Bastion

State of the iPhone: Strong. Very Strong.

Frank, have you even used an iPhone? "Run little apps"? Have you run Oracle clients on it? How about Salesforce? Or maybe the medical imaging app? What about the full VNC client and other emulators that let you connect to text- and GUI-based servers?

Everyone thinks it's just fart apps and download version is simple web games, but you'd be wrong. It's that and a whole lot more. Will be even more when the app-to-peripheral features are release this summer. The blood glucose monitor demonstration earlier this year was amazing.

Okay, so you think the email is subpar? Blackberry and Win Mobile do not offer the same organizing and viewing options as iPhone Mail. I get all of my accounts integrated, and I can also use server folders just like on my desktop. I get full HTML messages with images and photos included - and I can use the pinch-zoom to see anything larger as I need. Sorry, the other guys can't.

It hardly "fails" as a smartphone because some of these "click-throughs" have not been implemented (as 100 end-user features are coming in the next release this summer, including the much maligned lack of copy-paste, I'm expecting all of these will be addressed). And as for contacts, I'm not sure what is so hard about tapping the search field and tapping letters, which then feeds an incremental search over the whole "book" or just a contact group.

Mmmm, nobody needs 35,000 apps. And a lot of them do similar things. Yes, Apple needs to improve how people can find the apps that have value for them. But just because you haven't found any you like, doesn't mean others haven't.

See, that's the real difference. With Apple's platform it is easy for developers to cater to every niche. With other platforms, making and distributing apps is hard, so developers only do it if they think they will make a lot of money (notice how most other smartphone apps are much, much more expensive that iPhone apps?).

For most iPhone apps, it can me an impulse buy, and that is great for developers. Good for consumers, too.

As for your doom-and-gloom about the economy, I don't get the sentiment. Those conditions existed for all of the previous two quarters - why hasn't Apple suffered thus far, while others have?

You know what they said about the boy who cried wolf...


On Apr 23 09:16 PM Frank Castle wrote:

> Man the Apple fanbois are all stirred up and crowing away again.
>
>
> Apple iPhone is well at what it does. Run little apps and feed the
> Apple EcoSystem. As a phone it's subpar. As a email device its adequate
> for the average user. As a PIM .. well it's got contacts but it's
> not that easy to search through a few hundred. Still no notes sync
> support. No support for click to call, click to email etc. So while
> its capable it fails as a smartphone.
>
> People seem to be glossed over by this fact and sure for consumers
> iPhone is a HUGE step up from the cellphones they were used to. But
> for anyone who has used this technology since Palm Professional -
> iPhone is a whole new device type and as I said amazing at what it
> does.
>
> I have both devices and I use Blackberry for day to day and frankly
> have not found 26 apps worth keeping. All studies have shown people
> download / try / delete / repeat so yeah you need a constant stream
> of Apps to feed that. At the end of the day I have to make a living
> and the time to waste of AppStore is maybe twice a week to check
> out what is new.
>
> I would wager Blackberry users don't want or expect 35,000 apps.
> They tend to be people who just want to be connected.
>
> And BTW the Storm no matter how bad you trash it - still selling.
> Actually equaled the same amount of iPhones sold in US and come Storm
> 2, the other models COMBINED with BES 5.0 Blackberry will do just
> fine and usher in a new level of enterprise intergration iPhone can
> only dream about.
>
> Great week for Apple but I don't think any company is ready to boast
> how great they are doing as last I checked the economy is just getting
> worse, more jobs are lost weekly and my pay sure as heck isn't going
> up this year.

State of the iPhone: Strong. Very Strong.

I agree, great article, and a thorough and thought-provoking comment from iJah.

You know, it is the business model that Apple has created that is astounding. The nay-sayers pooh-pooh’d the first iPhone as a “toy” because they were so limited in vision. Back then, developers could only do Webkit apps, and their only revenue options were direct subscriptions/payments from users or advertising. This was no more compelling for developers than existing mobile web apps - they still needed commerce engines, servers, hosting, networks, etc - all this system engineering "infrastructure" - sheesh! If you weren't already in the business, you weren't likely to try to ante up those "table stakes".

Cut to the summer of 2008 and now any developer can try their hand at striking “gold” because Apple has taken care of all the e-commerce infrastructure. Really, it’s like what they did for personal desktop publishing, then personal media management, and now, personal application development.

The special thing about Apple is that they truly have a company culture where they want to put out creative tools for the masses, not just the gearheads and folks with deep pockets and development organizations (yeah, I’m talking about you, Microsoft and Oracle). I mean you hear about these AppStore success stories and a lot of them are “just a guy” with an idea and a lot of determination and passion – it makes you recall how Apple started: two Steves in a CA garage.

It has come full circle – but like that also implies, it is cyclical – Apple keeps repeating this “creativity for the rest of us” loop over and over in more and more areas. It really is amazing, and beautiful…