Uncle Miltie

The Google Phone, Unlocked (Confirmed and More Details)

Wait until pricing comes out to brand this the ultimate device. Unless Google plans to subsidize the phone out of their own pocket, it likely will cost in the $600+ range, the same range that made everyone so upset when the original iPhone came out. It definitely will have a market, but that market will vary depending on the sales price.

I do agree that if Google were to roll out it's own network, even as a MVNO, that it could make the game very interesting...

What if Steve Jobs Hadn’t Returned to Apple in 1997?

I dang near shot Diet Coke out of my nose when I read this response. Yes, there were capabilities available when the iPhone was launched that other companies had. There was a really good argument that the Nokia N95 was a far superior device - hardware, at least - than the original iPhone, and had far more capabilities.

But the key feature of the iPhone was and still is USABILITY.

Other devices had the same features, more of them, and better features than the original iPhone (and still do today). But just try to actually use those features. What good is a feature if only an Engineer can use it? How much value does a built-in GPS have if a new user can't find it without the help of an instruction manual? What good is a camera with a flash if you can't figure out how to actually use the shutter button for it? How good is a web browser on your phone when it can't access the real web? These were the monumental changes that the iPhone ushered in - all usability features. And here's the kicker - it's still by far the easiest to use, most intuitive interface on a phone, bar none. It's been almost 3 years since the iPhone was announced, and no one has caught up to their interface yet.

In a world which is dominated by non-tech types, that simple reality explains why Apple has been so successful. It isn't marketing. It's usability.

Oh, BTW - you may not be able to run your engineering apps on the Mac, but I can run my engineering apps - I just recompile the UNIX code for the OS-X kernel and I'm good to go. There's an advantage to OS-X being a UNIX shell.


On Nov 27 12:45 PM Davis Gentry wrote:

> come on - what single capability on the iPhone was unique when the
> started selling them? I had a touchscreen phone (with full keyboard)
> from HTC running Windows Mobile at least two years before the iPhone
> came out. It had voice recognition (how long did it take Apple to
> realize the ideal interface to a phone was, well, voice?), web browsing,
> was tied to my email, and I could and did buy lots of apps for it.
> The iPhone browsing experience was better to start with, but I prefer
> my Blackberry Bold for browsing over the iPhone today. Their touch
> interface was innovative, and did forward the state of the art. But
> if you did (or do, for that matter) use a PC as a primary interface
> to the rest of the world, Apple in general has severe limitations.
> You cannot buy MAC versions of a great deal of engineering software,
> so engineers HAVE to have something with a Windows operating system
> (not a complaint, mind you - I LIKE Windows - and as an operating
> system OSX has some advantages, too). My latest computer is a MacBook
> Pro with Fusion and Windows. I originally planned to not use MS Office,
> and just run engineering stuff and Visual Studio on the Windows side.
> The iWork package is so bad (try comparing a Word doc with embedded
> spreadsheet to the same thing with iWork) that I bought a copy of
> Office and installed it on the Windows side. And Apple has nothing
> that compares to Outlook. And my old HTC was fully integrated with
> all of it. My desktop Inbox stayed integrated with my phone one (iPhone
> still cannot do that, last I heard). I ran pdfs, spreadsheets, and
> documents on the phone. What Apple is great at is the same thing
> that Microsoft was great at twenty years ago - marketing.

Apple's Tablet: Consumers Will Buy, But What About Businesses?

Here's another market where an Apple tablet would do extremely well - the medical market. If a doc can pull up a Hi-res x-ray or MRI scan on a tablet, annotate on the fly with either touch or pen based input, enter orders and the like, this thing would end up in the hands of nearly every medical professional. Double that when you combine several of the already kick-ass apps in the App store for the medical field.

While Rivals Jockey for Market Share, Apple Bathes in Profits

On Nov 11 01:11 PM Shaftsinker wrote:

> It's just brilliant marketing really.

Not really. It's providing a end-to-end ecosystem that makes it dramatically easier for the end user to do what they want instead of fighting to get the technology to do what it should do. This is the point that so many missed in the iPod story - and it sounds like you still don't understand it.


> The iPod is another example of something sleek and
> elegant that provided no advantages over existing products (actually
> provided a disadvantage due to the proprietary nature of iTunes)
> despite a vastly superior price. But nobody had dominated that industry
> yet and cultureally penetrated it... and so people buying iPods had
> never even heard of MP3 players.

The iPod was easier to use and easier to manage your music on. iTunes was easier to manage your music on your computer on. And iTunes Music Store was a brand new concept that again worked seamlessly with your iPod. It was a vastly superior ecosystem that allowed Apple to dominate the MP3 player market - one that none of their competitors has yet to approach 8 years later.

Ease of use is a significantly important feature. It completely explains the Flip Video phenomenon - low tech, but ultra easy to use. When you see hundreds of YouTube videos of 2 year olds using an iPhone because it is that easy and intuitive to use, it's a HUGE competitive advantage.


> Nothing goes through an Apple product without Apple
> getting a cut. But nobody complains because they don't want Apple
> to have competition.

