jbelkin

Apples to Apples: Will History Repeat Itself as Android Gains on the iPhone?

First, it's clear that market conditions are different - the easiest one you might understand is that unlike the days of yore where MS could buy up distribution - with the internet, no one can. You may not realize this market share does NOT equal margins or ROI. Apple makes $600-$700 PER iPHONE SALE including iTunes (with margins of 35-40%) - how much does GOOGLE make? ZERO. That's right. They are hoping to make money down the line with search and of course, stab WIN Mobile in the head and jump ahead of Yahoo ... but its two different strategies - Apple is more than willing to concede the "free" market share to Google - Google is free to take 100% of the $49 smartphone market while Apple much prefers the 70% market share (like the ipod) of the top of the $600 smartphone market (with subsidy). Bottom line, guy, it's a new century - you might want to understand a little more before committing it to the internet.

Apple Earnings Show Unparalleled Pricing Power

Finally, the right analysis. As for Android, yes it will do fine but Android is not like reselling a badged item like a Maytag dishwasher - it is like a Chevy V8 - a fine engine that goes into a multitude of cars including many custom CARS but it's only one component - what's the transmission? What the exterior look like, thevinterior functionality and quality? THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE that Android will NOT be able to compete with Apple. A few DOZEN cell companies and manufacturer will each make their OWN ANDROID phone - some will hype up the Google connection - others won't. Google is NOT Apple in many measures. Google is brilliant but and its strength is in shifting data but look at Google UI's outside of search? How well is YouTube actaully integrated? It's not. Android is a fine SOFTWARE TOOL because it's FREE - otherwise, what's the adoption rate? Companies are using it because it's free and actually makes GOOGLE NOTHING upfront - their payoff is presumably the 'store' which again has to be 'opened' by the cell or phone company and advertising. It's a nice model and a potentially profitable one but it's NOT the Iphone & Apple's ... at the end of the day, Apple will be the most profitable smartphone seller skimming 70% of the cream of the crop so they might lose out to the coming $49 smartphone market in overall percentage but Apple will make the most money by simply having the ONLY phone that has world class design, smart hardware & software integration and ITUNES. Android at some point might hit 2 or even 3 of the 4 but will never hit all 4 - same as the ipod makers ... it's NOT about specs.

Apple Dropped the Ball on an NFL Deal

AppleTV, iTunes falls under MOBILE ... Welcome to the 21st century.

Apple Dropped the Ball on an NFL Deal

First, you should do some research. SPRINT has an exclusive mobile content deal with the NFL (I think it has 2 more years to run). Now, I know there are 4 major mobile companies so research might've taken you several minutes but hello? Hello? Hello?

Yes, I'm sure the NFL would love to be on the iPhone and I suspect they will not be renewing the Sprint exclusive deal but no one lse was willing to pohy up millions for it a few years agao other than Sprint.

But seriously, next time you consider jotting down rambling thoughts, search on the internet first before looking like an complete ***.

AT&T: The (Apple) Brand Destroyer

There's a lot of random bits in here. First, the PE ratio is a 1890's measurement that does not take into account the deferred revenue that Apple has banked but not reported for the iPhone nor the $30+ BILLION in the bank so if that's all your using to take the measure of a company, you might want to upgrade from index cards.

As for the fire, you have ONE or even a few fires out of 200 MILLION ipods sold - do we know for a fact if the person was using an apple charger and not one they picked up for $4.99? Or is the car battery & voltage converter to blame? Was the car parked in the Sun - sometimes close to 150 degrees plus already and then the car battery goes nuts? But of course, blame Apple for 1 fire out of 200 million sold? There are more people who drown in their own bathtubs EVERY YEAR ... who do we blame or try to sue there?

As for the Google Voice thing - there is no law that says they have to approve every app for their products - when it's a competiting product - that's just a fact of life. Just as a bookstore can choose not to sell a book called THIS BOOK CHAIN IS A**, STEAL THIS BOOK (it's only censorship by gov't actions not private enterprise).

Unlike Dell's lackof quality & R&D ... Apple is disliked by open sourcers and hackers and programmers who think they know best on how to w5rite a UI ... they will TRADE useability, UI & ease of use just so they can write their own OS. For that, they have the Google phone (which it shoudl be noted, Google makes ZERO money off of providing the tools) while 98% of consumers do NOT want to program a phone - they want to use it so while 10% of the tech webloggers are loud haters (100,000?), 98% of 6 BILLION people want an iphone. That is the difference.

How Soon Can Apple's Market Cap Surpass Microsoft's?

face it, the only reason MS stock even has a floor are the funds that have to hold it as part of the Dow component. MS is the GM of technology. They have not have a consumer hit since 1998 - TEN YEARS in technology. MS makes less money on the internet than AOL (MS internet division in the red). MS has failed in EVERY consumer venture since 1998 (WebTV, phones, Zunes, Bob, Vista, etc ... etc ... the only thing Xbox has done is it has caused MS to spend $25 billion to make $15 billion and you can even argue that it eroded the $5k Pc gamer base who switched to a $299 XBox ...). MS is the same as GM - a slow train wreck. $421 BILLION lost and you're still defending the GM of technology. Wake up!

Learning from Apple: Supplier Innovation and Huge Margins

You're absolutely right - Apple also has an advantage that suppliers WANT to be their supplier even at minimal profit - it adds cachet to their brand. And yea, that was GM 50 years ago ...

