It's presto, change-o as new iPhone is unveiled
LOS ANGELES — Wouldn't it be cool if you could use your cellphone to monitor activities in your home, say, to zoom in for an audio/video check of the baby's room while you were at work, or even adjust the heat?
Context & Ripple Effects
Early iPhone coverage focused on the handset as a destination for media, including Hollywood’s effort to adapt its content for the iPhone. Reporting in May also signaled that anticipation around a new model was already building.
The confirmed home-monitoring and remote climate-control functions broaden the iPhone’s role from a personal communications and media device to an interface for household systems.
First-order effects
- iPhone owners gain a single mobile device for checking home audio or video and adjusting heating while away from home.
- Apple expands the iPhone’s immediate value proposition beyond calls, web access and media by tying it to home monitoring and controls.
Second-order effects
- Home-monitoring and climate-control providers face pressure to make their systems usable through the iPhone, because compatibility determines whether their products fit the handset’s new use case.
- Apple gains greater leverage over the customer interface as household-device suppliers seek access to iPhone users.
Third-order effects
- If suppliers adopt the handset as a standard control point, home systems may compete increasingly on software compatibility and interface access rather than standalone hardware features.
- The move is an early example of platform gatekeeper leverage extending from media and communications into connected household services.
The trend: The iPhone is evolving into a general-purpose control interface, bringing adjacent services under the reach of a mobile software platform.