The Lantiblog

The Merits of the iPhone 4S

2011-09-23T17:06:00.001+03:00

05/10/2011 UPDATE: Now, that the "Lets Talk iPhone" event has passed, I cannot be more than happy with this post. I have however touched up the formatting of the article a bit since the original was written on the iPhone Blogger app by Google.

Despite all the teardrop iPhone cases it seams Apple's 5th iPhone will be the iPhone 4S.

As the Apple geek among my friends I get asked each year;

Is the next iPhone worth it?
Isn't just an internal hardware refresh going to be a disappointment?

The answers actually come down naturally if we answered the following bigger questions first:

How to rate products in a comprehensive way and
How to do so about as yet unreleased product?

I have come up with a new comparison metric that suggest that Apple has increased the pace of iPhone innovation that will surely correspond in comparable increase in adoption.

I call it an Upgrade Rating.

It's not stars and it's not X/10. It's much more flexible and easy to make sense of. It reduces complex comparison charts down to a single number on the scale of -10/10 (yes, that's -10). But in short, it give you an idea of how better the new iPhone is compared to the last years model.

Here is how all iPhones compare to their immediate predecessor. The baseline is a 2006 smart phone:

2007 iPhone: 5
2008 iPhone 3G: 6
2009 iPhone 3GS: 6
2010 iPhone 4: 7
2011 iPhone 4S: 8

With a rating of 7, it is quite obvious why the iPhone 4 is still the top selling smartphone on any carrier that sells it, 15 month after it started shipping first. Steve Jobs was right when he called it an A+ upgrade in 2010.

But why does the iPhone 4S scores 8, while it allegedly keeps the same design?

Since products can sometimes do worse than their predecessors, I have decided on a rating system that give points from -2 to 2. This system aggregates all meaningful comparison metrics into 5 general categories, giving any device a maximum score of 10.

Here is a bit about the each category.

Design.
It matters if the devices looks deferent, unique or if it's made from quality materials. Design will be the first thing people notice and remember about a product. While not immediately invisible how, a design implies how advanced a product is.

Hardware.
While touchscreen smartphones are all about software, having a chip to makes that UI smooth or a sensor to give those apps data is crucial. Not to mention a high dpi quality multitouch screen.

Software.
Software is the new hardware. We use to buy different gadgets different tasks but now we just buy apps for the same device. What our phones cab do is now mostly determined by the software it runs and how other it is updated.

Reach.
Can you afford the phone? It is actually available at all in your country or on your carrier. For all other manufacturers these might be issues of the past but Apple iPhone is still the physically and financially out of reach many for people in the world.

Ecosystem.
This is iPhone Ace up its sleeve. While other manufacturers will claim device variety, the 2 physically different design Apple is selling since 2008 have created an incredible ecosystem of accessories. The iPhone has become a physical platform too.

Here is how the comparison looks for all iPhone models so far and the 4" and the 4.5" screen teardrop iPhone speculations I have called iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 Pro.

Download CSV Version

Common sense will will tell you why the previous iPhones got the points they did but here's why the iPhone 4S gets 8 points:

Design
Nothing new here. Apple is expected to preserve the extremely cool looks of the iPhone 4.
0 points

Hardware
Completely new internals. The A5 system on a chip from the iPad 2 with dual core CPU and several time the graphics power. 1GB RAM, 64GB flash storage. 8MP camera with supposedly much better image sensor. 1080p Video. Support for both GSM and CDMA and probably faster WiFi too. Even a possible NFC chip. That's the biggest performance jump of any iPhone model to date.
2 points

Software
iOS 5 is the single most comprehensive update. iCloud integration out of the box will be no less important too. But the new Assistant feature is likely to be the biggest software innovation and exclusive to the new model. Camera app extras around the new sensors are expected too.
2 points

Reach
The iPhone 4S will be the first world iPhone. Apple will be able to sell a single antennae configuration everywhere. Also in addition to Sprint in USA, this year iPhone is expected to be available to the two biggest carriers in the world. Both are in China. Expect an even faster launch rollout this time.
2 Points

Ecosystem
Unlike last year, the iPhone 4S will start with the largest compatible accessory selection for any new iPhone so far. In addition, pretty much all important app now have Retina display support. On launch day, this is the most supported iPhone ever.
2 Points

With an upgrade rating of 8, iPhone 4S promises to be have an even bigger impact on the market than the iPhone 4.

Come Tuesday 4th October, there will be many people who will be disappointed if Apple does not release a new "teardrop" design. That's fine. They obviously do not see the big picture.

The teardrop shape floating around will be lighter and score 2 points on Design but it will not fare as well in Reach and Ecosystem categories. I also do not see, how Apple will be able to fit an 8MP camera module into a much slimmer body. How about support for both GSM and CDMA with an aluminum back? It may turn that Apple will be forced to make significant compromises if it tried to fit the iPhone 4S internals into a much slimmer design. If on the other hand the design is much larger, as the cases suggest it boasts a 4.5 screen, the price will likely go up and reduce Reach even further.

At the end of the day I believe Apple has made the right choice to build upon an existing foundation, rather than start fresh with a new design.

P.S. if Apple is to release a new teardrop iPhone along the iPhone 4S, it cannot call it iPhone 5 as it will be the 6th iPhone.

Tips for great iPhone Homescreen Looks

2011-03-31T12:53:00.003+03:00

Ever since I got my iPhone 4 I have been trying to figure out how best to organise my Apps and what Apps to leave. Please see the for the beautiful results I achieved bellow.

Here are my basic tips:

Use only folders. Don't leave any single apps, no matter how often you access them.
Use folder names as close to the Categories Apple uses the App Store.
Use as little number of folders ass possible. See some of my suggestions
Use only grayish wallpapers. Forget colors and even strong black or white ones
Put the folders where the main stock App in them was located.
Sort the apps inside according to color tones, so they look like rainbow.
If you have more than 9 apps per folder, gett the better ones on top

Real-Life iPad 2 vs Competition Chart

2011-03-06T16:45:00.006+02:00

So Engaged did this chart shortly after the iPad 2 announcement.

Same old same useless PC comparison chart for Post PC devices. They really don't get it even after 10 years of iPod sales in which Apple came to dominate the market for mp3 players. You could always find a better specked mp3 player than the iPod but did that matter in the real life? NO.

Now, Apple had drawn the line in the sand about what it considers a PC and Post-PC device and what they think important about the later.

So to clear up things up abut the iPad 2 and its competitors I will make a chart of my own that answers the Post-PC questions coming from regular people, not tech-geeks.

Some of the answers I obviously had to make up based only on a educated guess. For example, WebOS while never been into consumer's hands on a tablet has proved to be easy to use on a smartphone, contrary to any RIM smartphone OS so far.

RIM does not have distribution centers and partners like HP does, only carrier deals, so they are unlikely to offer a tablet without some sort of contract. HP is much more like Apple, in a sense that they can distribute their own products.

Neither HP, RIM or even Palm have recently demonstrated great hardware of software support in a way Apple does.

No smarthphone has come anywhere near close to the iPhone's battery life. Don't expect anything different from the iPad competitors especially if they are integrating Flash and in general legacy software we are used to on the desktop.

And without an actually product first shipped, it will not be realistic to expect any significant 3rd party programs of any class to be available at launch or for months after for either platform but Apple's. The iPad had a 1 year head start. And even then most apps will likely be ports of apps already available on iPad. No developers with a grain of common sense will support any other platform with priority to iOS. That goes for accessory manufacturers alike.

You know Engadget, your editor in chef has a great piece recently. Unfortunately the light bulb has only switched on in his head for now. I wam waiting to see it trickles in into all your staff articles.

iPad 2 Prediction: ThunderPORT

2011-03-02T08:45:00.009+02:00

[UPDATE] There new iPod dock connector does support higher bandwidth and new functionality. There is even a new cable accessory with the new port on the other end. But alas it's not Thunderbolt.

Later today, Apple will introduce the iPad 2. Most best revolve around the technical and performance specs. I would like to bet on a certain implementation of a certain technology.

Last week, Apple introduced the new Macbook Pros with the new Thunderbolt port. Ever since that I had an idea at now Apple could avoid the Firewire vs USB battle that it lost for the common connector standart on computers.

With Thunderbolt Super High Speed port, Apple has second chance to help establish a new common connection standart and force replacement of most connectors we use today: USB, Firewire, HDMI, Display Port, Ethernet. I don't think they plan to replace the 3.5 mm audio jack anytime soon

In the last battle vs the USB standart from Intel, Apple required too high a licence fee/royalties for the use of the Firewire standart. Manufacturers adopted the cheap USB connector instead even though it was inferior in most ways.

Now Apple in its eternal quest to simplify things, get rid of useless port and make ever thinner products has put it crosshairs on USB and Firewire. There port even in their latest and greatest implementation do not seam to provide enough of growth potential and features for use in Apples future roadmap.

So, for the past 1-2 years or more, Apple has worked with Intel on the next generation of Super High Speed Standart - codenamed Light Peak as prototype and Marketed as Thunderbolt in its final implementation. Apple has really learned its lesson here. Make no mistake, this is Intel's standard, no Apple's. But even partnering with the most important chip manufacturer in the world will not win the battle against an entrenched USB standart. For Thunderbolt to win vs USB 3.0 it will have to out-adopt it. But USB 3.0 is already out and Apple will be the only computer licensee of Thunderbird in 2011.

How can Apple's Thunderbird win the battle against USB 3.0 for mindshare of consumers, device & accessory manufacturers and software developers? An almost rhetorical question: By including Thunderbolt capability in its most mindshare winning products: the Mac (March), the iPad (April), the iPhone (June) and the iPod (September), very likely in this exact order of introduction .

So you are thinking now that I am saying that the iPad will have a Thunderbolt Port, right? Well, no. This is where my prediction comes in. Here it comes:

The iPad today and the other iOS devices to follow will not have a Thunderbolt port. They will IMHO have a thunderbolt connectivity capability. WTH you say ?!?

I believe by switching from 30 Pin iPod connector to Thunderbolt, Apple stands to lose to much. The new iOS devices will be totally incompatible with dock connector equipped peripherals so far. And boy, are they a lot! What I think Apple will do is the same thing they did with Mini Display port but now with the venerable iPod connector: include a control chip to enable the iPod connector to receive a Thunderbird signal.

So with the introduction of the iPad later today Apple may show a new accessory: a cable with a a iPod dock connector on the one end an a Thunderbird connector on the other. Users of any Macs with Thunderbolt port will be able to buy this new cable and sync and charge their new iPad much, much faster.

As designing accessories for an iPad and iPhone is the hottest thing to do, adoption of both the iPod Connector and the Thunderbolt port will skyrocket to mainstream and accelerate past USB 3.0

And there you go. I will be sure to post an update once the iPad event finishes.

Apple is the future iPhone carrier too

2011-02-19T10:22:00.003+02:00

A lot has been made of the Apple business model for selling iPhones:

Sell it the the Carrier supporting the network that it will run on, for abou $600
The Carrier sells you the iPhone for $199 or less but with a 2 year contract adding up to $1500 or more
Let the Carrier charge you for Call minutes, SMS/MMS and Data all separately.

As a result the iPhone have been available upfront for a relatively cheap price but costing so much more at the end of your contract. This cannot last forever and I think Apple has a plan to dramatically decrease the cost of owning an iPhone over it's life time.

I have noticed several things over the years since the iPhone was introduced that made me realize the approach Apple could take.

The first one was a patent that was sublimed in 2006 but just recently granted to Apple. It detailed how an iPhone could make the different networks it can bid for the service on the device. This is done so by dynamically comparing the cost for calling each available network on it's location and choosing the one with the better offering. Apple detailes in the patent that all this will be transparent to the user. Needless to day even now, such un approach will be seen and almost imposible due to the level of cooperation Apple has to receive from the different networks to make this happen.

The second thing that cough my mind was the eagerness of adoption of iPhone/Apple relationship by the carriers internationally, even when they were multiple ones in the same country. So eager were they and so few iPhone could Apple produce initially that it was left with no choice but to establish exclusivity arrangements until it can cope up with demands by establishing factory and parts supplier relations. Apple did have a substantial power over exclusive relationships and in all cases that yielded some sort of innovative services to customers, like visual voicemail. But even when multiple carriers started selling the iPhone, it seams Apple was in no pressure to reduce prices but only to increase availability.

The third news that made its way quickly into the blogosphere was the rumor that Apple was planning to ditch the SIM card in future iPhones. This leak has obviously resulted from talks with the Carriers. Apple was trying to take control of them and at the time that must have caught a huge backlash and the next set of rumors was that Apple abandoned the idea...for now. The SIM card is the one piece if technology that it put into your phone by the carrier. You cannot use your GSM phone without it.

The forth piece of the puzzle came with the experience of using my iPhone for the past 4.5 years. I do not know how much exactly I have spend trough iTunes and its App Store but it was a great byung experience. I know I consciously made every purchase. This day iTunes has keeps a detailed record of everything I ever bough even allowing me to see only totals on a monthly basis. I do however trust the system and I would be happy if I can pay everything with my iTunes account and drop Paypal and the likes.

The fifth piece of news was just a few months ago and it was a segway to the patent awarded to apply in my first point. This is however called a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO, where a company buys call minutes from the big carriers in bulk and resells them to it customers. How many other companies are there with 100 million smartphone customers? Apple could easily become the biggest MVNO in the world since it's iPhone users generate so much data traffic by default.

The final piece has been there all along. Apple want to have a full control all aspects of buying, using and servicing your device so it can provide the best possible experience. Apple is all about creating the best products and services on the planet. They compete only with themselves and would not even give you a chance to ruin your experience, let alone the phone carriers. AT&T in the States has become infamous for its phone service and are by far the biggest and worst example.

So there you have it. One day 5 years from now, Apple would have been selling iPhones everywhere and have carrier partnerships with most if not all telecoms in the world. They will be buying minutes in bulk not just from one Carrier but from all and create a global pool of data traffic available to any celular equipped Apple device. Your future iPhone will not have a SIM card but will intelligently talk to Apple servers in the cloud. When you want to make a call or use data or send an SMS, the intelligent software will make a chice of network for you based on best reception only as all traffic will be data. Apple could provide you with plans or give you the option to pay as you go. There will be a standart fee per MB of data in the same way all apps cost the same throughout the world. iTunes will handle all payments. You will have one number on all your devices. That will be in your choice just like it is now for Facetime calls. Best of all, this will work anywhere on the planet.

How cool that will be.

A call to revitalize the iPods

2011-02-06T09:21:00.008+02:00

Apple has had a problem for some time. It showed on each quarterly results. It is the declining iPod sales. There is something in the iPod that decreases sales. So, lets speculate a bit about what it is an how to fix it.

I would immediately argue that this is the naming of the products; the much delayed acknowledgment that the iPod touch >> other iPods for more than a year. It has matured into its own device bursting with potential to be recognized by the company that made it.

I will come from a different angle. Ask someone what do they picture when they hear the work "iPhone"? It will likely be the iconic device having the familiar homescreen. Ask the same about the "iPad" and you will get a similar response. Now ask what they picture when they hear the word iPod? You will likely hear a few very different things. If you make a statistic of the response to "what is an iPod?" the dominant response will likely be a click wheel equipped device. Yet, last quarter sales-results have shown that over 50% of iPod sales belong to the iPod toch. This branding separation between what people think of an iPod is and what Apple sales as iPod has cost it a lot of sales.

I have tried to explain what the iPod Touch is to my dad so many times and he has an iPhone for more than 2 years now. Until he actually saw it himself he couldn't get a round the most popular explanation I tried: it's an iPhone without the phone part. And now we have an iPod Touch at home too - strike that - we have an old iPhone 2G on airplane mode masquerading as a iPod touch that my 3rd grade brother uses.

But lets look at the iPod lineup and see the overall cause of the confusion.

iPod shuffle - the smallest and simplest music player. No screen, just controls and a great clip. used exclusively for music but sometimes as a thumb drive too. Overshadowed by its iOS peers.

iPod nano - in it's current generation looks and is often used as a watch with ipod features. It uses muti-touch controls only and looks nothing like the original iPod nano. Almost as good a watch as the first iPhone was a phone. Watch this one!

iPod classic - a device soon to be retires due to Apple moving to mass usage of Flash memory and streaming cloud services as compared to hard disks and entirely local storage.

iPod touch - an iPhone looking iPod without the celular related hardware. Runs iOS just like the iPhone and the iPad. Used mainly for gaming and entreatment content. The Ace in the whole. Think iPad Nano potential.

It is clear how the iPod brand has diluted over several very different class of devices which have only the name prefix in common. In my option this has created user confusion and has hurt the sales of those devices. Apple should take a bold step and recognize them for what they are used for an market them accordingly.

I would like to mention the iPhone again. While the iPhone has turned out to be this great device with many more uses that a phone, people have long recognized it and bought it because they needed a phone. One of the very best thing Apple did was to get is the name "iPhone" from Cisco. How much easier it is for person to move from a device he calls calls a "Phone" to a device that is called "iPhone"? It's the easiest thing ever.

Apple has jus in the past year redefined another iconic type of product and got the same benefit from the name it chose. People have heard of tablets but they did not necessary understood them, mostly because the proponents and creators of tablets did not. People did knew what "pads" are. They use them on a daily basis. A "pad" is a small work plot. It could be for writing, cooking e.t.c. Well, there were of course all those embarrassing to talk uses but they were only familiar to part of the human population. And so Apple grabbed the general definition of a "pad" and made it into the "iPad" - an "intelligent pad".

I think in general people do not give the brand names Apple has created for iPhone & iPad enough credits for device's huge success.

Where is the iPod touch in all of this? How can the less than a year old and much more expensive iPad almost reach the sales of a 3-4 year product? Wasn't the iPad just a big iPod touch? Sales proved that is wasn't but then isn't the iPod touch like a small iPad? Yes, apps for the iPad are much more powerful but iPod is so much more affordable and mobile. So what's keeping this 3rd and most affordable iOS product from being a complete market dominator?

The "name" is the reason. Apple for a long time had difficulties in how to market the device. What has seamed to help is recognizing its main use as game and entertainment device and using that in its commercials. But Apple has been marketing the brand iPod for years and has worked hard to define a clear image of that the iPod is. Even the icon for the iPod on all iOS devices looks like a classic iPod Nano. The iPod touch is not your dad's iPod. It's a game console, it's a video player, its entertainment computer to-go and it should have its name changed...

To iPlay. Period

Even iTouch as many naturally refer to it would be better than iPod touch. Apple! It's not an just an widescreen iPod with touch controls. Get over it!

Its a similar train of thought that will leave us to recognize that the iPod nano name does not suit the product as well. Especially if Apple releases in september a new version optimized for the most iconic use for the Nano so far: a "Watch". Yes, Apple should rename it too...

To iWatch

Everybody knows what a watch is and making a product with iWatch brand will be an instant marketing success. Especially if Apple manages to pair it up with its own App store for little apps. There is just soo much useful inovation an iWatch can bring. Just think of the integration possibility of having your iWatch alert you about things that happen on your iPhone that is in your pocket. You no longer have to wander who calling. You can just check your iWatch and see their picture. I could go on. Apple, embrace that its about time you do an iOS watch.

Next is the iPod shuffle.

