Martin Hill

Can Apple Stop the Android?

Edward,
Everyone seems to focus on the software and media part of Apple's ecosystem but the story is even more compelling than that.

This is the challenge for all iPhone competitors: Joe Public walks into their local Electronics store and what do they see? Row after row of iPhone compatible iPod dock equipped clock radios, stereo and speaker systems, cases etc and then when they get to the checkout counter rows of iTunes Gift cards (which can be used to buy iPhone apps just as easily as music or movies). Then they jump in their car and 70% of the time they’ll find an iPod dock connector option with steering wheel integration etc. Heck if they jump on a plane, chances are their seat will even have an iPod dock.

Then they sit down in front of their TV and what do they see, dozens of ads from banks, fast food companies, etc all proudly showing their iPhone apps and of course hammering home the point that it is only on iPhone that you’ll find an app for just about everything. Then of course, they go to play their music on their PC and again 70-80% of the time, it will be iTunes that they fire up – all ready to sync with that new iPhone they’ve been lusting after.

You were actually right when you said it is looking like the 1990s all over again, but this time it is Apple not Microsoft that has the overwhelming majority share of software and hardware peripherals (and profits) and Android and Microsoft and Nokia and RIM and the rest are the ones fighting with each other to get developers to create for their platforms. It is not enough to have good phone hardware anymore – Apple has proved that it is the ecosystem that wins the game in the long run.

I’m not saying that Android won’t prove to be good competition, but I am saying that you’d be foolish to write Apple off at this point in the game.

-Mart

Can Apple Stop the Android?

Edward, we'd appreciate it if you held off on the "Apple fanatics" slurs. It would be nice to maintain a mature discussion on this topic.

You say that "this is looking like a repeat of the Macintosh-PC Wars of the 1990s which Apple lost" and "one company cannot compete against 100s".

There is a reason that we all disagree with these arguments and that reason is the iPod and the iTunes Store.

With over 70% market share, Apple has obliterated the 100's of heavyweight competitors in both the media player and music store markets worldwide and in doing so, has proved that industry-leading design and vertical integration can and has trumped the massed ranks of competitors.

Now it is the iPhone platform that has the hundreds of thousands of third party programs and hardware peripherals and it is Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian that are struggling to compete against the new defacto standard in apps and peripherals for media players and phones.

Apple is not the same company it was in the 90s, but it is the same company that defeated Microsoft, Sony, Dell, Toshiba etc this decade.

Considering this, wouldn't you agree that as a previous poster said, perhaps the title of this article should have read "Can Android stop Apple?".

-Mart

Can Apple Stop the Android?

Actually, the new compatibility standard is the iPhone/iPod/iTunes. If your program is not compatible with the iPhone or your stereo system or car does not have an iPod/iPhone dock, you’re history. The iPhone has become the Windows of the mobile world - who'd have thought it?

The iPod and iTunes have proved that Apple’s vertically integrated model can win against the massed ranks of “open” competitors. Where is Plays For Sure now? What happened to the tidal wave of competing media players from Sony, Microsoft, Dell, Toshiba, etc etc? Where is Wallmart, Tower, PressPlay, etc etc? Apple owns the media player and Music sales markets and just continues to grow.

The iPhone/iPod hardware ecosystem that is not even mentioned in the article is like the thousands of peripherals that used to only be compatible with Windows PCs. With thousands of iPod-dock connector compatible peripherals, car stereo integration systems, even medical equipment like Insulin pumps available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, Apple has an enormous installed base of 3rd party hardware and software that is just not even a possibility on other platforms.

Many major developers like Gameloft are ceasing to develop for Android because Android users just don't buy anything. You know something is wrong when such a big gun like Gameloft says it makes 400 times more from the iPhone platform than Android.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the 70% worldwide marketshare that the iPod and the iTunes Music Store have captured may not be an anomaly - it is suddenly not so ridiculous to contemplate the iPhone heading into that territory as well.

2009 is not like 1990 anymore.

