The iPhone Takeover Begins
Today Apple officially released the iPhone 3G - the next generation of the iPhone. Adding 3G speeds, support for 3rd party software, Assisted GPS, combined with a major drop in the pricing takes the iPhone to the next level - and it was already a pretty convincing package to begin with.
Vodafone New Zealand will be selling the iPhone in-store on July 11th. There will be two devices available: the iPhone 3G 8Gb for USD$199 and the 16Gb model for USD$299. This pricing is for an iPhone on a 24 month contract. It sounds like you can still purchase an iPhone without a contract (i.e. for prepay use) for somewhere between NZD$800-$1,000. There is no news from Vodafone NZ on the plans being offered.
So - July 11th it begins.
Why all the hype? Has Apple's marketing got to me? Well, yes it has. But it is not just hype, it is based on some pretty convincing facts. The iPhone package has already redefined the mobile phone - it is now redefining our expectations of mobile computing full-stop. Let me explain…
The Hardware
The iPhone hardware gives the average person unprecedented power in their pocket, and now for a pretty impressive price
:
- The large Multi-Touch screen
- The Accelerometer that detects device movement and rotation
- The large storage space - up to 16Gb
- Assisted GPS
- 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth
- Unprecendented battery life for such hardware: 300 hours standby, 10 hours talk time, 7 hours video, 24 hours audio
All of these hardware features are packed into the slickest phone design ever. As the Senior Vice President of Walt Disney stated: "It really has the ability to pack the power of a laptop into the size of a smartphone." The hardware features combined with the OS X operating system means that Apple potentially fill more than the mobile phone space, but also move into the ultra-mobile computing space. With rumored 7 inch devices running the same multi-touch interface it will be interesting to see what comes next from Apple in this area.
The Software
It is not just about hardware with Apple - their software is consistently beautiful and simple. It is intuitive and appealing. The software on the iPhone covers off the needs of 80% of the market:
PIM software to manage Contacts, Calendar, Email and Notes- Full over-the-air push support for PIM info with Microsoft Exchange and MobileMe (Apple's new dotMac replacement)
- Desktop data sync with Microsoft Outlook and Apple software
- SMS and Voice Calls using the slickest interface I have ever seen for basic Phone features
- Safari browser offering desktop browser support on a mobile device. The webpages scales and zooms/pans providing a truly intuitive way to surf on a small screen. This feature alone has already redefined browsing from a mobile device, making it a realistic option for the first time.
- iTunes software allowing the full iPod functionality with an advanced interface.
- iPhoto support for viewing or managing your photos on the run. Combined with the inbuilt camera this is a slick combination.
- Maps with GPS - view an address on a map, plot and navigate your course. View your current location at any time. Full Google Maps support.
- A dedicated YouTube program optimises your YouTube experience allowing you to easily locate, view and bookmark your favorite movies.
- Office file viewers are included for Word, Excel and Powerpoint as well as Apple iWorks files.
And that just scratches the surface. These tools are not new in themselves - but as usual Apple takes them to the next level. It is a pretty convincing toolkit in your pocket, covering off most of the features the average user will ever need in a mobile device. And that is before 3rd party apps enter the picture.
Market Dominance
It is pretty clear that the Apple is now aggressively going after market share. Within the first 8 months of its launch the iPhone had already claimed over 28% of the smartphone market in the US, second only to RIM (Blackberry). At that point it was not available in other countries. As of today the iPhone is available in 6 countries, on July the 11th it will be launched in another 14 countries, and within a few months it will available in 70 countries worldwide. Combined with the significant price drops and locked ceiling for pricing worldwide we can see the picture.
Will Apple really start to dominate the mobile phone market? Yes I believe it will. The rapid adoption of the initial iPhone already paints the picture. More than that however, we can see that the iPhone lives up to the hype, receiving rave reviews from satisfied owners and critics alike. I have never seen a single device get so much attention from the media or the average person down the street - not even from Apple, who seem to be at the forefront of marketing the launch of such devices (eg the iMac and iPod).
Let's have a look at some of the target audiences Apple is obviously going after…
Children/Students
Let's be honest - Apple already had most kids with the iPod, and the iPhone is an even more compelling music experience. Now add the coolest phone with SMS and email. Now add the slick games powered by the accelerometer. What about the inbuilt YouTube support and the best mobile browsing experience? Now add the 3rd party software that has been launched - student learning tools, social networking software, sound mixers and much more. Do I need to say any more?
