IApple’s mobile phone business would go the same way as the Mac did in the 1980s and 1990s.
Category: Mobility
Google’s Superphone is Super Surprising
Last week, I ordered the Nexus One during Google’s event, before the invited attendees got their free review units. Google shipped the phone by free FedEx overnight, so I began using the so-called “superphone” on Wednesday (January 6). Google impressed with the simple ordering process and prompt delivery.
I would recommend the Nexus One over iPhone to most anyone. While I’m no fan of Nexus One’s industrial design, the phone satisfies in most of the important ways: Call quality, user interface responsiveness, overall speed of the device, 3G telephony and data reception, ease of typing on touchscreen, and applications availability. Google and HTC have put together a simply satisfying smartphone.
Nexus One Foreshadows Google Mobility That Could Get Ugly for Apple and Microsoft
Microsoft and Apple underestimate how quickly Google is consolidating its mobile platform—clearly so do geeks reviewing Nexus One. Google isn’t just going for one piece of mobility but the whole shebang. Google is putting together the pieces to offer a single mobile lifestyle, with no PC required, supported by search and other Google informational services. Like everything else the company does, free is the glue sticking everything together.
Google’s decision to sell Nexus One direct, even the carrier subsidized model, is part of the strategy. Open-source licensing has its limitations and risks fragmenting Android. As I explained in March 2009 post “There’s an App for That,” Apple changed the rules for mobile operating systems by breaking carrier control over updates. Apple distributes iPhone OS updates, preventing the kind of fragmentation typically caused by carrier distribution. By selling a handset direct, Google takes control of Android updates for a flagship phone that also acts like a baseline design model for handset manufacturers licensing the mobile operating system.
AT&T "Testudine Download Speeds"
Evidently, AT&T thought it best not to mention the iconic super-smartphone too much lest its executives be driven offstage by a mob of iPhone users complaining of dropped calls, lousy service, delayed text and voice […]
Understanding The Device Agnostic Internet
A tablet is a natural extension of the iPhone experience, and will ready the user base to accept new and other devices, like internet flat panel television sets. If Apple tried to launch an internet […]
Two Stories of Smartphones Stolen
Yesterday someone stole my daughter’s new smartphone from a school locker. On Friday, a good friend’s iPhone 3GS disappeared from a car dealership, while he was talking on it. Both stories, which go oddly together, are cautionary tales about social media, cloud computing and the risks of identities stolen with the hardware.
Stolen phones used to conjure fears of minutes usage overages or big bills from calls placed to faraway places. Now the cost could be you.
iPhone’s Chinese Disconnection?
Yesterday, several Wall Street analysts swallowed their pride and iPhone sales projections after the first four days of official iPhone sales in China amounted to 5,000 units. Whoa, 5,000? I’m stunned China Unicom sold that many. At $730 to over $1,000 price range, iPhone goes oddly—seemingly quite badly—together with average Chinese incomes. Apple’s mobile costs way too much for the market—or does it?
Several blogs, including All Things Digital, described iPhone’s China debut as a failure, feeding off analysts’ glum reaction. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, one of Apple’s biggest cheerleaders on Wall Street, described sales as “soft.”
Mini-Mobilesoft
Holy. Crap. I don’t think we have any unbruised skin left on our body to take any more lumps regarding our mobile strategy. The Microsoft Mismanagement theory is in full force as we throw any […]
SAI Chart of the Day: 2B App Store Downloads
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. A chart can say so much more. Earlier today, Apple announced 2 billion downloads from its mobile App Store and 85,000 applications available. Silicon Alley Insider put that apps into a shocking chart.
Headline of the Day: ‘AT&T to Welcome iPhone Users to 2003 Tomorrow’
All Things Digital—and it’s an understatement. “At some point late tomorrow morning, the carrier will release an update enabling MMS,” he writes. About a minute later, AT&T’s network will go all to hell—it’s the end of the world as we know it—as iPhoners break out in one giant unison MMS.
Ah, the iPhone. A few weeks ago, I pronounced that my Nokia N97 is gone, it’s back again. I dumped the iPhone 3GS, and I’m surprised how little I miss the smartypants phone. Perhaps it was a psychological sense of missing out on something that caused the “disconnected” feeling using the N97 that I blogged about . No more.
Nokia and the iPhone Hype Problem
Nokia World convenes for two days in Stuttgart, Germany (local time there, 9 a.m.). It’s an event that many US analysts, bloggers or journalists will look at with disdain. If hype were the only measure of success, Apple would be the world’s largest handset manufacturer. But for all the iPhone bark—much of it coming from the United States—Nokia has got way more bite. Not that most Americans will hear about it.
Netbook Plague Kills 1 in 5 Notebooks
The netbook scourge continues unabated, and PC manufacturers are host on their on petard. Could anything be more putrid? DisplaySearch has ruined the last official day of summer holiday by releasing netbook shipment data. In May, I blogged that netbook US retail share approached 20 percent.