Nokia recently announced its new 5800 Xpress Music, or Tube, as an “iPhone Killer”. Reviewers, however, disagree, mainly on hardware spec grounds – no touchscreen, S60 software issues.

What most reviewers seem to ignore is that even if Nokia (or Google, Sony, LG etc.) do come up with a device that matches the iPhone’s technical abilities (and I’m sure they have the required resources to do so) they’re still going to have a tough time competing with it.

Why? They way they sell and support their devices is very different than Apple.

When you buy an iPhone you have one company that control’s your entire experience with the device. From purchasing to ongoing operations and services its all ran by Apple that controls the entire product experience etc.
Apple bundles its iPhone with a set of services (AppStore, iTunes, Music Store…) that are tightly integrated with the device allowing easy consumption by customers which eventually is what’s driving Apple’s business.

Nokia, Sony, LG etc., on the other hand, sell the device through partnerships with different communication companies such as Orange Partner, which in turn, works with local sub-diaries. They rely on these partners for supporting their device and providing services to customers which often results in poor (sometime broken) customer experience.

Speaking at an Israeli GarageGeeks meeting, Steve Glagow, VP of Marketing Operations at Orange Partner VP mentioned that due to the fact they have to work with many regional and local partners, it takes more than 3 clicks and several screens for a user to install an application. Although he said their application installation rate is high (percentage of users who reach the application marketplace and end up installing an application) its a misleading measurement as most users will give up and never even reach the marketplace – only users determined to install an application will go through that effort.

Bundling your device with services is a winning strategy, not just for cellphones. Microsoft’s Xbox Live! platform is another great example on how bundling a device with online services helps increasing its value and perception.

Killing the iPhone will require more than just cool new hardware…

Related readings:

• Six Reasons iPhone Delivers Where Android Won’t
• Nokia 5800 (Tube) - Not an iPhone Killer?
• Nokia 5800 on Engadget

Tags: 5800, Apple, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, Steve Glagow, Xpress Music, XpressMusic

Here are my notes from the Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference:

• Apple is cutting the price of the iPhone to $199 for the 8GB version and $299 for the 16GB version.
  This price tags now puts the iPhone in direct competition with Nokia on the consumers market and with Blackberry on the enterprise market.
  The iPhone is now targeting mainstream consumers and not only the high-end market…
• 35% of Fortune 500 companies participated in  Apple’s enterprise iPhone experiment - including the US Army, Disney, etc. That’s quite an impressive market engagement.
  The new iPhone enterprise features, coupled with the new competitive price tag can make Apple a significant player in the enterprise market. Look out RIM…
• Seems like $9.99 is going to be the pricing standard for iPhone apps. Cheap…
• MobileMe was dubbed “Exchange for the rest of us” - a new service from Apple to synchronize personal data across devices and platforms.
  Basically it does what Plaxo does but its not free :S
  • Microsoft’s Live Mesh\SkyDrive\Foldershare services now have a new serious competition…
  • In “Don’t Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You” Joel Spolsky claims that data portability is just a theoretical problem invented by architecture astronauts (Ray Ozzie in this case).
    Joel picked a bad example to prove his point as I guess having all the major players trying to data portability is a sign that its a real need.
    Personally, I don’t know what I would have done without Plaxo and Foldershare but that’s a topic for another post I guess…
• The seventh release of the iPhone SDK is out.
• The next version of Max OS X is called Snow Leopard and is set to be released within a year.
  • Apple plans to support new hardware architectures (like multiple CPUs) and fix Leopard issues as well as add native support for Microsoft Exchange.
  • Sounds more like a Leopard Service Pack than a new major version…
• The “Apple Push Notification Service” - finally a decent solution for notifications for background applications on a mobile platform.
  Instead of draining battery life and degrading performance by running a background process, applications can use the service to update remotely.
  Here’s how Dan Moran from MacWorld describes it:

  as you run an app like an IM client, it’s connected to the server. When the user quits the app, the iPhone will maintain a connection to the server, which will let them push notifications. It can push three types of notification: badges, custom alert sounds, and you can push custom textual alerts, appearing kind of like SMS messages and you can provide buttons that will automatically launch application. Great thing about this design: it scales, but only requires one persistent connection. This is sweet, sweet news for all developers and those who wants to use IM clients especially.

Any other thoughts regarding Apple’s announcements and plans?

