Now he tells us. Bob Borchers, who was part of the original iPhone team at Apple and who now serves as CMO at Dolby, told Mobile World Congress this week that while the first-generation iPhone was indeed revolutionary, it apparently wasn’t all that great as a telephone. Trusted Reviews reports that Borchers told MWC that “If you had the original iPhone I apologize” because “it was not a great phone, it was an OK phone.”
In fact, Borchers thinks that Apple really oversold the phone aspect of the iPhone — what made it really great was its ability to help you get Internet access wherever you went. While many other phones offered mobile web browsers at the time, the iPhone was the first to really make mobile browsing a legitimate alternative to desktop browsing for many users.
“There were three value propositions in order of importance: a revolutionary phone, the best iPod ever and the Internet in your pocket but in fact it should have been the reverse,” Borchers said. “Having the Internet in your pocket was the most important… It was a great iPod but it was the connection to the internet and the app community that made the difference.”
