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Posts Tagged ‘apple’

 Strand Consulting has taken an objective look at iPhone owners and have come to the same conclusion many of us have.  They are not very well, psychologically speaking of course.

Noting that iPhone owners would go to extra-ordinary lengths to defend the failings of their device, Strand Consulting diagnosed this aberrant behaviour as a form of Stockholm Syndrome – where hostages identify with their captors and would actually defend them and resist being released.

They make special mention of many ways the iPhone has historically been inferior, and the arguments their fans use to justify where the features are in fact not just unnecessary, but would hinder their use of the phone. Amusingly when Apple finally does provide the feature iPhone owners often feel only Apple could have implemented it right, making Apple’s version the one now anointed as “the right way to do it.

Strand’s lengthy list of examples include:

1.    The first iPhone was not a 3G phone: What do you need 3G for? You can easily use the iPhone without using a 3G network and anyway, 3G is not particularly widespread, so this is not a problem.

2.    The phone cannot send MMS: There is no need to send MMSs, hardly anybody sends MMSs.

3.    You cannot forward a SMS: This is a function that hardly anybody uses and was therefore not included in the first iPhones.

4.    The phone has a poor camera: The built-in camera is perfectly adequate and the iPhone takes fantastic photos with its camera.

5.    It is not a real Smartphone, it cannot multitask: The phone has all the necessary functions and the OS is technically superior compared to other Smartphone OSs currently on the mobile market.

6.    The iPhone cannot multitask, resulting in a great number of applications being unusable: The absence of multitasking is a deliberate design decision resulting in a faster UI.

7.    You can not change battery on the iPhone: How many customers run around with spare batteries? None or very few.

8.    Apple decides which applications you can install on the phone: This is good, because Apple thereby ensures that you do not get inferior programs on your phone.

9.    The app store is a closed universe: Apple knows what is best for end users, which is good for the many iPhone users.

10. The phone does not support Java, so games need to be developed especially for the iPhone: Java is slow and not properly integrated with mobile phones, games for the iPhone are much better because they are directly developed for the iPhone.

11. The app store contains numerous small trivial commercial programs: The app store’s large selection gives users the freedom of choice and the many small programs help make the end users daily lives more fun.

12. It is difficult to use the touchscreen for fast SMS messaging: The touchscreen makes the phone easier to use and you quickly get used to it.

13. The iPhone is a low technology phone packaged in a sleek design: Apple has taken the combination of the design and UI to the next level, therefore the technological specifications don’t really matter.

14. The quality of the phone is poor, calls are often interrupted and network coverage is poor: It is a good phone, these problems are due to the operators’ networks and not the phone.

15. You can only purchase the iPhone from operators chosen by Apple: Apple has spent a great deal of time and energy selecting the best operators for customers.

16. The iPhone is targeted at a niche segment and will not be able to develop further: Apple has succeeded in designing a phone for people that appreciate design and user friendliness.

17. The iPhone does not support memory cards: Iphones already offer the necessary memory people require and end users can choose between two models, one with a little memory and one with a great deal of memory.

18. You can not install your own browser: The browser Apple has designed is so superior that you do not need any other browser on your phone.

19. You cannot use the iPhone as a modem for your portable PC: People that have an iPhone do not need their portable when on the move.

20. There is no radio in the phone: You do not need a radio in your iPhone because the iPhone supports iTunes that offers almost unlimited music.

Of course Strand Consulting notes that any company would be ecstatic to have such a fanatical fan base, but at WMPU we can only recommend that iFans seek some help.

Read more at Strand Consulting here.

Via Allaboutphones.nl.

iPhone sales may be nearly doubled Christmas 2008 to 2009, but the smartphone is facing increasing competition, and has suffered a significant loss of market share in Q4 2009.

Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones in Q4 2009, which was below analyst expectations.  According to ABI Research this represents a drop in market share form 18% in Q3 to 16.6 % in Q4.

The stumble can be attributed to increasing competition from high end handsets like the Motorola Droid and devices such as the HTC HD2 and a rather stale device line-up.

Michael Morgan, an analyst at ABI Research, says Apple could be running into a case of “Razr burn”, referring to the meteoric rise and as precipitous fall of the iconic handset which remained essentially unchanged for two years.

Analyst Rob Endele noted "Even in the pain, Apple is realizing a much higher level of profit than any of the other handset vendors. Clearly, Apple is favouring profit over market share,"  "That is consistent with Apple’s strategy. The company may very well continue to drop market share, but you will see them hold viciously on the profits."

With Apple insisting on a high profit margin and carriers increasingly having alternatives to spur consumer data usage demand, it is likely the iPhone will dwindle into a niche market just like Apple computers

Read more at Newsfactor here.

Well, now we know everything there is to know about the Apple iPad.

What do our readers think – does this device matter?  Let us know your comments below.

Rishi Srivastava, consumer and online marketing officer of Microsoft India has revealed in a Wall Street Journal interview that Microsoft in trouncing its competitors (besides Nokia of course) in the small but rapidly growing Indian smartphone market.