The shuffle is on the right track to becoming the definite iPod. It has adopted many new technologies that make the original iPod better at listening music. A clip, a headphone controls, voice controls, the shuffle function. This little music player has also remained true to the iPod. In its latest design, it has reintegrated the click wheel and boosted capacity to almost match the original iPod. There is no reason Apple cannot sell a 4GB shuffle. The iPod Shuffle is the iPod now. Yet, there is plenty of room for further enovation and device convergence. A NFC chip can also alert you about calls on your iPhone while you liten to music on the shuffle. I also think that Apple should integrate a retractable USB connector into the design of the shuffle, removing the need to get an extra cable. This will make the iPod a perfect replacement for a thumb drive and give you one more reason to have one. Apple cold even make a software to enable file storage with password protection.

Finally, Apple could make the end of the clip to key ring holder friendly and switch the orientation of the button in 90 deg counter clockwise. This modification will make the iPod the coolest key-holder enabling the clip to hold the keys hanging halfway in your pocket while the controls stay horizontal.

Ater all, its an iPod - an "intelligent Pod".

So after all said, here is how the next holiday iPod Product lineup could look like if Apple follows on my advice:

iPod - the previous shuffle, now with self contained USD cable and protected filestorage software. Clip enabled and optimized to hold your keys. Sound call notifications from your iPhone via NFC chip.

2GB - $49

8GB - $99*

*version with file storage software.

Perhaps they could give away those with a new Mac purchase instead of a thumb drive for OS reinstallation or they could sell its Mac OS X on iPods.

iWatch - the previous nano, now the coolest watch with OLED multitouch screen with apps and video notifications from your iPhone via Bluetooth pairing or NFC chip

4GB - $129

8GB - $149

16GB - $179

iPlay - the previous iPod touch, now in 5" (1024 x 768 pixels) version as well with iPad graphical power and GPS receiver, for a true challenge to the NGP by Sonny

8GB - 3.5" - $199

16GB - 5" - $299

64GB - 5" - $399

Apple, its your call.

P.S. I just have to find a way to make a 3D model of the new iPod idea. IMHO it's soo cool.

The case for the 5" iPod Play

2011-02-05T20:26:00.002+02:00

Why is the iPod Touch screen at 3.5"? Why isn't it bigger? Well, the
iPod Touch is the the iPhone without a Phone, right? It was made to
expands the ecosystem of devices and lower the cost of the iPhone
components. So why then is the iPhone screen at 3.5" size? Very
simple: because as a mobile phone it needs to be usable with 1
thumb only. Apple has likely found out that the 3.5" size is the
largest hand held display that most people can "walk around" the
corners with their thumbs.

But the iPod Touch is not a phone. Actually, most people use it as
media computer to-go and play with it with both hands. The iPod Touch needs
a Wi-Fi to be fully usable and Wi-Fis are sort of stationary. And so,
if you will be staying on one place, you can just as well afford to
use both your hands. The iPhone on the other hand has a mobile
connection and you can often find people using it one hand (or no hands) while going
somewhere with their other hand free to do other stuff.

If the iPod Touch is mostly used with two hands, why is it
phone sized? Why indeed?

So how much bigger can it get without being an iPad?

Well the iPad has one drawback feature to to it. It's not pocketable.
And by pockets I mean those available on your jeans. We can therefore draw
the line between the iPod and the iPad at about 6" as such a device
will barely not fit into our pockets.

How big could the iPod get and how small can the iPad be made for
the two to be still distinct devices? Well, Apple likes to make
logical sense of things. I think they might have planned those two
devices sizes all along. What if the big iPod Touch is half the size
of an iPad and iPad Mini is twice the size of an iPhone?
So physical sizes could be:
- iPhone is 3.5"
- iPod Play is 4.85"
- iPad Mini is 7"
- iPad is 9.7"

What's also interesting is what the resulting screen resolutions could be:
- iPhone at 960x640*
- 5" iPod Play at 1024x768*
- 7" iPad 2 at 960x640
- 10" iPad 2 at 1024x768
* Retina Display

Since the iPod/iPhone are used much closer to the face a retina screen
will make sense in the 5" iPod Play too. Since it uses the iPad
resolution developers will not need to make new graphic, they could
just use the iPad ones.

The main idea of the 5" iPod Play is to have graphical performance of
the iPad but be at portable as the iPod Touch

The main idea of the 7" iPad would be to have a much lighter and
a cheaper iPad for reading.

Still, I think 7" iPad 2 will be a compromise size just as the 3.5"
iPod Touch is. The iPod is now more in a need to redefine itself and
starts living its own life again outside of the shadow of it's other
two iOS brethren.

On a final note, the iPod brand has become confusing. There are now 4 totally different iPods. Apple needs to leave only 1 iPod, separate and rebrand the iOS devices on their own and retire the ones that had their run. After all the iPod touch already makes more than 50% of the iPod sales, by the next iTunes Sept event it will be likely be even more.

What can Apple do with iPhone 5?

2011-01-30T22:10:00.002+02:00

First. Not call it an iPhone 5. It sounds like the phone will be
different. It will not, at least not visually. If you give some
credence to the rumor mill the biggest change will come from getting a
new SoC+GPU combo that will likely bring significant improvements in
speed. Hence iPhone 4S name is one option.

The second major feature expected is the ability to support both CDMA
and GSM standard, possibly even the LTE. iPhone 4G name would then make
sense. What would make even more sense is if they name it iPhone 4GS. That will immediately resonate with people as far as what to expect: 4G and Speed.

With the iPhone 4, Apple really made a bold new move with the design
and according to reports that design has been in the works since 2008. With so much R&D and subsequent commercial success it is therefore given that the iPhone 5 will retain this integrated athena design. There are just some many things about it that make the iPhone
unique and more that half into the 4 lifespan the device still has a huge backlog of orders.

Antenna-gate? What was that? A purely lab problem it seams, one that
Apple has address in two ways culminating in the release of the CDMA
iPhone for Verizon. First, just like the iPhone 3GS benefited from the
case compatibility with the 3G, so will the iPhone 5 benefit from all
the cases already released for iPhone 4. Given that the iPhone 5 will
likely adopt the new antenna tweak of the CDMA iPhone 4, case makers
will have to enlarge the silent/ringer switch hole, but that's barely
any change at all.

What is this antenna tweak we talk about? Well, some have speculated
that Apple has the now two identical prices of the steel band to work
solely for as CDMA antennas. One may be able to draw the analogy those routers with two
antennas. The future iPhone may manages it's reception dynamically based on which
antenna gets a better reception. So if a user accidentally creates the antenna-gate issue on one side, the iPhone will switch to reception from the opposite end.

Clever.

Needless to say bridging the connection on both sides will required
very awkward way of holding the device, making it hard to reproduce the lab problem dubbed antenna-gate.

This change supposedly makes moving the GPS / Wi-Fi antennas to a
different place. iFixit will likely verify those speculation within days of he CDMA iPhone going out of the door.

With the look staying the same, Apple is expected to have a whole new
set of components inside the next iPhone. Starting with a new SoC
possibly having dual cores CPU and a new graphics GPU also allegedly
having dual cores. It's not the the A4 chip on the iPhone lacks power
but it is expected the iPhone 5 to also feature 1080p video recording
and editing.

Frankly, my iPhone 4 while initially feeling fast has started to take a
breath every now and when while switching between those Retina
Display optimized apps. 4 times the pixels does required 4 times the
graphic processing power after all.

The biggest change component wise will come from the GSM/CDMA/LTE* capable
signal processor. How will than influence the design of the logic
board remains to be seen.

A better rear camera? For sure. Probably 8MP with 1080p at 30fps. Some
sort of night image enhancing technology is expected as pictures taken
in low light still lack on the iPhone 4.

A Near Field Communication chip is widely rumored to be the next big
thing in phones after the accelerometer. As with everything else on
the iPhone, the software side will be the key in making this feature
useful and not just a bullet point as is the case for the Nexus One.

All these changes and addition can be done while Apple simultaneously
works aggressively to lower the cost of manufacturing of the most
critical components such as the Retina Display. With the iPhone 5,
Apple will be able to order much more initially and in some cases
invest in expanded manufacturing to secure ever larger quantities.
Manufacturing of those high quality touch screens was clearly the main
reason while the iPhone 4 is still backlogged in orders and why Apple
plans to invest 3.9 billion in strategic component supply guarantee
over the next few years.

All in all the iPhone 5 will likely be a clear improvement in
capability but with corresponding drop in manufacturing cost enabling
Apple to increase shipments and gross margins at the same time.

On iPad 2 and Retina Displays

2011-01-09T23:04:00.003+02:00

From Evernote:

On iPad 2 and Retina Displays

With all the iPad 2 mockups in agreement as far as physical dimensions and surface features, the biggest unanswered question about the iPad 2 is the screen resolution. One thing is certain, Apple will not stick to 1024x768 forever.

Given their past history with the iPhone they will move beyond only when they cam double the pixels. A lot of tech commentators have expressed skepticism of this supposed 2048x1536 resolution. Reasons being, that it will be too expensive, or that at 264dpi it does meet Apple previous Retina display standard of over 300 dpi. Consequently Apple will not be able to market it as such. Let's also not forget when did Apple move to retina display on the iPhone. On it's forth generation. However that happened to be the year Androids phones got mainstream with screens with higher dpi and resolutions that the iPhone. At 2011 CSE, a few tablets did emerge that have higher screen specs than the iPad. Apple is again forced to up the game in some way in the specs department.

What does common sense logic of the way Apple does things say? Apple will not put a higher res screen just for then sake of staying ahead. They will also not do so if the cost was prohibitive nor if they could not do it on a mass scale. Apple has stated many times that they are building a software platform. From a developer perspective, to make sure your App will look good on a screen with new resolution without effort, it will have to scale automatically 2x. Uncovered iOS file references in the past have suggested that Apple has already build support for this.

The questions are: will Apple manage to produce a 2048x1536 res displays the iPad 2 affordable and in numbers and how will it justify calling them retina screens.

I cannot speculate on the first part much beyond the report of Apple ordering 65 million iPad screen for 2011. If that does not bring their cost down, nothing will.

Retina display does not just imply a specific resolution but a one couple to a certain viewing distance. It is understood that perfect human yes can discern pixels at dpi of 300dpi at 1 foot. Increase the distance or the dpi and you can no longer see the pixels, hence you have a Retina display. Normal magazine reading distance is 1 foot and logically so all quality print magazines have adopted this 300 dpi print standard.

The iPhone however is certainly held at a closer than 1 foot distance and so to maintain a Retina display quality it needs a higher dpi: hence the 326 dots per inch. The iPad however is a device you will often leave in your lap while using it. That's way more than the 1 foot and so you can decrease the dpi from the 300 standard and still have a retina display effect. The doubling of the dpi of the current iPad will give it dpi of 264 which might be just enough.

In any case, Apple might need to explain this again at the next event where the iPad 2 is introduced. Remember the blog posts disputing Apple original retina display claim for the iPhone 4?

Other interesting thing that I hope will make it to the iPad 2 and specifically the WiF only version is GPS. The benefits are just too many to ignore them any longer. So many apps will work a lot better if accurate location info is available.

So will the iPad get a Retina Display? I think yes. Will it be 326 dpi? Certainly NO!

Innovation vs Commoditisation of the technology Market

2010-09-13T22:47:00.002+03:00

"Commoditysation" only occurs if there is lack of innovation. And by innovation I don't mean introducing a faster or smaller processor that that does the same thing but entirely new set of technologies that destroy the current market balance.

The Netbook was a product of extreme commoditisation. Nothing new, just the old stuff produced at extremely low cost and smaller size. A smaller and cheaper computer, not a better computer.

Now consider the iPad. While its component cost is similar to that of a netbook, the mix is entirely different as are the technologies used. The result, a dramatic new level of functionality rendering the netbook obsolete in many respects.

Most companies on the market today benefit from commoditisation. The reason is that they do not produce a complete product but rather compete for the parts of somebody else's product. Those that offer complete solutions however benefit from innovation more. The reason here is that profits are greater when your product offer something new, rather than counting on your suppliers to provide you with the same but cheaper components.

The question comes down to which force on the market will dominate? Well, evolution did not result in humans by making the DNA a commodity. It constantly experimented with a new variations and it constantly introduced new strains and mutations.

Between 1985 and 2005 there was a force in the technology market that choked innovation by constantly searching for it and destroying it using its market power. That was Microsoft. For 20 years the only thing that changed in the computer market was the speed of the components. The PC remained the same. Thing only looked prettier. Only only need to remember that they even tried to make the phones work and look like a PC!

However, even Microsoft could not be everywhere. One of the things they missed to swash in time was very small but very important "organism". It was called the iPod. It eventually grew to dominate the market not by destroying it but by out-inovating it, trough a new "DNA mix" every year. Sometimes one of the new iPod species did not have a successful "DNA mix" (iPod with 4 buttons, iPod Video, iPod Shuffle 3rd gen). However, its creator Apple kept trying harder and harder even when there was no other competition in the entire "food chain" left. The iPod now only competes with itself, but it has not stopped to try a new "DNA mix" every fall.

Unless the technology reaches a fundamental "bottleneck" or a higher power demands the stop of this constant innovation arguing that ever increasing GDP is unsustainable, the world will not plunge into another era of technological commodisaton.

Until that day, the creator that is Apple is likely to mirror the "evolution" success of its "species" in every market niche, as long as everybody refuses to build a complete solutions and rely on commoditisation.

Gartner make another laughable prediction

2010-09-11T00:04:00.006+03:00

Apple is projected to sell 130 million iOS-based mobile devices per year by 2014, but both Google Android and Nokia Symbian are expected to each double that amount, according to Gartner.

This is such bullshit. The only way you can make prediction about sales of devices is to know what devices will be selling.

Can anyone actually guess how many iOS devices will be on the Market in 2014?

BTW, the iPhone sells at 4 million a month now, the iPad is a 2million and the iPod touch at 3 million. That 103 million units per year right about now. And apple is working on constantly increasing that. In fact Apple has been more than doubling its production capacity every year so far.

So - shipping rates per year so far:
2007 - >9 million (iPhone + iPod touch)
2008 - >20 million (iPhone 3G + iPod touch)
2009 - >45 million (iPhone 3GS + iPhone 3G + iPod touch)
2010 - >100 million (iPad + iPhone 4 + iPhone 3GS + iPod touch)
2011 - ?
2012 - ?
2013 - ?

And Gartner predicts this:
2014 - =130 million . I mean, WTF Gartner !?!

So, how about I make my own prediction: Apple will be shipping a iOS devices at a rate of 130 million a year before the end of 2010

The "no iPod touch clones" mystery

2010-09-03T12:51:00.002+03:00

Has any one noticed how all the iPod models got lower case identifier names now. The iPod Touch is now iPod touch, the Nano is nano and so on. Is Alppe trying the emphasize the iPod part?

Also, up until now Apple was selling a 2nd Gen iPod touch model at $199. Now for $30 more you get a 4th gen device.

Back to the mystery after this though detour...

So Apple makes the iPhone in 2007 and changes the whole phone industry. Everybody wants to have an iPhone clone in its line up. 3 years later there are countless iPhone wannabes

Apple also makes another device that they call the iPod touch. It is the phones without the phone and even less (no GPS, camera and all) and represent 1/3 of all iOS devices sold. The incredible thing is that there are 0 - zero iPod clones that challenge in any way the touch. The Zune does not count as it was clone of the iPod touch from 2007 but in 2009 (2 generations behind)

For some reason the only thing companies are successfully cloning from Apple are 3G enabled devices. There is no clone yet, coming for the iPad Wifi. Alldevices have 3G antennas build. No only that, they all preserve the phone functionally. At best the only thing they are cloning is the iPad 3G. There is no contract free iPad clone that is available widely.

If I had to make a guess as to why this is the case, it would be that a 3G device is a lot more profitable and/or a lot more sellable.

If I had a second guess as to why is that, it would be that only carriers have retail locations and store partnership. Only a Carrier can potentially market and sell a device since no one else but Apple has 300 stores and retail network that has nothing to do with phones. Only Apple has the complete product distribution solution.

If I had to make a third guess, it would be that Carriers are only interested int 3G (phone) enabled deices as only trough them can they make a profit. Consequently, no Android device would be sold if it does not have a 3G phone feature.

If HTC were to market and sell the devices it sells all by itself, it would have had to incorporate the cost of the retails store and advertising into the price of its products. People constantly complain about the Apple tax on products, yet no one even tries to measure the cost of ex. renting a super huge palace like the 300th Apple store in the middle of London and making it profitable. Most of the 40,000 Apple employees work in retail. They are support personal and they earn good salaries.

If my analysis is correct then we would never see a 3G less iPod Touch clone.
Same for the iPad.

The only company big enough to replicate the Apple complete product matrix and distribution solution would likely chose its own operating system too.

Seams like the Android platform has shot its one leg off right from the start. Even if there are eventually more Android Phones and Tablets than iPhone and iPad 3Gs, there will be just as many if not more iPod touches and iPads.

iRemote - Magical Remote for iOS iTV

2010-08-29T12:30:00.003+03:00

There has been a lot of speculation lately about the 4th iteration of the Apple TV. Seams like everybody is content about ii being based on a iOS interface instead of the Front Row like one before. Make sense, not just in terms of expanding its capability but also at finally cracking that "Go To Market Strategy" Steve talked about at the D8.

What people do not seem to have a coherent opinion about is how is Apple planning regular folks to control it. With a rumored price of $99, you can't just put in a $199 iPod Touch as a free remote. Even the regular Apple TV remote sold at $50 seams complicated and expensive.

Apple needs to come up with a really revolutionary device to satisfy what the bloggers have have put forth as a requirement for this remote

The problem in front of Apple is that iOS is touch based operating system. The controls are everywhere and change place in each app. You cannot use a traditional D-pad to navigate among them. Apple needs to find a way to for the users to directly touch stuff on the screen.

To me, something like the Nintendo Wii seams to be the answer. A remote with accelerometer and gyroscope that beams the raw movement data to the iTV via bluetooth or IR. The iTV with it full blow OS then interprets the movement of the hand. There will be some visual element on the screen showing you where you are about the touch.

I also see 3 controls on the device. Sleep/Wake button, Home button and a small trackpad area for 3 basic one finger controls:

1. Click to push item on the screen

2. Double click to zoom

3. Flick to scroll or pan when in zoomed mode.

If you don't have your finger on the mini trackpad the movement on the hand will not be tracked on the screen.

Or maybe all this is just not practical and Apple has a much better idea. What if there are no UI controls on the screen? What if there is only content and the controls are still on the remote?

A little more food for though...

The 1.8x1.8 screen everybody is sure to be the new nano. What if that is part of the new Apple remote?

yeah, maybe I should have explored that idea more. I think I will leave that to Apple.

iEvent or the new Apple Live Event

2010-08-29T10:06:00.003+03:00

UPADATE:

This Just made my day. Apple has just announced they would be Streaming their Sept 1 even, and by doing so confirmed my entire theory. in this blog post. Looks like somebody actualy reads what I write...Nah, with 3 days notice, who am I kidding.

For well over a decade now, Apple has been holding therese special events where they introduced their hottest new products Usually via a keynote by the CEO Steve Jobs

The idea was that apple could gather around the whole media and unveil its new iStuff in a dramatic and emotional way. Remember Steve taking out the Macbook Air out of an postage envelope?

These days however the media is not what it once was. People do not wait for the newspaper or magazine to come out to read a detailed editorial about what apple unveiled and how. There days people read the live chat of bloggers on the even, posting their own thought snap snapshots of images as the even unfolds.

We have to remember that Apple' CEO has become a master of presentation. His keynotes are very efficient and informative and to think one can report the apple's new product without the full apple message is .... well irresponsible

This kind of live opinion reporting and quoting stuff out of context has created a PR problem for Apple. Taking advantage of the new web technologies and people appetite to know the latest, a few non journalists have become the de facto distributors of the news surrounding apple to the exact audience apple if mostly making products for.