Tags: AAPL, Apple, iPhone, iPhone 3G, MobileMe

TechCrunch and Macworld were live blogging from the Apple iPhone Software Roadmap event at the Apple campus at Cupertino.

Below are the main takes from today’s announcements (plus some commentary of course):

• Long list of features aimed at the Enterprise market:
  • Push email\calendar\contacts
  • Global address list
  • Cisco IPsec VPN
  • Two-factor authentication, certificates and identities.
  • Enterprise-class Wi-Fi with WPA2/802.1x.
  • Security tools to enforce security policies.
  • Deployment tools to allow an organization to configure and set thousands of devices easily.
  • Data Security - Ability to protect iPhone data and remotely wipe it.
• Apple licensed the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol and will feature full Exchange sync support on the next iPhone update.

“With ActiveSync, the iPhone talks directly to Exchange. So the iPhone will get push e-mail, push calendaring, push contacts, global access lists, and remote wipe, all while talking to Exchange. And it’s built into the existing applications — mail goes into the same Mail program, calendar into the same Calendar, and so on.”

• iPhone SDK

“Starting today we’re opening up the same APIs and tools that we use to develop our own applications today. Now, there are a lot of pieces that make up an SDK. But the most important are the APIs and the platform. And we have a great one, Mac OS X.” Layers: Core OS, Core Services, Media, and Cocoa. “To build the iPhone OS, we took the bottom three layers and moved them across. Now Cocoa is interesting… it’s the best application framework out there, but it’s based on a keyboard and mouse.” Instead, they build Cocoa Touch, based on touch interaction with the iPhone OS.”

According to Apple, its opening up all the APIs used by its own developers to develop the iPhone applications. They’re also building tools to support developers (on a Mac):

“Now a brand new development tool, the iPhone Simulator. Runs on a Mac, and simulates the entire API stack of the iPhone OS. So right here, on your Mac, you can run your application in the simulator, which gives you an incredible turnaround time on development.”

• iTunes as an Application Market

Apple is using iTunes to allow distributing and selling applications. Developers have a standard platform to be used for distributing their application.
The application store is going to be the exclusive way to distribute applications to the iPhone. It is going to be free of charge for free applications and will involve a 30% fee of revenues of commercial applications.

Reminds me of Nintendo tactics - in its early days, Nintendo kept all manufacturing rights for Nintendo hardware. Being the manufacturer of Nintendo cassettes media it made all its developer buy its media to be able to distributing games…

• Gaming platform

One of the aspects of the SDK is that it supports OpenGL for graphics and OpenAL for sound.
Apple had representative from EA testifying about the iPhone as a gaming platform and talking about games they’re working on.
Apple is selling the iPhone as a device with serious gaming capabilities. I bet we’ll also see more desktop oldies converted to iPhone now….
Combines with iTunes as a game distribution platform Apple can be on to something interesting here…  Kind of like what Microsoft is doing with Xbox Live! Arcade

• Business Applications Platform

The iPhone graphics capabilities can also be used for analytics in business applications, as demonstrated by a SalesForce.com application:

“Salesforce automation application comes on screen. There’s a needle showing how a sales guy is doing, on a spectrum from red to green. A full iPhone toolbar on the bottom, and a native iPhone list at the top.”

Other demos shown:

• Apple also had AOL talking about bringing AIM to the iPhone. I guess the other instant messaging platforms will follow…
• Epocrates - Software used by doctors. I guess Apple is joining Microsoft, Google, SAP and Oracle in attacking the health market

• iFund

Kleiner Perkins announced a $100 million iFund for investment in startups who create applications for the iPhone.
http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/ifund/index.html

I wonder how corporate IT is going to treat these new features. Richard Koman at ZDnet seems skeptic…

In any case, an iPhone SDK plus tight integration with Exchange can bring up some interesting ideas for Enterprise Applications like the ones we’re doing at SAP…
An iPhone Duet (iDuet) anyone?

Tags: AAPL, ActiveSync, Apple, Duet, Exchange, iPhone, Microsoft, SAP

Someone just showed me this video.

I’m speechless…

Tags: AAPL, Apple

I’ve been receiving messages about Apple (AAPL) from friends for about an hour now. Apple is free falling by -28.67 (-18.42%) right now on after market trading…  Ouch indeed…

Although it reported another revenue record-braking quarter, investors are disappointed by it’s outlooks for the second quarter. The company lowered its outlook due to slowing economic activity in the US and investors in the US are uncertain as to exactly how the economic situation in the US, together with the fear of a recession, will affect the company.

