Jobs did it with microtransactions too. It was a problem which hundreds of startups worked on. When Jobs convinced a couple major artists to sell one track for 99c, it finally created a scalable market through iPod/iPhone distribution for Visa and MC to profitably process in and revolutionized digital content delivery overall.
Apple ran into a problem when they came up with the Newton. Great hardware for the time, but not a bunch of Apps. Apps come easier now, so new hardware categories do go well.
Jobs did it with microtransactions too. It was a problem which hundreds of startups worked on. When Jobs convinced a couple major artists to sell one track for 99c, it finally created a scalable market through iPod/iPhone distribution for Visa and MC to profitably process in and revolutionized digital content delivery overall.
Great post, very insightful!
Apple ran into a problem when they came up with the Newton. Great hardware for the time, but not a bunch of Apps. Apps come easier now, so new hardware categories do go well.
I remember tapping my palm pilot and cell phone together at my hardware friends and being like, make it one thing. Blackberry! the Apple of Canada.
Good point. Jobs had to shut it down and learned an important lesson for the iPod & iPhone.