Apple has just launched the new version of the iPhone, the iPhone 3Gs. No major features were announced, and some of the features might make you smile such as “Cut, Copy & Paste”,  ability to take a video, a 3-Megapixel camera and MMS. These features have been in the market for years and now Apple mentions them in the features list. But this fact shoud make us think why Apple has been so successful.

In my opinion, the iPhone has been a disruptive innovation, even though the creator of the term, Claython Christensen, says that “it’s not [truly]disruptive”.

The iPhone did not have the features that were already in the market, and had several inferior features i.e. the mega-pixel camera. Essentially, Apple has shown that can be successful without some of the features that others believed were essential. Mobile phone manifacturers overshoot (from Christensen´s book The Innovator’s Dilemma) customers with devices packed with more and more features.  However, the innovation we have seen in the last 10 years has been mainly a sustaining one with the same predictable trajectory, more pixel, more speed, etc. See below the disruptive innovation diagram:

The disruption in Apple comes from the understanding that people value features in a different way everybody assumed in the industry. The user experience is king.
In the iPhone, the user interface makes the product easy to use, the integration with iTune and the App stores allows people to enrich the set of applications provided in the phone. In addition, the way they handled the creation of the platform is a lessons for everybody. The more users, the more developers willing to create the applications and the positive feedback makes the App store successful.

There are several factors in this success, innovation is certainly one of the most important. The strategic canvas from the Blue Ocean Strategy can help in the iPhone case.

As the authors of Blue Ocean Strategy state, the use of strategy canvas is:

• Firstly, it captures the current state of play in the known market space. This allows you to understand where the competition is currently investing and the factors that the industry competes on.
• Secondly, it propels you to action by reorienting your focus from competitors to alternatives and from customers to noncustomers of the industry.

Apple has changed the way the players compete in the mobile industry. Now everybody has an App store, and the touch UI for smartphones is a must. As it is always the case, innovation is fundamental and a good execution complete the work. Of course, it is easier to write about it than actually doing it

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 13th, 2009 at 8:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.