Apple has largely dampened the long term effect of that by releasing the keynote recording in a streamed version shortly after the event and a downloadable version as an podcast a few days later.

Just recently on the WWDC event apple came across a whole new problem arising from the massive hoards of bloggers packing its keynote. The bloggers were bringing with them hundreds in MyFi 3G base stations to connect their laptops to report. As a result Apple CEO could not effectively connect the new iPhone 4 to the room Wifi for a demo as there were 520 WiFi hotspots in the room.

So these bloggers don't just take seats that could otherwise be used by developers who this keynote is for but mess up the message of the apple' CEO and his keynote too.

Time for Apple to unleash the blogger kill switch and turn on live streaming of its events. Everyone should be able to see the Steve Jobs keynotes himself as they happen. Further more every iOS device could receive a push notification about the event 15 min before, so they have a chance to hop on to a WIFi, click on a link an watch it live. Just imagine the price of the iAds running during that media spot.

Apple could potentially do this in the event prior to the one where they amount a music/video streaming service. This will give them the opportunity to test their ability to stream to millions of people all at once.

While such an approach carried a great risk, it also kill the reasons for some of the problems it has been having lately:

- opinion reporting about its products before its updated website can go live

- crashing demoes of its products because of overwhelmed networks

- seas taken by bloggers, not developers

If live video is too much trough to do, perhaps Apple should consider the next best thing - forbid the use of internet while its keynotes occur.

4th Gen iPod Touch - no GPS again :(

2010-08-26T13:36:00.004+03:00

When Apple was about to introduce the 2nd gen iPod Touch, I was sure it will have GPS. I was even more sure just before they unveiled the 3rd gen.

Now, I am convinced they will not do it for the 4th gen either.

Why?

Two words: Performance and Battery Life.

The iPod touch, while featuring similar music and video playback times as the iPhone of the same generation, actually has a battery with less than half the capacity. It's battery is only 600 mAh vs the iPhone's 1400 mAh.

Stand alone card GPS devices are big and don't last long without external power.

There is one device out there that has the biggest battery charge per cubic centimeter of electronics ever. Ok, that's just speculation but the fact is that the iPad has one bad ass huge battery and boy does it last.

Yet the WiFi version has no GPS, why?Why is Apple willing to include GPS as part of the WiFi+3G model but not the WiFi only one? It's not the battery this time.

Apple uses what is called A-GPS or assisted GPS. Instead of relying entirely on GPS lock on to triangulate the device position, the iPhone 3G used the WiFi/Cell tower triangulation first.

The result: The iPhone could achieve location lock within few seconds, while a dedicated GPS could take up to a minute.

Apple being religiously zealous about efficiency of design and operation will likely never put a GPS module into a device without a data connection. A-GPS performance is hat good.

With the iPod Touch being WiFi only device, GPS will not be among it's new features.

It will have retina display, gyroscope, front/rear cameras for Facetime, but it will not have GPS unless...

...unless Apple decides to really go for an iPod Touch attack and introduce a Wifi+3G model as well. To revitalize the iPod growth and fend off emerging similar Android devices.

Unfortunately I don't see that happening either for one simple reason. No internal space. The iPod is packed to the gills. Its 7 mm thin. You can't just find a space for a 3G athena, and all the new circuitry.

When iFixit made the iPad teardown, it was truly remarkable how much internal free space there was inside the iPad. That's even if you did not consider the space they left for 3G components.

So the iPod Touch does not have the internal volume and battery capacity to operate a 3G circuit to justify the addition of a GPS unless ....

....unless the iPod also gets a redesign.
Well with the all the recent leaks about iPod Touch with camera casing, it seas Apple will stick with the ergonomic design one more generation.

The reason to keep the iPod Touch design unchanged for a third generation is simple. 3rd Party Accessory and case makers. They would just love to be able to sell their products with with no or minor modifications to an ever expanding pool of customers.

New design requiring more time to mature will also appear spurred by the fact that the iPod Touch is not just a sotware platform with its iOS but very much a hardware one, with its clean design and compatible outline spanning across generations. Did you see the iPod touch case
with GSM athena and slot for SIM card? If it works as advertised, the combination of that case + the new iPod Touch will rule the third world countries. It's the one product Apple refuses to make.

In this world of consumer technology companies like Nokia though us for years that a new phone with a slightly different design every few months is something normal. Now Apple is about to keep the design of its most profitable iPod ever for a 3rd year in a row, likely blasting
in to new highs of sales records and revenue.

Oh the irony!

Sent from my iPhone

iPhone & Android loyalty implications

2010-06-06T16:39:00.004+03:00

What is interesting about this image beside the fact that the majority of both iPhone and Android will make the same choice on the next purchase? The implications of course.

For the foreseeable future the rapid growth among these two platforms will not come at the expense of one another, but at everyone else. Android isn't winning iPhone users over, and neither is the iPhone. Well not in significant numbers anyway.

These are the only two hot platforms on the market and they will continue to grow rapidly until the other competitors either catch up or a limited to a niche corresponding to the specific specific advantages and demographic. For RIM that will be only those customers who have made a continuos choice to get a Blackberry for its form factor and focus on email.

While the 80/70 % loyalty split implies the above prediction, the 14/7 % are much more interesting to talk about. Interesting because these is a market contradiction in there. It should be the established player that should be loosing more of its customers to the new guy, not the the other way around. And it is as far as number goes. But as percentage of users, it is not.

When the iPhone originally came out, it was the new guy on the block. It offered less features to its competitors but for those people that had the right features, it was the absolute #1 choice. People using it claimed 90% brand loyalty.

Let me let this sink for a moment: Right now twice as many people as a percentage of the Android platform plan to get and iPhone as compared to iPhone users who plan to try out Android. And because the iPhone has been the establishes player, those 7% of iPhone users are not likely dissatisfied but just willing to explore something different. The Android users on the other hand have been probably just ended up with an android handset and found out, that its does not measure up to the hype and there are a lot of issued you discover after purchase.

This statistic is interesting in a way that if Android and iPhone were the only two platforms on the market with a 50/50 split, the iPhone would start to gain on the Android by adding twice as many users than its loosing.

In other words, if this keeps up, whatever market share Android gets eventually, Apple will be able to surprises it on the long run through the better user satisfaction.

2 million iPads for 60 days, 10 million in 2010

2010-05-31T21:48:00.002+03:00

Apple just announced they sold 2 million iPad in less than 60 days.

I remember back when the device was announced and everybody was trying to figure out how many it will sell in 2010. Figures started from as little as 1 million to the then bullish 5 million devices. I remember thinking, why can't they just sell 10 million.

It's been the second month in a row Apple sells a million units. Actually Apple has managed to sell virtually everything that is produced, the demand is that high and shows no sign of stopping. A lot of people underestimated the device before its launch and a lot of people had their opinion changed from "I am not sure how this will fit into my lifestyle" to "I now can't imagine going on without it". This turnaround in opinion took a few years with the iPhone. Apple had to add a lot of features and software capabilities to match the needs of the fast majority of people and turn the critics around. With the iPad, the turnaround just happened in a matter of weeks. That turnaround has suddenly added a lot of potential early buyer. It's a tidal wave and there is just nothing else even close on the market.

Back to sales. If Apple does nothing but just keep production at the current level and sells 1 million units each month, that will ad up to a total of 9 million units this year. This now seams like a very conservative scenario, because several more factors could push sales even higher:

Apple is rumored to be increasing production to 2.5 million units a month starting in June.
Several more rollouts into other countries are scheduled till the end of this year.
The earliest quasi competitors would not show up for another 3-4 months, and Android based, more closer competitors till at least the end of this year if not early 2011.
Sales so far have happened in the historically 2nd lowest sales quarter - Q2. Thing will significantly pick up after september.
As sales of the iPads began to reach ears of the big company CIO, web content providers will move even faster towards HTML 5, erasing the FLASH argument against the iPad
The Fall iPhone OS 4.0 software update will be a major sales boots as it significantly increases the capabilities of the device.
Developers are still surprising with awesome new iPad apps that turn heads. Just today Pulse showed up. The iPad catalogue stands at 5000 today will likely pick up significantly after WWDC..
A whole new class of OS 4.0 Application will start to roll out later this year.

These factors will only push iPad sales beyond the current 1 million a month making the 10+ million iPads in 2010 a prediction I will get comfortably behind.

Actually the 10 Million is my low end estimate with the high end being Apple selling almost everything it can produce till the end of the year, which means around 15 million iPads.

Has Android really outpaced the iPhone with v2.2 Froyo

2010-05-27T18:24:00.003+03:00

After the Google I/O conference, fans of the Android operating system, fresh from entusiasm of the tech demos shown in the Froyo keynote and general announcements made throughout have claimed that Google had surpassed Apple in terms of inovation in the mobile space. Add that to some reports that Android is outselling the iPhone in the US and you have the tech bloggers making some very biased conclusions.

I am far from being e tech expert myself, but I think a bit or some realism can paint quite a different picture. Let look into some of the more popular assumptions made by people when reading those stories

1. Google is developing the Android platform faster than Apple is own iPhone OS and is now ahead in features.

Its interesting but it turns out that development of both Android and iPhone OS started around the same time around 2005. I do believe that the numbering scheme that Google has choses for the Android platform does reflect the progress made in the operating system. Consequently a software platform at version 2.2 cannot be more feature rich as very comparable platform at version 3.1 For indirect proof look at the Chrome desktop browser being at version 5 now, ahead of Safari which is still at version 4. Clearly Google considers the desktop browser the most important software it works on.
the features which people find the Android platform to be superior, namely Gmail, Voice search and Turn by Turn navigation are part of the Google core competency and a differentiator, just like Apple has build its iTunes/iPod business
the more important general features which Froyo 2.2 added, such as Exchange and application data backup, have been with the iPhone OS since its own version 2.2 back in September 2008.
The really interesting features demonstrated at the Froyo keynote, such a push application purchasing and other types of over the air delivered features and content are not part of Froyo, but sneak peaks into some future release. Stiff, Google is a cloud company an its is to be expected that it will get ahead in the cloud services game, where Apple clearly does not make a lot of effort at.
One of the reasons Google went behind Adobe as a application development platformis that is own Android SDK obviously sucked and Apple left it in the dust. Google hoped to use the iPhone platform as an incentive for developers to create app that could easily then be easily converted to Android using Adobe tools and quickly close the gap in number of apps the iPhone enjoys. Clearly a tactic not worthy of a allegedly superior platform.

2. Android is now faster than the iPhone OS and its mobile phones have surpassed the iPhone in terms of hardware.

The iPhone 3GS was introduced in min 2009 with worldwide availability. While some resent new offerings carry bigger displays and newer generation components, none of them has reached significant availability. An not all of them are superior the iPhone in terms of end user performance. I am not talking about feature specs, but actually battery/software performance, display quality in all lighting conditions, hardware reliability and so on. Only one device with the Android operating system can be compared with the iPhone in terms of overal market impart and that is the Motorola Droid. I will go on the record by said that its success in the US in particular has to do with nothing else that the name DROID. George Luscas has spend 3 decades encoding that word into the American popular culture trough the Start Wars francise, and Motorola just rode the wave.
All these new generation of Android phones: The Nexus One, the Droid Incredible, the EVO 4G and so on are 2010 devices. Just because, Apple is the only company that does not announce its new hardware just prior to actually being able to ship it, does not mean that comparisons with the iPhone 3GS, 2 weeks prior the the iPhone A4 are still valid. In recent performance tests with the Nexus One running the latest Android 2.2, the iPhone seams to have lost the edge in speed it held for 10+ months now. But not by a significant margina and that is to be expected. What people miss to notice however is that the speed diference between the iPhone 3GS and the Nexus One running Froyo is much less than the hardware spec advantage the Google phone seams to have. The 2009 iPhone had a 50% clock speed increase / 2X RAM increase over the 2008 iPhone resulting in system wide 2X performance increase. 2010 The Nexus One has 70% clock speed increase / 2X RAM increase over the 2009 iPhone, yet it seams to enjoy a small system wide performance advantage over the 3GS only when it does now make significant used of its other alleged advantage: background processing. What would the results be when Apple matches or exceed any current or projected Android hardware with the iPhone 4A? Should'n we wait a few more weeks and make a 2010 Android device vs 2010 Apple device comparison instead, before making claims Andorid is faster.'

3. Android is outselling the iPhone in the US.

It's funny how people ignore things like cheap Android phones with 1.6 or even 1.5 still being sold in buy one, get one free fashion. Everybody can sell hardware at a loss, by tying people to two year old contracts. Everybody that does not value its customers beyond the point of sale. Not Apple
Why not compare iPhone Sales in AT&T with comparably priced Android phones sold just by Verizon. That's a fair comparison in my opinion as it matches the the overal price and service and leaves the actual experience and value of the device to shine out. People like bashing how Nexus One seams to edge the iPhone 3GS in some ways but never mentions its actual sales. The wide public seams to associate the Android with these top/flagship devices even though they are not the bread and butter of the sales. The exception being the Motorola droid, which has sales figures compared to the original iPhone prior to its price drop.
Android sales will quickly level out when the introduction across all 4 major US carriers is complete in less time than the first adopters had a chance to go trough their 2 year contacts. At that time people would know whether they want to have the same experience again or switch to the iPhone. The thing about the iPhone is that very few people ever switch away from it, some of those come back eventually and some do it for no other reason than the service provider AT&T
Why are not people counting the iPod Touch as sales? Oh, because it's not a phone. In many ways the iPod Touch is more of a smartphone than many so called smartphones sold today. Apple will eventually add a phone feature to most of its iPods. You should not discredit sales of a particular product based on definitions that constantly change but rather on the impact that it has. One can argue can a person with a dumb phone and an iPod Touch has in effect a smartphone. One can also argue that people owning iPod Touches are not likely to also carry a touch screen smartphone. So again, why not count those as sales too if they can be a substitute for a canonical smartphone. Everything will make since if only people compare sales by operating system, not by specific hardware features. After all a person with an iPod Touch running OS 4 and a MiFi in his pocket can have a better Skype phone functionality than most smartphones today.

So has the Android latest update and the new handsets available from its hardware partners really outpased the iPhone? No. Neither are features, speed, sales or potential.

Apple sells 1 million iPads in 28 days

2010-05-03T17:27:00.005+03:00

Apple just announced that is had sold 1 million iPads during the first day of the device. Is this a lot? Is this enough to justify the new products category Apple claims to have created?

To put this into perspective have to take a similar look few other devices that seam to establish a new category.

While there were smart phones before the iPhone, it changed the landscape forever and it was the first such product from Apple. The original iPhone was also sold only in the US initially and it took 2.5 months for it to reach the 1 million mark. Obviously some may consider this a slow start but it is definitely a humble beginnings given consecutive launches of the device with the 3G and 3Gs models making 1 million during the first weekend of sales. Almost 3 years later, Apple sells close to 3 million iPhone per month.

It is quite obvious that the all things "i" maker does not plan on taking it slow this time.

The other important device the iPad is compared to and dismissed by Apple as a good product is the netbook. Many Apple haters will be quick to point out that netbooks sell in the tents of millions per year now. How is Apple in any way affecting that? These pundits forget how netbooks started. The first model of PC considered to be a netbook was the Asus Eee PC introduced at the end of October 2007. During the rest of the years it sold just 300,000 units. That is 150,000 per holiday season month.

Granted Asus did does not have the marketing buz of Apple, nor was the economy in recession at that time to influence consumers into buying budget devices. Nevertheless, the iPad has considerably higher price and it started selling during the non spectacular month of March with only US availability. It it widely believed that sales will pick up considerably when:

production meets demand. Right now, its way bellow:
the iPad 3G is introduced
international availability is a fact next month
Apple negotiates breakthrough 3G deals with international carriers
enough iPad specific apps populate the App Store
iPhone OS 4 is available for iPad in the Fall

Clearly Apple has a lot things it can do to increase sales without even touching the price of the product and the iPad is off to a much better start than the nebooks it will eventually kill.

By the way you only need to follow the news to see that already netbooks sales are slowing down considerably. It's is no surprise to me. The iPad is clearly a more capable device.

Oh look, AAPL is up 5% so far today on the news. Another 10% increase and it will pass MSFT (Microsoft) in market cap as the biggest technology company on the planet.

Nokia borrows some Apple Marketing tricks

2010-05-02T13:49:00.009+03:00

I wish Nokia had more fortunate unveiling of its N8 flagship but it was not the first to do so. The guys that got a hold of its phone in Russia spoiled the whole thing. No remote wipe as was the case with Apples iPhone prototype "uncovered" by Gizmodo.

Anyway, a couple of day later Nokia decided to unveil its new flagship phone to the world even though it will not ship out for 2-3 months.

I was surprised I like it. Well at least the hardware looked nice. A lot of attention to detail. The colors looked great and there was something about the presentation of all that gave me a familiar feeling. When I read that its made of single piece aluminum block or that its colors were anodized aluminum it hit me. This is nothing short of Nokia trying to imitate the best Apple had done. It's not the first time.

I starte looking in the N8 and Apple site back and forth and I started to notice some very apparent similarities:

While the iPod Nano is a completely different product, the style of the presentation is so similar that one may confuse these two products of belonging to the same company.

App Store madness. Everybody is envious of Apple's success with the App store and with when you have tried and failed at this so many times, it best to just copy the competition. However, it is no secret that Apple was teaching its customers to buy from iTunes for 8 years now. You cannot copy customer behavior. Also you are asking developers to do stuff for a non existing platform. How many Nokia N8s are there? Apple will likely ship its 100,000,000 iPhone OS device by the time Nokia ships 1 N8

I just don't think Nokia showed its awesome video capture in this style before. An interesting note. N8 takes 720p at 25fps while the iPhone 3GS does 480p at 30fps. They should have copied that too, because while 720p looks nice, it even more important to capture every moment at 30 fps.

I can honestly say that when I saw this, I though I was looking at a really bad Chinese iPhone clone. This show how little innovation Nokia can bring on the software side. At best they can somewhat copy Apple, which is never a bad thing.

I admit, I do not visit Nokia products site a lot but the N8 specification sheet looks a lot like the one one Apple's iPhone site. At least as far as presentation though. They did try to list a lot more useless stuff, making it look the Nokia can do more. I only hope Apple does not start listing what its hundreds of thousands of apps can do, just to mock Nokia. I mean, have you even seen the kind of video recording apps are out there for the iPhone?

A few more thoughts on the design. Have you ever seen a Nokia phone with rounds edges like that? And what about the metallic screen bezel? It's funny cause the N8 looks a lot more Appleish, while the iPhone prototype shown by Gizmodo looked totally industrial and one could almost say these two companies switched their design departments for their next gen products.

Had Nokia released the N8 last year with these features and price, it would have had a really hit the nail. This years iPhone however is going to be nothing like the N8 and is totally going to kick ass.

iPad is expanding its capability lead

2010-05-02T08:28:00.003+03:00

I just thought about the the above chart I did as part of my previous article on the matter...and I changed the Tablet rating for "2 Hand stationary use" to Good. Given all the great software that's on the iPad and the apparent ease of typing, not to mention the great cases that come for it.

I don't know how much more obvious it can get about the market for tablets and specifically the iPad which is the only one of its kind now.

This device has so many potential real life uses.

I hope Jobs and Apple are prepared to meet the adoption wave that is unfolding. First reports are that they are: quote Tim Cook "Shocked" already.

