ME's Tim Green on how Apple has adopted IBM's 'golden screwdriver' policy for hardware upgrades...
Years ago I read a book called Big Blue about the rise and fall of IBM. One of its revelations was that IBM would use a trick called the 'golden screwdriver' to boost its profits.
When a customer was sold a mainframe computer, IBM would install one much more powerful than was ordered, but with many of its functions blocked. Then, when the customer requested an upgrade, the engineer would turn up with his 'golden screwdriver' and switch on the extra capabilities.
Took a few minutes, cost a fortune.
I was reminded of this when Apple announced its iPhone 3.0 software upgrade recently. Of course, the comparison is not exact. Apple is not profiteering from the improvement.
Quite the reverse – the upgrade is free to all existing iPhone users. But it is more evidence of the 'in-built obsolescence' of which golden screwdrivers are an extreme example.
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To recap, the new iPhone software will offer MMS functionality, P2P Bluetooth, cut and paste, App Store subscriptions and more. Of course, none of this is especially remarkable. MMS? That's been disappointing us all for years. It's high time that Apple grabbed a piece of that disappointment.
So you have to wonder to what extent Apple left off some of these basic features just so it could switch them on easily later (golden screwdriver) and get a flock of sheeplike commentators (me included - baaa) to fuel its PR machine.
And it's a similar story in hardware. The next iPhone, expected to be revealed at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8th, is sure to have a better camera and more memory, leaving you to wonder why the best Apple could manage first time was 2 megapixels and 16GB?
Another fascinating angle will be the styling of the device. It's extremely unlikely the new iPhone will be much different from the old. Maybe a bit skinnier, or a slightly different colour. But if the iPod experience is any guide, the iPhone will barely change its form factor for years to come.
This is another unique, if little commented upon, facet of the Apple way. Look at how much Nokia's flagship smartphones have changed from, say, the 6660 to the N96. In the same timeframe, the iPod just got slimmer and moved from a click wheel to a scroll wheel. It looks almost identical.
My 6660 got left on a train. There's not a day goes by that I don't think about it.
