Earlier today, I read an editorial by marketer Laura Ries that reflected on the popularity of the iPhone. She offered that she’d originally believed that the iPhone would fail, because “convergence” is generally a bad idea, but owned up to the fact that the iPhone has been a success in spite of – not because of – it’s blending of a cell phone and a PDA. She then cited reasons she believed the iPhone took off (here’s a clue: “marketing”), and finished up by admonishing Apple to “keep it simple” and not continue to add functionality and features to the iPhone.

With all respect to a marketer that usually hits it out of the park, analysis-wise, I think she’s got a swing and a miss here. Here’s why…

While virtually every other device on the market is, as Laura puts it, a “convergence” device, the iPhone, oddly enough, is not. The iPhone is a universal developer platform – in other words, just like it’s kissin’ cousin, the personal computer, the iPhone is a “Swiss Army Knife” device – a tool that can be used in almost any way you can imagine. While my “Wagon Queen Family Truckster” Windows Mobile phone is an inelegant mashup of phone/PDA/computer/music player/battery hog – and performs none of those functions well, the iPhone was designed from the ground up as an integrated platform – allowing the seamless development of a virtuously unlimited number of applications that can do almost anything.

By trade, I’m a marketer, but in experience, I’m not just a marketer, but also a designer, an animator, a writer, and a entertainer. I’ve done all these things professionally, for most of my life. One of the things I’ve specialized in was software user interface design, and what we in the field call “human factors engineering,” or more simply, “usability.” The iPhone stands at the pinnacle of usability. (The Windows Mobile platform wallows at the bottom.) The beauty of the iPhone is that it is so well thought out. The gestures, the zooming, the dearth of buttons – all intuitive. The more intuitive something is, the less friction you encounter using it. Less friction = ease of use. As ease of use increases, the usefulness of a device does as well. Simply put, it is far easier to do even simple things (like make a call) on an iPhone than on a Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, or Android device. Period.

Ms. Ries is correct when she cites the iTunes AppStore as the thing that made the iPhone take off like a rocket. Nothing like opening up a platform to free market enterprise and unbridled capitalism to stoke the fires of profit and increase market share. But what she fails to understand is that just as people buy apps to solve problems, and therefore buy hardware to run software, you must constantly improve hardware to keep up with the demands of software.

Bill Gates once famously opined that he could not envision a world where anyone would need more than 512KB of RAM in a computer. Today, even the cheapest PC comes with 2GB of RAM. (For the non-propellerheads in the audience, 2GB is the same as 2,097,152KB. PCs evolved to handle the demands of software, and software evolved to handle tasks that users wanted handled. It’s a simple as that.

Ries makes several points to show why she thinks that the iPhone is not the all-powerful dreadnaught that everyone thinks it is. She cites iPhone’s market share of the cell market (9%), Blackberry’s (17%), the rise of Netbooks, her KiSS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) philosophy, and the inability to use applications to advertise (?!) as reasons that the iPhone still might falter. I disagree. The iPhone is currently in the final year of a 3-year exclusive distribution agreement in the U.S. with AT&T – a move that might have helped iPhone get early market share by way of a partner who needed them as much as they needed a carrier – but a move that is now holding them back. (If I had a nickel for everybody that had asked me about getting iPhones on the Verison network…)

the iPhone is tool. Tools have form factors. Just like no two women seem to carry the same size purse, or pistonheads disagree over the best engine, there’s no need to narrow a market to a single form factor. I worked for a company back in the early 90s who’s CEO once told me they were in the CD-ROM game business. I replied, “No, you’re in the entertainment business. CDs are just a delivery mechanism…if you focus on the delivery platform, you’ll miss the Next Big Thing, and be out of business.” Guess what? He missed a little thing we call “Internet distribution” and his company is now one for the history books.

The thing about the iPhone is that it’s an elegant tool. Netbooks look cool, but as they stand now, I don’t see them used as a phone. Some people prefer separate gadgets. As for me, I prefer carrying one tool – not so many that I end up with Batman’s utility belt around my waist.

If you ask me, the iPhone has succeeded because it put ease of use ahead of everything else, and because of that, became the platform of choice for developers that saw it’s potential as a platform. Until and unless other phones take that same path, they will fail in the same way that other “convergence devices” have failed in the past.

Like Laura, I have no idea what the future will hold. However, I do know that new opportunities require more than just a cool gadget or an a+b approach – it takes people that are willing to come up with ways to solve problems that make life easier, and shun answers that create barriers or make things harder, rather than easier.

Color me frustrated.

Despite the ads you hear nationwide, where Version brands itself as “most reliable,” AT&T as “largest network with the best signal strength” and Sprint “fastest 3G” – not a one o’ these clowns offer 3G in lil’ ol’ Amarillo. Why? And from a marketing perspective, why bother to spend money on advertising 3G locally, when it’s not available?

