Former iPhone Senior Director: Original iPhone “was not a great phone”
Bob Borchers, ex-Apple Senior Director of Product Marketing for the original iPhone, has apologised to owners of the device at MWC 2014.
Launched in 2007, the original is iPhone definitey a far cry from the current iPhone 5S, but Borchers has gone so far as saying the device was only “okay”.
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The tongue-in-cheek comment came after Borchers, now Dolby’s Chief Marketing Officer, explained how Apple changed the smartphone landscape with the launch of the original iPhone seven years ago.
“What was interesting at Apple is that technology took a back seat to user interface. If you look at the iPhone as a technological element everything had been done before, it was about bringing all that together into an experience that was compelling and then communicating it as an experience not as a technology”.
He also claimed that Apple actually made mistakes while putting together the customer proposition and marketing the original iPhone.
“There were three value propositions in order of importance: a revolutionary phone, the best iPod ever and the Internet in your pocket but in fact it should have been the reverse. Having the Internet in your pocket was the most important.”
He continued by recognising the impact the app community had to the success of the iPhone.
“It was a great iPod but it was the connection to the internet and the app community that made the difference.”
The focus on the customer’s experience, as opposed to the features or list of techy buzz terms, is one of the key reasons Borchers believes the iPhone was a success – leading to hundreds of millions of units sold worldwide of the course of its seven year history.
That focus of providing the best possible user experience regardless of device is an ethos that he is intent on bringing across platforms – particularly in the mobile and tablet space, where so much media is now consumed but which he feels currently are currently suboptimal.
“Our goal as technologists and content creators is to present an uncompromised experience so the goal for us at Dolby is to understand how the brain processes audio and video and to present that to the human in the best way possible and to give them the depth of experience in whatever environment they’re in.” he concluded.
Dolby also announced deeper collaborations with Chinese giants ZTE and Huawei.
Read more: iPhone 5S tips and tricks
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
