Back at D5, Steve told Walt that the iPhone is “The best iPod we’ve ever made”, which I took on faith. At the time, I had a lowly second-generation nano (8GB black; what my friend called “the pretentious model”), which I felt was durned-near perfect in both form and function. Still, it was an exercise in discipline to wait to get an iPhone until my previous phone contract was over, which it finally was last fall. Now that I’ve had an iPhone for a few months (16GB black, natch), I disagree with what Steve said.

Did I just blaspheme? Well, let’s inject some reason. I think Steve was wrong about the iPhone being the best-ever iPod because it wasn’t an evolution in the iPod design, it was a compromise between having a portable media player and a portable communications platform (phone, email, and web browsing) in the same device. For example, the touchscreen uses the electrical conductivity of your skin, which is why you have to use your bare fingers. The nano and classic iPod have physical controls, which I find dead-simple to operate with gloved hands or in my pocket. And I didn’t have to change which application or orientation my nano was in before I started operating it; let’s be plain, Cover Flow flat out sucks.

The iPhone isn’t even the best phone I’ve had. Answering my old RAZR was simple: I just flipped up the cover with my thumb. Answering my iPhone means scrambling to get my gloves off to operate the touchscreen (I wish pressing the home button answered). Speed dialing an older phone meant holding a single button: calling someone on my iPhone can easily take 7 taps. Hanging up with a physical control felt more decisive than tapping a piece of glass and looking to make sure it worked.

All that said, there are a lot of things that the iPhone can do that no other phone or media player can do (or at least not as well, I expect). I’m definitely much more satisfied with my iPhone than my previous setup. For all the benifits—ubiquitous web access, maps & GPS, and increasingly for apps—I’m perfectly willing to make some compromises. Let’s just be clear that there are compromises.

Though my non-techie girlfriend does tell me that despite being an Apple geek, I’m a little cooler for not being totally satisfied with one of Steve’s products.

Just to prove that money can’t buy branding sense, two examples from Microsoft:

• IE.Next
  Apparently, IE 8 is going to be called IE.Next. Question: What’s the version after 8 going to be called? IE.After.Next? Next.IE.Next? IE.360? Maybe the guy responsible figures he’ll have been promoted by then and the problem will be for whatever schmuck comes after him.
• PlaysForSure
  Microsoft recently stiffed several “partner” companies — and at least twice as many consumers — when they set the world on fire with their Zune music player and its closed, incompatible, and (apparently) much more important (to Microsoft) DRM technology. Now, they’ve “rebranded” PlaysForSure as “Certified for Windows Vista”. I kid you not. It would be funny if it weren’t true. Even funnier is Nokia still releasing PFS devices.

Postscript: The “PlaysForSure” disaster should be a warning sign for the marketing kids at Microsoft. The cruel irony alone of using such a confident name (plays for sure…until it doesn’t) and then unceremoniously axing it should be enough to give them pause and consider the exit strategy of whatever new brand names they’re conjuring up.

The Eye-Fi, an amazing new SD card/Wi-Fi adapter for nearly any camera, appears to be so awesome I can hardly believe I haven’t already ordered one. Perhaps I’m hoping someone will drop it in my stocking about a month from now…

This is brilliant:

As part of a partnership to be announced Wednesday, [Google] will dispense driving directions at thousands of gasoline pumps across the country beginning early next month.

Nicely combines a man’s natural aversion to asking for directions with his inclination to use neat-o new gadgets (and all dipped in the testosterone-soaked moment of a man caring for his vehicle). It can’t lose.

From CNN

Well-known Smart Guy™ and head of Universal Music Doug Morris is apparently marshaling the troops (aka, other music labels) to defeat the evil iTunes. Is he advocating an expansion of the consumer-friendly trend towards DRM-free music? Nope. He’s trying to put together a new music store that offers subscription-based access to music that will not play on iPods.

This will fail for the following reasons:

1. It’s subscription based.
2. It won’t work with iPods.

No subscription model has worked yet in the music space (see Sony, Napster, and Microsoft’s attempts) and the iPod has a 70%+ share of the MP3 player market. So, failed business model plus incompatibility with everyone’s player equals…success? I guess it does to Doug Morris.

In the article I linked to above, Doug is quoted as saying (in reference to his original deal with Apple to place Universal’s content on the iTMS), “We got rolled like a bunch of puppies.” His definition of “rolled” is that he only gets 70% of the revenue each song generates, even though Universal has zero distribution costs. Personally, if getting 70% of anything involving the sale of over 3 billion things makes me a puppy, I’d be happy to chew a few slippers and get my tummy scratched.

Doesn’t this feel a little like this? How well did it work the first time?

Real people (like your mom*) don’t buy things based on the number of bullet-pointed features found on the outside of the box. Apple knows that now. They learned it from the iPod.

* And don’t bother telling me that Helio isn’t selling their product to your mom. I know that. However, your mom (or, at least my mother in law) absolutely wants an iPhone.

