Mar

30

When Apple’s iPhone gatecrashed CES two months ago, it forced the cellular industry’s hand. At Florida’s CTIA Wireless 2007 show this week, it forced them to fold. Buzz, if nothing else, has won the first round.
At CTIA, evidence abounded that Apple is forcing a sluggish wireless industry to respond to its hybrid media player/phone, which won’t even go on sale until June and will cost $500 for the most basic version.
Case in point: Samsung and Sprint’s UpStage, a music player-phone hybrid that goes on sale next month. Smaller than a deck of cards, UpStage ignores the standard practice of integrating the audio player functions into the phone, instead placing phone and audio functions on opposites sides of the case.
“Apple is good at making noise in a certain space, which benefits everyone in that space. Look at the buzz we’re getting on the (UpStage) phone,” said Kim Titus, a senior PR manager at Samsung Electronics. “It’s a music phone, not a smart phone, and it’s getting excellent ratings.”
Other cellular industry executives were quick to hop on the iPhone bandwagon too.
“There’s nothing like having someone come out and validate your vision,” said Bill Blummer, Nokia’s vice president of multimedia in North America. “Nokia has always had a passion for creating convergence devices.” Nokia’s best play this week was the Nokia N76, a RAZR-like 3G fashion-phone.

Read Full Story from WIRED

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Mar

30

Picture 3.pngEver since Steve Jobs’ keynote at the Macworld Expo in January, we’ve known that the iPhone is being released sometime in June. But we haven’t known exactly when.

Now Cingular is confirming that the release date will be June 11. A customer service manager at Cingular (we called 800-947-5096 and were transferred to sales) gave us that date late Thursday, but, alas, said he didn’t have any additional information beyond that.

That date is no coincidence. It’s the first day of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, scheduled to be held in San Francisco from June 11 through June 15. (Incidentally, the agenda includes a focus on Leopard, the next generation of OS X that’s supposed to be released sometime in the second quarter of 2007.)

Rumors have been swirling about the iPhone release date. One blog pointed to a release date of June 15 based on alleged documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission, but those have been shown to be a hoax.

CNET reports

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Mar

29

apple-logo.pngThere has been so much positive press about Apple’s iPhone ever since it was announced that hearing the ‘not so bullish’ side is somewhat refreshing. John Dvorak posted such an article. Stating the razor thin margins and quick shelf life of a design pose a big challenge to Apple, even if the phone is initially successful. I agree with everything he stated, as it is true about the cell phone industry and the different environment that Apple is about to enter.

iPhonePlanet: you can only listen to so much, Dvorak is starting to sound like Charlie Brown’s parents “Wah Wah…Wah Wah Wah”

The cell phone space is that of a plethora of ‘me too’ phones, and multiple ’smart’ (and potentially beneficial) functions that most people do not use. (In my opinion people do not use the smart functions because they do not know how to, or the functions do not integrate with other types of services they use.)

Apple changed the name of the game. Even without the phone being released, we witnessed its capability and its potential, and everyone had to wipe the drool from their awe struck mouths. (I include myself as one of those wiping. ) The reason the iPhone is different and revolutionary, is the fact that Apple is not selling a phone… it is selling a stunning multi-functional device that promises its users a glimpse into the future.

The iPhone is a key component to a true IMS functioning world, at least Apple’s vision of it. (If you’re wondering what IMS is, here is a good summary.) Apple is doing what Microsoft wants to do. Apple is in the position to benefit the most from this IMS centric world we are about to embark on.

We have not yet seen a true IMS world, even though the telecoms may say they have given it to use already. Even if it has arrived people have yet to take advantage, partly because the wireless transmission speeds were not fast enough, but mostly because systems do not easily talk to each other at the consumer level (at least for the layman). But I have a strange feeling Apple will show us all what we are missing… and we will love it, and love Apple even more in the process.

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Mar

29

AT&T Inc. Chief Operating Officer Randall Stephenson pulled out the iPhone during his speech at CTIA, the audience snapped to attention and the room lit with camera flashes.

This is a small clip of the event.