4th Gen iPhone 4A to borrow iPad pricing model

2010-05-02T07:49:00.006+03:00

If you read any news from the technology world you know there is a war going on. On one side is Apple and on the other is virtually everyone else with the exception of Microsoft who do not have any pieces on the board yet. I also have to mention RIM, who barely support the web browsing at all (4% of the trafic in US), let alone Flash, but RIM sells 1/4 of the smarthphones on the planet. OK, so not everyone.

I am talking about whether Flash will sidelined into a niche web technology or whether it will continue to widely used on websited and one day adopted by the iPhone OS produces from Apple. Ops, Steve spoiled the answer to the second part already. Besides who on the iPhone cares about Flash? We all use the Web trough iPhone Apps and to a lesser extend webapps.

This summer when Adobe allegedly finally releases Flash 10.1, everyone with Smartphone OS will be tooting Flash support in order to stand against the market dominance of Apple.

What can Apple do to counter this pro Flash marketing push comming this summer. If the Droid Ads from last Fall are any indication, Apple better be prepared. I think they are doing all the right things:

releasing a magical device at a breakthrough price, aka the iPad
working on the 4th biggest and best update to its iPhone OS
working on a awesome new iPhone hardware as spoiled by Gizmodo

There is one last thing Apple need to do when it introduce the new iPhone with the new iOS 4:

Borrow the iPad 3G pricing and carrier service subscription model.

OK, here are the factors that will influence next iPhone pricing favorably:

Apple uses superior manufacturing process, let expensive raw materials and more components produced by the company to keep the hardware price the same while dramatically increasing capability.
By adopting the iPad 3G on device contract management, Apple can reduce the price of servicing the device.
First software update is free while consequent ones are paid by the customer. Previously Apple needed to factor in the price of 2 year free updates in to the price of the phone.
The iPhone brand is well established and Apple has working relationships with many carriers in the word. Introducing a new device will not be as costly.
The iPhone is starting to have some serious competition and Apple needs to lower its profits to the level of the other products that it offers. Just like it did with the iPad.

Overall, while the Nokia surprised many by releasing the price if its new flagship N8 as $430, Apple may just as well offer a much superior device at the same price point with no contract. If carriers were to subsidize that using todays formulas, we could see the new iPhone 4A being offered this summer for $29 with affordable two year contracts.

Trying to fix my iPhone...dead strip still there

2010-05-01T17:54:00.002+03:00

This was going to be a test of things to come. Can I open my iPhone to the extend needed to replace the display? Can I put it back together and still work?

I got all the tools, time and guides I needed. By the way, I used this iFixit guide

That part was easy.

Nothing special here either.

Remobing the battery was a very long process. It was glued so strongly that I got it to bend quite a bit more before I broke free. The metal spudger was essential here.

I was hoping that the display conector was not making a good contact or something but the problem appeared to be buried deep inside the display assembly. I had to buy a new one. They are $100 bucks on ebay.

I assembled the phone and the problem was still there. Here is what does not work:

- second button from the bottom on a popup menus.

- a couple of letters in the landscape keyboard.

Had the dead stribe been a little bit more up or down, it was likely that the portrait keyboard would have been completely unusable. Thank jobs it still is.

No MicroSD card. Only iTunes to sync to! Why Apple, why?

2010-04-19T10:37:00.005+03:00

I reader of my previous blog post asked me to comment on the "MicroSD slot and moving away from iTunes syncronization for all media".

I didn't think I would have much to say about it, but it turned out there is a lot...I mean a lot. I hope I can make it short.

Let's consider for instance the ultimate music player if technology was not a limitation. Let dream of the ultimate music device and see if MiroSD cards and Syncing options are there to be found!

I will start with something I believe with to absolutely true about Apple and the future of it music players.

If Apple could make a music player that had no screen, ports or even physical controls of any kind, and still play the music you wanted to hear the moment you heard it played already, they would. And they are trying...

What does that say about the company, about Steve Jobs? It says that the only thing he considers of importance is the actual listening of the sound. The buttons are not important, the headphones are not important, even the artwork is a distraction and god forbid you mention the storage capacity. Its all about listening to the right music at the right emotional state.

How can Apple possibly create a player that does that. There are two sides to the question. A hardware and a software one. I will give you a hint for each: Software is kind of Pandora style but taking much more variables such as time of day, calendar appointments, speed of movement, acceleration, hearth rate, temperature, background sound. All wrapped up in one super intelligent Genius. Now that you have seen the software part, having to guess the hardware it easy: Wireless connection, GPS, accelerometer, heart monitor, thermometer, microphone and so on. There player might consist of more than one device, some of which will be embedded in the clothing and the shoes. The part that goes into your ear might be less visible than a in-ear headphone bud.

Now, where in this futuristic picture do you see any kind of optional storage or syncing? You don't and here is why.

The most fundamental mistake that people assume when it come to music is that people want to be able to make a choice. Any kind of choice. Choice about whether to have MicroSD card or not, choice to have a red or a green colored player, choice to listen to the Beatles or Queen. I have come to believe to the bottom of my heart that it is in fact quite the opposite. People do now want to chose, they do not want to decide, do or even look when it comes to music. They just want to listen. That is the secret behind the long existence of radio, because someone else decides it for you. It's convenient. Pandora has taken things one step further. It learns from your listening preferences and make you a personalized radio station. While there is indeed an initial choice, the whole point of services like that are to deliver the music you like without you having to make the choice every time.

Now, when you grasp this concept you start to wander, if even choosing the music I play is not something I want to do, why would I even bother to decide on where to store it or what program it will sync with. Why do even things like storage and syncing exist? Why would I have a limit on the music I can cary with me? Do I care if I actually carry the music with me, it I can here it anytime I want?

When one asks important questions like that, it becomes obvious that beyond iTunes, it is not another syncing program. That will only bring limited conform to the people that lie to themselves about the choice question. Beyond iTunes is CloudTunes or just iTunes. Really just iTunes. No interface, no syncing. It all there connected to your phone at all time. You may pay some initial fee to get started but its all there available to you and to your smart software to decide on the next song.

And while Apple is expected to deliver this CloudTunes still, the question of MicroSD cards or the removable storage option has already been decided and the CloudTunes will just put the finishing nail on it. In fact, on the quest for the ultimate iPod, Apple removed this choice very early....with the very first iPod, back in 2001. One has to be insane to think Apple will introduce it back. Quite the opposite... they are planing to sacrifice even more things. Just look at the iPod Shuffle and how that nicely sits on the path to the ultimate music player.

Now, for some the above thoughts may be all pie in the sky type of stuff, so here are some more of todays reasons for not using MicroSD cards and different sync methods or programs.

Let's see how one uses removable storage today. You plug it into you computer, you load it manually with music and then you plug it into your device expecting it to recognize everything. There are several problems with this scenario.

you lose time for loading the stuff on your card
you can add a song with bad quality, broken file or missing tag
you are dealing with folder and hierarchal structure, which no user should be doing
the date will likely contain no information about which song was played
unless you use a special software to structure the content on the card, you may have to find the music the old fashion Winamp way.
how do you know which content is purchased from you, and which is not?

There are many other reasons against MicroSD cards, ranging from minor one, such as "another thing to loose" to why not just build it into the device, seal the whole and save on manufacturing cost.

The only practical use from flash cards is perhaps to transfer your pictures from a camera to the iPhone via an 30 pin dock connector/SD-card adapter.

Regarding the issue of wireless syncing. It is practical for some services like contacts but not for media file. They are too big file inability for devices to link to each other without a common WiFi router is also an issue. As long as I have a need to charge my device I have no problem docking it to the computer for syncing too. If I had to do full wireless syncing, I would have had even bigger battery issues.

So while wireless streaming makes sense, wireless downloading of files does not. We will move beyond the desktop iTunes, when all its content goes online, when the bandwidth is sufficient and when the right business model present itself.

Now, having exceeded my own expectations and goals, I will shut up.

Why This Picture of 4G iPhone makes sense

2010-04-18T10:50:00.017+03:00

Update: A lot happened in the days following this article. I can only smile at the confirmation on most if not all my assumptions by the leak of the year. :)

Is this the iPhone 4G?

One thing is certain. It is some sort of iPhone. Whether it is just a prototype or the production model is another story. One other thing is certain. It would not be called the iPhone 4G.

There are however some very interesting details about it that give away the fact that it's a next generation hardware by Apple. I believe its actually a revolutionary approach to building phones, just as Apple did with the unibody Macbooks.

It's not a fake by any means and I hope Apple will not change stuff just because they lost a prototype.

Here is what I noticed:

1. No screen bezel. All aluminum frame

While the screen bezel was a beautiful touch, it was actually part of the supporting structure for the components. With this new model, Apple has taken a new approach to internal hardware design. As seen from the pic showing the internal hardware, the main supporting structure for the device is a 1 or 2 piece unibody aluminum frame.

The advantages here are quite obvious too:

Maximum torsion strength and minimum weight
very cheap to produce
machine process commonality with all other Apple products
fully recyclable
access from top and bottom with equal ease

2. It has a full edge to edge top and bottom glass cover.

How revolutionary is that? Apple has to work some obvious problems like, will it crack easily it the iPhone is dropped, is the brick form-factor comfortable to hold and all these finger print smudges. However the advantages are way more impressive:

Perfect signal reception
Almost no cost to manufacture
fully recyclable
scratch resistant
easy to replace if broken
no holes needed for camera or flash
iMac/iPad approach to screen gorgeousness
glass panels help with bending moments

3. Size and feel of the new design

While, there is no way of knowing how much it would weigh or the exact size, I suspect this to be the thinnest iPhone yet, perhaps around 10 mm or less. The overall size however, remains the same. The report that is had been found in an existing iPhone 3G case is interesting. Replacing a plastic back and steal frame with all aluminum and glass parts does sound like it could reduce the weight somewhat.

4. Front Camera and LED flash

While these were all expected, integrating them behind the glass for protection is well....ingenious in a way only Apple can achieve. It's just so simple, elegant and efficient. There is just one LED component, while all other phones feature two.

5. Ports, button and other notes of interest.

Volume controls are now two separate buttons which should dramatically make it easier to press, improve reliability and damage tolerance
SIM card port is moved to the right side. Kind of logical since cramping too many openings on top would have made this section of the phone substantially weaker.
It's interesting if the small hole next to the headphone jack is noise canceling microphone. It makes more sense to have one now, since in video chat you will not hold the phone close to you for clear audio reception.
I cannot say much about the internal except that they look even more beautifully and efficiently laid out. The speaker/microphone assembly actually looks quite substantial. Possibly finally solving the 3 year complain of good output volume.
The two seams on the aluminum bezel do indicate a two piece frame assembly. I actually think, they will be gone on the production model. There is no reason Apple cannot manufacture the frame as a single part, aka unibody.
The new design absent of complex curved shapes will be much more easy for case/dock developers.
The flat back, thin design and OS 4 features will allow for one longtime dream of many users: An iPhone case with slide out bluetooth keyboard.
I really like how Apple how found a way to simplify the whole design down to it two favorite materials: Glass and Aluminum. First the Macbook Pros, then the iMac, now the iPad. The iPhone could be next, followed by the iPods.
I cannot stress this enough. Apple has found a way to produce just 2 glass and 2 aluminum parts that hold all other non Apple produced components. If they also put in their own SoC silicon now, this phone will have an incredibly low production price, giving Apple's phone not just quality but cost advantage. How do you beat that HTC?

I have never been more confident in the future of the iPhone platform than after writing these thoughts. Apple is taking an all out engineering and design assault on how a smartphone is made, innovating right down to its internal design.

This summer's iPhone will indeed going to be a " A+ upgrade" as his highness Steve Jobs said.

Flash Domination

2010-04-04T20:25:00.004+03:00

These are the reasons why I watch Starcraft these days. There is just one player out there, who just dominates like no other in the history of the game.

This is the Ultimate weapons, this is Flash

The only player to go beyond 70% in 1 vs 1 record.

All time: 272-111 (71.02%)

Last 6 months: 70 wins - 14 losses (83.33%)

Source: TeamLiquid

P.S. ELO is a measure of skill. Generally speaking you get more points for beating better players and you also loose a lot by falling to a player with low ELO. The more points you get, the more you fall in the ranking when you loose. Untill Flash, no one had come close to the 2400 mark.

6th Generation Fighter Aircraft - Replacing the F-22 Raptor

2010-03-15T16:52:00.003+02:00

Here is a post I made in the SecretProjects.co.uk forum, that I am kind of proud of and it has a lot of solid logic and a lot to look forward to in the Future. Enjoy!

Seeing how things are changing in the world of technology I do not expect anything conventional to replace the F-22 Raptor. The 6th gen would not be about the same things just more and better. It would need a new paradigm. Think about it, every generation of fighter aircraft had added something fundamentally new, while ever so slightly improving the legacy features.

1st - Get Engine

2nd - Get Engine + Speed

3rd - Get Engine + Speed + Guided Missiles

4th - Get Engine + Speed + Guided Missiles + Maneuverability

5th - Get Engine + Speed + Guided Missiles + Maneuverability + Stealth

6th - Get Engine + Speed + Guided Missiles + Maneuverability + Stealth + ???

So what would be the rosseta stone of the 6th gen fighter? Here is my proposal, just conjured out of thin air.

The platform:

F-35 sized, tailless, 1 engine (F136 based), high-performance unmanned fighter. It will have 6-8 dual range air to everywhere missile and a 1 MW optical laser as weapons. It will have supersonic performance to rival the YF-23 but be able to withstand much higher G-forces.

Control:

Pilots can be located either on the ground or on a VLO flying command post hundreds of miles away awaiting in conform for any action. Communication can be done via lasers guaranteeing high bandwidth and extremely low probability of intercept. The fighter will be brought to the battle zone completely automatically via on board intelligence. When fuel is low, it will automatically refuel and return to station. It may be possible to even rearm in mid-air, if the weapons payload is made truly modular and flexible. Laser, needs only electricity so they just need more fuel to the engines which generate it.

Operation:

If a situation arrises the pilots, can just pick up the closest fighter available to respond to the battle needs and take tactical control. They will only tell the fighter what targets to engage as if in a computer game and the AI of the craft would pick the the best situation and launch parameters for the weapons, with the pilots issuing the final shoot order. If and when WVR combat is required the pilots can take full control but be able to chose viewing as if it was a flight sim. By this time full 360 degrees visual/sensor coverage should not be an issue at all. Pilots will be able to view the battle in full 3D in real time and just draw maneuvers on the screen, that the fighter can perform.

Conclusion:

I do believe the Unmanned option to be the true enabled of the 6th generation fighter. While it has value on its own, it serves to benefit all other 5 features of the aircraft by removing the need of a "on board pilot" requirement.

Every experienced fighter pilot can tell that the most demanding part of the flight is the battle when humans are actually needed is just mere minutes, sometimes seconds. The rest is boring and exhausting routine. If I had to design a 6 gen fighter, I would create a cheap but capable platform (not a mutirole fighter) that can be available over the battlefield 24/7. Obi Wan, said it best "Flying is for droids". The pilots should be working as a team in the same room making tactical decisions together and not worrying about their lives.

This actually turned rather nicely, for a first draft. B)

A little bit of unwanted Advice:Part 1

2010-03-07T08:50:00.007+02:00

Apple is doing great. The just seam to defy the laws of physics if the physicians were the tech pundits analyzing their every move and especially those making design suggestions on their next generation products.

With this post I might just as well fall into that category. I would not pretend to be predicting the future though just rather make some logical observations.

Apple has proven that traditional smarthphones are obsolete and the whole Market is up for grabs by whoever embraces the iPhone approach and does a good job creating a great user experience. Android has done it to some extend and WP7S are poised to do so as well at the end of this year. Apple is not in danger of being out-inovated but of not delivering its 2007 innovation to people fast enough for it capture dominant market share, the way it did with the App Store.

Apple needs to replicate the success of the App Store into the iPhone. Don't get me wrong, I know the better the App Store, the better the iPhone sales. It's just that Apple managed to create and new type of digital store in such a way as to appeal to majority people in the one area that matters most besides quality: COST!

While the original iPhone had quality to spare, its cost constrained its sales.

Why is it that Apple can sale 1000 times more apps than devices on which they run? Clearly the iPhone is not 1000 times more expensive than its App's....or maybe it is. A lot of people have raized the valid point about the total cost of an iPhone over the two year contract being somewhere in the thousands.

Do you really need to tie people with a 2 years data plan contracts to guarantee that they will spend money on data traffic and bring profits to the carrier? Haven't people by now learned to conveniece of the allways on internet that they are going to purchase trafic themselves anyway?

Maybe, but maybe that's one side benefit to the success of the App Store. It trained people to buy is small parts but all the time. There was never a mountly fee to use the App Store, but boy did people not download stuff all the time?

What it is that I am trying to say here? Where is my point you ask? Well, my point is illustrated by the success of the approach some great App Developers have taken is selling their products ..... for FREE.

Great games and software now come virtually full featured from day one free of charge. But there is nothing like a full featured software from day one. There is always something you want to add or customize your experience or add additional functionality. These small updates cost what now cost the cheapest apps on the App store - 0.99 cents. Affordable to any and no brainer to buy if you have the slightest need to add this functionality to your app.

Apple has the best platform for generating money not just for itself but for its developers by bringing great content to the mass audience at unbelievably low prices. It's a WIN-WIN for every one. The more iPhones Apple deploys the more people can get access to its App store. The more people have access, the more incentive to developers to create better apps and lower prices. The more Apps are sold the greater the profits for Apple too.

The iPhone as a physical device is no longer anything special. It does not have any top of the line component any more. Not even the largest and highest res screen. But it doesn't matter, and it with the platform and its experience already established it probably better stick to its current specs. This should play to enormous financial benefit for apple as it can get ever lower prices on components and lower the manufacturing cost of the product.

Last September, Jobs talked about a the $199 Magic price point. Well it is magic but has a lot more power if its not tied to a 2 year contract. I think Apple are heading in the right direction and the Market underestimates the impact an existing product like the iPhone 3GS could still have if Apple manages to sell it at a new magics price without a contract. The iPad has proven that cellular devices can indeed be sold without a contract for a reasonable price.

So my first advice to Apple that they know themselves: find a way to negotiate with AT&T an 8GB iPhone 3GS for $299 without a contract.

The coming war of Tablets vs Netbooks

2010-02-08T08:36:00.006+02:00

You may have heard of Tablets, and you may have heard of Netbooks, but one thing you need to hear about is that with the introduction of the iPad by Apple these two product categories will go to war with one another in the near future.

Tablets had flopped until now because they were waiting for a newer generation of components than those on netbooks and for totally new generation of software. Netbooks could get away with the old OSes because frankly they are still used as a laptop. They are like 12inch powerbooks at fraction of the cost. With the iPad, for the first time a tablets have reached the level needed to become mainstream and find their market. What may not surprised everyone is that market may have already been taken by netbooks.

When looking to compare products, one is naturally tempted to look into specification. For Product categories and platform like he iPhone this tends to produce very incorect predictions over time. This is because product categories and platforms tend to evolve in features while keeping their names.

So, a totally new way of comparing netbooks and tablets is needed. One far simpler and much more powerful. One based on fundamentals that will never change. For what is more important than how and where do you use a product. Apps don't matter, interactions do. There are essentially only two variables: number of hands used and product position. In addition we add the all important price consideration and one field to indicate overall capabilities.

