More Apple pwnage

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

The iPod Classic becomes a really good deal now. The Touch is overpriced and why would anyone really want a 8GB or 16GB player when the Classic has 10 times as much capacity (and in this case the "10 times as much" is not an exaggeration in the slightest).

Because most people don't own that much music. A lot of my students had the iPod mini when it first came out. I pointed out that 4GB wasn't much storage, but they all said that they would have trouble filling it.

If you don't buy a lot of whole albums and box sets, it's hard to get 1000 songs together. I remember reading once that the average person owns less than 40 CDs.

4 to 8 gigs is the mass market sweet spot for digital audio players. I doubt that much video will be put on these things. I know I hardly ever put video on my video iPod. You're better off with a PSP or one of Apple's touch screen devices.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

Cutting their prices this soon does seem odd if all is going well. Though I dont follow this industry that closely.

There's a simpler explanation.

They could not offer the new touchscreen iPod for $500 because hardly anyone would buy it. If they offered it for $3-400, it would cannibalize sales of the 8GB iPhone, which is the most popular model.

They haven't really cut their iPhone revenues by a third, since they get a pretty hefty kickback from AT&T for every activated iPhone. I'm guessing that this is likely in the hundreds of dollars, since the contract is quite long and profitable for AT&T.

Still, it's a big kick in the teeth for the Zune, which is still just a rebranded Toshiba Gigabeat. Reading around Zune fansites is amusing today.

[Pekka]

As technology, iPhone is still pretty far behind. $200 price cut is reasonable though.

As far as smartphones goes, iPhone is definitely not outselling its competitors. Unless you're talking about the weird little ones, Zings and Zangs that no one gives a **** about. They're not even close making a mark yet. Then again, they haven't got their time yet so it's not like you can make waves in this amount of time.

It's still overpriced for its lacking feats, it's not even a 3G phone, meaning trouble for EMEA and Asia markets.

Reading Zune fansites is funny, just like iPhone fansites. In fact, fansites for smartphones are funny. They rarely have any insight to the technology itself. iPhone - welcome to the 2002.

[Wiglaf]

The old ipod nanos looked way, way better.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Pekka
As technology, iPhone is still pretty far behind. $200 price cut is reasonable though.

Pekka, you are Finnish. I don't know if you are able to quite comprehend how far behind Europe and the rest of the developed world the US is when it comes to mobile connectivity.

]As far as smartphones goes, iPhone is definitely not outselling its competitors. Unless you're talking about the weird little ones, Zings and Zangs that no one gives a **** about. They're not even close making a mark yet. Then again, they haven't got their time yet so it's not like you can make waves in this amount of time.

Didn't you hear the recent news? It's beating all the others. They've already sold nearly a million of them in the US.

It's still overpriced for its lacking feats, it's not even a 3G phone, meaning trouble for EMEA and Asia markets.

Where it has not yet been released. I have no idea whether the phones for those areas will be 3G or not, or whether Apple will try to push people to WiFi, which is faster and better.

Reading Zune fansites is funny, just like iPhone fansites. In fact, fansites for smartphones are funny. They rarely have any insight to the technology itself. iPhone - welcome to the 2002.

You are joking. The iPhone has made all other phones obsolete. In five years time you won't be able to buy a decent phone without a multitouch interface. Whatever its other problems, the iPhone is a revolutionary device.

[snoopy369]

Aga, your last statement was, well, a bit into the blatantly absurd (without commenting on the other parts of your post).

There will always be a substantial demand for low feature phones for the far majority of people who don't want the features, but instead want a simple phone that *makes phone calls* with the fewest possible button pushes... they just don't buy that many phones because they keep the same phone for quite a few years

[Wezil]

That's me. Free phone with signup.

[Pekka]

Agathon, Oh crap I read the first one wrong time and time again and was thinking what the hell... as in the US is far ahead of the most developed places when it comes to networks.

You're right, I don't know the state of which you have to be in, except that for some reason it's lagging. I don't know the reasons for the lagging, it is quite weird though. Why is this? Is it a question of lack of investors or .. or some kind of power play by the current big service provides not willing to invest and kind of making everyone else lag behind as well and demolishing their competition who would be willing to advance... but you're right. I don't know the reason for it though.

"Didn't you hear the recent news? It's beating all the others. They've already sold nearly a million of them in the US."

In the US, yes. In the world, nope, and a million units sold is not a lot globally for a brand to be sold. Here's some figures that will put this all into perspective, I just checked out the leader of the global competition, and its market share is 38% so .. a lot is sold outside their shares as well (so this is Nokia).

2007 Q1, units sold: 91.1 million.
2007 Q2, units sold: 100.8 million.

So that's almost 200 million units this year alone, and as you can see, it's always going up. Of course this is global figures.

So... 1 million units is not that much. It isn't even selling if we look at one model, it isn't even outselling it's competitors globally, of course it's still a US release so that's not an indicator, however, it is an indicator in the sense that the US market is not the most potential and basically where you need to focus, if you want to be in the business is Asia, Europe, ME and India/Africa.

So... I wouldn't talk about pwange just yet.

"Where it has not yet been released. I have no idea whether the phones for those areas will be 3G or not"

It is not a 3G phone, you can't make it a 3G phone by flashing it or changing one component. It's not a 3G phone, thus it won't be a 3G phone when it hits these markets.

"whether Apple will try to push people to WiFi, which is faster and better."

Not necessarily. These are two different things, WiFi and 3G. I need coverage for WiFi if I need to use it, so it there is none, I'll have to use 3G. Also, I'd like to see the WiFi spots that are faster in real life at this moment, I mean they can be if you find one, but most likely it isn't so. This isn't the trade off you want to make, you want to implement BOTH, which most manufacturers have been doing already for quite a while.

