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Sunday, December 06, 2009 - 09:39 AM EST
"'There’s never been anything like this experience for mobile software,' Freeverse's Ian Lynch Smith says of the App Store boom. 'This is the future of digital distribution for everything: software, games, entertainment, all kinds of content,'" Jenna Wortham reports for The New York Times.
"As the App Store evolves from a kitschy catalog of novelty applications into what analysts and aficionados describe as a platform that is rapidly transforming mobile computing and telephony, it is changing the goals and testing the patience of developers, bolstering sales of the Apple motherships the applications ride upon — the iPhone and iPod Touch — and causing Apple’s competitors to overhaul their product lines and business models," Wortham reports. "It even threatens to open chinks in Apple’s own corporate armor."
"Thanks in large part to the iPhone, introduced in 2007, and the App Store, which opened its doors last year, smartphones have become the Swiss Army knives of the digital age," Wortham reports. "They provide a staggering arsenal of functions and tools at the swipe of a finger: e-mail and text messaging, video and photography, maps and turn-by-turn navigation, media and books, music and games, mobile shopping, and even wireless keys that remotely unlock cars."
Wortham reports, "'Apple changed the view of what you can do with that small phone in your back pocket,' says Katy Huberty, a Morgan Stanley analyst. 'Applications make the smartphone trend a revolutionary trend — one we haven’t seen in consumer technology for many years... The iPhone is changing our behavior. The game that Apple is playing is to become the Microsoft of the smartphone market.'"
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: "Apple is playing is to become the Microsoft of the smartphone market" minus the brain-numbing stupidity and total disregard for the end-users' experience.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers "James W. and "Dale E." for the heads up.]
Gib Bassett - 1:43 pm on December 5, 2009
Yesterday I came across an article on CNET titled, “In mobile, do developers or consumers matter most?” and immediately thought, “Who cares what developers think, at least the ones who want to make money?”
The article describes the oft-cited displeasure that developers have with Apple and its policies, and how it may cause defections to other platforms. Yet the article also says this about the iPhone:
“…for most consumers, their mobile device of choice is a lifestyle decision, a personal, ever-present extension of themselves…”
With the exception of the words “mobile devices,” this statement could apply equally to the clothes a consumer buys, car they drive or restaurant they frequent. For those products, does it really matter what their makers think as opposed to what consumers want? That seems like a question that answers itself when you consider as well that products require distribution channels.
The “developer versus Apple” debate so pervasive right now is missing the big picture; most developers drawn to mobile come from traditional b-to-b development organizations where for years they have become accustomed to a model “all about them,” more or less. When taken into the realm of consumer marketing, that is a dangerous point of view for anyone interested in creating successful mobile applications.
The situation reminds me of Walmart’s long-standing reputation as being difficult with its suppliers, squeezing ever smaller margins from them in exchange for access to millions of consumers.
With Apple’s App Store expected to grow three fold in 2010 to 300,000 applications, the iPhone will remain the go to platform for marketers despite the emergence of Google’s Android. When you consider the reported difficulties developers are having with Android and projections of perhaps 70,000 Android Apps in 2010, the situation isn’t likely to change.
Marketers would be wise to align themselves with mobile application developers who recognize success means taking on the perspective of the mobile customer. Such firms are more likely to possess both the technical expertise and distribution channel know how necessary to build apps that stand out from the crowd.
Like this is something to be optimistic about?
Apple controls that OS and it only runs on their phones!
It would be a disaster to be giddy about this. You have no choice in hardware, no choice in networks, no choice is customizing your phone, heck you don’t even have memory expansion slots.
Wireless companies and app developers will be doing themselves and all of us a favor by branching out to as many mobile OSs as possible (Android being a good choice because no one company dictates its total use), or they will find themselves being owned subsidiaries of Apple.
another closed, proprietary solution.
Google you listening?
I love the Iphone but it still won’t play Flash Video.
Apple, both with their OS and with their iPhone, only allows their OS to run on their own hardware.
That means that the iPhone can never be the "Windows of Mobile" until they allow the iPhone OS to run on third party hardware.
Wake me when there is an LG phone running iPhone OS.
My iPhone is great except for one thing... AT&T. There are many places even in my area close to the east coast that don’t get a decent signal.
Apple will have to go with Verizon to keep their lead in the smart phone industry.
My ideas for a Free Republic app: Whenever I get a reply on FR, a window will pop up with the entire FR thread.
Or...whenever something is posted to "Breaking News", my iPod goes off with the flashing "Drudge" siren and a click on the siren will bring up the thread. Of course, this has the downside of getting a lot of "I'm buying my first gun, what type of gun should I buy" threads that seem to always get into Breaking News (before the mod finds them and moves them to Chat).
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The iPhone is near its ceiling. It is too closed and Apple’s control-freakish behavior on the app side will prevent much more market penetration. The other thing is that there are strong competitors like Google, RIM and Nokia, something Microsoft never had. I don’t include Palm at this time, although they could regain some market share with the Pre.
Full disclosure: I have a Palm Centro, and despise BlackBerrys.
Interesting.
Posted 12/07/2009 at 8:33:11am
by J.R. Bookwalter
Apple may have to fend off a number of competitors for the iPhone’s crown of smartphone dominance, but one area where there seems to be comparatively little competition is the roost ruled by the iPod touch.
Based upon a report by Flurry, a San Francisco mobile analytics company, there are 24 million iPod touches in use, which represent 40% of the total 58 million iPhone OS devices, according to Gigaom’s Om Malik.
After all, the iPod touch has one big advantage over the iPhone: No wireless carrier commitment, which adds more than $2,000 to the purchase price over the 2-year contract. Otherwise, it’s functionally the same as the iPhone, sans camera (which is rumored to appear with a future hardware refresh), for a one-time price. With a virtual explosion of free or cheap Wi-Fi almost everywhere, the iPod touch begins to look like a very enticing alternative that helps boost the iPhone OS market share.
