Kontra

Is the iPhone SDK 3.0 Really All That?

The chattering class has a fetishistic indulgence with smartphones bordering on techno-porn.
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While analysts and competitors were busy making feature-level comparisons (of mostly hardware), Apple consolidated its platform lead and laid the foundations of a new growth engine the likes of which the mobile industry has neither yet seen nor fully comprehends.
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While [the iPhone OS 3.0] garnered a collective yawn from the features-fetishists, barring a product introduction disaster, the iPhone OS 3.0 will do to iPhone-killers what it did do to iPod-killers half a decade ago. Apple consolidated its gains, marked its territory of 30M users+25K apps+800M downloads and built a very deep and wide moat around it. A moat so formidable that there’s not a single smartphone player capable of overcoming it.
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By the end of 2009, we expect the virtuous cycle to kick in and the moat strategy to reveal just how difficult it will be to compete with Apple’s touch platform, thereby ushering in consolidation in the rest of the smartphone industry.

iPhone OS 3: The moat strategy vs. features-fetishism
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Is Cisco Going to Compete with Apple in the Living Room?

Is this a joke?
If you still remember the Cisco iPhone, this should pretty much clear up Cisco's chances against Apple:

What’s in a name: The other iPhone(s)
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Smartphone Update: 2008 Q4 Market Share

So Nokia has the widest range and the volume, but it's losing market share.

Apple has a single product, but is gaining market share.

And you're claiming Apple has to ape Nokia?

Well done.

Apple's Proprietary Tendencies on Display Again

Of course, you could do a little search and realize that Apple has already been talking to headset manufacturers and promises alternatives and adapters are on their way.

Flash Player: Apple's Blind Spot?

Flash versus Open

Perhaps one thing we can all agree on is that the future of the web, mobile or otherwise, will be more or less open. That would be HTML, MP3, H.264, HE-AAC, and so on. These are not proprietary Adobe products, they are open standards…unlike Flash.

In confusing codecs with UI, Wilson keeps asking, “why is it tha[t] most streaming audio and video on the web comes through flash players and not html5 based players?” The answer is rather pedestrian: HTML5 is just ramping up, but Flash IDE has been around for many years. Selling Flash IDE and back-end server tools has been a commercial focus for Adobe, while Apple, for example, hasn’t paid much attention to QuickTime technologies and promotion in ages. It’s thus reflected in adoption patterns.

Hopefully, this summary will clear Wilson’s blind spot:

Apple is betting on open technologies (as it makes money on hardware) while Adobe (which only sells software) is betting on wrapping up content in a proprietary shackle called Flash.

From:

Does "A VC" have a blind spot for Apple?
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Palm: Reactions to the Pre Hype

"Pre's introduction, website, technology packaging, industrial design, UI, product naming and positioning...down to the flow of its CES presentation were pointedly, but perhaps not surprisingly, Apple-like. Of all the current iPhone competitors, Pre clearly captures the 'soul' of the iPhone as much as any product not-from-Cupertino can. Whatever Pre 'borrows' from the iPhone, it does so not with the brazen indifference of recent iPhone-killers, but with care and purpose."

However:

"Palm is clearly late to iPhone's party. By the time the first Pre is sold, the iPhone will likely have 30 million users in 70+ countries, 15,000 apps, a huge developer and peripherals ecosystem, perhaps a third of the market share and 40% of smartphone revenues. And that's before the next generation iPhone device and OS are introduced."

I explored Pre's chances in:

"Strategic shortcomings of Pre in the post-iPhone era"
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Platform Plays and Players: Signs of a Shakeout?

"The problem is, of course, that if a single vendor owns the platform, then the micro-economy that grows off the back of it is entirely vulnerable to any decisions made by the platform owner."

And yet the logical conclusion of that supposition, open source platforms, is no panacea as I explain here:

Agora phone exposes Android's Achilles Heel
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iPhone Dev Problems: Whining or Real?

Apple cannot possibly put in writing today a list of all potential products for tomorrow that it or its selected partners may be working on to warn off developers. It's practically (and likely legally) impossible to do on a rolling basis. What happens when a developer submits an app similar to what Apple had been working on? Does Apple publicly say, "Sorry, we're about to introduce a similar app soon," thereby pre-announcing their (or their partner's) product plan to the rest of the world? You think that's realistic for a company like Apple? I explore this in:

Resolved: Apple is right to curate the App Store
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Look, same stuff was regurgitated when pundits were demanding that Apple "open" up iPod/iTunes to third parties by cross licensing WM/Real and FairPlay. Had Apple listened to that chorus, it likely wouldn't be around today. Same with Flash or Java on the iPhone. Apple has a right to protect its own platform in a very competitive market for strategic reasons.

Will Google Phone Be Good for Carriers?

Its manufacturer HTC called it "The most exciting phone in the history of phones." I compiled a list of all software, hardware and service flaws of G1 and asked the question, "Would Apple have been utterly crucified and AAPL have tanked if the iPhone came out with so many shortcomings?" in:

The Big List: 30 critical issues with Google G1 phone
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9 Feature Comparisons: G1 vs. iPhone

Its manufacturer HTC called it "The most exciting phone in the history of phones." I compiled a list of all software, hardware and service flaws of G1 and asked the question, "Would Apple have been utterly crucified and AAPL have tanked if the iPhone came out with so many shortcomings?" in:

The Big List: 30 critical issues with Google G1 phone
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Android: It's No iPhone, But It's Close

Its manufacturer HTC called it "The most exciting phone in the history of phones." I compiled a list of all software, hardware and service flaws of G1 and asked the question, "Would Apple have been utterly crucified and AAPL have tanked if the iPhone came out with so many shortcomings?" in:

The Big List: 30 critical issues with Google G1 phone
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Apple's "Anti-Competitive" iPhone App Store Draws Developer's Ire

“Some developers demand Apple try to communicate better, lest they assume the worst of the platform vendor. While that sounds plenty reasonable at face value, given the curatorial demands on the fledgling state of the App Store platform and Apple’s overall reliance on product-plan secrecy, we shouldn’t realistically expect Apple to ‘open up’ anytime soon,” as I explain in:

Resolved: Apple is right to curate the App Store
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Nokia Is the Smart(phone) Bet - Barron's

I explored the 10 factors it'll take to compete with the iPhone, and Nokia possesses very few of them:

Who can beat iPhone 2.0
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Seeing an End to the iPod's Hegemony

"Microsoft has been hammering at Apple's door with Zune"

I don't know if you care, but MSFT sold 2 million Zunes compared to Apple's 150+ million. You call that "hammering at the door"?

I don't know if you remember, but Apple replaced the iPod mini, the then best-selling player in the world, with the iPod nano which quickly became best-selling player. You think Zune, one of the most spectacular CE flops of all time, is going to challenge Apple?

Do you care to cite a single instance of a digital subscription business as remotely popular and lucrative as the iTunes business?

Do you care at all that you cited Mr. Enderle as an "analyst" on Dell without disclosing the fact that he's paid by Dell as a consultant on this very project?

Finally, do you really have anything new to say?

Meet Chrome - Google's Windows Killer

Google Chrome as an OS? Unfortunately we have seen that movie some years ago. Remember the web-surfing appliances of yesteryear like Sony eVilla or 3Com Audrey and Kerbango? How about Compaq iPaq or Netpliance I-opener? Didn't think so:

Why Google Chrome is not a "Windows Killer"
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