Kontra's Comments

Is the iPhone SDK 3.0 Really All That?

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:38:40 -0400

The chattering class has a fetishistic indulgence with smartphones bordering on techno-porn.
[...]
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.
[...]
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.
[...]
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?

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 07:00:03 -0400

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

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 06:20:46 -0400

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

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:22:09 -0400

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?

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:08:16 -0500

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

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:52:20 -0500

"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?

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 01:35:58 -0500

"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?

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 05:01:55 -0400

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?

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:14:11 -0400

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

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:29:33 -0400

Android: It's No iPhone, But It's Close

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:18:40 -0400

Apple's "Anti-Competitive" iPhone App Store Draws Developer's Ire

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 06:40:09 -0400

“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

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:01:14 -0400

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

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 04:35:56 -0400

"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

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:16:32 -0400

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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Apple: An Antidote to iPhone Complacency

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:55:24 -0400

A year and a half later, we don't see another player getting close to the iPhone. Why? It's hard. Indeed, I explored at least 10 factors that any player hoping to catch the iPhone must have even to pull even in:

Who can beat iPhone 2.0?
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Why Is Dell Trying to Compete With the iPod?

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:47:45 -0400

Nearly a year ago I explored the absurdity of Dell's brand repositioning campaign:

Dell: “Apple has become the conformist company”
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Apple Plays the Conservative Card Despite Record Quarter

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:28:42 -0400

When one is risk modeling AAPL for the near future, it's also informative to go back to 2005 and explore how Apple risk modeled its iPhone product despite some serious odds, as I explained in:

iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline
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Apple Feels 'Max Pain'

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:24:46 -0400

Sometimes folks do not quite realize just what a huge risk Jobs & Co took in 2005 to start the iPhone project. I explored 15 bet-the-company level risk factors in:

iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline
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Apple's 3G iPhone Appears Profitable

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:42:04 -0400

Apple's iPhone success and margins were certainly not a given in 2005 when the project started. I detailed the risks Apple took then in:

iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline
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iPhone (Apple) vs. BlackBerry (RIM): Which Do Consumers Love Most?

Fri, 09 May 2008 06:01:34 -0400

I examined 10 factors that put Apple in an unassailable position in the mobile platform wars and reviewed the weaknesses of iPhone competitors, including RIM, in:

Who can beat iPhone 2.0?
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Wanted, Dead or Alive: The iPhone Killer

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:26:49 -0400

I examined 10 factors that put Apple in an unassailable position in the mobile platform wars and reviewed the weaknesses of iPhone competitors in:

Who can beat iPhone 2.0?
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Smart Phone Wars: iPhone vs. Blackberry vs. ...Android?

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:23:17 -0400

I examined 10 factors that put Apple in an unassailable position in the mobile platform wars and reviewed the weaknesses of iPhone competitors in:

Who can beat iPhone 2.0?
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Apple's 10 Million iPhone Target

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:26:19 -0400

I examine 10 factors that put Apple in an unassailable position in the mobile platform wars and review the weaknesses of iPhone competitors in:

Who can beat iPhone 2.0?
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Wal-Mart Video Downloads End Quietly

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:18:11 -0500

In a frenzy to catch up with Apple, the industry hasn’t learned much from the PlaysForSure debacle by watching Microsoft abandon its own DRM and introduce Zune with a new and incompatible system to compete directly against its erstwhile digital music “partners.” In another instance of mortgaging success to others’ willingness or ability to innovate, AOL recently moved its struggling video service to Amazon Unbox which in turn is based on Microsoft’s PlaysForSure.

The irony here is that Wal-Mart relied on HP that relied on Microsoft and AOL relies on Amazon that relies on Microsoft which itself no longer relies on its own PlaysForSure. When a core component of a product or service depends on the rate of innovation of another party over which you have no control or influence, it’s time to rethink strategy. It’s also time to ask yourself, twice or thrice removed from core competency, should you really be in such a business?

Strategic design risks (1): Wal-Mart’s foolhardy reliance on “partners”
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Sell These Three Stocks Before Everyone Else Does

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:15:26 -0500

"I see support at 155"

No, you don't; you're blind to facts and history.

Employees Determine iPhone Success in Business

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 04:45:11 -0500

I explored the notion of why people who are exposed daily to high interface and interaction values inherent in TV, movies, advertising, magazines and gadgets in the consumer sphere are somehow supposed to be rendered incapable of expecting and appreciating the same within the walls of the enterprise from 9 to 5, with a dozen enterprise examples that aren't sexy:

What isn't sexy enterprise software?
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Amazon Vies for Piece of Apple's Digital Content Pie

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:17:03 -0500

While “the iPod of …” has become a cliché to describe any product with a semblance of distilled design sensibilities emanating from Cupertino, there is one fundamental strategic reason why Kindle won’t be like the iPod: content. The iPod had it, Kindle doesn't. Read why here:

"Why is the new Kindle eBook reader from Amazon and not Apple?"
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Depending on Long-Term Aggressive Growth for Apple is a Gamble

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 06:47:14 -0400

Yesterday, a Motorola executive said he was skeptical Apple would ever fully open up the iPhone. Here I examine how Apple has flourished without having to open up:

Motorola: Apple won’t open the iPhone
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Apple's Leopard to Launch Jobs's 'Post PC World'

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:44:28 -0400

I'm covering x-platform implications of various technologies in Leopard in a series of articles:

What’s in Leopard for Designers (1): Core Animation
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What’s in Leopard for Designers (2): WebKit & Safari
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There's realignment afoot online and off with great financial consequences.