What Factors Contributed to the Success of Apple's iPhone?

Abstract

Unknown to most North American consumers, a mobile data and Internet service in Japan called i-mode has been highly successful in that country for the past decade. Unfortunately, mobile data services in North America have lagged behind many European and Asian countries. However, the situation changed rapidly with the iPhone, launched in the US in June 2007. Consumers lined up for days for the chance to purchase one, and over 500,000 units sold on the first weekend. Since that time, over 42 million iPhones have been sold, arguably making it one of the most successful mobile phone products ever launched. What is it that makes the iPhone such a success? In this paper we define a set of success criteria to investigate the success of the iPhone and propose a comprehensive success model. The success model can be used by both academics and practitioners to understand the reasons why, and ways to ensure that mobile data and commerce services become successful.

End-to-End Secure and Privacy Preserving Mobile Chat Application

“…The so-called App Culture promoted by Apple Inc. [6,7], has enabled users to seamlessly download any application they desire. This has opened the smartphone platform to a wide range of companies and services.…”

User Centric Security Model for Tamper-Resistant Devices

“…In addition smart phones, with inclusion of Near Field Communication (NFC) functionality, can provide a substitute for traditional smart card applications like transport ticketing and access control [39]. Technology savvy consumers require more features on a device, a need [40], which is successfully ful lled by high-end smart phones (e.g. the iPhone).…”

“…The so-called App Culture promoted by Apple Inc., which enables users to seamlessly download any application they desire has opened up the mobile phone application market to a wide range of companies [40]. New ideas are being tested; for example, Starbucks customers can pay for co ees using a Starbucks' Card Mobile App on their iPhones.…”

A Consumer Perspective on Mobile Market Evolution

“…Thus, when Apple made its entrance on the mobile market, this company was not just a device manufacturer, but also a service provider through the iPhone applications development. In June 2008, with the launch of App Store, although Apple gives to third parties the application development, the company still keep the control of services and contents by its portal (Laugesen & Yuan, 2010). Services and application enrich iPhone users' experience and add value to it, becoming source of its competitive edge.…”

“…), determining devices' functional capabilities. The emergence of Apple in the mobile telecommunication market has therefore changed the original characteristics of the mobile phone business, broken down its traditional boundaries and moved power from MNOs to handset manufactures, hardware and software developers and consumers, thus leading to the reconfiguration of the value network (Laugesen & Yuan, 2010;Vogelstein, 2008). In particular, end-users have assumed a central role as they can directly define, thus personalize, the characteristics of their devices.…”