-Mart

RIM's Crisis Could Be an Opportunity, Again

RIM investors are right to be worried:
- iPhone sales went from half RIM's sales a quarter ago to almost matching (7.4 million versus 8.3 million) in q3 2009.
- From a platform perspective, Apple has already buried RIM to the tune of approx 11-12 million iPhone OS devices (iPhone & iPod Touch) in q3 2009.
- In two and a bit years the iPhone OS active installed base is already 57 million strong, more than RIM has managed in 10 years.
- RIM’s profit share of the total cellphone market of 15% sounds fantastic until you realise that Apple’s share (not counting the iPod Touch) is 20% - of the whole flippn’ cellphone market! (not just smartphones)
- 100,000 iPhone apps vs 2,000 Blackberry apps (and no, they are definitely not all fart apps)
- 100 million iTunes credit card accounts vs 32 million Blackberry subscribers (not a direct comparison but useful nonetheless)

All this and Apple isn't even yet on half the carriers that RIM supplies.

-Mart

Why Amazon Isn't Worried About iPhone's Kindle

The number of people content to purchase a large boxy single-purpose plasticky reading device which can't be read in low light or dark conditions, which can't display colour photos, illustrations, animations or video clips is a pretty limited market.

This makes having a Kindle app available for the over 50 million iPhones and iPod Touches that have been sold (not 10-15 million as the article states) is essential to the success of the Kindle ebook sales platform.

-Mart

Looks Like We're Still a BlackBerry Nation

Joel,
As I posted on Naveen's blog yesterday, if you consider Apple vs RIM from a platform perspective, you need to count the iPod Touch in with the iPhone as both run the iPhone OS and both run Apps.

From that perspective Apple has been beating RIM for the previous 2 quarters and is neck and neck this last quarter. It's not all about phones anymore but mobile OS platform.

-Mart

Apple: Three Battles Won, Nicely Positioned for the Fourth

Moon,
Apple has not been sacking anyone en masse. Those 15,600 positions are FTE (full-time-equivalent) positions. Apple just sensibly trimmed the hours of some of their retail staff during this economic downturn. Enough with the Chicken Little "sky is falling" nonsense.

mediamemo.allthingsd.c...

Also, Naveen, if you consider Apple vs RIM from a platform perspective, you need to count the iPod Touch in with the iPhone as both run the iPhone OS and both run Apps. From that perspective Apple has been beating RIM for the previous 2 quarters and is neck and neck this last quarter. It's not all about phones anymore but mobile OS platform.

-Mart

The Ongoing Smartphone Revolution

This couple of sentences in particular raises plenty of eyebrows:

"If I were in the market right now, I would want a Google Android device. The combination of features and benefits puts it at the top of the heap. Unfortunately Google, for all their technical brilliance, are very bad at marketing. So Apple, who are absolutely brilliant at marketing, continue to outperform with their inferior iPhone."

The HTC G1, the first and so far only Android phone has been widely panned as buggy, clunky, fat, lacking the ability to synch with Exchange, with inconsistent interfaces in each of the bundled apps, no integrated Music store, movie store, TV shows, podcasts, few apps available from the Android Market, no peripheral ecosystem like the 3,000+ peripherals available for the iPhone/iPod etc.

How this translates into putting Android at the top of the heap at this point in time boggles the mind.

Perish the thought that the iPhone might have a feature or two that justifies the hype around it.

-Mart

The Ongoing Smartphone Revolution

Great analysis from those above commenting on what is a very poorly written article by Bruce Everiss.

Bruce, you really need to learn how to ground your arguments with examples and reasons for anyone to take you seriously.

And please Apple haters like crazylegs, could you give some justification to your own arguments rather than launching a "fanboi" attack? It would be much more constructive and might even get you some respect rather than a collective rolling of the eyes.

thankee.

-Mart

Apple and Amazon's Open Embrace

One small correction - Apple did not introduce DRM-free music in response to Amazon. Apple had introduced the iTunes Plus DRM-free format for all their EMI content well before Amazon launched.

The delay in the rest of the iTunes music library going DRM-free was due to Universal, Sony and Warner trying to slow the iTunes juggernaut and give challengers like Amazon a leg up.

Needless to say, they failed and in the end only reinforced Apple's grip on the digital music and MP3-player markets.

As far as DRM-free eBooks are concerned, I have been a very happy customer of Baen's DRM-free library of SciFi and Fantasy books for quite a number of years. It is a shame they are in the minority amongst eBook publishers in this area.

-Mart

The Downside to iPhone Success

Damn, not sure why I got the duplicate posts above.

As far as your second response is concerned:

“Well, for my idea to be impossible, it seems at least one of the following have to be true:
1. Apple is perfect and never allows anything *that could be susceptible to* a virus get through its store.”

