<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">With the iPod, Apple sold people on carrying a highly portable computer around with them everywhere they went. It had a screen, a UI, and an earpiece and the ability to run a very limited set of programs. It also had a rudimentary networking capability, limited to short periods of connection via USB. <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">iPod became iPhone with the addition of a microphone, a radio, and a somewhat more capable operating system. With the expansion of iTunes to include apps, you got the whole banana.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The iPhone was therefore an incremental enhancement of two of Apple’s existing products, a portable one and a network-based feeder system. It’s hard to see two dudes in a garage pulling something like this off. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">RB<br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jul 3, 2018, at 9:29 PM, Dave Crocker <<a href="mailto:dhc2@dcrocker.net" class="">dhc2@dcrocker.net</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">The research on innovation very clearly shows that significant, game <br class="">changing inventions almost always come from big companies. The myth of <br class="">two dudes in a garage ignores the fact that it takes big money to take <br class="">big risks.<br class=""><br class="">Apple succeeded with the iPhone while Handspring and Nokia failed in <br class="">large part because of the music infrastructure the company had built <br class="">around the iPod, another second or third mover that succeeded where more <br class="">ad hoc MP3 players had failed.<br class=""></blockquote><br class=""><br class="">This casts things as either or, which is in line with how the thread has <br class="">gone, but probably misses a basic distinction, namely basic innovation <br class="">from what I'll call scaling innovation.<br class=""><br class="">Creation of the basic capability versus delivering a version of the <br class="">capability that gains widespread success. The latter is not a 'mere'.<br class=""><br class="">Being able to get the balance of features, costs, marketing and sales <br class="">choices just right is, obviously, not obvious. But it is quite <br class="">different from what we often call 'technological breakthrough'.<br class=""><br class="">d/<br class="">-- <br class="">Dave Crocker<br class="">Brandenburg InternetWorking<br class=""><a href="http://bbiw.net" class="">bbiw.net</a><br class="">_______<br class="">internet-history mailing list<br class="">internet-history@postel.org<br class="">http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history<br class="">Contact list-owner@postel.org for assistance.<br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class="">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">—<br class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Richard Bennett<br class=""><a href="http://hightechforum.org" class="">High Tech Forum</a> Founder</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Ethernet & Wi-Fi standards co-creator</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Internet Policy Consultant</div></div></div>
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