How we measure the quality of each product in each category is also important. Exact numbers do not mean much. What is much more

telling is how each product category fares compared to the others in the same field. Consequently, there are only 4 meaningful choices. A products is ether the best there is, does a good job, can be used to work in this way or is unpractical to handle like that. Lastly, when talking about tablets, I am mainly referring to the next generation of iPad like devices that will come to market shortly.

Armed with those assumptions the following battle-gram unfolds by itself.

While some ratings are pretty strait forward, I would like to explain a couple of the ones which do decide the battle and may stir controversy:

You cannot use laptops and netbooks without supporting their weight by something other than your hands.
The tablet win the 1 Hand Stationary Use round, because its main workflow paradigm does not depend on using two hands, while productivity on laptops and netbooks drops significantly to the point of frustration if you are limited to just using one hand
While a Tablet may not run full OS apps, it will be able to do stuff that come out of its inherent design. For example, a whole new types of programs (books, comics, magazines) become practical, when you can rotate the device in portrait mode. Can you work in portrait mode on a netbook? Or can you imagine accelerometer controls on a netbook?

Conclusion:

Each product category had something that is best at and its actually no brainer to tell. What is interesting is that Tablets are potentially just as usefull as a full laptop but at a lower cost, meaning that they have a potentially bigger market than either laptops or smartphones. Netbooks on the other hand, just like Steve Jobs said are not good at anything. Their only true quality is their price, which is not enough to keep them competitive on the long run with a much better but slightly more expensive product like the tablet.

And the 4th Gen iPhone is called....

2010-02-01T10:23:00.003+02:00

Recently two things happened that may unintentionally reveal the Marketing name of the 4th gen iPhone.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs was quoted to say the the next iPhone is a A+ device. Did he choose that definition by accident or was he trying to hide 2 facts into 1.
Apple released the iPad, which features a custom silicon by Apple called the A4. This processor has technology inside suitable for smartphones.

Apple has been fairy strait forward in marketing the iPhone. The first one was the iPhone, since that was its most important feature. The second one was the iPhone 3G, since 3G speeds were the halmark of this device. An the last one that came out las summer was called iPhone 3GS with the S standing for speed, and that being its main feature.

So the big question is, what will be the main feature of the new iPhone. Seeing how the Apple approached its third generation of iPhone OS products, visual hardware change will likely not occur. What will change is under the hood. Screen resolution might change but that will not be the main new feature. I believe, Apple plans to move its new A4Chip into all its iOS products, creating an economy of scale and even more platform commonality.

If the A4 chip screams on the iPad, given its much higher screen resolution and more capable apps, it is likely that it will make the next gen iPhone go into hyperspace. Apps will probably launch so fast that the need for multitasking will hardly be an issue and battery life will likely see a significant improvement. This will contrast a lot with the approach other platforms like Android take. Better hardware with more resource hungry features resulting in similar battery life.

If Apple keeps the approach combining its iPhone trademark with a designation of its main feature then the name iPhone A4 seams the most logical choice for name.

Further, the number 4 might have been intentionally chosen at it also suggests that this is the 4th model. If that is the case then A4 chip might have been made to for iPad but named to suit better the iPhone.

Defending the iPad

2010-01-30T20:34:00.002+02:00

OK, So the Nerds and Geeks were again disappointed that Apple is no making a gadget worthy of their talent to hack and tweak any product to no good end. Well, wake up! Apple is a consumer company now and has been for some time. They build devices for the average person. But lets get into the details, shall we.

Check out those 10 things the iPad can't do and tell me is anybody serious enough about his work will do those on any netbook and not use a full laptop!

There is the 10 things from CNET which I will go over one by one

1. Video Chat.

Ask yourself how many times have you used video in a chat out of all chats you have made recently. Close to nothing right? And why is that? It's simple. The bandwidth is not there yet to do it anywhere at anytime. People are also a bit touchy when it comes to privacy. Lighting is also not good at all times. Do I need to go on more?

2. Run Flash.

The only 2 good things about flash are its everywhere and that people know how to do stuff on it. However, Flash has much more drawbacks:

it's consumes processing power in a big way draining your batteries quickly
is is not a open standard that everyone can contribute to like HTML 5 or Webkit
it is very unreliable
it is very unsecured
Flash sites are not indexable by google
there are better and open alternatives

Apple is the only company that has taken an active stance against this technology that adds no true value to our internet experience.

3. Not good for hacking as it does not run Windows 7.

Come on! This one ruined your point already

4. Cannot Upload Photos from a camera.

Well, I go you here. There are simple dock adapters with SD card slots already. I guess, you have not paid attention. That too ruined you credentials.

5. Store more than 64GB.

That's flash memory not some hard disk. Its durable and its fast. The iPad is not a laptop to store all you files, and the Netbook's 160GB are also not enough for that too. By the way, Windows 7 takes 10 times more space than the iPhone OS and that says a lot.

6. Play Facebook games.

Are you kidding me. WTF. The App Store has 20,000+ games most of which far better than anything on Facebook.

7. Swapping a battery for a better one.

Seriously dude, you need to actually read the iPad specification before posting stuff like that. I have an iPhone 2G for 2.5 years now and the battery works just fine. The iPad will have a battery live of 5 years that's to the 1000 recharge cycle ability. The iPhone proved that external batteries are much more flexible than replacing your internal one.

8. Instal CD Media.

WTF again. Are 11 million songs from iTunes and 140,000 apps from the App Store are not enough for you? You know you can sync the iPad to your computer to load anything else trough iTunes right?

9. Not good for typing.

5 things:

There is a special dock with full size keyboard with some custom iPhone OS keys.
You can use apple bluеtooth keyboard as well
Last I checked there are a lot of non English typing people out there. The iPhone keyboard can transform to efficiently enter characters in tents of languages. Can a netbook do that? No
Can you type of a netbook without sitting with one or 2 hands? No
Are the netbook keyboard actually full sized keyboard good for serious typing? No

10. Upgrade.

I have yet to meet a regular person who has actually upgraded his netbook or any laptop. By the time you feel to upgrade anything, more often than not people just buy a new device, because the device is obsolete. With old netbooks trying to run Windows 7, this is just the case.

I can still run the latest apps and games on my iPhone if I want even though startup time is a bit slower. The iPad is a big leap in performance and will stay relevant for years to come.

Now for the last and most serious criticism. Lack of listening to Pandora while doing something else. WTF.

For one you need to be in the US. For two you need an active 3G/WiFi connection at all times.Its much more power efficient to just listen to your build in iPod.

The iPad is not a serous productivity machine like a Laptop. It is not meant to be, even though it will be one day, believe me. Multitasking as we know it on the laptop is not a good idea on such a device. If my apps could load instantaneously and remember the state I have exited them, I will be more than happy with the Apple model. And it seams the iPad does just that.

All Apple need to do with 4.0 is allow intelligent memory management based on user habits. The software should learn the most used apps and try to keep them in memory for faster startup.

Lets give the iPad an year to evolve and judge it by its sales, software and capabilities then or we risk swallowing our own medicine as was the case with the iPhone.

Avatar - its all about beauty

2010-01-23T23:25:00.002+02:00

I have to admit, I am never a fan of movies that are pre-hyped and predetermined to be good. Especially if they involve jungle creatures. I guess I mussed be obsessed with the world of product technology these days. After lord of the Rings, I just could not believe I will be impressed by any other battles with arrows and primitively dressing folk.

I obviously never read too much into Avatar, but I also knew that I will go and see it just because someone really has put an enormous effort into a something that I get to enjoy for some 8 bucks.

Once the music and the huge spaceship started rolling I knew I was going to discover something to awe me for a long time. I just literally fell in love with this beautiful planet - Pandora. The sounds and the music of the place were resonating so strong with me that I was often on the verge of crying at the stupidity by which we do not appreciate those moments any more.

"Look at all that chatter" is a classic line that shows how people can just be inhuman when their mind has been tainted by money and power.

After watching the movie for a 3rd time and listening to the soundtrack more than 10 times, i am enchanted with this positive desire to achieve this beauty in my life. The first thing is to get Neytiri battle cry as a ringtone for the telephone number that will belong to my girlfriend. Or just say "I see you" to the people that mean most to me.

Even if you are not a romantic person, there are more than enough reasons to enjoy this film. Its has everything and its has it done right. It has it real. So real, that it affects your view of the world you walk into after you exit the cinema.

Redefining Web Content Delivery

2010-01-05T08:29:00.003+02:00

After reading the exellent article about the Apple Tablet at www.daringfireball.com a lot of peaces of the rumour puzzle came to place in my mind. The Apple tablet is trully going to redefine not just the ebook industry but the personal computer itself. Maybe not initially but eventually. What is interesting is that this project might have been made possible entirely because of the success of the App Store's content delivery ecosystem.

Let's look at the iPod Touch for a sec. While Apple continues to market it as the Funnest iPod ever, in essence it is widely acknowledged as a pocket computer. But the device has hardly changed since its inception more than 2 years ago. What has changed? The App
Store and huge content that came along with it.

Steve Balmer was right when he said that the web was not created for the iPhone. However, that is slowly changing with more and more sites providing a iPhone friedly version or even an web app. However I think that the Microsoft CEO entirely misses the big picture. It's not
just about web, it's content in general that enables a certain product.

With the App Store Apple has redefined content creation and distribution. The App Store is quickly becoming a substitute to the traditional web. Instead of having one brouser trough witch you do all your activities (like Chrome OS will) you have all these little Apps that each does a specific part of the web.

With people consuming the web trough native and web Apps rather than the traditional web brouser ever more, brouser share no longer matters in the same way. What matters is App Store share.

So, general search share is somewhat doomed to become more irrelevant.
In the past I would consult google for stuff such as movie info. Now, I have the fantastic free IMDB application that not only finds what I need trough a better UI but enables me to discover content in a whole new way.

Some people have found that somenof theircompiting needs are done much more efficiently on an iPhone. What's more is that implies that had Apple had a bigger device people might use it instead of their main computer autogather.

Having a dominating position in the App store among mobile phones, Apple next move will be to move verticaly and try to redefine content distribution on a bigger device, aka the tablet

Sent from my iPhone

Thoughts on Apple Tables - Part 3, Marketing

2009-11-27T14:13:00.009+02:00

Thoughts on Apple Tables - Part 3, Marketing

What class will be the new Apple tablet? Is it a big iPod Touch or a multi-touch Macbook? What will be its name?

The first question is partly answered via the choice of operating system. If the tablet runs OS X iPhone, it will be considered a big iPod. If it runs OS X Snow Leopard it will be considered a Multi-touch Macbook.

The same goes for the name. It will be either iSomething or Macsomething. That brings me to the thought that iPhone OS should be rebranded at one point to iOS X, but I guess will be a problem since the same is taken already. Its just iPhone would be will be one of the many devices running that OS.

However, if the Apple tablet features a middles class OS X, then the name is up for grabs.

If Apple plans to redefine the product class similarity as it did with the iPhone, the new device may as well be called an iBook ( a name Apple has already used for a consumer type of notebook before the Macbook). Some people might say, well the Apple Tablet will be much more that a book, why constrain it with its name? Since when did iPhone stands for just a phone these days. It's important to recognize that in the history of the human civilization, books have not always been made from paper. What a book is is determined by the latest technology. Its uses are also far beyond the popular acceptance. There are these folding books that when opened spring 3d like shapes that are great for children or as gifts. I remember, I was hooked to the book games when I was a kid, where the readers decided the course of the story and jumped back and forward in the book. Apple has always tried to redefine or add new meaning to products, rarely to invent whole new metaphors or names.

A pod has a meaning. It's a small rounded object that can store things. The iPod is now an information pod. It stores electronic things. We will always have a need for such a device.

Same with the phone. Its a communication device. The iPhone is also mainly a communication device but of whole another level.

Everybody knows what a book is and just like everybody has pods and phones in the house, they have books. Who has tablets, slates and pads and what does these mean to the ordinary person. The names sound cool but maybe they will be used for other products or just to protect the used choices from similarly cool sounding ones from the competition.

Apple switched to Mac in its laptop line when it switched from Power PC to Intel architecture in 2005. However, ever since WWDC 2008 it dropped Mac from its OS name as OS was now running on iPhone as well on Macs. Back in 1998 it used to put Power in front of its Pro
products and "i" in front of its consumer products. Ever since 2005 the name iBook has been seeking its new product.

So wile iPad and iSlate seam like a natural choices, I think iBook is the logical choice. Imagine! Today, Apple reinvents the book.

Sent from my iPhone

Toughts on Apple Tablet - Part 2, Software

2009-11-27T14:13:00.008+02:00

Toughts on Apple Tablet - Part 2, Software

As I laid out my arguments in part 1, I believe the iPhone OS will form the backbone of the Apple Tablet. What is more is it will likely be able to run the same apps from the iPhone App store.

That does not mean the 10 inch screen will have 480x320 resolution. Rather that apps made with Interface Builder in the iPhone SDK can work with relative resolution independence. Switching from portrait to landscape mode provides the best proof for that. Most apps like games will need a higher res version but that should be a minor development problem.

The biggest paradigm of the interface will be wether Apple will allow more than one app to launch at any one time. Actually, the current problem with the approach Apple has taken with the iPhone is not that background apps are not allowed. Its the speed of app switching and
the fact that most apps do not return to the same position when relaunched. The iPhone 3GS addresses most of the first problem. The tablet hardware will likely eliminate that problem completely. However Apple and the developers need to work harder on making an App relaunch in the same state it closes.

Here is how background apps can be easily enabled. The double click home will leave the current app in the background while simultaneously going to the home screen. The running app will be represented with a blue dot. Apple may also move all apps currently running in the dock, so they are not spread out amongst different home-screens.

An alternative is to use the multi touch trackpad gestures on Macbook Pros. Swiping 4 fingers up will leave the current app running while going to the home screen. Swiping 4 fingers down may launch expose for easy app switching.

I personally think that while 3rd party background operation might be allowed in some way, Apple will never leave the management of that up to the consumer. If it did, the most popular app on the app store would be a background killing app, like its on the android app store.

It will be interesting. Since you can never hold and operate the Tablet with one hand like the iPhone the holding hand or one of its fingers might play an important role in activating certain gestures.

One thing people have missed with the iPhone is that the dock is home to the apps which Apple allows to run in the background. Maybe enabling background operation could be as simple as adding an application to the doc, if there is space that is.

The second question is what will be the default hand held position: portrait or landscape? Most people assume a tablet to be used in landscape along with a pen. There is one small problem for Apple with that approach: the virtual keyboard. The best way to type on a virtual keyboard is with two thumbs. Holding it sideways will require split keyboard or the center keys will be unreachable. The tablet is just way to wide for that. However, holding it in portrait mode might feel just right. Landscape mode might be reserved for those media rich interactions like overflow, movie or a game.

Given that both the iPhone and Apple Table will be used with fingers and feature similarly looking OS, most visual elements will likely remain the same visual size on both devices. So the Apple Tablet will not have 16 icons per home screen plus 4 in the dock but as much as 70
icons per home screen plus 7 in the dock.

Sent from my iPhone

Homeworld FX Kadeshi Tech & Unit Tree

2009-11-23T17:37:00.004+02:00

Ever played the Space RTS game Homeworld? Well, a lot of people thought it was the best game of 1999. The sequel rereased in 2003, while a step up in many ways, forgot to include many of the original units people (like me) were attached to emotionaly trough the epic story line.

Well in the last two years a new great mod has been shaping arounf Homeworld 2, called the homeworld FX and it's made by 9ccN. Unlike other mods, this one is more like the expansion pack Sierra never released. In Homeworld FX, you can play with 5 more races or fractions taken strait out of the single player campaigns of both Homeworld and Homeworld 2.

One of the races is the Kadesh. I am trying to help the team voluntarily of course in the best way I can, to further polish the pretty much completed mod. The composite image was my second idea.

This chart took me 3 weeks to research an assemble and design, and I hope it will be accesible trough the main menu of the game.

Its main feature is the technological tree of the Kadeshi ploted on a timeline. This way players non only get a sence of the relationships between the upgrades and units, but also how fast they can get to them. Each tech element has a red line on top depicting the actual time in seconds based on the red scale on top and bottom of the chart. I have tried to use cropped screenshots of the actual game to make the different elements more familiar.

The second maroj part of this chart are the images and descriptions of the actual units. I have tried to demonstrate the uniqueness of each unit with carefuly selected action screenshots. With the text on the left, I hope I can give a meaningfull tactical unformation about each unit.

While the mod is mostly complete, there were still areas where changes have resulted in some inconsistency in the documentation. I hope trough this chart that everything one needs to know about the Kadeshi becomes crear, without the trial and error I needed to go trough.

If the guys from 9ccN are OK with this effort on my part, I plan to make a chart like that for each of the other 6 races.

If anybody wants a much bigger high res version, let me know you horizontal resolution and I will email you one.

The official page of the mod is here

My Post with the image is here

iPhone pillars of dominance, part 2: A revolutionary Phone

2009-11-15T13:29:00.002+02:00

When the iPhone was introduced by Steve Jobs back in 2007, he
demonstrated a few things no other telephone could do.

On top of the list of iNovations is of course visual voicemail. This
ability to look trough your voicemail as if they were a playlist of
songs was a specific colaboration and joint effort between Apple and
AT&T. Visual voicemail implementation on the iPhone is made easier
because of the large touch screen. Bbut that's not the key.
Because of the overall value of the iPhone to the AT&T, they deemed
economicaly justified to invest in developing of a feature that will be
used by only one of the handsets on it's network. Visual voicemail is
described by many as enough reason not to switch from iPhone to the
Droid or other smarthphone that does not have it.
For any other device to have visual voicemail, it would need to be
either as valuable to the iPhone or to follow in it's footsteps on a
carrier that has allready introduced it.

Back in 2007, Jobs also demonstrated how easy a conference call can
be, almost effortless. This is one feature that is often not used by
other smarthone users just because there is too a steep of a learning curve.

The ability of the iPhone to make a call while doing other activities,
such as sending a mail or browsing the web, is only just now becoming
available on other smartphones. Some like the Droid can only take
advantage of it while in WiFi coverage.

One other thing the iPhone introduced that changed how people use
their phones is contact management. This ability to have all your
contacts with you, easily within reach has recently been surprased to
some extend by rival smarthphones like the Palm Pre or the Motorola
Droid. These handsets now offer greater contact integration from
social network sources and over the air sync. However, seing how Apple
has always delivered new features as an software update, this slight
advantage will not last for long.

A camera equiped phone. There was an interesting comparison resently
of photos takes by the 5 MP camera of the Droid vs the 3 MP camera of
the iPhone. The later photos were crearly supperior in quality and the
iPhone was much quicker in taking the photos. The camera is a very
good example of finely tuned software and hardware by Apple and the
statistics show. The iPhone is #1 camera phone on flickr... by far. The iPhone is again redefining the megapixel myth

Just like the normal camera, the iPhone reinvented how a phone photo
management app should work. While many have copied this specific
experience, the multi-touch controls and responsivness of the iPhone
still give it an edge.

As a phone, nothing is more important that call quality and signal coverage.
Here the iPhone pioneered the ability to be used all over the world.
Only since the N97 has Nokia matched this in a similar hyped device
and other buzz smarthphones like the Palm Pre and the Motorola Droid
are still starting out as region specific models.
While the original iPhone had many complaining about it being not loud
enough, the latest model has brought it up to speed with highest
standarts.

The other realy revolutionary feature the iPhone introduced was the onscreen
virtual keyboard. While some may argue that because virtual keyboards
were there before it is only evolutionary development, but I think reality
proves that to be an understatement. The iPhone keyboard offered from
day one something other software keyboards did not 2 years later.
These are responsiveness and predictive text. The fist was enabled
trough the very sensitive capacitive screen with multi-touch controls,
while the second was a result of some advanced programing algorithms. What other device allows you to press up to 5 on screen characters at a time?