The ugly little secret of the cell phone industry, is that 3G = higher infrastructure costs. When you light up a 3G network, customers will use more airtime, to transmit more bits. That means the companies need more capacity out of each cell tower, straining networks that were likely underbuilt in the first place. Higher data use (at 3G speeds) means more dropped calls when you have a network that can barely keep up with demand as it is.

What’s a rich, greedy poor cell phone company to do?

Their answer is a sort of gentlemen’s agreement that nobody needs to light up 3G in what they laughingly call a “secondary” or “tertiary” market, until somebody else does. In other words, I’m not likely to see the little bandwidth indicator go from “1X” to “EV” on my Windows Mobile (accursed piece of crap) cell phone here in the Panhandle any time soon, because neither Altel/Verison nor AT&T want to be the first to light up 3G. Sprint, being the Luddite of the group, will not be the first to the 3G table here, at least not while I use their service. (June – and the end of my indentured servitude contract to Sprint can’t come quickly enough.)

I recently flew to Dallas, then rented a car and drove to Shreveport, some 180 miles away. Dallas, of course, is one of the 10 largest cities/metro areas in the country. Shreveport is…not. While Shreveport is either the second- or third-largest city in Louisiana (depending on the state of New Orleans population), it’s not Dallas. Shreveport is, as far as I was able to determine, totally bereft of 3G service. Sprint showed “1X” my entire time there. Interestingly enough, I had EVDO service (Sprint’s version of 3G) all the way from Dallas to just on the other side of Longview, about 2/3 of the way there. For those of you unfamiliar with the terrain, allow me to illustrate:

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So if Shreveport dwarfs the population of Longview, Marshall, Tyler and all the other stops betwixt Shrevepit and Big D, why does 3G service abruptly end shy of the Texas/Louisiana border?

I dunno. I presume they have the same kind of situation in the town of my birth and childhood that we do up here in Amarillo, i.e.: nobody wants to be first. That begs the question, why advertise 3G locally, when it’s not available.

I chalk it up to a combination of stupidity, laziness, and insensitivity.

You see, most of the cell phone spots you see, are going to run within the national block of programming airtime, even on local stations. But most local viewers aren’t knowledgeable in the ways of advertising to realize that just because they see a spot run on their local CBS/ABC/NBC/Fox/CW affiliate, it doesn’t mean it’s a “local” spot. Add to that the fact that many national brands provide taggable spots to local vendors, and you have a situation where most spots that are run locally advertise whatever the national vendor is pushing. Since that’s 3G at the moment, local yokels see ads for 3G from all sides, even though they can’t get it.

You’d think that Verison, AT&T and the hapless, clueless bunch at Sprint would provide some spots for 3G-less areas, to avoid the problem of advertising something that is not available, whetting the appetite of consumers who will likely be un-sated for some time to come. And you’d be wrong.

I don’t know what these guys are thinking, but when I hear execs from Verison and Sprint brag that they have “all majority of their network” lit up with 3G, it makes me feel as if we’re just not that important to them, in the greater scheme of things.

Think that’s bad? Here’s the REALLY sick, sad world part of this: 3G networks exist in both Amarillo and Shreveport. Yep. That’s right. The hardware and software is there, and functioning. It’s just not turned on. How do I know? They told me. They’ve spent the bucks to upgrade their infrastructure, but because they believe the demand isn’t sufficient for them to make money on it, each network has chosen to keep 3G turned off until one of their competitors turns it on.

This makes for a really stupid situation with AT&T. I’ve been jonesing for an iPhone for some time now. My Sprint contract is up in June (Thank GOD). I’d like to switch. However, the shiny, new 3G iPhones come equipped with a (required) 3G data plan from your friends at the Death Star, a.k.a.: AT&T. But wait, you realize. Why should I pay for 3G service, when it’s not available here. Aye, laddie, that’s the rub. You see, AT&T’s position is that, even if you live in a non 3G area, and don’t travel to places that are graced with 3G service, you might, someday, sometime, be in a place that offers 3G, so you should pay for it, just in case.

Talk about chutzpah.

And of course, AT&T still has an exclusive relationship with Apple’s iPhone, at least for another year or two. After that, I’m sure Version (and Sprint, if they haven’t managed to alienate every customer or prospective customer they’ve ever had and driven themselves out of business) will get the iPhone, version 4 or 5. At that point, you might be able to get a deal on a data plan. Until then, rotsa ruck.

Lost in all this marketing madness is…the customers. I have no desire to pay for something I can’t have. I have no interest in watching ads for products not available to me, especially when there’s no indication as to when – or if – I’ll ever get them. And I’m weary of hearing execs proudly trumpet their “3G coverage statistics” when I’m on the outside, looking in.

Call this one for bad marketing, from an industry who’s most accurate slogans could be “_______ Wireless…we’re marginally not quite as awful as our competition. Seriously.” Now there’s an industry in need of some help, well beyond what marketing can do.

What fools these cell phone companies be.