SME/Enterprise
Sharp pricing. "Push" email, contacts and calendar. Microsoft Exchange support. 3G data transfer speeds. Multiple secure networking options and Cisco VPN support. Remote device wipe. Support for Microsoft Office documents. MobileMe for remote sync, backups and anywhere/anytime access to data using the slickest browser-based toolset. Apple has ticked off the list of most business and corporate requirements. The overall packaged software combined with the slick hardware and pricing model is sure to be appealing to business users.
Developers
It is obvious that developers are a key target with this launch of the iPhone. The SDK (Software Development Kit) has been well publicized and marketed
. The Apple WWDC was sold out for the first time ever and Apple has made no secret of this. The App Store joins the gap between the developers and the end users. And Apple is definitely showing off the 3rd party apps that have been developed, and emphasizing over and over again the short amount of time developers had to work on their application and how easy they found it. We can see that Apple are trying to get a singular message across to developers - developing for the iPhone is quick and it is easy. Whether that is true or not, developers are definitely listening and are more interested in Apple now than ever before. But again, this is based on more than just Apple's marketing hype.
The iPhone offers a pretty compelling picture to developers. The hardware is very powerful for a mobile device, and gives developers the ability to tap into features they have not had access to before - such as multi-touch, the accelerometer, and location awareness. Apple is making it easy for developers to work with this type of hardware - and as a result we are seeing some impressive and innovative software coming to the iPhone that we have never seen on any other platform. Apple helped by getting the hardware form-factor right in many respects as well - for example the screen resolution is large enough to create compelling and usable software that can be navigated with a finger, while still small enough to fit into a pocketable device. It is also powerful enough in terms of processing and graphics to remove limitations that developers were previously hindered by in the mobile space.
Apple has also cleverly architectured the iPhone operating system. It is not just a cut-down and limited version of their desktop OS - the core layers are exactly the same. It will be easy for developers to migrate from the iPhone to full OS X desktop development - a very clever strategy from Apple that they will move on more in the future I am sure. Apple is also clearly documenting and communicating their API, their conventions, and placing and enormous emphasis on best practice which will standardise the development efforts and the resulting software. I like the way that Apple brings their simplicity and clarity to the development community - it is a much clearer picture to navigate than trying to learn to develop for other mobile platforms from scratch.
Combine the above facts with the potential market share that the iPhone will pick up over the coming months. For a developer choosing a target platform for their software the choice is becoming pretty obvious. While the iPhone may not be their only target platform it will likely need to be at the top of their list.
During Bill Gate's final publicly scheduled speech as a full-time Microsoft employee, he acknowledged that Microsoft's success is 'due to our relationship with developers.' Apple may well be saying the same thing in a few years time.
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Apple has been consistently wowing us for the past few years - OS X, then the iMac, the iPod, and now the iPhone.
It has been clear for a while that mobility is the future of computing. And the iPhone is emerging as the King of mobility. This device is indeed a game changer. It is more than a mobile phone - it is a new platform.
The iPhone takeover begins.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
The only thing that iPhone will takeover is Apple fanboys money
June 11th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Hehe - yeah, thanks Sid. I am indeed turning into an Apple Fanboy I guess - but it is only because Apple keeps impressing me
June 12th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Mate,
I saw this video and thought of you and this post : http://youtube.com/watch?v=NZyYjQHcXEU
June 13th, 2008 at 10:54 am
@Bren. I watched the video and the point it is making is very true - the iPhone is still missing a few features that other phones have had for a while such as videoconferencing, copy+paste, 3.0 megapixel cameras etc. Apple has focussed on their points of difference - it is not their habit to just copy everyone else, that is what everyone instead does to Apple
I’m sure these are easy things for Apple to implement when the time is right for them. And the seeming lack of these features is not really stopping people from getting excited about the iPhone or seeing a huge adoption rate in the market.
Also a few have told me that a number of the features the iPhone brings to the table has actually been available in phones for a few years - for example GPS and touch screens. But multi-touch? Accelerometer? Assisted-GPS?
However, instead of getting into war over features, I think there is an important point here. The difference is that Apple is packaging all these features into one easy to use device, marketing it well, implementing the technology in everyday and very usable software, and making it all easily accessible to developers to take advantage of as well. The fact that people see what the iPhone can do and go “wow” proves my point - the average person has not seen many of these capabilities and features implemented before.