Even tough other have copied the layout of the keys to a large extent,
Apple has expanded it's lead here by enabling advanced multy language
support. This feature took years to introduce fully but now the iPhone
is the only truly international device. This alone sets it apart from
any device with buttons and way ahead of other touchscreen
competitors. The iPhone has really proved that software keyboard can
be a practical sunstitute for a hardware one and even offer many
unique advantages over it.

The iPhone 3GS can also be used by people with disabilities, offering advanced touch to speech, screen zoom and high contrast options across all its apps. These advanced features are enabled trough multitouch and advanced software, an investments no other company can afford to make and offer at no additional cost. The iPhone is probably the only other affordable smarthphone that can do that.

Conclusion:
The iPhone is still a revolutionary Phone. It offers seamless services
integration and unique features such as: visual voicemail, call
multitasking, great camera and photo management apps, advanced
software keyboard, touch to speech, zoom and full iternational support and coverage. These
will take years to come togather in another device. While other
handsets may differentiate themselves with better contact integration
with some cloud services, that features will take Apple only months to
introduce.

The only reason not to consider the iPhone as your next phone is when you live in an area not reliably covered by the carrier offering the device.

Sent from my iPhone

The iPhone pillars of dominance, part 1: Introduction

2009-11-14T11:21:00.003+02:00

When Apple instroduced the iPhone in 2007, it was to be 3 things in 1.
- A revolutionary phone,

- a widescreen iPod with touch controls and

- a breaktrough Internet comunicator.

In time

- the ease of use a polish of the iPhone software

became an virtue in itself.

Since then trough software updates, new hardware, consistency and
support of it's developers and accesory makers, the iPhone can add several more fundamental pillars to its supporting foundation. These are:
- pocket computer.

- digital tool

- game console

- digital instrument

- pocket ebook reader

- accessory platform

- very profitable device for Apple

- profitable software model for Developers

- A new successful new bussiness model for Carriers

- worldwide iconic brand.

There are other things that come to my mind from time to time and I will update this list accordingly

If there is ever to be an iPhone killer, a device will have to match
and exeed the Apple phone in every one of those areas or explore new ones. As potential
iPhone killers have come and gone, the iPhone has consistently
improved in customer and bussiness ratings and incresed it's market
share. Clearly no one knows how even to define an iPhone killer as no one has been so far successful at predicting one.

In the those series of posts, I will look into each of the iPhone
pillars of dominance. How have potential competitors tried to match
and exceed it and what it really takes.

Sent from my iPhone

Thoughts on the 4 Gen iPhone.

2009-11-13T21:39:00.003+02:00

Two things are clear. Apple designs world producs. Producs that should be used all ever the world.

Second. 3G networks have still a long way to go to cover the majority of their potential users. What is more, there are two widely used and incompatible standarts. A single 4G widely available standart is at least 2 years away to gustify an iPhone called the iPhone 4G.

Hence the iPhone 4G will probably be the 5th gen iPhone.

So the 4gen iPhone would have the stop gap feature. It would be usable on bothe current 3G standarts: the WCDMA (UMTS) and the CDMA. In other worlds it work on the US Verizon network and that os some countires in Asia. Only the will the iPhone finaly be a true world phone.

How will the 4th gen iPhone look different. In short: it won't. It will look exacly the same. Why? Because of the huge accesory ecosystem build around the current 3G and 3GS models which are basicaly the same. There is no reason why the iPhone cases and docks market should not work the same as the app store in the sence of ever growing platform for which you can sell you accesory. Having millions of potential devices to sell is one thing, having tens of milions is quite another and soon apple will pass the 100 millionth iPhone platform mark. That will motivate accesory makers to make a trully spectacular accessory products in the same league as the recent iPot Touch mobile payment case Apple introduced in its retail stores. Clearly behind that was not just Apple but the Incase company which months ago instroduced the Incase Power Clider case.

Sent from my iPhone

Thoughts on the Apple Tablet - Part 3, Marketing

2009-08-05T01:33:00.003+03:00

What class will be the new Apple tablet? Is it a big iPod Touch or a multi-touch Macbook? What will be its name?
The first question is partly answered via the choice of operating system. If the tablet runs OS X iPhone, it will be considered a big iPod. If it runs OS X Snow Leopard it will be considered a Multi-touch Macbook.
The same goes for the name. It will be either iPod Pro or Macbook Touch.
However, if the Apple tablet features a middles class OS X, then the name is up for grabs.
It still depends on how revolutionary is the new software. If it resembles a Macbook, it can just be called Macpad.
However, if Apple plans to redefine the product class similarity as it did with the iPhone, the new device may as well be called an iBook ( a name Apple has already used for a consumer type of notebook before the Macbook)
Apple switched to Mac in its laptop line when it switched from Power PC to Intel architecture in 2005. However, ever since WWDC 2008 it dropped Mac from its OS name as OS was now running on iPhone as well on Macs. Back in 1998 it used to put Power in front of its Pro products and "i" in front of its consumer products. Ever since 2005 the name iBook has been seeking its new product.
So the logical choices are:iPod ProMacbook TouchiPad (entry level tablet)Macpad (bigger tablet)iBook
If Apple introduces several classes of Tablet products and especially an upper class in the $1000 range, it may as well drop the current Macbook from its product line up as it is Pro in software but consumer in hardware and it is an old design.

Toughts on Apple Tablet - Part 2, Software

2009-08-05T01:07:00.001+03:00

As I laid out my arguments in part 1, I believe the iPhone OS will form the backbone of the Apple Tablet. What is more is it will likely be able to run the same apps from the iPhone App store.

The biggest paradigm of the interface will be wether Apple will allow more than one app to launch at any one time. Actually, the current problem with the approach Apple has taken with the iPhone is not that background apps are not allowed. Its the speed of app switching and the fact that most apps do not return to the same position when relaunched. The iPhone 3GS addresses most of the first problem. The tablet hardware will likely eliminate that problem completely. However apple and the developers need to work harder on making an App relaunch in the same state it closes.

The second question is what will be the default hand held position: portrait or landscape? Most people assume a tablet to be used in landscape along with a pen. There is one small problem for Apple with that approach: the virtual keyboard. The best way to type on a virtual keyboard is with two thumbs. Holding it sideways will make some buttons unreachable. The tablet is just way to wide for that. However, holding it in portrait mode might feel just right.

Given that both the iPhone and Apple Table will be used with fingers and feature similarly looking OS, most visual elements will likely remain the same size on both devices. So the Apple Tablet will not have 16 icons per home scree plus 4 in the dock but as much as 70 icons per home screen plus 7 in the dock.

Again - a short poem (kind of nice)

2009-08-04T19:52:00.001+03:00

Again
by lantinian

Is it fear or is my soul in pain,
have my feelings been in vain,
Again

Have I lost you due to distance,
or did the fate provided the assistance,
Again

All I know is that I terribly miss you,
and all I need now is to kiss you,
Again.

You have got inside my heart
and I can't imagine breaking it appart,
Again.

I wish we have more nights together,
I wish to feel your need of me forever,
Again.

I want to get back to you today,
But fate has decided for another day
Again

So when you read this in the morning, Know this,
My love for you is what keeps me going
Once again

Sent from my iPhone

Thoughts on the Apple Tablet - Part 1 Hardware

2009-08-04T19:49:00.002+03:00

The ability to predict the future via educated guess based analisys
can be a satisfying experience especially if it concerns a popular
topic.
The whole industry expects Apple to unveil a tablet like device to
compete with the netbook class devices.

Expected Hardware features.
- various reports suggest the use of a 10 inch touch screen. This
decision will greatly improve the real estate and productivity of its
only other touch screen platform.
- allumuminium unibody enclosure. This is a no brainer. The Apple
tablet will very likely look like a thicker but smaller makbook screen
- there will likely be no moving parts such as stands ot rotating
cameras or build in pen
- VGA isight camera is a sure guess but the device will likely not
include a backward facing camera.
The performance components will greatly depend on the choice of
operating system used. Given the huge popularity of its iPhone OS, I
fully expect the tablet to feature a custom version of OS X based on
the iPhone rather than the full featured Snow Leopard. As usefull a
tablet computer is it cannot utilise many of the powerfull software
bundled with Snow Leopard. On the other hand, many iPhone programs
will blossom if given a bigger screen and more powerfull hardware. The
size and the thickness of the Tablet will not allow for even a Macbook
Air air processor, ram and VGA to be installed. On the other hand, the
iPhone OS will fly even with backgroung Apps on even the most basic
notbook hardware. Apple has a chance to deliver a very unique user
experience at a very low hardware cost and i Think they will take it.
The big contributors to the tablet cost will not be the processor and
RAM but the 10" touch screen and the develepment of a custom Tablet
OS. As there is a hardware device gap between the iPhone and the
Macbook, there is a software gap between the iPhone OS and the OS X
Snow Leopard.
- so we are looking at a Sub 1.6GHz processor and an ION based
platform as the top specs of the device.
- again comparing the ports to the Macbook Air, we will likely see a
1xUSB and a headphone jack. No Mini Display port will be present as
this is not a desk operated device. Some might expect even a SD card
slot but Apple has reserved those for its top Pro products.
- It will be interesting to see what type of charging port the device
will use. It cannot be a macsafe power connector as the device will
likely be too thin for that. The most obvious choice is an iPod
connector which will also provice a syncing solution. The only issue
with the iPod connector might be its charging capability. An apple
Table will have a signigicantly bigger battery than an iPod Touch even
not as large as a Macbook. Apple does not have currently a single
solution to meed those requirements.
- a new for any Apple product might be the integration of a 3G antena
supported by one of the wireless carriers, most probably Verizon.
Since Verizon operate a different 3G network than most other
operators, the Apple tablet might be the first Apple device to support
bothe GSM and CDMA networks. Those capabilities however go strongly
against a alluminium unibody as it will impart reception. We may see
inovation in the matterial used for the unibody or the unibody
enclosure may have openi gs for its anthenaes similar to the one on
the iPod Touch.
- as far as hardware buttons are concerned we may see a configuration
like on the iPod Touch. Home button along with power button and volume
controls.

One thing is sure. The Apple table will likely comand a very hight
gross margin given its simple componets list but advanced feature
trough another breaktrough in software.

Part two will look into the basic software concepts likely to be uses
in the device.

Sent from my iPhone

GPS on the 3rd Gen iPod Touch

2009-08-04T19:49:00.001+03:00

There is mounting indirect evidence that the 3rd Gen iPod Touch will
have a GPS chip inside in addition to other more widely expected
improvements.

Before we discuss why it will have lets look into why the 1rst and
second gen iPhones did not have.

The 1st gen iPod Touch was a barebone test platform for Apple to gauge
interest into its touch Interface. It was marketed as a iPod with
internet capabilities. None of its original aps had a need of a GPS.
Google Maps for example could not download maps outside of WiFi
coverage and so fiding your location regardless of internet conection
was not feasible.

While the 2nd gen iPod Touch did allow 3rd party Apps that can make
good use of GPS, accurate positioning was again not yet feasible
outside of Internet coverage and of little use within it.
The most impprtant category of Apps that needed location data outside
of WiFi coverage was Turn by Turn and Apple did not allow those yet.

Here is what was on the table by the time the design of the third gen
iPpd Touch was finalised.
- Apple had 1 year experience running the App Store and had a good
grasp of the need of accurate location data in Apps.
- Apple had 1 year of experience using the iPhone 3G GPS chip to brimg
down cost and optimise power consumption
- Apple was shipping the 3.0 software that allowed developers to write
turn by turn apps
- Apple introduced Places feature in iPhoto '09 which made use of
location data inside photos.
- GPS equiped camera device is the best option for Pictures with
accurate location data.
- Apple has reportedly ordered camera chips for its new iPod Touch
identical to the ones used on the iPhone 3GS.
- The iPod Touc had found a target audience different from the one
buing the iPhone and so making shure the the iPhone OS platform runs
on devices with maximum compatibility is a top priority for Apple.

So the 3rd Gen iPod Touch will not only feature the faster hardware of
the iPhone 3GS but likely also the Magnetometer and GPS chip.

Sent from my iPhone

Thoughts on the iPhone

2009-04-01T14:06:00.000+03:00

During its first year and a half of delong the iPhone, Apple has
discovered 2 very distinct iPhone markets.
One is the high end Market found in USA, Europe, Japan. It is
characteristd by the need of the hardware features. The other market
is in places where 3G is not so widespread and where the original
iPhone has still more appeal because of it's much lower price.

When most people first fought about Apple making a less expensive
iPhone, the iPod analogy came along. The new iPhone had to be smaller,
they said. This approach however does not go well with preserving the
platform. The thousands application allready created had to look the
same on any member of the iPhone platform family. When apple
introduced the iPod Touch, this became clear.
The first iPod touch was an experiment of a kind. It relied
exclusively of multy touch for it's success and apple diligerately
kept a feature gap between it and the iPhone.
The second iteration of the iPhone and iPod touch kept that feature
gap while increasing the features of each device.

The next iPhone model will likely add a few more hardware improvement
bringing it to a Pro category of smartphones. This will undoubthly
satisfy the first market but this model will be even more out of reach
for the second market. Apple needs to intoduce again a phone device
like the original iPhone to satisfy the huge demand for its thausands
of applecarions.

To those thinking about the iPhone Nano, let me describe the
fundamentals of the iPhone platform.
- 3.5" display with millions of colours
- Capacitive Multytouch
- Wireless conection (WiFi and/or GSM)
- ARM processor
- Hardware accelerated OpenGL graphics
- Accelerometer
- Blutooth 2.0
- Integrated speaker,
- 3.5 milimeter headphone jack
- 30 pin iPod connector
- min of 5 hours of Video

These specification describe a device that will pehaps never be
significantly smaller than a second gen iPod Touch.

Apple may decide to go with larger multy touch display than 3.5"
eventually but it will not introduce a smaller one.

By all report, Apple plans to inteuduce two new iPhones this summer.
While everybody is busy trying to figure out how many more things the
new iPhone Pro will have, I will focus on the iPhone Lite.

While Apple is selling iPhones in many countries, I still find people
who would like to have a no contract first gen iPhone or more
precisely, an iPhone for less than $500. With the current state of the
US economy apple needs to place more emphasys on international sales
and on satisfying the world demand for it's platform. The original
iPhone, even the 4GB model while low on features is an absolute hit
right now because of it's app store.

I hope the new iPhone lite has the exact same hardware specifications
as the original iPhone. The difference will be the much lower price
and...

With the iPhone 3G apple has added global experience to it's iPhone.
It has learned the network settings of many carriers and has added
great multylanguage support. Arabic is still comming but it will be
there before June. Once this is done, Apple can start selling iPhones
completely unlocked trough it's Apple stores to be used anywhere in
the world. Those iPhones will not support 3G, however. This can be
done even in the US. As the original iPhone contracts start expiring
in July, AT&T will have to legaly unlock the devices anyway and people
will be free to legaly use the on the T-Mobile network. Same thing
will happen in Europe later in this year. There will be a legal market
for low cost unlocked iPhones starting on July 1st. Apple's only
choice is to participate in that market.

The new iPhone Pro will have such new features as to justify people
signing contract to get it. It will likely have also lower acuasition
cost.

But the big news this summer will be a fully unlocked iPhone that
anyone can buy from an Apple store and use it anywhere in the world.
The price will be between the 16GB iPod Touch and the no contract 8GB
iPhone 3G. In other words $299<iPhone 3.1<$599. Probably $399.

What will be the difference between it and the original iPhone.
- fully plastic back
- speakers and mic like on the iPhone 3G
- better battery life
- a bit thinner and wider
- flush headphone jack
- GPS (although it may not be aGPS)

It is very possible that after June Apple may develop a system that
will discriminate an iPhone still in contract from those that are not.
Those still in contract will continue to receive software updates for
free. However, the next major update likely 3.1 will be paid for those
whose contracts have ended.

It will be interesting to see whether Apple will present an option for
all those who bought original iPhones but never signed a contract to
legaly unlock them.

One thing is for sure, the new iPhones will start selling well before
the iPhone software 3.0 becomes available for the 1st and 2gen
iPhones. Even the last two might have a different date for the new
software.

One piece of guessing I would like to make.
iPhone 2.1 is the iPhone Pro
IPhone 3.1 is the new iPhone Classic
The reason being the resession kicked in plans for Apple to introduce
a lower cost model. Also the 3.1 appeared much later but will likely
be introduced at the same time. This implyes a known configuration
that needs less testing.

Sent from my iPhone

Babylon 5/Crusade Episodes, Movies Watch Order

2009-02-24T16:40:00.001+02:00

Season 1

1x00: The Gathering
1x01: Midnight on the Firing Line
1x02: Soul Hunter
1x03: Born to the Purple
1x04: Infection
1x05: The Parliament of Dreams
1x06: Mind War
1x07: The War Prayer
1x08: And the Sky Full of Stars
1x09: Deathwalker
1x10: Believers
1x11: Survivors
1x12: By Any Means Necessary
1x13: Signs and Portents
1x15: Grail
1x16: Eyes
1x18: A Voice in the Wilderness (1)
1x19: A Voice in the Wilderness (2)
1x20: Babylon Squared
1x21: The Quality of Mercy
1x14: TKO
1x17: Legacies
1x22: Chrysalis

Season 2

2x01: Points of Departure
2x02: Revelations
2x03: The Geometry of Shadows
2x04: A Distant Star
2x05: The Long Dark
2x06: Spider in the Web
2x08: A Race Through Dark Places
2x07: Soul Mates
2x09: The Coming of Shadows
2x10: GROPOS
2x11: All Alone in the Night
2x12: Acts of Sacrifice
2x13: Hunter, Prey
2x14: There All the Honor Lies
2x15: And Now for a Word
2x17: Knives
2x16: In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum
2x18: Confessions and Lamentations
2x19: Divided Loyalties
2x20: The Long Twilight Struggle
2x21: Comes the Inquisitor
2x22: The Fall of Night

Season 3

3x01: Matters of Honor
3x02: Convictions
3x03: A Day in the Strife
3x04: Passing Through Gethsemane
3x05: Voices of Authority
3x06: Dust to Dust
3x07: Exogenesis
3x08: Messages from Earth (1)
3x09: Point of No Return (2)
3x10: Severed Dreams (3)
3x11: Ceremonies of Light and Dark
3x13: A Late Delivery from Avalon
3x12: Sic Transit Vir
3x14: Ship of Tears
3x15: Interludes and Examinations
3x18: Walkabout
3x16: War Without End (1)
3x17: War Without End (2)
3x19: Grey 17 Is Missing
3x20: And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place
3x21: Shadow Dancing
3x22: Z'ha'dum

Season 4

4x01: The Hour of the Wolf
4x02: What Ever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?
4x03: The Summoning
4x04: Falling Towards Apotheosis
4x05: The Long Night
4x06: Into the Fire
4x07: Epiphanies
4x08: The Illusion of Truth
Movie: Thirdspace
4x09: Atonement
Movie: In the Beginning
4x10: Racing Mars
4x11: Lines of Communication
4x12: Conflicts of Interest
4x13: Rumors, Bargains and Lies
4x14: Moments of Transition
4x15: No Surrender, No Retreat
4x16: Exercise of Vital Powers
4x17: The Face of the Enemy
4x18: Intersections in Real Time
4x19: Between the Darkness and the Light
4x20: Endgame
4x21: Rising Star

Season 5

5x01: No Compromises
5x02: The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari
5x03: The Paragon of Animals
5x04: A View from the Gallery
5x05: Learning Curve
5x06: Strange Relations
5x07: Secrets of the Soul
5x09: In the Kingdom of the Blind
5x10: A Tragedy of Telepaths
5x11: Phoenix Rising
5x12: The Ragged Edge
5x08: Day of the Dead
5x13: The Corps Is Mother, the Corps Is Father
5x14: Meditations on the Abyss
5x15: Darkness Ascending
5x16: And All My Dreams Torn Asunder
5x17: Movements of Fire and Shadow (1)
5x18: The Fall of Centauri Prime (2)
5x19: The Wheel of Fire
5x20: Objects in Motion
5x21: Objects at Rest
Movie: River of Souls
Movie: The Legend of the Rangers
Movie: A Call to Arms

Crusade

Crusade 1x09: Racing the Night
Crusade 1x11: The Needs of Earth
Crusade 1x10: The Memory of War
Crusade 1x02: The Long Road
Crusade 1x12: Visitors from Down the Street
Crusade 1x03: The Well of Forever
Crusade 1x13: Each Night I Dream of Home
Crusade 1x05: Patterns of the Soul
Crusade 1x04: The Path of Sorrows
Crusade 1x06: Ruling from the Tomb
Crusade 1x07: The Rules of the Game
Crusade 1x01: War Zone
Crusade 1x08: Appearances and Other Deceits

The rest

6x01: The Lost Tales; Voices in the Dark
5x22: Sleeping in Light
4x22: The Deconstruction of Falling Stars

The iPhone needs to learn from Palm Pre

2009-01-11T00:39:00.000+02:00

The recent unveiling of the Palm Pre showed the smarthphone world 1
thing.
There is a lot more to be desired from advanced devices like the
iPhone when it comes to software integration.