Wrong. A) there are people who complain all the time (mostly tech geeks and journalists). B) most Apple users WANT Apple to have competition so that it keeps them from getting stagnant with their product. But Apple users are also so satisfied with their products that they would rarely consider moving away from them.


> A lot of you guys here focus on quality quality quality of the product
> to explain these margins but it's really not that simple. Maybe the
> adult Apple usebase is different, but being removed from college
> I got to watch this Apple culture exploded amongst my age group first
> hand over the past several years.

It's ease of use. It's lack of frustration. It's technology that doesn't interfere with you doing what you want to do. This is what sets Apple apart, far more than quality.

Motorola Droid: A Promising iPhone Challenger

Here is the quandry - will Verizon cripple the Droid with all the Verizon "our way or the highway" demands, or will the open Android "anything goes" model be running on the droid?

If the device is crippled, it becomes another blah iPhone wannabe.

If the device is not crippled, Verizon loses several potential revenue streams (tv, gps, ringtones, etc.).

Until I see proof otherwise, I'm betting that Verizon will not give up those secondary revenue streams, relegating Droid to also-ran status.

With Apple, There's a Fine Line Between Paying a Premium and Being a Sucker

Out of all the new items released yesterday, the Magic Mouse is the one that immediately set off my "I MUST HAVE" impulse. To get rid of the stupid scroll wheels and the mighty mous...err... apple mouse "ball" that always seem to get clogged with dirt to the point of non-usability, I'll gladly make this upgrade. To get multi-touch gestures with it as well? BONUS.

Call me a sucker all you want. I want a Magic Mouse.

AT&T OKs VoIP For the iPhone, Too Bad Google Voice Isn't VoIP

Seriously, TechCrunch needs to get a bed with their infatuation of all things Google. They take at face value everything Google says (which has been shown previously to be about as evil as every other company), and assume that Apple is lying about the FCC stuff. Here's a suggestion - assume that both companies (and AT&T as well) are lying to a degree, and you'll be closer to the truth.

Second item - 99.9% of the US public has no idea what Google Voice is, and even fewer actually have it. Quit acting like this is the worlds greatest tragedy because Michael Arrington can't get a Google Voice app on his iPhone.

Since TechCrunch is soon to be releasing their own device (which will undoubtedly receive nothing but praise in TechCrunch), I would suggest that they get dropped from Seeking Alpha as they will no longer be an independent blogger, but will now actually be a manufacturer with a dog in the fight. And I'd hazard a guess that they have some tie-in with Google on it...

Why Apple Should Start Wooing Verizon Like Google

The title of this article should read "Verizon needs to roll out LTE ASAP so it can get iPhone". Until the big V gets it done (like Bell did in Canada), no iPhone. It's as simple as that.

Adobe Blinks First in Flash Battle with Apple

Let me know when Flash won't cause all the fans on my Mac to go into overdrive, and then I'll believe that an iPhone version is not going to instantly drain my battery every time a pop-up flash ad wants to tell me about how great Cialis is.

Flash is horribly written and processor hungry. Keep it off my iPhone until Adobe fixes it.

Is There Room for All Smartphone Makers?

As bullish as I am on Apple, I don't see RIM going bankrupt any time soon. They have a sizable moat in the IT departments of most major corporations. Due to the ability of RIM devices to be securely administered remotely, and all the existing infrastructure dedicated to RIM devices in the enterprise, they have the necessary moat that Apple is still trying to overcome. My iPhone is much improved over the last 2+ years, but it's still not as easy for an IT department to administer as my wife's blackberry.

Also, don't count out RIM for people who primarily use their device for e-mail and text messaging. For those people - and there are a lot of them - the BB is still much easier to type on than an iPhone.

There is in my opinion room for both companies products, and both products have significant owner loyalty and satisfaction. They don't call them Crackberries for nothing. As much as you'd have to pry my iPhone out of my cold, dead fingers, you would have to do the same to my wife's blackberry.


On Sep 28 07:14 PM JamesApple wrote:


> Rim has its root as a pager maker. The blackberrys and BES are just
> pagers and paging devices and services with eMail attached. blackberrys,
> blackberry OS and BES are dumb products with severe limitations and
> restrictions which are extremely hardwired and mechanical. It is
> impossible for anything Rim to become smart.
>
> Rim is going to go bankrupt no later than year 2012.

Motorola Looks Far Better than Other Mobile Internet Players

Also there is this...

> "It is completely and utterly foolish to whine about Nokia being clueless and then say that Motorola at least knows what they're doing when Motorola is trying to do EXACTLY the same that Nokia has been doing for years"

Try changing the name from Motorola to Palm and going back to January and stating the same thing. Motorola unveiled their new Android platform, and basically everyone who saw it agreed that Moto might have finally "gotten it", similar to the same kind of sentiment with Palm when they unveiled WebOS. That was the driving element of the article and analysis.