"The iPhone has made all other phones obsolete. In five years time you won't be able to buy a decent phone without a multitouch interface. Whatever its other problems, the iPhone is a revolutionary device."

Revolutioary how? It didn't bring a single feature that would be new or even current. It's behind, technology wise, it is simply inferior at the moment. It's far behind.

There have been touch screen phones for a long ass time as well. Big players don't like them, because there's a usability problem with them that is multifold. Smudging it, the difficulties of using certain feats like texting, usually the need of stylus if you really want ot actually use it, the phone becomes two hander by default, no button feel etc etc etc. Sure it looks nice, but it's been abandoned as the "best possible feat" a long time ago by many. So no. It's nothing new.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Agathon
You are joking. The iPhone has made all other phones obsolete. In five years time you won't be able to buy a decent phone without a multitouch interface. Whatever its other problems, the iPhone is a revolutionary device.

Wasn't this said about tablet PCs, too?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Pekka
Agathon, Oh crap I read the first one wrong time and time again and was thinking what the hell... as in the US is far ahead of the most developed places when it comes to networks.

You're right, I don't know the state of which you have to be in, except that for some reason it's lagging. I don't know the reasons for the lagging, it is quite weird though. Why is this? Is it a question of lack of investors or .. or some kind of power play by the current big service provides not willing to invest and kind of making everyone else lag behind as well and demolishing their competition who would be willing to advance... but you're right. I don't know the reason for it though.

It's called "capitalism".

In the US, yes. In the world, nope, and a million units sold is not a lot globally for a brand to be sold. Here's some figures that will put this all into perspective, I just checked out the leader of the global competition, and its market share is 38% so .. a lot is sold outside their shares as well (so this is Nokia).

Considering that it isn't being offered for sale outside the US, that's rather unfair.

So... I wouldn't talk about pwange just yet.

I don't believe I've ever talked about "pwange".

It is not a 3G phone, you can't make it a 3G phone by flashing it or changing one component. It's not a 3G phone, thus it won't be a 3G phone when it hits these markets.

If the same model is offered for sale, it won't be. I have no idea what they are going to offer.

Not necessarily. These are two different things, WiFi and 3G. I need coverage for WiFi if I need to use it, so it there is none, I'll have to use 3G. Also, I'd like to see the WiFi spots that are faster in real life at this moment, I mean they can be if you find one, but most likely it isn't so. This isn't the trade off you want to make, you want to implement BOTH, which most manufacturers have been doing already for quite a while.

802.11g is much faster than 3G. I think what Apple, and many of us, would like to see happen is much greater Wifi coverage. Municipal wifi would be a start, but there are political difficulties with that. In any case, it is faster than 3G.

Revolutioary how? It didn't bring a single feature that would be new or even current. It's behind, technology wise, it is simply inferior at the moment. It's far behind.

There have been touch screen phones for a long ass time as well. Big players don't like them, because there's a usability problem with them that is multifold. Smudging it, the difficulties of using certain feats like texting, usually the need of stylus if you really want ot actually use it, the phone becomes two hander by default, no button feel etc etc etc. Sure it looks nice, but it's been abandoned as the "best possible feat" a long time ago by many. So no. It's nothing new.

They are mere touch screens. The iPhone has a multi touch interface. It's not the same thing. The whole point of the iPhone is to get rid of the need for a stylus and to enable multitouch gestures.

You show me another phone that has a multitouch interface and a dynamically predictive touch keyboard. AFAIK there isn't one.

Every phone is going to be like this in the future. Whether or not any of those phones will be made by Apple has yet to be seen.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Lorizael

Wasn't this said about tablet PCs, too?

I've never quite been able to see anything but niche use for those. A full keyboard interface seems better for a full computer. Smaller devices are better off with touch interfaces. Apple tried this with the Newton, but didn't get very far, and Palm and other companies have been doing it, but it hasn't really taken off in a big way.

[Pekka]

Agathon, oh crap, this was about IPOD!!! Ugh.. my mistake.

"
802.11g is much faster than 3G. I think what Apple, and many of us, would like to see happen is much greater Wifi coverage. Municipal wifi would be a start, but there are political difficulties with that. In any case, it is faster than 3G."

Yes, in theory it is faster. In the future it _should_ be faster in practice as well. Depends on the coverage. With 3G, you're usualyl guaranteed some certain speed, and it's usually faster than most WiFi spots that are public.

"The iPhone has a multi touch interface. It's not the same thing. The whole point of the iPhone is to get rid of the need for a stylus and to enable multitouch gestures.
"

Exactly, making it a two hander by default. Added with the problems that comes with it, plus what it means in terms of user interface problems, it's mostly been seen as "not a good idea", but more likely not a good idea yet.

So not really revolutionary. Even if this was widely adopted as the thing to do, it still doesn't make a revolutionary feat, even though it falls into "how you would use your phone", but it's simply a usability question, not what you can do with it. So not revolutionary in my books. Taking account all the lacking features, I don't think it's a ... good deal.

[Pekka]

But don't take this the wrong way, there's always a need for more players and more innovators. So Apple is a welcome addition in my books.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Pekka
it falls into "how you would use your phone", but it's simply a usability question, not what you can do with it.

Isn't this essentially Apple's design credo? They don't try to do anything new, they just try to think of new ways to do the same old stuff.

[Pekka]

I never said it's Apple's trademark.

Anyway Agathon, can I PM you about something you could help me with, perhaps, with your professional knowledge? A short question.