Analyst Shebly Seyrafi of Caris & Co. cut his rating on the company’s stock from buy to above average, citing slowdowns in iPod sales.
Most other analysts, however, are going out on Apple’s defense, keeping its Buy rating and just trimming the target price.

Citigroup cut its price target to $212 from $215 while RBC trimmed its view to $200 from $215. Bear Stearns analyst Andy Neff cut his target to $220.

“While our concern remains on the potential for a slowdown in consumer spending, we view the stock’s after-market weakness as a buying opportunity as Apple is on the cusp of multiple product cycles,” he said in a client note, referring to new product introductions.

In lowering his price target to $175 from $220, Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey said Apple will need to shore up Mac and iPhone sales as iPod growth slows.

“Apple has fundamental and valuation underpinnings, which should allow the stock to outperform on an absolute and relative basis longer term, and we are maintaining our Buy rating,” he said in a note to subscribers.

- Reuters

When buying Apple shares I knew this was going to be a long term term investments for at least year.
Although the economic slowdown, Apple is still a company that innovates, disrupts and keeps us all begging for more…  As such I’m sure it can continue growing on the long run…

I’m not selling anytime soon.

P.S.
Microsoft (MSFT) reports its earnings tomorrow. Lets see how well that goes…

Tags: AAPL, Apple

I’ve already written my thoughts about the disruption of Apple TV coupled with the iTunes Movie Rental.
That being said I decided to back this bet on Apple with some money and bought some 50 shares last week at $162.98 - my first investment outside TSE ever
Lets wait for a year or so and see how it goes…

In the meantime, Apple is announcing its earnings this Tuesday and is expected to deliver good results:

• Will Apple Shares “Break Out” Over Earnings? - CNBC
• Apple Q1 Earnings Preview - BloggingStocks
• Apple Q1 Earnings Preview - MarketWatch

Tags: AAPL, Apple

MacWorld 2008 will open this afternoon (Tuesday, 9 a.m. PST) with the much anticipated Steve Jobs keynotes.
I’m anxiously waiting to see what new stuff Apple announces today. Hoping for an AT&T-Free iPhone…

Anyway, a couple of useful links for the keynotes coverage:

• The Apple official broadcast at www.apple.com (obviously)
• Engadget’s Live from Macworld2008: Steve Jobs Keynotes
• The Macworld blog and twitter
• TechCrunch’s Coverage: Steve Jobs Keynote Live From Macworld
• Fortune: Big Tech
• Scoble’s shared items (I’m sure his Twitter will become highly active too)

Update:
There are rumors that Steve’s keynotes were leaked…

Got any other interesting links? Post them on the comments…
And while you’re on it, speculations regarding unlocked iPhone starts now! I’ve created a poll:

So what do you think?

Tags: Apple, AT&T, iPhone, Macworld

I just like this cute new “Get a Mac” ad. In case you wonder, its done using stop motion animation by LAIKA/house…

Tags: AAPL, Apple

CNet revealed that Windows XP SP3 has twice the performance of Windows Vista, even with its SP1 bits.
Microsoft’s response:

Microsoft admits that the launch has not gone as well as the company would have liked. “Frankly, the world wasn’t 100 percent ready for Windows Vista,” corporate vice president Mike Sievert said in a recent interview at Microsoft’s partner conference in Denver.

It’s nice to know that its actually the world’s fault…

Apple’s are obviously making fun of this in their new I’m a PC. I’m a Mac commercial (which I just saw on TV) entitled “Don’t give up on Vista” and changing Kenned’y “Don’t ask what your country can do for you…” to the hilarious “Don’t ask what vista can do for you. Ask what you can buy for Vista”.

Will Microsoft PR strike back? So far, it doesn’t seem so…

Tags: AAPL, Apple, Vista

Apple’s public relations tendency to bully journalists and bloggers is nothing new but a recent post on Valleywag shows a rare view on things really work behind the scenes.

A British journalist is interviewing Apple Vice President Philip Schiller when Pr abruptly ends the interview when he attempts to ask a questions about the iTunes monopoly on downloads for the iPhone.

Tags: AAPL, Apple, iPhone, iTunes