Constable Odo

E-Reader Wars Heating Up: Apple May Have Edge with Younger Generations

All those textbooks require a lot of trees to be cut down to make paper. Isn't that one of the main reasons eReaders should be used? We are looking for greener alternatives. Apple will most likely win the race because it has the best content delivery platform in place which is iTunes. Once Apple's server farm is completed, there will be no stopping them on storing everything one could possibly imagine in the form of electronic information. They'll just have to make some deals with publishers and such and then it's "stop the presses".

I also think that in 3 to 5 years many more schools will be well into giving mobile electronic devices to students. If anyone can push a tablet, Apple can. With creative programming of apps, students would even be able to carry out experiments on their Apple tablets.

Sector Overview: Handsets

That's right! Nokia blows...

If Nokia continues to copy the iPhone long enough they may eventually come out with something close to an iPhone killer. Maybe one that's a bit thinner than the present brick they're trying to pass off an iPhone contender. Nokia makes some gorgeous handsets, but they should stick to cramming in as many hardware features as possible and label it a wonderfully full featured handset. Just stay away from saying it's as good as an iPhone.
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Nokia Gets No Respect Against Apple, RIM

Nokia's N95/N96 series handsets certainly have better hardware than the iPhone, no doubt about it. Still, there were many music players that had better hardware than the iPod, but it wasn't enough to gain much market share. Apple's iTMS probably has a lot to do with it. Plus the retail stores where you can go in and play with all their products. And Apple's customer support is very good, too. It's going to be the same way with iPhones.
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I'm not entirely happy that iPhones lack many hardware bells and whistles because I'd also like things such as full-motion video and a higher resolution camera with flash. It's great to have an microSD slot to boost memory.
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The iPhone doesn't have these things yet in the end the iPhone will outsell the top-of-the-line Nokia with the greatest of ease which is understandable due to the N95's high cost. The iPhone has the whole Apple ecosystem to feed demand to sell more and more iPhones. We just have to wait for Apple to finish the OSX Mobile framework and then the iPhone will be nearly untouchable.
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If Apple wants to it could easily afford to build iPhones with the best hardware money can buy, but I think that's down the road a bit. Apple has already bitten off more than it can chew for now, so they just need to concentrate on improving the software and helping developers to build better iPhone apps. By the end of 2010 Apple should have the smartphone market lead with about 60 million iPhones throughout the world. That's no small feat for a company that had no handset experience until a bit over a year ago.
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It's hard to understand why the media rags on Apple so much because of a few growing pains. Sure, the iPhone is far from perfect yet I doubt if there are a lot of iPhone returns. Very few new ventures have ever started out as well as the iPhone has. I don't see why the media can't appreciate that fact.

I'm sure the Nokia N96 and the BlackBerry Bold are very capable handsets than many people would be happy to own. If so many potential smartphone users are choosing iPhones instead then there must be something about the iPhone that is attracting buyers that the other handset manufacturers just don't offer.