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Mar

29

The iPod-dominated market for media and music players to double between 2005 and 2010, according to researchers at iSuppli. New research from the company confirms that the iPod and similar devices – a category soon to include Apple’s iPhone - already comprise the fastest-growing segments of the consumer electronics industry.

iSuppli expects unit shipments will rise to 268.6 million units in 2011, expanding at an annual 13 percent growth rate from 128.7 million units in 2005. Shipments will reach 216.9 million units this year, they explained.

“A major driving factor behind this growth is the fact that PMP/MP3 players take advantage of the internet more than other consumer electronic devices, giving users the ability to quickly and easily sample, acquire and share media,” said Chris Crotty, senior analyst for consumer electronics at iSuppli. “Other reasons for the rapid market expansion include the expanding catalogue of available content and component cost reductions that are making the players more affordable for consumers.”

The analysts note a broadband-fuelled change in consumer demand - the MySpace and YouTube generation want video, as such iSuppli expects sales of multimedia devices to grow fastest than those of MP3 players.

The total number of internet households and broadband subscribers worldwide will grow to 883 million and 507 million respectively by 2011, iSuppli predicts.

The worldwide broadband digital paid video market will expand to $4.5bn in 2010, up from a meagre $300m in 2006. Meanwhile, iSuppli forecasts the broadband music market will grow to $5bn in revenue by 2010, up from $1.6bn in 2006.

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Mar

29

Picture 2.pngMicrosoft today issued a response to the iPhone’s mobile version of Safari with Deepfish, the codename for a new technology designed for Windows Mobile 5 or 6 smartphones to provide a more desktop-like web browser experience. The software automatically creates a complete image of a website, preserving the formatting intended by its creator; instead of using a touchscreen, however, the Microsoft-developed component uses the joystick or keypad to guide a selection box over an area to zoom in for a closer view of an image or text. Pressing the select button on the phone again lets the user switch between dynamic elements such as hyperlinks and text forms.
Deepfish is currently available for free only on a first-come, first-serve limited public beta, Microsoft says: when an unspecified limit is reached, downloads of the test version will stop for the foreseeable future. The company hasn’t revealed if and when it expects to release a final version.

Though characterized as a “great opportunity for innovation” by Microsoft, the technology is extremely close in spirit to the full-screen web app developed by Apple for the iPhone, which relies exclusively on finger taps to zoom into and launch individual page components. The primary changes beyond the physical input method include hiding the address bar in a menu and offering more advanced options such as clearing the browser’s file cache.

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Mar

28

Brother….John C Dvorak is at it again.

The hype over the unreleased iPhone has actually increased over the past month despite the fact that nobody has seen or used the device. This, if nothing else, proves the power of branding and especially the power of brand loyalty.dvorak.gif
It’s the loyalists who keep promoting this device as if it is going to be anything other than another phone is a crowded market. And it’s exactly the crowded market aspect of this which analysts seem to be ignoring.

Apple’s past successes have been in markets that were either emerging or moribund. Its biggest hit has been the iPod. But let’s examine what happened here.
First the MP3 player business was segmented and unfocused with numerous players making a lot of cheap junk and not doing much to market any of it.
Apple does what? Advertise. Gosh, what a concept.
Then there was the online music distribution business, again unfocused and out-of-control with little marketing and a lot of incompatible technologies. So Apple comes in with a reasonable solution, links it to the heavily promoted iPod and bingo. A winner.

It advertises on TV, on billboards and on the Internet. Within no time the company takes over the business which would probably still be languishing without Apple.
Thus Apple does what it does best. It produces a jazzy product and promotes it like any good business should do. And in the process manages to get a high margin.
This is nothing more than the fundamentals.

Now compare that effort and overlay the mobile handset business. This is not an emerging business. In fact it’s gone so far that it’s in the process of consolidation with probably two players dominating everything, Nokia and Motorola.
During this phase of a market margins are incredibly thin so that the small fry cannot compete without losing a lot of money.

As for advertising and expensive marketing this is nothing like Apple has ever stepped into. It’s a buzz saw waiting to chop up newbies
The problem here is that while Apple can play the fashion game as well as any company, there is no evidence that they can play it fast enough. These phones go in an out of style so fast that unless Apple has half a dozen variants in the pipeline, its phone, even if immediately successful, will be passé within 3 months.
There is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive. Even in the business where it is a clear pioneer, the personal computer, it had to compete with Microsoft and can only sustain a 5% market share.

