Another aspect is the relationship between product names and acceptability of product to the customers. Most often I have not seen a direct correlation, especially for consumer products. Buying process is not often that rational and logical. Emotion play a large part.

As a product manager, I would not worry much about the aspects that are not very critical to the customer segment. I dont agree that it is ‘bad product management’.

Apple’s promotion strategy leans strongly on leveraging the ‘coolness’ factor and using peer pressure to sell their products. It should be interesting to see the direction the company takes with Jobs’ less-than-usual involvement in the business.

I too agree to the reasoning which you have provided in your blog.

Guess iPhone faltered on the basic product management fundamental of making products which people require and which solve some of their current problems.

I personally think that speed has not bubbled up to be a problem with their cult as of now and hence introduction of iPhone 3GS was just a classic case of repackaging forced by sales team.

However it would be interesting to see the sales figure for the model and if they are good, then I don’t think they made a bad decision. Since I firmly believe that a product manager’s success for a mature organization is measured by its revenues.

Vishwajeet Sukhija

Think of the iPhone 3GS like the recent MacBook Pro revision — an incremental improvement with some great new features but not aimed at getting current customers to upgrade.

If Apple focused their marketing efforts on specific features, they would likely fail and would lose a checklist comparison to lots of competitors. (This is true of iPhone/iPod/Macintosh). I keep seeing comments elsewhere along the lines of “who cares about the iPhone, I’ve had feature X and Y on my Nokia for 3 years!”. Yes, that may be true but who cares? The iPhone’s appeal was initially purely about the user experience, not the features and is now all about the platform.

Regarding the features in the OS vs. the 3GS: Apple has been pretty up front, from the phone introduction through its web collateral, which features work where.

Great post, I agree with you entirely on this one. I think that this release has been problematic for Apple as it’s all about adding in features that are basic on competing products. There is no “wow” feature in this release.

If you have a 3G, the 3G S is not a big enough change to make you want to upgrade (for the majority of users, in my opinion). So it’s difficult to position the product as something really new and must have.

That said, they had a great launch weekend and have sold large numbers – what does that say? Pent-up demand? Most people have been expecting the iPhone 3G S for several months and have waited therefore to buy one (myself included). I expect sales to go back to “normal” in a few weeks.

What’s really interesting is the pricing of the 3G at $99. Could this signify a change in Apple’s pricing? Could the success of the App Store be bringing in enough revenue over the 2 year life of a phone to merit moving towards the Gilette Razor type model?

You’re pretty courageous to say anything bad (at all!) about Apple right now – since they’re the company that almost everyone thinks can do no wrong.

Your last point is great- Apple’s brand is so strong and customer loyalty is so high (cultish!) – these mistakes are unlikely to affect them much when it comes to sales.

However – a company that doesn’t have cultish following shouldn’t blindly copy Apple and expect to replicate their success.

On the same token, even silly names like “Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail” work for some companies!

- Raj
Accompa – Affordable Requirements Tool for Product Managers