The mobile advertising company AdMob (currently being acquired by Google), reported back in October that the iPod touch accounted for 9.8% of all request for applications and websites that embed their advertising scripts. The iPhone, by comparison, has 22.4% of such requests. But the AdMob results mostly mirror those of Flurry, and point to an increasing user base for the iPod touch.
“It’s important to remember that the iPhone’s flank is protected by an often-overlooked, powerful fighting brand: iPod touch,” the Flurry report released today explains. “As all industry eyes look to the iPhone, the iPod touch is quietly building a loyal base among the next generation of iPhone users, positioning Apple to corner the smartphone market not only today, but also tomorrow.”
Malik goes on to state that the inclusion of a camera on the iPod touch could really push it into the stratosphere, not only for use as a digital camera to take snapshots (and presumably, video) but also as a secondary role as a barcode scanner, for instance.
Also in the iPod touch’s favor: Gaming. Flurry notes that Social Networking and Gaming are among the biggest categories for iPod touch use, which have already started to erode the lead held by specialist game device makers such as Nintendo.
By Om Malik
December 6, 2009
As the competition for smartphone domination starts to heat up, it is becoming increasingly clear that the iPod touch is Apple’s ace up its sleeve, and according to a report by Flurry, a San Francisco-based mobile analytics company, 24 million iPod touches represent about 40 percent of the total 58 million iPhone OS devices.
From the time I first laid my hands on the iPod touch, I have been a big fan of it — after all, it is just like an iPhone except that it has more storage, is skinnier, and has none of the hassles of dropped calls.
It is a handy little touch computer, that allows you to quickly check emails when sitting in a nice comfortable chair and reading a book. It allows me to play a game of MLB World Series, control my favorite music system — the Sonos — manage the Apple TV, and very soon, people will be able to use it to accept credit cards.
OK, so what if it doesn’t make phone calls or have 3G connectivity? Those are problems you can fix by buying a MiFi and getting connected to Verizon’s 3G network, and you can make Skype calls as well. Last January (wow, how time flies) I wrote about why Apple was going to rule the mobile web, thanks to the iPod touch. I wasn’t that off the mark.
AdMob, a mobile advertising company currently being acquired by Google, in a recent report said that during the month of October (on a worldwide basis) the iPod touch accounted for 9.8 percent of all requests for applications and web sites that embed AdMob’s advertising script. In comparison, the iPhone has 22.4 percent of all requests. For the U.S. market, the iPod touch brought in 11.4 percent of total requests compared with 24 percent of requests emanating from the iPhone.
AdMob’s numbers mirror the data collected by Flurry, which tracks 3,000 applications, 45 million consumers and four platforms. In terms of the total number of user sessions per month, at present, iPod touch usage is much higher than the Android-based user sessions and is giving the iPhone a run for its money.
“It’s important to remember that the iPhone’s flank is protected by an often overlooked, powerful fighting brand: iPod touch,” Flurry notes in a report likely to be released Monday. “As all industry eyes look to the iPhone, the iPod touch is quietly building a loyal base among the next generation of iPhone users, positioning Apple to corner the smartphone market not only today, but also tomorrow.”
Agreed. In a post earlier this year I wrote how “the emergence of the iPod touch/iPhone is changing how we perceive and interact with computers. My friend Antonio Rodriguez, who founded and sold his startup Tabblo to Hewlett-Packard, thinks that a whole generation of kids is now growing up with keyboard-less computing as a default way to interact with machines.”
The iPod touch is much more than the iPhone’s little brother, as Jordan Golson recently pointed out:
Apple is perpetuating a “virtuous cycle,” as Gene Munster put it in a recent research note, to keep users on the iPod touch — an improved version of the lock-in provided by the old iTunes/iPod music ecosystem. Users buy the iPod touch; download apps; developers promote their apps (and the iPod touch platform), which leads to more consumers buying the iPod touch.
This virtuous cycle is more pronounced in the case of social networks and games. In its soon to be just released November Pulse report , Flurry notes:
Empirically, Flurry compared how iPod touch session usage has changed over the last six months across key application categories important to this demographic; namely, Social Networking and Games. While Social Networking’s viral nature is understood, iPhone Games have become increasingly social with the inclusion of features like friends lists, leader boards and remote multi-player modes. Together, Social Networking and Games category usage reflects the strength of the iPod touch Generation’s influence among its peers.
It is hardly a surprise. Apple changed its tune and started touting the iPod touch as a gaming device, which has started to have a negative impact on the earnings of specialist game device makers such as Nintendo.
It is starting to make its presence felt in the e-reader business. It is already a travel planner, thanks to apps like TripIt. So what’s next? (Related post: “The Past, Present & Future of Mobile Games.” On GigaOM Pro: “Is There Any Demand for a True Gaming Phone?” (subscription required)).
I think a digital camera would be a welcome addition, for that would allow the iPod touch to take on new roles: that of a camera. Secondly, it could become an easy-to-use and cheap bar code scanner. The latter would be the first of the many offerings for the iPod touch to disrupt a business described as enterprise mobility and dominated by Motorola’s Symbol Technologies.
It is not as far-fetched an idea as you might think. Square is already building a card reader. Last week, when I went to Apple’s Palo Alto, Calif., store, I saw the salespeople using a new device instead of the typical handheld credit card terminals. They were a combination of an iPod touch/iPhone (I couldn’t tell) and a sheath that snugly wrapped around the device and plugged into its connector, making it a point-of-sale device. And that’s just the start.
Against such a backdrop, it isn’t wrong to say: All hail the iPod touch.