kottke:
In terms of this competition, the iPhone at this point in its lifetime2 is analogous to the internet in the late 1990s. The internet was pretty obviously in competition with a few obvious industries at that point – like meatspace book stores – but caught (and is still catching) others off guard: cable TV, movie companies, music companies, FedEx/USPS/UPS, movie theaters, desktop software makers, book publishers, magazine publishers, shoe/apparel stores, newspaper publishers, video game console makers, libraries, grocery stores, real estate agents, etc. etc….basically any organization offering entertainment or information. The internet is still the ultimate “there’s an app for that” engine; it duplicated some of the capabilities of and drew attention away from so many products and services that these businesses offered. Some of these companies are dying – slowly or otherwise – while others were able to adapt and adopt quickly enough to survive and even thrive. It’ll be interesting to see which of the iPhone’s competitors will be able to do the same.