Basically it is not about the technology itself - it is about the overall package that Apple brings to the market.
June 18th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Hi Matt,
I think you need to look at what Nokia’s got, it’s the cure for iPhone spell
iPhone 3G is a good start, but what’s the point of 3G if you can’t do video calling? And Steve Job needs to just get over Objective-C and go with Java or JavaScript like language.
In regards to programmability, it is very far behind Symbian. Consider this, with Symbian:
- You’re allowed to develop whatever you wish, it is an open platform.
- You can program in Java, C++, Python, and more.
- The API allows you to access most (or all) of the phone’s features (few that I’ve tried myself: camera, bluetooth, Internet connection).
As the result, there are squillion apps for Symbian including a web server (apache): http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=167580
There might even be PAMP (Personal Apache MySQL PHP) for Symbian: http://www.symbian-freak.com/news/008/01/personal_apache_mysql_php_for_s60_3rd_ed.htm
> it is not their habit to just copy everyone
Well, check this out … http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/smartphones/openmoko-smartphone-did-they-have-a-time-machine-or-what-229243.php
June 24th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Hi again Sid,
Nokia keeps coming up in comparison to the iPhone. I believe the points I make in a previous comment still cover off my main thoughts on this topic.
You may also be interested in this article discussing Nokia and referring to the iPhone - it makes some interesting points:
http://www.telco2.net/blog/2007/10/nokias_dilemma_operator_friend.html
Quotes:
“The next, predictable, phase is upon us. The design focus moves away from features that exploit the underlying technology. Instead, the winning strategy is economy — not just of money, but also user time and effort. That means focus on what the user really wants. For example, lots of handsets might take great photos; the one that gets them into the hands of my friends with the least effort on my behalf is the winner.”
“As someone involved in conceiving the Nokia blogger relations program, I’ve been passed many N series handsets. They are all wonders of consumer electronics … But it’s not solving the real user crisis … More megapixels won’t make Nokia the king of the hill in future either. What the iPhone does is cuts the crap, and makes the rest really easy to use. Just go look at the email application. Are you with Google, Yahoo, AOL or MSN? Then just enter your username and password, we’ll do the rest. None of the above? Only then are you confronted with the POP3 and IMAP buzzwords.”
“Forget the idea of these being little multimedia computers … Nokia has to yet to build an acceptable telephone. And it’s taken Apple to come along, release a cruddy 2G phone with zero “computer” features (download an app? nope!), and fix one of the deep problems of standard telephony: the voicemail user interface.”
“Nokia has the best supply chain and engineering in the mobile handset space. But going forwards, Nokia needs to become a different beast: an original services manufacturer. It’s the services that the users value most, well above the budget for a sexy new handset. The iPhone has up-ended the economics of handset subsidies by tying a superior service into the device. Nokia must respond: it’s a life-or-death challenge.”
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I must state that I have never owned a Nokia - I have a Pocket PC Phone background. The Nokia has never interested me, so a lot of the comments I hear comparing the iPhone with what Nokia has had available for quite a while don’t really register. No matter what, I guess we can see that the iPhone is becoming a key player very quickly and it is worthy of some serious attention from both developers and consumers…
June 25th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Hi Matt,
It doesn’t matter how easy it is to use a mobile camera (within reasonable reason), I think for example that 5MP will always score higher than 2MP. I mean, how easy/difficult can it be to push a button? I think it is even more difficult when you ain’t got a button to push! You just have to taste Nokia Carl Zeis highres camera
But this is just one area
Also articles that hail iPhone tend to be abstract, for example:
> What the iPhone does is cuts the crap, and makes the rest really easy to use.
What “crap” does iPhone cut? cut and paste? MMS? ability to send SMS to multiple recipients? high res camera? video calling? a more open SDK? Java? Prepaid contract? send files via bluetooth? ability to play other popular media formats?
It’s more like “What the iPhone does is cutting features but tell those people who are asking those features missing that those features are just crappy anyway because iPhone doesnt have it”
> guess we can see that the iPhone is becoming a key player very quickly and it is worthy of some serious attention from both developers and consumers
Sure, but not because it is a revolutionary gadget … more because of their pushy marketing campaigns