Who's buying the new iphone?
- Thread starter wilson1
- Start date
If you jailbreak your phone you can find an app at Rock that costs all of $4 which tethers your iphone to your ipad.
Better than paying ATT a monthly fee of $16
i didn't realize that IPhone was supporting tethering in the states now (AT&T initially blocked it). that is good news. it saves a huge amount of hassle with 3G cards, especially if you travel to multiple countries.
I have the Nexus One as well (i am a bit of a phone junky with my job); it is a nice phone, but the reality today is that the phone is a vessel for the apps. the apps on droid O/S phones are lacking, they will catch up, or try to, so there may be a leveling of the playing field in the future. However, where Nexus One is suffering is its inability to sync with ITunes. to me, the convenience of a phone and music carrier is huge. Google is trying to promote some of the open access music libraries, which are great, but don't justify a reloading of all my CDs or the hassle of a full conversion.
One point of interest: i was at a lunch with Steven Jobs (unfortunately, it wasn't just the two of us, but he did come to the table b/c of a colleague that knew him). he was asked a question (which i cannot remember verbatim), something to the affect of 'what is your philosophy on business' and his answer was, "he believes humans are inherently good" - that i do remember verbatim. such a simple statement but so powerful. at the time of the ITunes launch you could get any music you wanted for free, so why pay for it. Jobs, thinks people are not only willing to pay, but they feel it is the right thing to do IF the product justifies it. i have to admit it has been a long time since i have been on file sharing peer-to-peer sites.
I have the Nexus One as well (i am a bit of a phone junky with my job); it is a nice phone, but the reality today is that the phone is a vessel for the apps. the apps on droid O/S phones are lacking, they will catch up, or try to, so there may be a leveling of the playing field in the future. However, where Nexus One is suffering is its inability to sync with ITunes. to me, the convenience of a phone and music carrier is huge. Google is trying to promote some of the open access music libraries, which are great, but don't justify a reloading of all my CDs or the hassle of a full conversion.
One point of interest: i was at a lunch with Steven Jobs (unfortunately, it wasn't just the two of us, but he did come to the table b/c of a colleague that knew him). he was asked a question (which i cannot remember verbatim), something to the affect of 'what is your philosophy on business' and his answer was, "he believes humans are inherently good" - that i do remember verbatim. such a simple statement but so powerful. at the time of the ITunes launch you could get any music you wanted for free, so why pay for it. Jobs, thinks people are not only willing to pay, but they feel it is the right thing to do IF the product justifies it. i have to admit it has been a long time since i have been on file sharing peer-to-peer sites.
I got the BlackBerry Storm 2 primarily because it was on Verizon and, being in the SF Bay Area, AT&T's network was (is?) being overwhelmed here. The S2 is the best phone I have had and I have been satisfied with it. Judging from the internet forums there have been a lot of problems with the S2 (and S1) but I have met personally only people that are satisfied with them. Still, the 3gs is a generation ahead in the smoothness of the hardware and the facility of the GUI.
Where the BB S2 beats the 3gs is in battery life. I think the S2 is excellent in the area of PIM (personal information management), phone function and quality, and of course texting and email. Since the latest OS upgrade the network browser has become acceptable. A properly set up 3gs appears to me to be just as good in all this, has more apps and far better hardware.
Jobs only believes that with other people's content. He is on the record as major conference for saying he didn't think movies should have been released digitally until hard disks could have built-in protection (this was before he put video on i* products). If he really believed in what he said, then he should have offered his Pixar movies without copy protection and we know he has not done that, yet insisted that music guys giving content that way. We also know how he said no one would have any use for video because unlike music, you only watched it once. Then goes and adds it to his product.
Jobs genius is in design and technology coming together. Outside of that, he really doesn't deserve a credit of this sort. He is a ruthless business man with a lock on his platform that makes Microsoft look like an angle. Can you say "no flash on iPhone?" I knew you could
.
The one he has stated? If so, that doesn't hold water whatsoever. Really, I am no fan of Adobe, having had to compete with them in past life just the same. But come on, in this day and age resisting flash if someone else provides it on a silver platter for free on your platform? If it is unstable, let me be the judge of it like I am on the PC, not have Steve tell me it is not good for me.
http://www.appleinsider.com/article...dma_iphone_4_rumored_to_be_in_production.html
confirms what I said yesterday. I think one has to be nuts to sign on with ATT for another 2 years when the unlocked version for Verizon is on its way
confirms what I said yesterday. I think one has to be nuts to sign on with ATT for another 2 years when the unlocked version for Verizon is on its way
I guess when I say unlocked the other riumor is that the phone could be used with any carrier other than Verizon.
