Too Soon!
Reading about Marco’s decision to add typefaces to Instapaper reminded me of a story I heard a couple of years ago about a Big Cellphone Manufacturing Concern.
The release of the iPhone changed the face of cellphones, leap-frogging over all the plasticy button-ridden casings with a elegant full-face touchscreen. A lot was written about how the existing industry players had missed this idea, needing Apple to make it a reality in the marketplace.
In fact, BigCellCo had experimented with multi-touch cellphone displays in their labs before.
Years before.
At the time they did the research, though, it was found that full-colour multi-touch displays were too much of a battery drain and thus were not productizable.
That got ingrained into the company culture as “Full-screen multi-touch is undoable”, ensuring that it always got shot-down in product meetings, with no-one pausing to consider advances in touchscreen or battery technologies.
And then Uncle Steve stood on a stage in 2007 and blew the world’s collective minds.
It’s dangerous (and common) product thinking that because you tried something and the implementation was impractical that it can’t be done. All too often, a competitor will come out of nowhere and do exactly what you dreamt of, and reap the rewards.
Always take a pause and remember the path that lead to something being ruled out.