And its survival in the computer business relies on good margins. Those margins cannot exist in the mobile handset business for more than 15 minutes.

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Mar

27

google-mobile_phones-wireless-search_engines_sci.jpg

Today, Google squashed talk of them developing a mobile phone that would compete with Apple’s iPhone.

The search giant said it was more logical to form partnerships with existing handset makers instead. They reiterated that they are focused on software and not hardware.

Rumors surfaced a few weeks ago that Google would throw its hat into the cell phone ring with its own GPhone after Google filed a patent that details an application that can predict what a user is searching for or the words they are typing in a text message by taking into account the users location, previous searching / messaging history and even the time of day.

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Mar

27

The new cell phone from Apple Inc. made a rare public appearance Tuesday during the keynote session at the CTIA Wireless 2007 trade show. It lasted just moments, but it was easily the highlight of an otherwise uneventful morning.

When AT&T Inc. Chief Operating Officer Randall Stephenson pulled out the gadget during his speech, the audience snapped to attention and the room lit with camera flashes.

And while Apple made sure to whisk the closely guarded device away from the convention center right after the speech, another keynote speaker managed to get his eager hands on it backstage beforehand: Kevin Martin, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

“He spent more time with it than I did,” Stephenson said in an interview afterward. For a minute, “It seemed like he wouldn’t give it back,” Stephenson joked.

It was Martin, Stephenson said, who quickly figured out the touch-screen navigation that the AT&T executive demonstrated minutes later during his speech.

The iPhone is expected to go on sale in June and will be offered exclusively by AT&T’s Cingular Wireless unit, which is being rebranded under the AT&T name. Since it was unveiled in early January by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, more than 1 million people have asked AT&T to notify them when the iPhone becomes available, Stephenson said.

He acknowledged that Apple’s secretive product development, previously unheard of in an industry where wireless service providers typically wield tremendous sway with device makers, generated some consternation within the company.

“There was some internal rankling, but this was one of those opportunities that you latch a hold of as a carrier,” he said.

Tuesday marked only the second time Stephenson had held or seen an iPhone in person.

“I held it one time in a Cingular board meeting,” but that unit wasn’t operational, he said. “Today was the first time I could navigate it.”

Then, as quickly as it began, all the fun and games came to an end — Apple style.

“A guy in blue jeans” took it away, Stephenson said.

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Mar

27

sprint_000.gifSprint is trying to take a bite out of Apple.

As the mobile-phone industry gears up for Apple Inc.’s soon-to-be-released mashup of an iPod and a cell phone, Sprint Nextel Corp. on Monday said it will change its music pricing to match the market leader.

Starting next week, Sprint will slash its $2.50-per-song price to 99 cents. That is the same price that has allowed Apple to sell more than 2 billion songs through its online iTunes Store.

Sprint also has a new phone called the UpStage, which executives tout as a device that is well-suited to playing music and placing calls.

The moves by Sprint, the Kansas City area’s largest corporate employer, are the latest to show how much wireless companies are counting on services beyond calls to stand out from competitors and entice consumers to spend more. Sprint’s rollout came as its leading competitors also made moves to buttress their music-selling strategies.

Sprint said Monday that subscribers have downloaded an industry-leading 15 million songs over its wireless networks.

While that is not even a nibble out of Apple’s market share, Sprint and its competitors are looking to June, when Apple and Cingular Wireless plan to launch the iPhone. The phone will sport a high-end price tag — either $500 or $600, depending on song capacity — but Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs contends that his company will sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008.

David Owens, the Sprint executive who unveiled the $149 UpStage on Monday, said he sees Jobs’ goal as nothing but good news.

“I congratulate Steve Jobs on his intention to sell 10 million,” Owens said at a wireless industry trade show in Orlando, Fla. “If that’s the case, I can’t imagine how many of these we’re going to sell. If he sells 10 million, that’s great news for us.”

The UpStage, manufactured by Samsung, will offer consumers a product that is distinctly different from the iPhone.

Sprint calls the UpStage a flip phone with a twist. One side of the device has a keyboard and a small screen for text messaging and to identify incoming calls. Hit a button, flip the phone over and the device becomes a full-featured digital music player.

“At $149 and downloads for 99 cents, we built it for the masses,” Owens said.

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