What's behind iPhone success

If you read this interesting analysis (via Daring Fireball) by former Windows Phone manager Microsoft’s Charlie Kindel about the status of Android and the relevance of fragmentation in its future, it is easy to understand that a critical role in iOS initial acceptance, then its ubiquitous success, was played by the deal that Apple stroke with carriers worldwide.

That deal gave Apple what no one before had got from the carriers: full control of the device, the UI, the OS, the marketplace, the service. On top of that, Apple still makes $150 from the carrier for each iPhone sold, upfront. Apart from the $150, it is pretty clear that iOS would not be iOS, with all its merits and demerits. Also one could ask if the iPad would have come to rule the tablet space so quickly and so strongly, if its technology had not been introduced to the world (and made popular and highly wanted) through the iPhone.

So, that initial deal could have had a huge relevance, possibly similar to the technical merits of the platform themselves; just take into account the hurdles that Windows Phone is meeting along its route despite its technical advantage over Android. And if you think of who actually stroke the deal, you realize that will never happen again. Nor to Apple, nor to anyone else.