Blog Post #7

    I want to talk about the iPhone (which I think a lot of people will be talking about) when it comes to the Diffusion theory. The iPhone caught on so well because it was one of the first phones of its kind. I mean a full touch screen that had no extra keyboard, flipping action, and so many extra apps made it this brand new, updated, and “welcome to the future” gadget. I think the release year is the way it became so successful. 2007 is right when those that were born without global technology (generation X) are now having children (millennials) that were able to see both sides of an early version of global technology, i.e email, dial-up, etc. With the iPhone 1 being the jumping-off point, it gave way to a larger section of the early majority and late majority because it was such a popular gadget that “everyone had to have”. But the thing that made it so popular with everyone also made it difficult for others to accept it. 

    Those born in the silent generation and even some baby boomers still refuse to have an iPhone saying that they don’t need anything new or they just don’t understand how everything works now that they have updated it so much. Back to the diffusion theory, iPhones are now everywhere so there is no way that we haven’t reached the full saturation of market shares meaning that, in theory, those that have the innovations should not change but yet people upgrade to iPhones who have never had them all the time and even those that have iPhone continue to update to the newest model. The one thing that makes iPhone stand out from other phone companies is the fact that they upgrade every year with a newer, better version but I also think that this is one of the negative consequences. The fact that by updating the phones every year, they start to phase out older models which then leads to some people not being able to keep up with the version and being iced out by the iPhone if they can’t afford to keep up with the new models. The iPhone 14 is estimated to cost 800.00 just as a basic version. 800.00 is a lot for some people and they may not be able to afford to spend 800.00 on one phone when that may be their rent. 

    While iPhone isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, I believe that if the upgrades don’t slow down or the cost goes down in some aspect, then iPhone won’t be able to keep up with itself and the positive aspects that it has given to the connection of the global technology.