Nokia Gets No Respect Against Apple, RIM

The problem is that a year ago, everyone dismissed Apple & the iPhone as a newcomer who would NEVER get any traction against the big boys - guess what - the big boys have been asleep at the switch for YEARS and what has been the response? our next phone will be better - they are what now, 3? 4? generations behind the iPhone - the Instinct the collective brainpower of Samsung or Nokia stll touting features and claiming they have the best camera? Remember they claimed the iphone would never gain any traction because people didn't want to use a touchscreen (or browse the mobile web?) - yea, THEIR mobile web or their touchscreen. That's why Nokia is ignored, for ALL their supposed prowess, as you yourself noted, phone portion & camera is fine but the rest - not much of a smartphone. The facts are the other comapnies are too laden where the project manager cannot override engineering or marketing to say this feature is crap - do it again - that's the bottom line. It's not that they don't have the brainpower, they cannot bring it to market ... nor the attention to detail (just look at the Instinct's icons - some are 2D, some are 1D and some are 3D in appearance - if you cannot even create cohesive icons, how else can you take on the iPhone) ... and NOW the app store - suddenly Nokia is all about an app store ... much like the music store? No ... basically, Apple will take about 70% of the HIGH MARGIN smartphone market, RIM will hold onto to about 15% and the other 3 /4 will fight over the remaining 15%. They are all fine on creating/adding features but as a cohesive gadget, they'd had 15 years and all have failed REPEATEDLY ... because they cannot get their act together on the UI, on creating an app store and of course, creating the Apple mystic.

Apple's AT&T Deal Is Costly

For a guy who claims to be a numbers guy, you don't do much calculating yourself.

Apple is selling an EXTRA 400,000 or 1+ million phones where other cell phone manufacturers might sell a few thousand more ... that's right - not on the network but still buying ...

This would be a problem if Apple was subsidizing each phone sale but it's NOT- every one at FULL PRICE 100% of the time.

As for people who can't/won't switch to AT&T ... how much does AT&T make for this customer? That's right - ZERO.

How much does Apple make? That's right $400 to $500 DOLLARS!

Versus ZERO.

It's ALL found money. Even better, Apple has to provider ZERO tech support - how much savings is that?

And with everyone that goes overseas that's not "legal," that just adds to the cachet of the product. How many products are considered FREE ADVERTISING & MARKETING for a company yet they made $450 TODAY?! Not to mention every Iphone sale is potential iTunes sales (even overseas ones either have stores or if they have a US credit card can buy tracks & movies) ...

By your math, since everyone on this planet doesn't have an iPhone, that's a trillion loss?

So you prefer possible future monthly revenue versus a $450 sale today? The future monthly stream is never guaranteed even if you sign up a carrier - people drop out, people don't pay ... but you don;'t factor that in because it's too hard?

The real world is more complex than just A+B-C ... or perhaps you should stick to analysing industries that aren't so complex.

Microsoft Scared of iPhone Domination

this isn't about who is or who isn't evil - after all both are for profit companies. The main difference is Microsoft tries to surround the market so you have no choice but them - except in the age of the internet, it's a non-starter strategy. Apple on the other hand simply decides what they want to do, if you want to use their products, this is our choice of a 'standard,' good or bad we don't care what you think, we picked on for whatever reason, you should trust us - if you don't, that's fine - we don't care - that is how they see LInux, Firefox or Flash. We are not going to publically attack them, we simply dismiss them as un-interesting or unworthy of our mention.

A separate issue is this again proves how inept MS is now - along with the billion dollar XBox writeoff. MS shareholders are suckers and idiots for not caring that the XBox has cost them a minimal $18 BILLION dollars loss in revenue and at least that in equity - even presuming they invested it with zero returns versus massive losses.

Was Verizon Really Wrong To Pass On The iPhone?

Verizon's bigger problem is CDMA.

iPhone Mania: Case Study of the Better Mousetrap Principle

From a month ago, these guys covered that exact same thought:

2aday.wordpress.com/20.../

The iPhone: Apple's First Flop

First all, people pay the same for a two year contract now for a phone costing $49 so the only question is whether you would pay $499 or $599 for a phone - you might not want to or can't afford to - that's fine but can you honestly all your purchasing decisions are reflected in the general population? I've spent $600 on a dinner, in college, I'm sure that was my entire budget for dinners so what's $600 for a phone I can use for 2 years, it all depends on what you make and whether you're interested. And when you define mass market, what exactly do you mean, there are some 220 million phones in the US, are you saying anything less than 70 million is a failure or that unlike other phone manufacturers, the iphone is full price only? So, even 1 million by $600 is a pretty huge number? You really have to get over that just because you can't afford something or don't want it, no one else will.

Free Video Downloads Will Overtake iTunes Soon -- Study

2aday.wordpress.com/20.../

Five Reasons Why Apple's iPhone is Better Than the Rest

Yes, we don't know 100% of what the iphone will be or won't be BUT we do what the competition has offered after 20 years and a couple BILLION phones - THEY HAVE FAILED. I have used about 10-20 phones in my life and yet to find one where everything important pretty much worked as it should. OSX is not perfect but its' quirks are pretty minor. Conversely, I have yet to use that could do all the simple things correctly that a phone should in making my life easier ... or they program it idiotically. Why is it my $300 phone can jostle in my pocket and change from RING to VIRBRATE or I look in my photos to see that it took 6 photos of the insides of my pocket (all black - no light) - how dumb is that? Or that I have to manually change theclock on phone - doesn't the freakin' thing have to check into the network like every millisecond? My VCR can find the right time, my cell phone can't? I have no idea if the iphone will be brilliant or great or even just pretty good. All I know is Nokia, samsung, moto, Sony, LG, Erickson and many others have been trying and failing for 20 years to produce anything that 90% of people would go - it's got a great UI! And not dumb at all to figure out if my contact has 6 numbers, of course, he gets 6 listings - who doesn't love to call fax numbers! They had a million shots and they blew them all. From the video I've seen, they will look like morons in July 2007 ... especially Verizon.