Picking a winner

The nature of true innovation is such that any unique activity is at once, both ignored as irrelevant and recognised [by some] as the future…

The difficult part is knowing which one…

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

William Shakespeare

Given current policy debates regarding “industries of the future” and the need to be “agile” and “innovative”, it is instructive to consider our own cognitive biases when it comes to change, reform and innovation. Consider public policy debates of energy futures and global warming.

Thanks to The Atlantic for highlighting the work of  the tech website BGR when they unearthed a comment thread from 2007 that originally appeared on the website Engadget, and was preserved by the Internet Archive.

The conversation is focused on the brand new iPhone, which had just been unveiled.

For those of you that can remember rotary dial phones, communication prior to the internet and those that euphemistically consider themselves well-read [at least when there were identifiable canons that one could digest in a life-time ] the prospect of the technological and behavioural change that occurred on the release of the “iPhone” is nothing short of profound.

Just eight years ago. The concept of “generational change” has perhaps been compressed to “decadal” or something even more finely temporal.

How we react to change, how we identify the new through the frameworks of the past are increasingly challenges of modern, highly technical societies.

Consider these humorous, prophetic and simply wrong reviews of the newly unveiled iPhone and consider our current notions of “innovation”.

1. “Apparently none of you guys realize how bad of an idea a touch-screen is on a phone. I foresee some pretty obvious and pretty major problems here. I’ll be keeping my Samsung A707, thanks… Color me massively disappointed.”
2. “Touch screen buttons? BAD idea. This thing will never work.”
3. “I say get on the train, or get run over by it.”
4. “No freaking way, Apple! It’s over!”
5. “Well, it beats the hell outta my Nokia 6030”
6. “Steve…where is my FM radio?”
7. “OMG, its the Newton reborn!”
8. “no qwerty keyboard? ojhsdodsagfadhjldgs!!”
9. “This looks like a disgusting bastard child of iPod/Cellphone/PDA. Yes it’s shiny, but I’m sure it won’t be so shiny once you touch it.”
10. “5 hour battery life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME THIS IS A JOKE ITS A PHONE NOT A LAPTOP”
11. “DAMN! If you think it’s big, look at the picture with Steve holding it close up, its like a Razr! Wifi! Everything, good BYE every phone company in the world.”
12. “Im not impressed with the iPhone. As a PDA user and a Windows Mobile user, this thing has nothing on my phone… No thanks Apple. Make a real PDA please.”
13. “I mean it looks pretty but its not something i foresee being the next ipod for the phone industry…It took apple how long to develop this ONE PHONE, samsung and motorola release new phones every few months lol, and constantly innovates and gets better, im sorry but if im sending text messages i’d rather have my thumb keyboard than some weird finger tapping on a screen crap.”
14. “These comments remind me of the folks who thought the original iPod didn’t stand a chance.”
15. “Blackberry is DEAD. And so is every other poorly designed idiot phone and plastic PDA. Thank God. R.I.P. Blackberry. R.I.P. Palm. R.I.P. Treo.”
16. “That sound I just heard was everybody’s head exploding.”
17. “Good bye Zune.”

Hindsight…

Links

• Apple reinvents the Phone with iPhone [2007]
• Steve Jobs iPhone Presentation 2007
• The Atlantic
• BGR.com