Motorola Looks Far Better than Other Mobile Internet Players

Kevin - the phone game is no longer just features, it's usability. Nokia still excels at making great hardware with lots of features, but their user interface is horrible, making it nearly impossible for normal people to use those great hardware features. THAT is what iPhone, WebOS, and Android have been focused on, and that has allowed those handsets to gain significant market share in the smartphone segment. Until Nokia understands and corrects their problems with their UI, they will continue to lose market share. It's that simple...

Has Nokia Developed an iPhone Contender?

While I love my iPhone, I also would love to see a real competitor emerge to force Apple to keep innovating. Past Nokia phones have offered great specs, but suffered greatly from a nearly impossible to navigate menu system. If Nokia has finally redesigned their OS and made it easier to actually use all the functions they have, they could emerge as a viable option to the iPhone. I'll hold off judgment until I see evidence of what their OS actually accomplishes.

Blackberry’s 26 Advantages over iPhone

I stand corrected on other BB models. We have an 8820 and a Curve 8310 at home, and neither device has a card that can be accessed without removing the battery. The Curve supposedly can have the card removed without removing the battery, but I have yet to find a practical way to do that...


On Aug 10 02:05 PM Wireless Wiz wrote:

> To be fair, this is an untrue statement. For instance, the Bold
> has a side door slot, the Storm does not require removing the battery,
> and most , if not all, new Blackberries I have seen have this same
> feature - either a side loading slot or a slot that all you have
> to do is to remove the battery cover and you can hot-swap the memory
> card.

Blackberry’s 26 Advantages over iPhone

This article doesn't sound anything like an investing article - it sounds like a BlackBerry fanboy's defense of his toy compared to the iPhone. In our house, we have 2 BB's and 2 iPhones, and are familiar with the pluses and minuses of both devices. Several of these BB advantages are very debatable, offered a skewed presentation to benefit your argument, are more a criticism of the carrier, and are purely an advantage based on your own point of view. For example:

>1. Blackberry can be used on almost every carrier in the world (over 475 of them). In the US, the iPhone is available on AT&T (T) only.

True that iPhone is AT&T only in the US, but it's also offered in over 80 countries on over 100 carriers. Including T-Mobile in Germany. Exclusivity is a regionally determined item, and is undertaken by nearly every carrier in nearly every market - even for several of BB's devices.

>3. Most Blackberries have keyboards ..... Helps while driving, walking, carrying something in your other hand – all the time.

Good luck with that. I've yet to see anyone successfully text with one hand any faster on a BB than on an iPhone. And any texting while in motion is a DISADVANTAGE.

>4. Blackberry uses standardized (=inexpensive and available everywhere in the world) MicroUSB connector for synchronization/charging. iPhone has a much larger proprietary 30-pin connector.

Blackberries are notoriously finicky about their MicroUSB connections - they don't work with every MicroUSB cable and can be a pain to get one that they like. And the iPod / iPhone dock connectors is as close to being universal as you can get.

>5. Some carriers such as Verizon (VZ) and Sprint (S) offer unlimited international Blackberry data roaming for $40/month or less.

Go ahead and try to use your CDMA VZ or S device outside the US and see how incredibly useful that unlimited data roaming really is - not so much when there are no CDMA towers outside of the US and Japan.

>7. Blackberry has expandable memory. iPhone is fixed and sold at 8, 16 or 32 gig only.

BB has to be expandable, because with a stock 128MB of on-board memory, there is no storage space for anything of note. To change the card on our BB's requires removing the battery - hardly a convenient thing to do with any regularity. I have over 2000 songs, 6 full length movies, 70 apps, and 2000 photos on my 32GB iPhone, and have 15 GB free. No need for another card when you have that kind of storage space.

>11. Blackberry allows communicating peer-to-peer via PIN identifier, circumventing the email system. No such iPhone equivalent.

Peer-to-peer communicating is only useful if your company doesn't lock out that service - and many do (my wife's, for example). However, there are hundreds of IM clients available for both devices and SMS on both devices that also bypass the e-mail system.

>12. Skype (EBAY) on the Blackberry? Yes, from anywhere to anywhere. Skype on iPhone? Only if you’re on WiFi.
>
>13. Sling on the Blackberry? Yes, it’s free. Sling on iPhone? $30.
>
>14. Google (GOOG) Voice on the Blackberry? Yes, it’s free. Google Voice on iPhone? Verboten.

These are limitations of AT&T, not the iPhone itself. If you're criticizing Apple's selection of AT&T, fine. Then ask why Verizon wouldn't step up to the place when Apple originally offered the iPhone to them first.

>24. Price: Unlimited iPhone voice/data service, including unlimited SMS, is $150/month. Blackberry can be had for much less. For example, unlimited Blackberry service is offered on Sprint for $100/month, T-Mobile USA $125/month, MetroPCS $50/month, although AT&T/Verizon match the iPhone at $150/month.

Again, you're comparing carriers - not the devices. The iPhone data plan is $30 a month for unlimited data on AT&T. It's actually cheaper than most BB data plans on other carriers.


Nearly every point listed is debatable, skewed and subjective. Hardly an investing article.