I believe we’re living in one of the most transformative times in history.
Nice essay for those who believe.
Posts tagged “iPhone”
Oh benevolent bureaucracy, you can help create domestic saturation of markets and build world handset manufacturers but then you fail to make any decent smartphone to take on the world.
The iPhone entering Korea after 190 countries have already approved it is an embarassing test of regulatory failure. Opening markets will undoubtedly help but it will take time for Samsung and LG to catchup.
The Apple Netpod
This is purely speculation so think with me as Businessweek points to Verizon+Apple negotiations that go beyond the iPhone. I’m not convinced Verizon will get the iPhone as much as they want it, I think Apple wants their juicy EVDO network for a new device.
I’m calling it an Apple Netpod but call it what you will, it’s a cloud driven device that relies on the network to make it work. Apple’s looking to create a category here with something bigger than the most robust iPod and certainly less powerful than a stripped out MacBook. The Kindle and slew of netbooks have opened up a small category for $249-$500 devices that basically let you do mundane things like reading books/webpages or viewing crappy YouTube videos. They’re basically dumb little machines forced to use a big boy operating system that sucks on a deformed <100% keyboard.
For Apple, it’s well documented that a mini-Macbook is not in their interest (not even going to cite this since it’s obvious). Fixing the deficiencies of the iPod Touch however is something of Apple’s interest. The iPod Touch’s greatest deficiency isn’t it’s size, it’s the lack of the constant network connection. So you could slap on an Amazon Whispernet service to do data only iPod Touch but it’s still a bloody small device. Now we’re talking about big screen size at 8, 9, 10 inches and we’re talking about something that in theory works pretty similarly to the Kindle.
While the Kindle is reading what Amazon convinces publishers to join, Apple hasn’t even needed to court publishers to the App Store with NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, USA Today, Chicago Tribune (ect) going bananas. If you use the NYT, WSJ or Bloomberg apps you also realize you pretty much never have to type anything in the reading apps, ever. Sometimes you can email a great NYT article to your mom but it hardly seems to justify a physical keyboard so you could bet we’ll never see a keyboard on a sub MacBook device. You simply wouldn’t need it, a virtual (and likely, awkward) keyboard would be more than enough.
The best part of the NetPod would be the opportunity for publishers to go nuts in a new App Store. New users would be drawn to the basic features for viewing media (Photos for NetPod! View Videos for Netpod! YouTube for Netpod!) while users would begin to get apps from fancy publishers desperately looking to re-monetize their digital users. Current App Store developers would also gleefully create games and get Microsoft Surface-y in using full hand multi-touch.
Ultimately, the Netpod would be Apple’s little device that took blogs and web reading into the recliner. I’m willing to bet typing simply sucks and it would never substitute as a device for taking notes or even recognizing handwriting because it wouldn’t have to. People are happily paying $399 for a b/w text only on a 6” reading device in addition to book purchases, a $400-$500 to watch videos, read the Safari Netpod blunted-web, get some YouTube, view a free ad-supported NYT/WSJ/USA Today app on a 7,8,9” color screen doesn’t seem like a stretch at all.
This fits neatly into Apple’s strict product categories: above the iPod Touch & iPhone but definitely less than a MacBook. An iPhone and iPod Touch would continue to offer portability, size and go-anywhere pocket-ability while the Netpod would be the Internet reader while reclining and lounging. Things like note-taking, e-mail or instant messaging probably wouldn’t even be supported by Apple in a 1.0. And if you ever needed to start taking notes or writing, a MacBook with it’s non-virtual keyboard would do a far better job.
So this is just some guessing:
Apple Netpod: $500~ 8”~ 720p~, 16-30 ounces, entirely glass touchscreen, absolutely no physical keyboard, cloud connected, and with it’s brand new App Store.
Just sayin
iPhone OS 3 Subscription Pricing
The creator of Instapaper makes the case for subscription pricing. While they are completely valid points, the opportunity exists for abuse as outlined by Gizmodo. Overall, this is a necessary step for all involved parties to evolve the creation and usage of iPhone Apps, let’s hope developers don’t get crazy on micro-transactions.
I’ve wanted to charge a subscription price for Instapaper since the beginning. The app requires a web service with recurring monthly expenses, plus my time to update and maintain the service, all for the indefinite future. One of the reasons I’ve stuck with the (relatively high) $10 price point is to cover these recurring costs because I only had one opportunity to take money. Now, the game changes: I can elect to charge a lower initial rate because I know I won’t need to maintain server capacity to support this user forever with just $10.
This will, in a way, give us much of the effect of the rumored Higher-Quality-App Store. I suspect we won’t see a lot of subscription-priced apps charging more than $1-2/month, but even the minimum of $1/month (which I suspect will be a very popular price) accumulates to real money from the truly devoted users who keep it installed over the long term.
And if a lot of apps switch to $1/month, we could see some great side effects:
- The average paid-app-developer’s revenue will probably increase, encouraging better-quality applications that take more time and talent to develop.
- Developers will be rewarded for continuing to update their apps instead of abandoning them after they fall off the charts.
- People will delete apps that they don’t use, keeping their phones faster and less cluttered, which improves their opinion of the platform and keeps their appetite healthy for new apps as they come along.
- The App Store will gain powerful new ranking metrics, should Apple choose to use them: subscription-priced apps with the most accumulated revenue or the longest cumulative installed time. (For example, a monthly-billed app installed by one user for 12 months counts as 12 sales.) These metrics would promote apps that are more useful than one-hit-wonder novelties.
AdAge has a nice write up on the state of QR/two-dimensional barcodes for mobile marketing. It goes through the blah-blahs on Japan, the current practices by Qdoba, Microsoft and others but omits one glaring point; if Apple puts QR as a priority tomorrow in the iPhone 3.0 spec, it will be the single biggest thing to happen to the QR platform in it’s history. It’s unclear what Apple will do but enabling the iPhone crowd to interact with QR codes right off the bat will be a huge step in making QR marketing mainstream.
If I had to guess on tomorrow, this is not happening but I would love to be surprised.
And this is the downside of having a closed, seamlessly operating vertical platform. Censorship.
Time Crisis for iPhone (via TouchArcade)
My eyes grew wide and I stared a bit when I first saw Time Crisis on iPhone. I’ve spent so much of my life playing Time Crisis, you have no idea. More importantly, it’s wonderful to see Namco taking the iPhone as a serious platform for gaming. This is another significant platform title in Namco’s belt coming to the iPhone (Katamari being the first). Kudos to Namco for making a fun port, this isn’t the best-game-ever but as a gamer, I appreciate franchise efforts.
You have my money. Bring us Reiko.
This reads like an iPhone 3.0 Software Update wish list. Poignant since so much of it is glaringly obvious. Palm Pre makes these omissions look startlingly lacking.
“After dragging its heels for months, Korea’s telecommunications regulator finally came around and declared WIPI, a local software standard mandated for data-enabled mobile phones, a mistake.”
Stunning, the WPPI has been a huge hinderance for the advancement of Korean handphones and the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) finally broke the WIPI standard. It basically means the iPhone will hit Korea at KTF and SK Telecom and Korea’s most notable domestic handphone producers, Samsung and LG, are going to be forced to step up.
This is pretty much great news to everyone and especially to consumers. A more competitive Korean handphone market will surely impact the US and Apple gets to play in one of the most connected places on Earth.
Goodbye WIPI, Hello iPhone - Korea Times