Rishi claimed, according to IDC, that Windows Mobile had been outselling RIM and also the iPhone for more than 3 years now, and that both in terms of installed base and sales Windows Mobile was 3-4 times larger than RIM or Apple.

Rishi admitted however that Microsoft could do better, but said with recent launches such as Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8, the Bing search engine and also Windows Mobile 6.5, Microsoft has “rediscover(ed) our DNA as a consumer company”.

Saying Microsoft was best placed to integrate the PC, phone and the Web to provide a digital lifestyle, the company intended to, with the help of their partners, push for greater market share, .

“We want to get a bigger piece of the pie.”

Read the full interview at LiveMint.com.

The New York Times recently ran an interesting article where they put the blame for AT&T’s much ballyhooed network problems squarely in the court of Apple, not not due to handset growth and usage, but simply due to poor radio design.

According to Roger Entner, senior vice president for telecommunications research at Nielsen, the iPhone’s “air interface,” the electronics in the phone that connect it to the cell towers, had shortcomings that “affect both voice and data.”

Despite this AT&T has done little to speak out, choosing to be the public whipping boy for Apple’s poor work.

Entner says that in the eyes of the consumer, “the iPhone has the nimbus of infallibility, ergo, it’s AT&T’s fault.” AT&T does not publicly defend itself because it will not criticize Apple under any circumstances.

Several independent tests, run on devices that are not iPhones, actually show AT&T’s network to be superior to Verizon’s.

Paul Carter, the president of Global Wireless Solutions, a third-party services that run network tests for the major carriers, who have covered more than three million miles of roads this year, while running almost two million wireless data sessions and placing more than three million voice calls, said:

“AT&T’s data throughput is 40 to 50 percent higher than the competition, including Verizon,”

Root Wireless, who 4.7 million tests on smartphones for each of the four major carriers, spread across seven metropolitan areas: Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles/Orange County, New York, Seattle/Tacoma, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Washington found in every market, AT&T had faster average download speeds and had signal strength of 75 percent or better more frequently than did Verizon.

Asked how this could be reconciled with AT&T’s bad reputation,  Ron Dicklin, chief technology officer at Root Wireless, noted the tests were done with handsets other than the iPhone, which does not allow non-Apple programs like his to run in the background.

Ever since the iPhone’s release there has been similar claims, which Apple appears to have neatly deflected, but as the iPhone’s problems on AT&T becomes more obvious, it is clear if you want the best service on USA’s best network, whichever network you feel that is, you are better off not choosing an iPhone at all.

What is our Windows Mobile user’s experience of AT&T and Verizon?  Is AT&T really that bad and Verizon really that good?  Let us know in the comments.

Via FuzeMobility.com

Apple has been getting a lot of publicity of the back of Microsoft events, with the recent Mobius event above being a good example.

This is set to stop however, with Microsoft banning any mention of Apple products at their events.  And they mean it.  At a recent Windows Mobile 6.5 launch event this exchange occurred:

The blow below the belt came without warning. “This is a Microsoft event” a Microsoft manager barked at a IT journalist “Apple products have no place here”. When a tentative laughter began to rise in the upscale restaurant “Maria und Josef” in Munich he pushed on: “I mean it”

The offense: At a dinner talk the journalist dared mention that he never owned a phone that was easier to use than the iPhone. This was at the introduction event of Windows Mobile 6.5. “His emotionality surprised me”, said a PR consultant attending the event. “It shows that the nerves are on edge [at MS]“.

All I can say is about time.  Microsoft need to stop supporting a blogosphere actively hostile to their products and remind these journalists that their Mac habit is very much in the minority and not worth ranting on about every 3 minutes.

Handelsblatt via 9to5mac.com

The iPhone is set to arrive soon in South Korea, where it will debut on KT, a smaller carrier, after failing to convince the industry incumbent SK Telecom to carry the device.

Despite this its arrival is still expected to bring competitive pressure to bear on the cell phone market there, where smartphones have been traditionally sold without contract and at pretty high prices.

KT will be offering the 32 GB iPhone 3GS for $317 for buyers signing up for a $38 per month contract, and free for buyers on a $113 per month contract.

SK Telecom is responding with both better advertising and by reducing the price of their flagship device, the Samsung T-Omnia, which previously sold for around $796 for the 4 GB model and $833 for the 8 GB one. The two devices have now seen a drop to $758 and $768 respectively.

SK Telecom is also set to double its handset subsidies and offer discounts to entice users into buying data plans, and even offering the phone for free to buyers who sign up for a $80 per month contract.

LG Electronics, who will be launching the SU210 Windows Mobile smartphone, is also set to introduce the device at the unprecedented low price of $516.  Other companies like HTC and Sony Ericsson are likely to follow suite too.

“Mobile operators are now increasing their spending on handset subsidies on smart phones. Although the increasing costs are a concern, there is a reason to think that consumers will benefit,” said an official from the Korea Communications Commission (KCC)’s policy bureau.

While lower prices are in general good news for consumers and smartphone adoption, Apple has been able to achieve this largely at the expense of larger carrier subsidies, while other smartphone companies have been forced instead to reduce their margins, resulting in lower revenue and less ability to produce competitive products.

Read more at KoreanTimes here.