For me I will buy the Verizon version when it is released
Rob did you read my post about the app at Rock which allows you to tether your iphone to your ipad thus obviating the need for an iPad data plan. The app costs $4
I can't believe I'm actually agreeing with an (ex) Microsoft guy, but I agree! And ditto for Java on the i{Pad, Phone} too. Let the end users decide what level of battery life they're prepared to deal with.
fun facts about VZ and their customer service routines:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/t...?ref=personaltechemail&nl=technology&emc=cta1
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/t...?ref=personaltechemail&nl=technology&emc=cta1
A CDMA phone being unlocked doesn't make much sense. the GSM phone has its network (customer) intelligence on the SIM card, so you can swap the intelligence from carrier to carrier by simply unlocking the association between the phone and the SIM card. but CDMA has its carrier intelligence imbedded (maybe not the right word, but it is not accessible in a simple replaceable component like a SIM card) so, i am not sure how that works. further, you would only be able to move to other CDMA networks (good in China). i didn't read the article carefully, so maybe the phone will have a CDMA and GSM function like the World Blackberry. i think i would still go with Verizon over AT&T despite poor customer service. i only need to call customer service every so often, but i need a phone with good coverage all the time - i will still get the AT&T IPhone4 and then drop it once the Verizon comes out.
Amir - on Steve Jobs, i agree with you on all accounts. But i don't think that necessarily disproves his belief, just proves that he likes to hold a double standard on what is his vs. what is everyone else's. Therefore you have to add to your list, incredible marketer. not because of how they advertise Apple, but rather that he was able to take this concept of 'people being inherently good' align it with a marketing program to convince the music world to work under this premise with Apple and incorporate it first into the market. You can imagine him giving the same pitch he gave us to every major music label CEO and, in their state of desperation, jumped at the chance to somehow monetize the digital music market. now any major company could have done it, but his marketing genius positioned Apple there first on a mass market basis. so, i do agree that he is a ruthless business man, that holds the ultimate double standards for his making decisions, but i also believe he based his marketing platform on this ethos that people are inherently good (i guess he just left billionaires such as himself out of the equation)
Amir - on Steve Jobs, i agree with you on all accounts. But i don't think that necessarily disproves his belief, just proves that he likes to hold a double standard on what is his vs. what is everyone else's. Therefore you have to add to your list, incredible marketer. not because of how they advertise Apple, but rather that he was able to take this concept of 'people being inherently good' align it with a marketing program to convince the music world to work under this premise with Apple and incorporate it first into the market. You can imagine him giving the same pitch he gave us to every major music label CEO and, in their state of desperation, jumped at the chance to somehow monetize the digital music market. now any major company could have done it, but his marketing genius positioned Apple there first on a mass market basis. so, i do agree that he is a ruthless business man, that holds the ultimate double standards for his making decisions, but i also believe he based his marketing platform on this ethos that people are inherently good (i guess he just left billionaires such as himself out of the equation)
I am fine with adding "incredible marketer" to Job's list of qualifications .
On music though, the story is deeper and more cunning than people know. The way Apple got into music in a way nobody else could was by going to record labels and convincing them to experiment with him with single track sales because at the time, he only ran his software on the Mac and had a 7% share of the entire PC market. His pitch was, "give me a short term contract, and if it screws things up, it will only be a tiny part of your market." Rest of us couldn't do that, running on Windows platform. That got him one major label. He got the second major label, Universal Music, by letting rumors spread that he might acquire that division from the parent company, Seagram (yes, the french liquor maker), who was desperate to raise cash. Once he got those two, the rest capitulated without knowing what they got themselves into. iTunes store launched, created great success, and music industry renewed his deal even after he expanded his platform to Windows.
Of course, the labels did not realize what Apple was really doing. Jobs was extremely clever in that his plan was to shift the profit from software (music/videos) to hardware. As you know, CD players are sold for basically at or below cost. Yet an i* product from Apple has margins as high as 55%. In contrast, Apple set pricing for music which meant that after you covered your royalties and operational costs, there was no profit left. No profit, means no competition from anyone else entering music market. And the few that did, had to do it with less perfect execution and pull out later because of lack of profitability (Amazon an exception although it is no doubt a loss leader for them).
