The iPhone and what it means to be a "phone"

A recent post by Alec Saunders on his excellent blog asked the question re whether the iPhone has redefined the category of smartphone. Of course it's been successful by any measure, but has it earned the title of "category redefiner"?

Yes.

But not because it has more features than other smartphones (it doesn't) or is comparably priced (it is), though. It has "just enough" features to not have any blatantly missing features for most people ("fatal flaws" in ChoiceBot jargon) and it's pricey but clearly within reach of at least 12M people (and counting).

The product category redefinition comes from the incredible reduction in learning curve and the number of actions required to complete a task. I can discover a new iPhone feature, learn how to use it and complete any task with it far, far faster than I can on any other phone. Even tasks like setting the alarm clock require 75% fewer user actions and 75% less time than other smartphones, and require no "figuring out" whatsoever. This means that I am 4 TIMES more productive with an iPhone than a conventional smartphone. SOLD!

My previous phone had a camera and could do email. How many pictures did I take and email out? 6, I think. In 3 years. I'll do that many in a week with my iPhone because the hassle barrier is so low.

Alec's DOS/Mac analogy is very valid when comparing previous smartphones to the iPhone. Mac/Windows didn't have more features than DOS (they arguably had fewer), but figuring out how to do what you wanted to do and getting it done thereafter took far less time, keystrokes and clicks. The reduction in learning curve made Macs/Windows PCs attractive to 100X the number of people that DOS PCs could ever interest. This is clearly what's happening in the phone market now. A quantum leap in usability is making smartphones way more appealing to way more people. And it's about time...