Opinions

So you’re wondering what is coming at MacWorld? In one of my columns at Apple Matters I took a wild guess that it would be an oversized iPhone with a USB port to accommodate dongles for your carrier of choice. For me it was all about the internet everywhere.

Hadley Stern thinks differently, well he’s down with the oversized iPhone deal but he has a much better reasoning for his thought that something along these lines will show up at MacWorld. In fact Hadley lists five reasons. Perhaps the best is that Steve gets to say he invented but the other four (economy, atom chip, extending the reach of iTunes, iPhone) are solid as well.

Here’s the interesting thing, a concept like that has been going around Apple longer than the iPhone. The supposed genesis of the iPhone was a Safari Pad that an employee showed to Steve. When Steve saw it he didn’t think “A tablet to browse the web!” He thought “frickin’ iPhone!” and this the ball started… more...

iPM knows what you’re thinking when you read that headline, you’re thinking that this will be some screed about how terrified Sprint and Cellular One should be of the iPhone. Those companies probably should be scared of the iPhone like Frosty is scared of spring but what about the carriers that service the iPhone? Should they be scared?

StrandReports argues that carriers should be fearful of the iPhone. In a article entitled IPhone -an operator’s worst friend… Strand lists 10 compelling reasons why the iPhone should scare carriers. But this just isn’t any list. The points actually feature some decent argumentation. Unfortunately that makes the list boring to read (bt you still should). Let iPM hit some of the high points for you:

Carriers that service the iPhone end up neglecting the other 95% of their customers. Put differently, the burden of providing service for the iPhone means that much of a company’s resources are moved away from most of the customers. If the iPhone is 5% of your business and you spend 20% of your time chasing, promoting and talking about the iPhone the everyone else is… more...

Over at out sister site Apple Matters the world’s most hated man has an article up hopping that RIM stays viable. Chris’ worry seems to be that RIM will get confused by the success of the Storm and lose their core values. I guess the argument makes sense in a “I’ve been deprived of oxygen for the last fourteen hours” kind of way. Everyone wants Apple to be pushed by competitors, everyone wants Apple to feel the need to keep innovating but just as importantly everyone should recognize that the iPhone isn’t the only answer when it comes to smartphones. Hoping RIM stays great is like liking both bacon and seafood, there is value in both.

Over at Seeking ALpha there is an interesting article by Bruce Everiss. Bruce asks (and answers) a very interesting question: When it comes to games which device will win, netbooks or the iPhone?

Many will argue that the question is almost nonsensical. Games aren’t the primary focus of either the iPhone or netbooks. This can be countered by noting that games can be a compelling reason to buy a device. The next objection will be that the iPhone competes against other phones, not netbooks. Hold on there, the iPhone is a phone but at the things heart it is a go anywhere computer. Netbooks are go anywhere computers so the question is valid. So this is one great question. How does Bruce see things shaking out?

So as things stand it looks like netbooks are going to be the biggest gaming machine, by a significant multiple of what the iPhone achieves. In fact the netbook has the potential to be the biggest gaming platform of all. It should easily outperform all home consoles put together. It will be interesting to see this unfold.

If you follow Bruce’s… more...

Here’s the quick and dirty version: Google’s new voice search App breaks the rules of the App store. How can you be sure? Google admitted to CNet that the Google search App uses an API that is not in the SDK.  There you have it, Google broke the rules and, thus far, there aren’t any repercussions coming from Cupertino.

This, as expected, causes a ton of controversy. Is Apple blatantly playing favorites? Is it okay when Google breaks the rules but not okay when Pull My Finger does? Heck, Flash can’t even get a sniff from Apple because they break the rules and there are a ton of people who want Flash on the iPhone (there are a ton of people who don’t as well). So is Apple sucking up to Google? Maybe but probably not.

There’s an old saying that it is better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission (that’s how I get new Macs after all) and it is a pretty safe wager that Google didn’t submit the updated search app with a note saying: “Dear Apple, We cheated.” More likely Google just… more...

Every week we hear of a new potential iPhone killer. Last week, for example, it was the Storm. But I’m beginning to feel that no device will be an iPhone killer.

That’s not to say any device couldn’t outsell the iPhone. But that doesn’t make it an iPhone killer. The iPhone has become the device others are measured against. Not unlike motor cars. It is the likes of Mercedes Benz that leads the way in technology development, but it is by no means the market share leader. And just because a Ford has all the features Mercedes might offer, do we call it a Mercedes killer?

Ditto the Mac. It also sets the trends that others follow. Even when its market share ebbed around two or three percent, it was still setting the trends.

The iPhone has firmly established itself with both decent market share and exceptional mind share. And it’s that mind share that needs to be conquered for a true iPhone killer. All the technology in the world is moot because - as we we’ve seen in the iPod’s market - it doesn’t kill off the leading competitor. iPods don’t have all the bells and whistles that everyone… more...

Hadley Stern is miffed. He’s taking a look at what Apple has done in the past and with the iPhone and seen the copycats. What, exactly, is a Blackberry Storm if not a direct rip off of the iPhone? And you know RIM won’t give Apple a kiss after that screwjob so why not some cash?

Hadley’s not exactly that upfront about it but that is the take away message. All the companies coming out with touchscreen phones are really coming out with iPhone knockoffs and that doesn’t seem fair to the company who went through all the hard work of getting everything right in the first place. Read the entire article Should Other Companies Pay Apple at our sister site Apple Matters.

You can’t mention “Flash” and “iPhone” in the same breath without people getting a little huffy. It is honestly surprising how passionate people can be about not having Flash on the iPhone. Passion aside people have a lot of reasons not to have Flash on the iPhone.

While Flash would be nice on my iPhone, I’ll be damned if I want Safari crashing every time it comes to a Flash-based web site because of the poorly developed plugin software.
D9

That is a moderate approach to the issue. D9 is willing to trade stability for the lack of Flash. Other points revolve around how slow Flash is on OS X. Some people maintain that it will max out a Quad core Mac Pro (when I experimented with various Flash intesive sites my machines experienced only a moderate bump in CPU usage. I tried it on a MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac 3.0, and PowerMac G5 with similar results for each machine. I know, I know I own too many Macs). Then there is the issue of how it would run on the iPhone. The iPhone’s processor is slower than a full… more...

Chris Seibold, today’s designated idiot, has a post up at Apple Matters averring that the CEO of Microsoft is trying to spread doubt in the growing mobile market because he fears that Microsoft is falling behind. This time Ballmer isn’t laughing out loud at the iPhone but he is disparaging Google’s revenue model for Android. As Chris points out (blind hog meet acorn) the same tactic was used by Microsoft with Internet Explorer.Chris concludes that the FUD campaign won’t work:

The bright side is that the plan won’t work. People get why giving away something for free can be a great idea. People trust Google much more than Microsoft. Sorry Ballmer, you’ll have to try a little harder next time. People are getting tired of eating FUD.

Read the article over at Apple Matters.

Apple Matter’s very own Chris Howard has an article up wondering if the iPhone’s momentum can be stopped (answer=yes but it won’t btw). Chris has a huge list of recent positive iPhone head lines and then gives specific examples of where the iPhone’s popularity is really helping to drive the iPhone ahead of the competition. As Chris aptly puts it:

Because in Q4, when folks are buying a new phone, they’ll feel the weight of that momentum pushing, pushing them to buy the most popular phone, the one that “everybody” has. And then they buy it, tell their friemds, get added to that quarter’s statistics, and the momentum builds more

The iPhone has, in a sense, created its own halo effect. The more it sells, the more it sells.

Read the whole article, it is worth your time.