Revolutionary User Interfaces

In an article posted this morning on Asymco, Horace Dediu discusses how the revolutionary user interface of the iPhone served to disrupt the mobile market and unseat the incumbents - Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson.

In 2007 something happened which changed the industry. It took a few years to even realize it was happening but by the time it was obvious, it had changed to such a degree that huge companies found themselves in financial distress.

Furthermore, Dediu discusses how over time as new input methods have been created, so have new platforms and new business models - as well as hurting the incumbents of the market. A big question that Dediu poses in his article is that with next revolutionary user interface seemingly being created at a faster and more rapid rate (mouse, click wheel and then multi-touch), what will be the next revolutionary user interface? He questions whether in fact it could be Siri.

My disruptive hypothesis for Siri is that it shifts the competition from platforms positioned on a device to a “coupled” super-platform deponent on broadband and infrastructural computing. Just after collecting enough data and observing patterns in it that give us clarity, It looks like things are about to change all over again.

If you’d like to hear more from Horace on this idea of Siri being the next shift in user interfaces, this week’s episode of the Critical Path would also be worth a listen.