One of the things that makes Apple’s product experience terrific is the first couple of minutes you interact with whatever shiney new thing you’ve just purchased. Clearly, Apple spends a lot of time engineering a dramatic and rewarding box-opening for consumers. In fact, I’d guess that Apple spends more time thinking about a consumer’s first interaction with a device than most companies do on their product’s entire user experience. It’s all part of the Apple show and is one of the reasons you see so many box opening ceremonies recorded online in step-by-step photo albums the moment the new goods hit the street.

Contrast this with my recent experience buying a Palm Treo 755p. Not only was the packaging all Sprinted-up (yellow…who picked yellow as their corporate color?) and totally utilitarian in nature, but the phone geek behind the counter got the privilege of breaking my phone’s seal by ripping open the box, turning it on for the first time, peeling all the protective plastic off, and basically manhandling the poor thing and mashing down all its buttons for 10 minutes before handing it over to me. I mean, it was warm and a little moist when I got hold of it and it was brand new. Can you imagine something like that happening in an Apple store? Who wants to get a brand new iPod all smeared up with someone else’s fingerprints before you even leave the store? Nobody.

In my opinion, Apple will need to figure out a new way to sell cell phones if they want to maintain their product’s mystique. I predict they’ve worked out a way to sell and activate their phones through AT&T that only entails the scanning of a bar code on the box. Everything else will happen automagically as soon as you boot the thing up. Anything less would not be a good show.

My prediction of the three things pundits will decry when reviewing the iPhone:

1. Short battery life.
2. Wiggy keyboard.
3. Lack of Exchange support.

Bonus item: Small internal storage.

Mind you, I love the thing and will most likely buy one when version two comes around. Assuming no one else I know gets one first…

Check out the damned sexy video.

From Walt Mossberg, the leading tech writer for older rich white guys, on his recent frustrations following the purchase of a new Sony laptop and having to deal with “the plethora of teaser software and advertisements for products that must be cleared and uninstalled to make way for your own stuff”:

The problem is a lack of respect for the consumer. The manufacturers don’t act as if the computer belongs to you. They act as if it is a billboard for restricted trial versions of software and ads for Web sites and services that they can sell to third-party companies who want you to buy these products.

…

On my new Sony, there were two dozen trial programs and free offers. The desktop alone contained four icons representing come-ons for various America Online services, and two for Microsoft. The start menu and program menu had more items that I neither chose nor wanted. Napster, a music service I don’t use, was lodged at the lower right of the screen.

The worst was a desktop icon called “Watch Hit Movies Now!” This turned out to be four full-length films from Sony’s movie studios, which the company had preloaded onto my computer at the cost of more than four gigabytes of precious hard-disk space. But they aren’t a gift. If you want to play them, you have to pay Sony.

This is not a “Macs are better than PCs” thing. This is a prevalent issue in the PC industry where marketers are deciding to sell their product’s experience to the highest bidder. It’s true that Apple was heading in a similar direction in the mid 90’s when I can remember seeing several third-party services and products on a new Mac’s desktop, but if you buy a Mac today you see none of that. You see a company deciding not to take money sitting on the table because they care more about the experience a consumer receives rather than the few extra bucks they could add to the bottom line. Hardly the only reason, but surely one of the things that makes new and existing Apple customers like their products so much and buy them over and over again.

Can you imagine car manufacturers doing the same kind of thing? What if every time you started your new minivan a voice came on that said, “Be sure to take advantage of a special discount offered to all our new customers for Armor All Carpet & Upholstery cleaner! It cleans the toughest automotive dirt and grime from your car’s interior. Look for the valuable coupon in your car’s manual. Armor All – We’ve got you covered,” until you navigated into the car’s computer using the stereo’s buttons and disabled the “Valuable Offer” feature. How is that any different than what Sony’s doing on Walt’s laptop?

Good marketing offers value to both you and your company in a way that suits the consumer’s needs, not yours. Everything else is spam.

Via Digg.

ideapark’s annual “Vernal Equinox Party” is a time to celebrate with our customers, employees, and business partners the transition from winter to spring and exchange insights on emerging trends in marketing for the new year.

We also showcase emerging uses of technology for marketing professionals. This year, ideapark partnered up with Michael Bragg and talented team at Digital Dialogue to demonstrate SMS in a fun and engaging way. One of the best examples is how American Idol uses text messaging to drive audience participation. How can we make this relevant for traditional marketers within a reasonable budget?

For example, let’s say you are a major sporting event (or a vernal equinox party) and you want to capture real time insights from the audience.

Here’s how it works, ideapark develops an engaging and branded SMS experience for your audience via cellphone or interactive kiosk. You offer the audience the latest product information, prizes (like a Wii), discounts, or an update about their order. In return, you can gain valuable insight into what matters most to them.

Here’s an example of one the questions we asked as part of the demonstration. The answers were surprising:

We also asked fun questions and almost 70% of the attendees knew the answer to: “What is the airspeed velocity of a laden swallow?”

We were able to turn this around in less than a week.

Also, congrats to Charlie, Maryanne, and Dennis!

If you’d like to see how we did this and the outcome to some of the more serious questions, just drop me a line at mark@ideapark.com.