Despite all claimed by Apple to be ears ahead in mobile os, Palm have
managed to be bold and leap ahead and reuse our expectations about
what a smartphone is.

In my mind the iPhone as a concept is still way ahead. Having a
virtual keyboard makes it a trully global device.
What Apple needs to do is get out of the App Store hype and start
integrating the best service there into the stock iPhone Apps.
I do not need 2 SMS and 2 IM Apps on my iPhone. I need 1, just like on
the Palm Pre.
I do not like to have a separate application with sounds and brand
waves. I want this integrated in my iPod so I can mix it with any song
and do other stuff.

Apple is marketing the iphone as having over 10,000 Apps. What you
find out later is that there are often 10 Apps for every thing you
want to do. Most of the time the best features are spread between
several of them, forcing you to install several weather apps, several
messenger apps and so on. If Apple had allowed third party app to run
in the background, this might have not been a problem, but without
that it is.

Without the type of integration and management of multiple services
demonstrated by the Palm Pre, the iPhone is a chaos of app however
good some of them are.

I understand Apple motives. They have computers to sell after all.
They are trying to make the iPhone a satellite product to the Mac, but
the users do not want that. I hope Apple breaks the wall it set upon
itself and unleash the full potential of the iPhone soon or they will
loose momentum.

After all, the iPhone is the hardware product with the highest
percentage revenue, yet the lowest consumer starting cost. With the
economy situation limiting consumer spending, Apple needs to focus all
it effort behind this revolutionary product and try to stop holding
its potential back.

Apple needs to set the iPhone as an all in one device, that does not
need a computer, just like the Palm Pre.

How can that be achieved.

Learn for the Palm Pre.

Make every stock app integrate with the service each user wants. For
example. I would like to chose where does the weather app get its
information from. Allow customization just like in the iPod. Make a
the iChat app that allows SMS+IM at the same place.

The iPhone has multy touch like no other device has, yet its used are
limited to a few places. Apple needs to enable multy touch gesture
throughout the OS. The new gestures for Multy Touch trackpads for
Macbooks age a great start.
I would like to use 2 or 3 fingers to bring up the keyboard for
instant search at anytime while on the home screen, like spotlight. I
would like to see expose or spaces like transition between several
apps I am using at the moment.

I can't wait so see what Apple plans for its next iPhone OS due
perhaps in the summer.

The new Mac Mini or the wonder iBox

2009-01-06T17:41:00.001+02:00

The Apple Mini will be making a comeback soon. Apple will have an
opprtunity to make a superpopular product by evolutionary merging
three separate but similar devices into one. Apple may decide to
replace it's popular Mac Mini, it's I inovative Time Capsule and the
unreleased potential of it's Apple TV into One single product.
The New Mac Mini.

What is the Mac Mini?
It's a general purpose computer with everything needed build in but
the display, keyboard and mouse. It's also 8x8x6 inch in size. And it
has 802.11n. Rumour has it that now it may be possible to replace the
opticle drive with a second hard disk.
599$

What is Time Capsule?
It's essentially a Airport Extreme Base Station with a Server Grade
Hard drive build into it. In essence a Max Mini allready had all the
components to be a Time Capsule but not the software.
299$

What is an Apple TV?
It's similar to a Time Capsule in that there is 802.11n and a hard-
drive inside it. It also has a special circuitry and ports to allow it
to transmit HD movies to a TV.
229$

If Apple decided to merge these three products, which is quite doable
it will have a very affordable solution for the following needs:
- a powerful BYDKM computer
- an airport extreme base station
- a wireless backup RAID1
- a Wireless Media Center/Server
- an Apple TV

We will see in a few hours, what's up.

Sent from my iPhone

F-22 Supercruise combat radius

2009-01-03T03:49:00.002+02:00

Ok, the link at the end of this post seams to give some good numbers
for the F119 engines.
I would like to apply some common sence maths here to get the max pure
supercruise radius of the F-22. If anyone has better data and/or math
skills, please feel free to enlighten me.

So I accept the trust levels of the F119 at full milittary power to be
2x0.8 lb of fuel per pound of trust per hour. That is 100% trust
without afterburner or 22x6,000 lb of trust. At that trust we expect
the F-22 to fly at max of Mach 1,82 at 40,000+ ft.

But supercruise speed probably means flying at Mach 1,5. That speed
needs about 18% less trust and the engines SFC is 18% from max dry.
So that's about 2x21,540 lb trust, at 2x0,664 SFC to fly at Mach 1,5

If the F-22 used 20% of it's fuel to take off, accelerate to Mach 1,5,
decelerate back and land, we are left with 14,400 lb of fuel left to
spend for supercruise.

0,664 pounds of fuel per pounds of trust per hour, at 2x21,540 lb of
trust from 14,400 lb of available fuel will allow the two Raptor
engines to run for just over 30 minutes total.

Mach 1,5 at 40,000 ft translates in about 1,600 km/h. 30 min dash at
that speed will give us a range of 800 km. Add 100 more to get to Mach
1,5 from take of and 100 back needed to land and we have a max Mach
1,5 supercruise combat radius of 500km which is about 270nm.

May not sound like much but how good will the F-15C do in the same
circumstances?

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-11567.html

Sent from my iPhone

Death of the iPhone Nano, long live the The iPhone.

2008-12-06T00:07:00.001+02:00

When Apple was selling the first generation iPhone for $499, most
people were convinced Apple was going to introduce a cheaper and
scalled down version of the iPhone so it can expand in all price
ranges. Befere the end of this year, Apple will likely prove them very
wrong.

The iPhone concept has never been only about inovation into the
device. It has been about giving the people the best device at the
best price.

Apple designed to make a smartphone that anyone can use. That also
meant that everyone should be able to afford it.
The typical smartphone devices made by Nokia for example are little
computers that are complex to operate and could be isefull to a very
small group of tech educated people. These devices are sold unlocked
for huge prices in much fewer numbers than normal phones. This is the
only way to that can be profitable.

What the pundits did not realize it that the iPhone was so
revolutionary that it can be used not only from every one but can also
work with every business model . It's atractiveness was so big.

The first year of it's life, Apple kept the price high to benefit from
it's creation, to irron out the software and to bring down the cost of
the components.
Durring this first year, Apple could not benefit from the iPhone if it
had sold it at low prices. It would have hurt itself more that it
would have gained. The iPhone software could not do so many things.
People would have been frustrated.

Now there is the App store and Apple had an added bonus from the sale
or more phones. Every new iPhone is likely to buy Apps and Apple gets
30% from those. This sum could be even more than the monthly share
they get from the wireeless carrier. Remener. Apple was getting a
persentage from the customers monthly bill. With the iPhone 3G, Apple
got a new agreement in which the carrier paid the full unsubsidized
price when the phone was sold to the customer. Essentially Apple is
now selling unlocked phones to exclusive carriers around the world.
The carriers in return deside the subsidy amount.

During the last few months however Apple has found the iPhone to be a
treasure chest trough the super sucessfull App store. What is
interesting about the iPhone apps is how much band they give for
megabite. The band is certainly in order of magnitude grated than the
movies apple cells trough iTunes.

A movie on iTunes costs $5-$10 and takes more than 700MB in space.
Apple gets just a dollar for every movie they cell. An iPhone App cost
on average $3 and takes 2-3 MB space. However Apple gets a full
dollar out of it. Now do the math which is more profitable data per
megabyte. What is more, you can install almost 150 Applications on the
iPhone and fit them in less than 1GB.

The iPhone now trough the Apps store is something else. The Value is
the App Store app and the iPod App cannot be compared. People needed
large capacities because of the size of their music colection and
movies. But now thanks to some apps, you can listen music for free and
even watch video for free, and I do not mean YouTube.

So, the 4GB capacity, Apple decided to drop is relevant again. Apple
has now the chance to build an iPhone 3G with 4GB of memory at much
lower prices than a year ago. And people will not care about the size
any more.
Because of the App store, flash storage has lost much of its relevance.

Even Apple has helped in this. It has made possible for people to
download podcasts wirelessly.

So, the rumors are now that Apple, AT&T and Wallmart will be selling
an 4GB iPhone 3G for $99 before the year is out.

IPhone 3G at $199 has allready claimed the #1 spot as the best selling
mobile phone in the US. What will the the result be if it sells for $99?
The iPhone sold 4 times as much by lowering the price by half the last
time.
With the iPhone price being slashed by half again and sellIng
locations expanding greatly, Apple can easily cell 8 times as much
iPhone's it sold for the same period last year.

Apple sold 1,6 million iPhone's during Q1 in 2008, so in Q1 2009,
Apple can sell as many as 13 million iPhones.

Again, this is only possible because Apple has made a device that
stays relevant with years and can be sold with long term contracts.
Apple competitors will simply be be uable to offer better value
products untill they have developed an OS and a device that can
chalange the iPhon as a platform, not as a device that beets the
iPhone by specifications.

Sent from my iPhone

Rebirth of the Apple from 1984

2008-10-05T13:01:00.000+03:00

Amids the sighns of a troubled economy comes the promise of a great
shift in market power between the different computer companies.
Whithin a year or two, the marketing strategy of the vast magority of
PC makers will be chalenged by one company that is continuing on it's
quest to reclaim the dominant position it held in the 80s. That is
Apple.

While the Mac product line does show a steady increase twice that of
the overal industry, a new but rapidly expanding foundation of the
company is poised to greatly accelerate that increase.

The iPhone has been a technological and a cultural revolution. It has
brought Apple to the front page of technology for almost 2 years now.
It's initial effect on the Mac product line was that of a hallo:
easing awarreness and increasing sales without significant efforts on
the part of Apple to offer something new in it's computers.

With the notable exeption of the Macbook Air the whole Apple product
line is due for a Major overhaul, having ratained it's basic design
for many years now. Least of those is the iMac, however that is the
area where competitors have caught most in recent years.

The second effect of the iPhone is that on Apple itself. The Macbook
Air is a sign of things to come with it's multy touch trackpad. But
it's not the feature list that will be the biggest change in the new
Macs due out on October 14th. It's the production value, the design
and cost of distribution.

Apple originally tried to cell the iPhone along it's traditional
philosophy. Bacauses it was so far ahead of the competition, it had
time to try different marketing models way before the competition had
a chance to respond. Initially Apple tried to cell the iPhone as a
premium product but quickly realized that containing the device was a
result of their own conservative projection of it's appeal. While
Apple may get a bit less profit by dramatically lowering the price,
the effects of mass production and wide availability were even more
beneficial. The more people have iPhobes the more will eventually buy
Macs as well.

Neverthess even at the midrange price of $400 the quick drawn up of
the first generation iPhone months in advance of the second model put
a lot of cash in Apple's hands.

Recent study of Mac sales has indicated that for every 3 dolars
consumers spend on laptops in the US, 1 goes to Apple despite the fact
that is hold only 10% of that market.

The flow of cash will soon enable Apple to get another edge over it's
competitors.

Apple has learned from the iPhone that it can both prosper and cell a
lot by having products that do not offer the latest in technology but
the best integration and user experience even if it comes at the
expence of not offering a product with the top specs.

The iPhone has neither the highest res screen, nor the best camera or
the widest range of conectivity options. What it has is an industrial
design centered around the best user experience while using yesterdays
components. Very few of the iPhone technologies are cutting edge. The
cutting edge is their integration, the software behind. And software
does not have a hardware cost only a labour one. So, the iPhone is
maybe the first mass hardware product where due to the software a
copany is so Able to cell a hardware with significant sales margin.

It is very likely that Apple will apply the same to the new Macs. The
Macbook Air is a product that can greatly benefit from that. There
isn't anything extraordinary about it's performance. It's all about
the functionality of the thin form factor coupled with high end
wireless capability. It may be possible for Apple to greatly enhance
it's capabilities trough software while at the same time dramaticaly
lowering the price of the hardware.

This is the crown jewell of the Apple strategy. Being able to produce
state of the art designs at low cost and high production rates. It is
very likely this is what Apple has been investing in for the past 2
years and the Macbook Air was just a test example of the kind of
production precision and design Apple will be able to offer in the
near future for the rest of it's product lineup.

This new hypptetical high tech production facility in the US is
nothing new for Apple. In fact Steve Jobs has seen two of those
allready.
The first one was in 1984 with the Macintosh. It was eabling Able to
produce if I can recall directly up to 6 million Macs a year. Back
then Jobs lost to CEO John Skully and Apple missed the oportonity to
cell a lot of units due to the high pricetag.

In the early 90s Jobs had managed to create a high tech facility for
producing it's Next computers but just lacked the Marketing power to
fight with Apple and Microsoft.

Now, however Apple guided by Jobs has played all it's cards perfectly.
Not only can it use it music and portable bussiness as a hallo for
it's Mac line up and vice versa but it may be able to benefit from the
likely next president's policy.
If Barack Obama is elected president, which I pray he is, corporations
now benefiting from exporting Jobs oversees will see significant tax
increases. At the same time companies having production facilities
here will have less of a tax burden and I believe no other than Apple
is better position to take advance of this .

The other concept Apple can borrow from the iPhone is the Apple way of
doing things that no one else has. Instead of offering pure
performance stats, Apple can inovate by creating a custom product that
delivers a specific experience based entirely on human needs rather
than the needs of corporations.

As said the iPhone did not become the leader of the Market by juping
in front of everyone. Rather, After years of research Apple was
convinsed that the success lies by making a sharp turn and following
another road.
It took over an year for the compatitors to aknoledge that Apple was
right and try to follow but now theyare traling behind.

If Apple finds a simillar way to sharply distinguish it's product it
can be not only the leader of inovation but in computer market share
as is ever more the case with the iPhone.

I believe Apple has found the recipy. It will be a combination of
several factors.
Among the are:
- New production techniques offering seamless Aluminium cases for
stunning design
- Custom made chipsets by NVidia, Intel and Apple themselves offering
dramatically increased performance trough integration and software.
- Expansion of the Multi Touch Technologies in Macs
- Mac OS 10.6 Show Leopard with Multi Processing core support.
- Low production costs and decreased sales Margins
- Very fast increasing chain of resellers worldwide.

All those things will Atribute to ever greater record sales of Macs
among consumers and businesses alike and Apple capturing the N1 spot
in revenue from hardware sales within a year or two.

Sent from my iPhone

The End of the Mac Mini and the Brick

2008-09-30T17:15:00.000+03:00

Apple produced the Mac Mini as a low cost Mac to appeal to those who
want Mac but do not want to pay a lot for it.
It was supposed to be for the Mac Pro, what iPod Mini was for the iPod
Clasic.

It didn't work because the most obvious strenght of the Mac Mini was
not on the shortlist of any person buying a computer for $600.

Mac Mini, was not just smaller than your average computer box. It was
1/10 the size of those boxes. This made it ideal for a media hub
device. A computer without c mo itor, which is always on and users can
stream content from it from anywhere in the world.

It was also ideal for a remote printing machine and for remote disk
access as used by the Macbook Air.

In that role it's entire graphical user interface was unnesessary. In
fact it's processor was and overkill and Apple upated it once just so
it can reduce the price of the same component across it's other
products.

Mac Mini can be effectively used in the role of the Time capsule but
it offers much lower capabilities as much higher price.

Apple pioneered wirelless technologies, wirelless printing, music
steaming and now remote software instalation.

It is time for Apple to design a product solely optimistd for the
purpose of being a data hub. Not only will it back up data like the
Time Capsule but also stream music, moviesnand pictures.

There is anoter product that does some of that allready. It's called
Apple TV. It has also been underperforming despite huge marketing
efforts and software updates

Apple may conveniantely combine all these 3 hubs of data into one
product that will have the following

- Up to 1TB of space for wireless back up or file it can stream
- 802.11n Airport Extreme Base station
- Apple TV
- Integrated Blue Ray drive that can read and write CDs, DVDs and Blue
Ray Discs
- Wireless Printing and Software instalation and disc Burning

Such device will not need to Run Mac OS
Unless it also has a the Multi touch display of the iPhone for some
user interaction but it could be just as easily controled with an iPod
Touch, which could be sold along with it at a discount

Apple could
I troduce some inocative app for the iPhone to control this media
monster.

It will be an all aluminum design with the Apple Logo on top. I hope
it light ip like the ones on the Macbooks

This could well be the rumored device going by the codename of Brick
that we may see on October 14th

So is the iHUB comming? I hope so for it will be the fulfilment of
what Steve Jobs has been talking about since Macworld 2000.

Sent from my iPhone

Apple needs to sell Unlocked iPhones NOW!

2008-09-29T19:31:00.000+03:00

I would agree with Apple that a subsidezed iPhone coupled with a great
service providesa better end user experiece.
However, Apple cannot deliver that everywhere and as a consequence a
lot of people in a lot of countries are getting their iPhones trough a
tough process. They pay a lot of money to resselers and go trough a
hours long hacking process to setup their iPhone for use in their own
country.

Wouldn't it make sence if you could get a fully setup and unlocked
iPhone from Apple at those same prices. Apple will get more cash in
markets where it hasn't a partner and the end users will get a chance
to legitemaly use their iPhones.

Fortunately, there may be a light in the tunnell.
Apple has started selling completely unlocked iPhone3Gs in Honk Kong
for $695 for the 8GB model. Those same models sell for as low as $821
on the black market in my country and availability is virtually zero.
You have to pay as much as $900 to get one within a few days.

I understand the barrier of as much as 20% import tax for countries
like Bulgaria. So we will never get it at those Hong Kong prices but
we would be able to at least walk in a store and buy one whatever the
price.

I do not think there is any other product in the world that so many
people want but cannot get to simply cause it is not on sale where
they live. Apple has a unique oportunity to sell a lot of devices to
people willing to pay but do not have the resources to go trough all
the importing/hacking procedure. Apple should just make it it's top
priority to cell unlocked devices anywhere it sells iPods and
Macintoshes. It's that simple.

