Throughout the history of technology, there have been instances where companies have introduced products which have effectively halted innovation within their industry sector. Boulton and Watt quashed innovation in the early steam industry. 150 years later, the introduction of antibiotics stopped research into phages for almost a century. More recently, in 1981, MTV performed the same trick, proudly announcing their arrival as “Video killed the radio star”. In each case, it took decades for engineering innovation to challenge those steps and reinvent competition in the sector. It was as if designers and engineers had lost their ability to evolve against such a successful product introduction.

In 2007, Apple launched the iPhone. As with the previous examples, its success was such that both consumers and engineers forgot the diversity of innovation that had both preceded it and made it possible. Before the iPhone, mobile phones were designed for multiple applications, in multiple guises. We had camera phones, flip phones, gaming phones, candy bars, rotary phones, organisers, phones with QWERTY keyboards, all developed as designers and engineers addressed different use cases. Phones were optimised for battery life, radio reception, weight and form factor. In just a few years, that diversity of design disappeared. Instead, we were presented with a “one size fits all” glass Swiss army knife of connectivity, where innovation ended. It was a new beginning, but the beginning of the end, as engineers lost their nerve and started copying, rather than inventing.

In this talk, Simon discusses what went wrong, the effect it has had on the way we use mobile connectivity and how the engineering profession should cope with such events in their industries.

This is a free lunchtime lecture at the IET's Savoy House in London.  2 Savoy Pl, London WC2R 0BL