Apple is falling further behind in the smartphone space but it looks as if Google is falling behind in the tablet world, and that may be the most important device in the mobile market. But there's still time for Google to catch up.
Looks like Amazon is making another pitch at the mobile market, although I think it's clear that their target is the leisure/consumer segment, not enterprise. It intrigues me that Apple is selling primarily a platform, Amazon primarily product through a platform -- allowing it to practically give the platform away.
Hi, Paul; let me deal with both your posts with a combined response since I think the issues are related!
I think the big issue with Apple in the smarthone space is that their model relies on being an early style-setter in a new device market. Smartphones aren't new devices, and thus they needed tablets. However, you can't keep pushing new devices indefinitely, especially when (as I commented on Susan's early post) the real goal of the user is to obtain an experience that's really likely to be run in the cloud. Apple's win in court may help direct competition but it may also accelerate a notion of focusing on hosted features rather than on device elements, since that focus would likely bypass most of Apple's patents.
With regard to pricing, I think that early adopters typically have atypical value propositions, which leads them to new products more quickly. Apple has kept the smartphone edge among buyers who are not price sensitive, but Android is exploiting the reality that most buyers are. No matter how useful something is, you don't buy it if you can't afford it. Apple has to be sure it doesn't become the phone/tablet provider to the elite, because there aren't enough of them and the number isn't growing. To win, you need to win in a growth market.
That's the key question, Susan, especially given that Apple is about to announce the iPad 5 (supposedly) and that Amazon has just brought out the Fire HD and is said to be readying a smartphone.
We may be moving to a point where all of our appliances are just windows through which we see our virtual world; that the world itself lives in and is constructed from the cloud. That would mean that the cloud becomes the real value and not the window, which could work for Apple if they want to expand their tablet success and press it against Android in the phone space. It could also work against them if Amazon decided to flex its cloud muscle through Fire HD and its new data plan, then build on that with a FirePhone.
Smartphones are what Economists described as ostentatious goods. The average smartphone user really does not allow price to dictate their choice of smartphone brand. It is all about convenience and applicability. Users will give a damn about how a low a price the Kindle fire is going for, if they don't get from the Kindle fire what they normally should expect in smartphone, market value will definitely not go up.
Very surprised to learn from your vblog that Apple is falling behind in the smartphone space. Do you think this is a tactical and strategic shift by Apple in order to consolidate its dominance in the Tablet space? Which of the two markets i.e. Smartphone or Tablets does hold the greater promise?
On the basis of the verdict that was reached in favor of Apple, do you think it is advantage Apple in the smartphone space?
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
50 billion household devices will be on the Internet by 2020, according to Cisco. And we're hearing foreign governments are hacking our infrastructure. Surely our refrigerators are next!
YouTube's move to a partial pay-for-view model could help relieve a dearth of good new content but it could also complicate debates in many parts of the world over payment by content providers for delivery of their material to customers.
That's what Larry Page said on Google's earnings call, referring to the conjunction of mobile and the cloud. Well, let's chart it then! We need to be thinking about an Internet where 90% of our traffic goes to 70 destinations within 40 miles of us.
Facebook's Graph Search may face some profound challenges and risks, first, because Facebook users haven't been thinking of their posts as product reviews; and second, because Facebook will now have to contend with the social-network equivalent of SEO "gaming" of results.
EU operators are considering joining up to create a pan-European network to reduce competitive overbuild and cost. This might lower costs and focus operators on higher-level, more interesting services.
The decision could discourage innovators looking to the past, and require companies to build from the ground up, leading to a new generation of stagnation in the IT world.
Nicole and Kim have heard the news that Google's new mobile OS, "Jelly Bean," has a voice assistant that's poised to defeat their precious Siri. It's time for another test!
Verizon's one-data-plan-for-all-devices could revolutionize mobile data by making it practical to have multiple devices share a plan, and thus encourage users to cellular-equip all their portable appliances.
To date, smartphone apps have only been able to work with 50Meg chunks of information. Well, recent technical advances have been able to boost that number to 4Gbytes. Consequently, developers will be able to work with more complex data types. But will wireless networks be able to handle the additional traffic?
As smartphones and tablets forge into the mainstream, vendors can begin work on the next big wave: wearable devices. Apple and Google are two of the heavyweights reportedly investing time, effort, and money here. This broad category spans the range from devices that can be worn like watches to computers integrated with people's clothing.
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