard of before: a manufacturer demanding revenue from subscribers that use its phone? Not until the iPhone); it's activated from the comfort of the user's home, away from mobile carrier salespeople with their plan selling pressure tactics.

All of these factors and more combined to make the iPhone the revolutionary device that it has become. It is a device aimed squarely at making the user, and ultimately the manufacturer, the key parts of the mobile phone equation, wresting control away from the carrier.

Half a year after a release, other manufacturers are desperate to copy the iPhone's success. From the LG Voyager, to Motorola's ROKR E8, to Samsung's Giorgio Armani Phone, they all have a more than passing resemblance to the now iconic iPhone.

Practically anything else that I can say about the iPhone has been covered ad naseum by my fellow tech news writers, so I'll leave you with this: the iPhone has become the face of Apple in 2007, and its continued evolution will be integral to Apple's success in 2008, as we'll delve into on Monday in our predictions article.

The iPod in 2007:

The iPod line in 2007 was shaken up by two big changes: the new iPod Nano and the introduction of the iPod Touch, the iPhone's little brother.

The iPod Touch is the inevitable result of the iPhone's popularity, bringing the iPhone's revolutionary interface and design to the traditional iPod line for those who still want a separate portable music player (or more storage, or not to be locked down to AT&T.)

Integrating the same multi-touch display and many of the same features as the iPhone (minus the obvious like Google Maps and Mail, and the not so obvious like calendar event editing, a decision that drew the ire of users until it was fixed in the 1.1.2 update), the iPod Touch represents the first networked member of the iPod family with its built-in WiFi.

However, unlike the Microsoft Zune, which used its built-in WiFi to enable infamous social music features like squirting (*snicker*), the iPod Touch leverages WiFi for its built-in Safari web browser and portable iTunes Music Store; unfortunately, that's the extent of WiFi use in the iPod Touch.

There's no WiFi synching, no community features (Apple could build a less onerous system than Microsoft's squirt mechanism), nothing really revolutionary. The WiFi is really more of an afterthought in the iPod Touch than a real feature, and that's a shame that I hope Apple will rectify in 2008.

The iPod Nano experienced a large design change, changing from the tall, slim design of the previous iPod Nano to the current stout, slightly more big boned design.

The new design isn't as immediately attractive as the old design was. In fact, when I looked at both in photos I couldn't help but think Apple had taken a back-step with this squat little Nano. That initial reaction was completely superficial, I soon found out, when holding the new iPod Nano proved that while the design wasn't as visually appealing, it makes for a smaller, thinner player that still feels solid in one's hands. It is a tactile and portability improvement, and I've grown to like it better than the old Nano.

With the introduction of the iPod Touch, the now classic iPod design was relabeled the iPod Classic and given massive storage upgrades to 80GB and 160GB. I'm not exactly sure who has a 160GB music library, but I suspect someone out there who only uses the Apple lossless codec to import their music was elated.

The iPod Shuffle saw only slight cosmetic changes in 2007, with the addition of different colours to the line, and no bumps in storage capacity or design changes. Without some mention at the upcoming keynote, I fear its fate will go the way of the Dodo. With mobile phones easily taking care of the limited music playing functions of the Shuffle, its place in the market is quickly disappearing.

Conclusion:

The iPod's continued success in 2007 brought Apple truckloads of cash and popular mind-share, and with its new iPhone line, Apple has ensured its continued success as the portable music player market is slowly taken over by the mobile phone market.

Expect big things to come in 2008 for both product lines, as Apple continues to pour R&D dollars into their continued evolution.

Tune in tomorrow when I will be discussing iTunes, other Apple software, and user interface design.