Early iPhone predictions were off the mark, just like Apple Tablet predictions will be
10:23 am, December 29th, 2009, John Brownlee
Although our record is sullied by a few occasional missteps generally caused by a lone rumor- monger tickling our plush, erogenous wishful thinking zones, the Internet’s grown remarkably adept at seeing new Apple products coming. Most gadget bloggers and tech pundits would be willing to part with a digit if Apple doesn’t at least announce a tablet next year: there are just too many supply reports, patent and trademark filings and industry insiders telling us to expect one. The same was true with the iPhone: we all knew an Apple phone was coming. We were just laughably wrong about what the iPhone turned out to be.
It’s worth keeping that in mind as we come up on January’s presumed announcement of Apple’s tablet: the chances of it being what we expect (a large iPhone) are probably as wrong as our belief that the iPhone would be just an iPod with a SIM card in it. To remind us all of exactly how wrong our predictions were, Technologizer’s Harry McCracken has posted up a fantastic speculative prehistory of the iPhone, correlating all of the earliest predictions about what the iPhone was going to be and then fact-checking them against reality.
It’s a great read. What’s really curious about the piece, though, is how much weirder speculation of the iPhone’s capabilities became as it drew close to a launch. Over four years before the iPhone was unveiled, and only ten months after the iPod’s debut, John Markoff of the New York Times, speculated that the iPhone (he even gets the name right!) would be a mobile computer, more PDA than mobile phone, running OS X, instead of just an iPod that makes telephone calls. That prediction doesn’t encompass the hardware or the App Store, but is still a perfect description of what the iPhone would turn out to be. But fast forward two years, and Michelle Meyers at CNet is predicting a combination iPod and Blackberry called the AppleBerry!
That’s just the problem with gadget fans overeagerly waiting for a new Apple product after a long and fruitless rumor cycle: the centrifuges of their imaginations go crashing through the containing wall of their common sense. If Apple is good at any one thing, it is taking the core concept of a new device and stripping it down until it is a sublimely perfect device that “just works.” They did it with the iPhone, and it would be a fool’s bet to say that they won’t do it again with the Tablet. The Apple Tablet won’t be the device we expect, but in retrospect, it’ll seem like the only tablet Apple could have ever made.
Posted by John Brownlee in Apple Tablet, News, Opinions, Top stories, iPhone | Comment on this article
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This just shows how little you experts know and what a good job Apple does of exploiting you for free publicity.
Keep up the good work we enjoy reading good fiction.
Mikey, on December 29th, 2009 at 11:08 am
this go around I don’t think the rumors and the truth will be that far apart. Folks seem to be doing a much better job of “thinking Apple” and really considering how particular rumors do or do not fit with past directions, other things going on at Apple etc. Instead of just believing what they want is the truth.
Charli, on December 29th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Ha! Ha!
Mikey FACED you.
CaryMG, on December 29th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
One miscalculation everyone’s made so far is the UI. It won’t have the same UI as the iPhone.
Church of Apple, on December 29th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
A few missteps….? In what time frame? Years, weeks or days?
sooper8, on December 30th, 2009 at 3:54 am