Or, why the iPhone is evolutionary.
This is hopefully the first in a series of posts that will look at the way technology ingratiates itself into our lives, societies, and the ways in which we in turn use and are used by technology (which sounds more Singularitarian than it should).
The iPhone has been around for almost two years. By this summer, we will, in all likelihood, see another iteration of the JesusPhone–although I would argue for a new name: the DarwinPhone.
Recent consumer reports show that Apple hasn’t exactly lost any ground in the brand war, and isn’t doing too shabbily in the current global recession. The iPhone is rapidly gaining ground.
Why is this? The answer boils down to name recognition. Everyone owns an iPod, and anyone who doesn’t and still owns a media player has directly benefited from Apple’s success with their brand. Most other brands of PMPs are only where they are because of competition for market share: a competition in which Apple is far and away the leader.
We’re starting to see the same thing in the cell phone market: if a cell phone maker wants to survive in this new market, they have no choice but to play by the rules Apple first established with the iPhone. Samsung did this with the Eternity a few months ago, but the most high-profile example might be the Blackberry Storm. The touchscreen is a very post-iPhone feature to see on a Blackberry, something which might not have appeared if the iPhone hadn’t materialized.
The paradox comes thusly: What everyone who owns one will tell you is that the iPhone is an okay phone. It’s missing crucial features, things other smart phones on the market have, copy-paste being the most often complaint, along with Push support.
So why does the iPhone remain such a driving force in the market. There’s a scientifically based explanation, and it does not revolve around the capitalist, semi-Darwinian struggle going on as these various companies struggle for profit. The iPhone may be evolutionary, as I’m going to argue, but it is not Darwinian in the traditional grade-school sense. It fulfills a very specific niche in the ongoing evolution of technology, and as a result, it reaps benefits while other companies do not. Evolution does not occur in a vacuum, and I would put forth that competition for resources is a result of evolution rather than a cause. Competition may fuel evolution, but if we don’t allow for a circle, a causal cycle that isn’t readily understandable, we’re going to overlook an important factor in this process.
Before we begin, it’s necessary to get a working definition of evolution: as I will use it throughout this series, evolution is not the result of a competition for resources; nature is not on it’s own a zero-sum game, as natural resource (those most essential to life) are renewable to a certain point. The zero-sum game comes into existence when a new element is added. It is this new element, given sufficient influence over an environment, which will inevitably change the rules of the game.
To take an example from history, let’s look at the birth of civilizations. In sub-Sarahan Africa, when the Europeans came, they found no trace of civilization, civilization being defined as an organized, hierarchically structured grouping of people in an urban center with a written language. Such a civilization did not develop in Africa because there was no need for one (which is not to say civilizations did not exist, they simply did not exist by European standards). Resources were abundant, there was plentiful game and crops and space. If a population were to grow beyond what is sustainable in one area, people simply branch off to form another civilization, another tribe. A hierarchical civilization, in which allocation of resources is the key driving force behind the organization, develops when resources grow thin and need management.
What we see from such an example as this is twofold: first, that competition for resources comes only as a result of a growth, which is in itself the product of evolution; secondly, and this is perhaps the more controversial, that anything complex and evolved carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction.
In the coming series, I will examine this, and how it applies to Apple’s flagship product. As you’ve no doubt already noted, the iPhone is a far different creature than civilization in sub-Saharan Africa. There are no resources for the iPhone to squander. To which, I shall simply respond by pointing to the current economic crisis. We’ve already seen that cash is a very limited resource. Something else has to evolve in its place if Apple were to survive.
For Apple shareholders and fanboys, the good news is that, even is only subconsciously, Apple is already aware of this problem, and are beginning to move past the traditional zero-sum game. Apple has already developed one way to avoid running low on the money that serves as its primary resource, and it’s a damned good one. The annual product cycle? A perfect way to avoid running out of consumers. If you set the count to zero year after year, you create an endless supply of resources. But it’s artificial. The stream of consumers, of resources, depends on one thing, and will inevitably run dry like the proverbial well without it.
That one thing is name recognition.
What is more important than money in this new economy that is evolving? Reputation. This is how Apple is able to weather the recession as well as they do, including the consumer electronics section, which is understandably bleak. People trust the name Apple. This is the reputation the company has been building for years.
Reputation also may just cure the second charge of evolved beings: it may allow Apple to escape that clause that says evolved beings inevitably destroy themselves. If you realize which game you’re playing early enough, there is enough time to begin playing by the right rules, but that is being optimistic and getting off the topic of this post.
Apple’s reputation and it’s effect on the company’s market share has implications for the world as a whole, for society and for the economy, and the zero sum game that most economics has become, but I will leave those until next time.