Lack of competition means that labels lost pricing control with Apple dominating as their largest digital distribution partner. The decline of the music industry followed despite incredible success by Apple.
I certainly admire how Jobs pulled this off as a business person. He played the chess game perfectly. As a consumer though, I don't appreciate that if I want to enjoy his platform, I have to use the rest of his system and fixed set of choices. I have a library of WMA Lossless content. His players can play that content perfect and he could get a license to that technology for a song from Microsoft (few hundred thousands a year). But he chooses not to do that. So I avoid his platform.
So no, I am not sure I fully agree that anyone else could have done what he has pulled off. There was a sequence of events that was very unique to how he got here. That said, he and his team do deserve a ton of credit. His job is to make money for his employees and shareholders and he has done that. He transformed an ailing computer company into a consumer powerhouse, doing what every CE company should have done as they saw the commoditization of consumer electronics space. That the investment needed to be in software and user interface, not in mass manufacturing of electronics (which the Chinese have mastered better than the rest of them). My ex employer still makes billions of dollars a year selling software so while their feelings might be hurt on Apple's rise, they are still doing OK. The CE industry though, is suffering. As is the music industry. We will have to see what happens to movie industry and whether they fall victim to the same thing. Retailers though, are surely another victim here....
. On music though, the story is deeper and more cunning than people know. The way Apple got into music in a way nobody else could was by going to record labels and convincing them to experiment with him with single track sales because at the time, he only ran his software on the Mac and had a 7% share of the entire PC market. His pitch was, "give me a short term contract, and if it screws things up, it will only be a tiny part of your market." Rest of us couldn't do that, running on Windows platform. That got him one major label. He got the second major label, Universal Music, by letting rumors spread that he might acquire that division from the parent company, Seagram (yes, the french liquor maker), who was desperate to raise cash. Once he got those two, the rest capitulated without knowing what they got themselves into. iTunes store launched, created great success, and music industry renewed his deal even after he expanded his platform to Windows.
Of course, the labels did not realize what Apple was really doing. Jobs was extremely clever in that his plan was to shift the profit from software (music/videos) to hardware. As you know, CD players are sold for basically at or below cost. Yet an i* product from Apple has margins as high as 55%. In contrast, Apple set pricing for music which meant that after you covered your royalties and operational costs, there was no profit left. No profit, means no competition from anyone else entering music market. And the few that did, had to do it with less perfect execution and pull out later because of lack of profitability (Amazon an exception although it is no doubt a loss leader for them).
Lack of competition means that labels lost pricing control with Apple dominating as their largest digital distribution partner. The decline of the music industry followed despite incredible success by Apple.
I certainly admire how Jobs pulled this off as a business person. He played the chess game perfectly. As a consumer though, I don't appreciate that if I want to enjoy his platform, I have to use the rest of his system and fixed set of choices. I have a library of WMA Lossless content. His players can play that content perfect and he could get a license to that technology for a song from Microsoft (few hundred thousands a year). But he chooses not to do that. So I avoid his platform.
So no, I am not sure I fully agree that anyone else could have done what he has pulled off. There was a sequence of events that was very unique to how he got here. That said, he and his team do deserve a ton of credit. His job is to make money for his employees and shareholders and he has done that. He transformed an ailing computer company into a consumer powerhouse, doing what every CE company should have done as they saw the commoditization of consumer electronics space. That the investment needed to be in software and user interface, not in mass manufacturing of electronics (which the Chinese have mastered better than the rest of them). My ex employer still makes billions of dollars a year selling software so while their feelings might be hurt on Apple's rise, they are still doing OK. The CE industry though, is suffering. As is the music industry. We will have to see what happens to movie industry and whether they fall victim to the same thing. Retailers though, are surely another victim here....
You cant fault the guy for being an entrepreneur. As for being forced to use his platform, IIRC Microsoft years ago was charged by the FTC for being a monopoly.
Was that good that Microsoft did what it did? Was Bill Gates any less than an entrepreneur so that excuse wouldn't apply to him???
Keep in mind that Jobs can do one thing that Microsoft couldn't do: Jobs can block applications from being available on his platform. No matter what Microsoft did, that was never one of the way they exercised their power. Apple not only bundles his own version of some things, but makes 100% sure no one else can distribute the same. Look at the latest investigations into his actions on advertising: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aFO1VhH3xDXo. Apple wants to set itself up as potentially the only company that can make money from ads on his platform.
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