Scott, even if a malware author registered all their vital details with Apple (including financial information), paid their $99 entry fee, was approved by Apple into the iPhone developer program and then managed to get an app approved into the App Store that had undetectable malware hidden inside - as soon as it was discovered, Apple would flick the Kill Switch and bam, the app would be neutralised on every iPhone in the world.

“2. No iPhone ever accesses any content from any other iPhone or the Internet that might be used to infect a susceptible app or phone.”

Ah, but the sandboxed security model of the iPhone means no apps can be downloaded to the iPhone from the web or another iPhone and run without being securely signed by Apple through the App Store. Even social engineering won’t allow users to download any old app from the internet or another iPhone and run it - unlike a PC or Mac, or a Windows Mobile, Palm, Nokia or Android phone. (jailbroken iPhones are such a small percentage of the total that they do not count)

The easy infection vectors are just not available on the iPhone unlike virtually every other platform making it far more difficult for malware to survive let alone flourish.

-Mart

The Downside to iPhone Success

Scott, no need to jump to the "attack of the fanboys" defense.

Your argument that "the most widespread iPhone application in 2009 will be a virus" is so patently impossible it does not take a fanboy to realise this.

Apple's central global remote "kill switch" capability combined with tight control over what programs are approved in the App Store as well as mandatory secure app certificate-signing and the iPhone's automatic app update notification mechanism makes it virtually impossible for a virus to even get out of the starting gate let alone replicate amongst a helpless public.

www.ipodobserver.com/s...

www.appleinsider.com/a...

In contrast Windows Mobile which lacks all of these security mechanisms already suffers from quite a number of viruses and trojans as does Symbian and Palm and it looks like Google's Android will suffer the same fate. With a wide-open distribution model without any editorial control and with the ability for users to easily get apps from sources other than Google's marketplace it looks like it will be Android following in Windows virus-ridden footsteps (160,000 viruses and counting) not the iPhone.

In the interests of responsible journalism, would you please post a retraction of this inaccurate article? Thanks!

-Mart

The Downside to iPhone Success

Scott, no need to jump to the "attack of the fanboys" defense.

Your argument that "the most widespread iPhone application in 2009 will be a virus" is so patently impossible it does not take a fanboy to realise this.

Apple's central global remote "kill switch" capability combined with tight control over what programs are approved in the App Store as well as mandatory secure app certificate-signing and the iPhone's automatic app update notification mechanism makes it virtually impossible for a virus to even get out of the starting gate let alone replicate amongst a helpless public.

www.ipodobserver.com/s...

www.appleinsider.com/a...

In contrast Windows Mobile which lacks all of these security mechanisms already suffers from quite a number of viruses and trojans as does Symbian and Palm and it looks like Google's Android will suffer the same fate. With a wide-open distribution model without any editorial control and with the ability for users to easily get apps from sources other than Google's marketplace it looks like it will be Android following in Windows virus-ridden footsteps (160,000 viruses and counting) not the iPhone.

In the interests of responsible journalism, would you please post a retraction of this inaccurate article? Thanks!

-Mart

Revisiting the iPhone’s Browsing Market Share (Part II)

Ai yi yi yi, not sure how I managed to post three copies of my comment. Apologies all. :-(

-Mart

Revisiting the iPhone’s Browsing Market Share (Part II)

Well, according to Net Applications (which isn’t restricted to tracking only a limited number of cut-down mobile-web only sites) in September 2008, compared to all other mobile platforms, the iPhone/iPod Touch together now has a web browser marketshare of about 70% or
- 6 times greater than Windows Mobile/WinCE,
- 12 times greater than Nokia’s Symbian and
- 36 times greater than the PlayStation Portable.
- Blackberry and Palm don't even get on the graph and no other mobile platform comes close.
- The iPhone is even thrashing non-mobile platforms such as the Nintendo Wii (36x smaller), PS3 (16x smaller) etc.

marketshare.hitslink.c...

Then there is Google’s discovery a little while back that 50 times more searches occur from Apple‘s iPhone than any other mobile handset. Google “thought it was a mistake and made their engineers check the logs again,” said Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations:

www.ft.com/cms/s/667f1...

Of course, Google plays on a far larger stage and is definitely not limited to mobile-only websites unlike AdMob.

blogs.computerworld.co...

As you say, the reason Admob is recording a much lower percentage of iPhones using mobile sites is of course because the vast majority of iPhone users browse the real web, not neutered mobile-only sites which most other phone users are restricted to.

-Mart