iPhone OS 3.0: The lesson of not doing every basic thing first

Last week Apple released the much anticipated update to it’s iPhone operating system. Finally bringing many of the features most phone providers would have thought completely necessary in a modern smart phone: MMS, Video capture, Cut, copy, paste, Memo recorder, Background IM applications.

The Apple website lauded these new features as exciting developments, yet they can be found on most current Nokia, Sony Ericson, Samsung, LG and HTC handsets.

It’s taken two years to get these features on the iPhone - with many saying 3.0 is what it should have had when it launched. Yet everywhere I look i see iPhones, it’s easily the favoured handset amongst my friends - with the previously unconvinced now benefiting from their purchase of the new iPhone 3G S.

So did this lack of key features make a difference in the beginning, did it limit the success - no. The iPhone was so far ahead of the competition in other areas that people felt happy to live without these must-have features. This approach to not including everything people expect underlines a key principle for the internet age

Prioritise your killer features to bring instant success and don’t be afraid to add the perceived must-have basics later.

Avoiding the mythical phase 2 or phase 3

How many times have you heard - “That’s a cool idea, but lets put into phase 2″ - it’s an admission, a lack of confidence or ambition - and a fast track to mediocrity.

It happens like this, new service developments, shops & services start with hygiene factors. The team worry about doing the basics well and spend most of the budget doing these. Invariably things don’t go to plan and the pot for all the innovative extras gets smaller and smaller. The site or service launches, and it immediately fails to get traction, the audience figures grow much slower than expected, feedback isn’t a positive as expected which further pressures their development budget. This leads to a review of the project, a postponement of phase 2 - and a belief the service idea doesn’t work or the core idea was failed.

The next time your team think about delaying an exciting and innovative idea to phase 2 - ask yourself this - which of our supposed must-have features can we delay instead?

Delivering on your ambition

If your ambition is to build a better X - and let’s face it just about every project starts that way -  don’t start by copying the competition and talking about  doing the hygiene first. If you’re not innovating or doing something noticeable, why should people change their existing behaviour. Playing catch up with your competition is hard. Start from a positive position and force them to try and catch you. And remember if hygiene is easy it will be easy to add later.

If you take a look back over the myriad of web 2.0-like developments we’ve seen over the last few years. The ones that succeed are the ones that get their new ideas out there quickly, claiming their space with a bright new idea and then adding new features as their audience grows and helps them understand what makes sense.

So be brave, implement the things that differentiate first, then add the basics over time. If you talk about doing a phase 2 - make sure you’re audience is so excited they want a phase 2 and you then deliver on it.