I hope Steve Jobs realized that people are willing to go trough a lot
of trouble to get an iPhone without the visual voice mail and all
those fancy services AT&T offers.

There is also the cultural phonamena. In America, when you have a
problem with your device, you call your network provicer. In Bulgaria
you call a friend that understands these things. People here are not
so surprised when something does't work.

The main point is that the iPhone competitors are gearing up for
launch of their unlocked iPhobe killers and Apple is on it's way to
miss the opprtunity to gain a market share when it has no competition.

Sent from my iPhone

Barack will win by a double digit margin

2008-09-29T03:04:00.000+03:00

I am so pround to being a live witness to one of the most historic
elections in American history.
There has never been a better time to hope than now. There has never
been so much potential for the worlds best dreams to come true. But
enough on that.

After John McCain pulled out his last populist trick out of the bag
and got the race even, it didn't take long for Obama campain to get
people'head strait again.

There are several fronts in the presidential election battle:
- ads
- speeches
- debates
- fundrasings
- organizations

The Obama campain has recently gained a substantial edge in the Number
of ads it produces over the McCain camp. This is mostly as a result of
the more issues that Obama can attack McCain for. However it is also
due to the larger fundrasing record the Obama campaign has.
The McCain ads on the other hand has recently come under an attack by
the press for doubth in their truthfullness

Not only does Senator Obama attrack more people to his speaches but he
also makes the them a lot more frequently, talks a lot longer and
presents a more consistent message. His youth and inteligence helps
him deliver more and better quality speeches.

But if that was not enough, the contrast between the public
performance between Joe Biden and Saragh Palin is even more alpaling.
Joe just keeps hammering McCain from the insiders perspective, while
Palin hardly appears and when she does, has to play defensively.

Accrually Barack's wife Michelle and Joe' wife Jill togarher give
almost as much presence as John McCain.

All in All it's a 4 member family of young people against one old man
and his hiding running mate.

The first dabate demonstrated that Barack can top McCain on his home
garden. Hi is likely to do even better on the other debates and will
Joe Biden. Sarah Palin has a very remote chance or Draw with Biden on
foreign policy.

As mentioned earlier, Barack Obama fundrasimg is roping senator
McCains one. Not only that, but he keeps setting new records every
month. Barack can also talk about his fundrasing approach, while
McCain cannot. This results in a ever inscreasing gap.

Lastly are the grass roots organisation of the two. McCain, has a non
existant one, while Obama has thousand of volunteers and more come
every day.

All in All, McCain has spent all tricks up his sleeve and now starts
to lose his voter base, while Obama not only gets higher in the pols
by the day but also is regisering thousands more in every state every
single day.

In 3 weeks time, Obama has piled up and 8 point advantage. There are 6
more to go and I fully expect that number will pass the ten point list.

The Obama McCaina is engaging and outperforming the McCain camp on
every issue that there is in the playbook.
They are setting the foundation of a Breaking victory in November. One
that few would have predicted.

Sent from my iPhone

The Futile iPhone Nano wait

2008-09-23T16:23:00.001+03:00

Ever since the original iPhone came out, rounors have been floating
around that Apple will one day make a entry level iPhone in the same
way it did with it's iPod line. It did make some sence especially if
you have considered the opiginal price of the iPhone - $599.

However there are some factors which point that Apple may never unveil
such a device but will instead stick with only one model.

Why do people expect for Apple to diversify its iPhone line? What was
the driving force behind the iPhone Mini and the iPhone Nano?
PRICE.
The price of the product is the primary guide for establishing whether
a product is low end <$100, mid range <$200, high end <$400 or Pro
level <$800

The iPhone began as a Pro level device but Apple is now distributing
it at virtually any entry level. From $0 to $800

Most people will immediately point out that this is due to the high
priced data service plans that more than make up for the initial
discount.
What these people fail to notice is that services without contract
are even more expensive. The iPhone is a device with a very long life
and signing up for a plan for two years is not so bad when you see how
trough software updates, your phone will be a lot more capable devoce
with time.

Back to the question of the iPhone Nano.
The iPhone as it is at the moment is a result of years if research and
development into the perfect form factor. Scaling it down in size will
immediately impact it's capabilities. The first casualty of making the
screen smaller will be the on screen keyboard. This is an essential
element for most productivity applications.

Steve Jobs defined the iPhone as 3 separate devices combines into 1.
Revolutionary mobile phone, widescreen iPod with touch controls and
breaktrough Internet comunications device. While scaling down the
size may not impact the iPod and the Phone aspect of the device, it
will surely hurt the usability of the Internet.

But making an entry level iPhone does not nessesary mean smaller
device. The magic behind the iPhone has always been the software.
Apple can therefore lower the aquasition cost of the final product by
lowering manufacturing costs and exploring different distribution
models as it is doing now. Last year poeple made it clear that they
would buy an iPhone Nano if it is priced in the iPod Nano range. Apple
delivered a better product than the iPhone at the price level of the
iPod Nano. If only all carriers from around the world adapt the same
prices as AT&T.

Apple is going very strongly about consolidating it's devices, not
diversifying them. The second generation iPhone and IPod Touch have a
lot more in common both in hardware and on the software side.
Apple is puting a tremendous effort in making it's products better and
more affordable at the same time. This will result in sales and
widespread adoption few have expected. Who would not want a premium
product at midrange prices.

There will never be an iPhone Nano. There will be however and full
features iPhone at the price of the iPhone Nano.

It is very likely that the price of the iPhone platform around the
world will continue to drop while it software capabilities continue to
grow

Starting from next year. Apple will be incorporating custom made chips
into it's devices. Made by PA Semi these chips will provide unique
capabilities at low cost and no warning to it's competitors

Apple may even decide to lower its hardware sale margins due to the
huge profits it gets from the App store, this making the iPhone/iPod
Touch even more affordable.

Other companies have build their bussines aroud selling different
types of devices. Ones sold, however there is little more profit to be
expected from them.

Each iPhone not only provides higher initial margins but bring
aditional money to Apple from sales of software trough the App store
and music trough the iTunes store.

There are so many more ways for Apple to increase sales using just one
design. Opening some APIs to developers will allow cutom camera
cimponentsnand phisical keyboards among other things to be attached to
the device via superthin shell cases.

Not only do Apple benefits for having to finetune only two hardware
design and one software pla

All in all a widespread affordable common design allows for much more
capabilities and sales in the long run than a plenora of devices with
different form factors

Sent from my iPhone

iPhone Background Location Service

2008-09-17T13:33:00.001+03:00

Is great that the iPhone will get a push notification service but that does not solve another major benefit of having a background running apps. And that is allowing some services like Whrrl to know your location all the time.

There is a way for Apple for provide this with little loss to battery life if it is made to work as smart as the push notification service.

The iPhone should be able to send its location to a cloud database in a smart way only when needed and only when users have a potential application that requires that service.

When users have a certain application installed that benefits from accurate location of the user even if he is not online, that service should be able to subscribe to a "location feed" coming from the iPhone to that cloud. Such feed will be closely tied to the accelerometer readings. Apple can make a research by recording the types of accelerometer data the iPhone produces, when carried in the pockets, in the car and so on. Based on that info iPhone will know if it is standing still, moving at walking speed or at a car speed. Consequently any updates to the iPhone location will only be made according to the area of certainty the user wants other people to know about them.

Say the user sets that area to 1 mile radius.

So if he stands still, no updates will be made after the initial on. If he moves at waling speed, updated will be made every 20min and if he moves with a car speed, updates can be made every 2 minutes as there is a charger at the car. So the iPhone can update this cloud database of its location smartly and other services can retrieve it from there.

If that user wants to know is other people he knows are around him, he can subscribe to the push notification feed of that service. And if he receives a push notification message he is interested in, he can only then launch the location based application and update his location more accurately

This will provide the best of both worlds: functionality and battery life.

There are also so many other sources of information besides the accelerometer that can tell the device if it is power-wise to update the location now. Cell tower signal strength and number, presence of a wifi hotspots can tell if the device is in a tunnel and GPS reception is week and lots of power will be lost to send any updates. Similarly, updates can also be send when the device passes near a cell tower or a wifi hotspot, so that minimal power is used. The important thing is to rely heavily on passive sensor fusion and learn about the surrounding environment with minimal power loss. A concept Apple can borrow from the F-22 Raptor Electronic Stealth.

Users will find that their device retains the most important part of the functionality of their location based apps without having to run them.

MacBook Air 2gen

2008-09-04T11:13:00.001+03:00

Well Everybody seems to be introducing a Netbook with a Atom processor
these days. Everybody but Apple.

The closest thing Apple has is the Macbook Air. it is essentially a
high performance Netbook with Niger screen memory and battery life.

Unfortunately the price is also bigger. A lot bigger. About 400% bigger.

In other words you can buy up to 4 netbooks for the price of even the
most basic Macbook Air.

The Netbooks are so cheep, they even cost less than the HDD to SSD
upgrade option for the Macbook Air

So what is Apple player in this Market.
Just looking at the prices, the closest thing Apple has is the iPod
Touch. Granted, Apple will introduce a new model shortly but it's
Internet experience is totaly different.

The next closest thing is the Macbook at $1100. But that is a full
features notebook and is also due for a refresh.

There are two possibilities for Apple to compete with the $300-$500
Netbooks.

The First is to introduce the long anticipated MacTable. I hope that
happened but it's all rumours at this point.

The next best thing for Apple is to offer similar features to the
netbooks in a existing product.

How about a Macbook Air with the following coppnents:
Processor: Atom vs Core 2 Duo
Memory: 1GB@533 vs 2GB@667
Disk: 16GB SSD vs 80GB HDD
Graphics: Intel 950 vs X3100

This component change will surely bring the price down by a few
hundred dollars and increase battery life significantly. Weight will
also be decreased slightly.

Also. The Macbook Air was a unique product and came at a somewhat
premium price due to the new technology. That was 6 months ago. Surely
Apple can bring down the cost of all other components

Third, Apple officials have states that the company will be lowering
it's product margins from 35 to 30%. In other words a $1000 product
will now cost $950

All these factors can add up to decreae the price of the Macbook Air
to half of what it is now or about $900

The Macbook Air represents the perfect form factor for a portable
computer and it should not be kept only to bussiness people with the
big wallets.

Sent from my iPhone

iPhone Sales

2008-09-03T20:18:00.001+03:00

iPhone Sales
In 2007 Apple sold 250,000 iPhone's in the opening weekend on June
29th This year Apple sold 1 million iPhone 3G's in the opening weekend
on July 11th.
That's a 400% increase.

Will apple keep this momentum? Will it slow down or will it go up?

The first thing to note is that up untill The second half of August
08, Apple had trouble supplying anough iPhone. That was not the case
last year. Sales were however boosted afterwards by the launch in 20
more countries compared to only one at this time last year.

On September 10, 2007 Apple anounced it had sold 1 million iPhone's in
the first 74 days.

This year, Apple has a an event in September 9th. That's 60 days after
launch. One week short of the event, allready rumours circulate for
some 6 million iPhone 3G's sold by Apple. Had this anoincement been
another 15 days out, it is reasonable to assume that Apple would have
sold 8 million iPhone 3Gs in the same 74 days since last year.
Now that's 700% increase.

Is there a chance Apple can continually sustain that grouth?
Five days before it's 1 millionth sold iPhone anouncement last year,
Apple cut the price of the iPhone by $200. This definately boosted
sales in the next quarter.

This year Apple has some 26 more countries that still have to begin to
sell the iPhone. Moreever, Russia and China have yet to join as well,
two very large markets. This along with the new 2.1 software will also
help Apple continue to boost sales. Right Now Apple has been selling
around 750,000 iPhone 3Gs per week on average. It's production
capacity is estimated to be at around 800,000 and if another 26
countries join the rollout I suspect we will be seeing iPhone
shortages again.

The next first gen iPhone sales anouncemnt was on January 15 at
Macworld. By this time, 200 days after the launch Apple had sold
4,000,000 iPhone's.

If Apple had sold 6 million iPhone 3Gs allready and continues to sell
them at 800k units per week, Apple will be on track to sell 22,8
million iPhone 3Gs by the next Macworld in mid January.

That's 570% increase.

So by the end of the product life, Apple may as well sell 5 times as
many iPhone from the second model compared to the first.

What was the point in all this. Well, I had an article a few months
back predicting iPhone sales. While I did not expect for apple to run
out of Iphones, I did expect 23million iPhones sold in 2008. It seams
Apple is well on track to meet my expectations.

Cheers!

Sent from my iPhone

iPod Touch 2nd Gen

2008-09-01T01:11:00.001+03:00

iPod Touch 2nd Gen
It's almost September and it's almost time for this year iPod refresh.

While the iPod Nano may see the most significant overhaul, I suspect
iPod Touch to pack a few surprices of it's own.

There is a growing division in the Apps in the Apps Store. First there
are the apps specific to the iPhone, now there are the apps specific
to the iPhone 3G.
The iPod touch apps are increasingly cornered. After 2.1 come out that
will be increasingly so, at it promises to add not only push
notification service but more GPS support as well.

The iPod Touch does not have a GPS, nor does the iPhone 2G. However
increasingly more apps will rely on this technology to even work. No
matter how cleaver and indegineus the Skyhook service is, it's was
just a stop gap and at best a compliment to a real GPS in the form of
Assisted GPS.

There is no doubt in my mind that the new iPod touch will get the same
GPS chip as the iPhone 3G. The cost of implementation is low and the
benefits high. This will bring a lot more commonality between the two
platforms: iPhone and iPod Touch.

The design need not be changed much. The iPod Touch back is now
iodized alluminium and is not the best cover for another anthems. But
it doesn't need to be. The GPS chip can be placed near the top cover,
since most satelites are on top, not to the side.

The new iPod touch needs a lower price and Apple can get as many parts
as common between it and the iPhone 3G.

The only other cmagor change for the Touch may be the introduction of
more colours, but I do not consider that a priority, since so many
people use colour cases anyway to protect the screen and the back from
scraches.

I do also hope that apple put the same minijack from the iPhone so the
iPod Touch can do WiFI calls ( think Skype) via the same stereo
handsfree. That will be very cool and another minor update with a
major impact on functionality.
If this happened, I do not see how apple
Cannot do it's own iChat Mobile Phone.

I personaly expect every major app on Leopard to make it into iPhone
Format one way or another.

Another thing I expect for the new iPod Touch is a camera. Maybe the
same one from the iPhone. Why not? It's price will be now almost
nothing.

I am just wandering why cannot Apple make an iPod touch from the
iPhone 3G.
Just remove the GSM and the 3G chips plus bluetooth and the speekers,
and the mic. It can also use the same plastic cover minus the
processes making holes for the sim and speaker-mic. This way, anyone
will get a feel for an iPhone without the contract and crazy prices in
some countries.

I doubt that happening, but the iPod Touch cried for more
compatibility in tersm of hardware with the iPhone not only to keep
the price low but also to keep the maximum app compatibility.

In short, here is what I hope to see in the iPod Touch:
1. hardware.
- GPS
- Minijack
- Camera

2. Software
- GPS navigation APIs
- Voip APIs
- Push Notification Service
- Copy & Paste
- Game Controler APIs

It seams we will only have to wait a few weeks to find out if Apple
will deliver.

Sent from my iPhone

2008-07-05T01:04:00.000+03:00

Hi StarCraft Fans,

We have all pondered on the questions about the Xel’Naga, the Hybrids and the 4^th Race. The truth is if anyone decides to make a 4^th race based on those names, there would not be much to start with. All units and structures have to be designed from scratch, as is the race concept as a whole. Personally I don’t think any of these names describes a race that can be made for multiplayer game in a similar fashion to the Protoss, Terran and Zerg. Not in terms of variety of building and structures. Further more, any attempt to guess the storyline will be in vain as StarCraft II will be coming out and who can stand up to Blizzard in that.

So is there anything else left to expand into a 4^th race without tampering with the storyline and keeping the looks and feel as cannon as possible?

A famous Chinese game suggest not. We have all played the simple hand game of the leaf, the stone and the scissors. One always beats one of the others. So, is really “3” the magical number of game balance? Three races, no more?

Of course not. Whether you will win or not does not depend on the fact which race you will chose to play with. Further more Blizzard has shown us trough StarCraft 2 that game balance can be achieved with any type of unit one can dream of as long as the unit has a specific weakness the players can exploit.

Despite the fact that every race possessed so many different capabilities, there are a few words that will describe the overall race strength. Strength players must exploit strategically.

Zerg: Speed, Numbers

Protoss: Power, Strength

Terran: Mobility, Range

But what about covertness, surprise. What about a race that does not rely on its strength, or its numbers, or its capabilities, but rather on Asymmetric Warfare. A race that overall strength is Survivability?

Any person familiar with the StarCraft story line will find 2 general contradictions.

1. Why do the UED has Confederate like technology and not some different Earth made units and buildings? Ok, they introduced the Medic and the Valqurie, but that’s it.

2. Why do the Dark Templar have only one 3 units? The Corsair, The DT itself and the Dark Archon. And just like the UED, why would they use Protoss like structures?

While the there is no more info on the UED besides this speculative question, there could be some info on the Dark Templar. We have seen recently some pretty cool Dark Templar designs made its way into StarCraft 2: The Tempest, the Stalker and the not so cool Soul Hunter. Notice how the Silver like material used to make them distinguish from the golden like alloy used by the Protoss on Aiur.

That makes for total of 5 official units so far. See the picture.

But how about buildings. Do the Dark templar have any unique buildings?

Perhaps. With that questions in my head, I went to search in the StarCraft Map Editor.

Has anyone noticed how many building-like doodads we have on the Shakuras twilight map set? These doodats look great and with a little imagination, one can almost see their Aiur equivalent. We have a total of 8 such native buildings.

So what happened? Did Blizzard embarked on making a 4^th race with Brood War, but ultimately canceled it and left some of the work in Map Editor?

It’s possible, seeing their recent comments about how they are going to include all created but unused units in the StarCraft 2 map editor.

I always thought that the Dark Templar had more that just Corsairs. And as they lived apart from their Aiur brethren for centuries, it made sense to have different gameplay, units and buildings.

The Dark Templar use another type of energy source. The Void, while the High Templar on Aiur specialize in the Psionic energy. This difference comes from how they see themselves. While the High Templar see themselves as race with one mind trough the teachings of Khala, the Dark Templar have continued to explore their Psychic abilities individually.

So you might say that the Pylon structure exemplifies the Protoss on Aiur. It shares energy and knowledge from a single source.

The Dark templar will logically use similar structures that reflect their individual philosophy.

All the books that have come out so far have suggested that the StarCraft universe is bigger and richer than displayed in the game.

The Dark Templar Trilogy book shows there is much to explore in this area. The Book, “Queen of Blades” also tell us a lot about Dark Templar abilities, way of live, even a dark vessel that acts as a transport for them. This Dark shuttle apparently possesses cloaking ability too.

Now, I know that creating a playable race is more that story and graphics. Its gameplay. So, we need a tech tree, we need some ideas as how this race is going to be different, cool to play, justifying its creation.

Here is the concept of the Building/Unit tech tree of the Dark Templar tribe as I see them in their height on Shakuras just before the Zerg came.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lantinian/MyWorks02/photo#5100838357789968786

I would like to shed some more light on what you see in that diagram.

I chose the Twilight map as background. You will notice unifying effect of the similar colours used. That is the silver like alloy specifically used by the Dark Templar. The names are derived from the word Void and their function. The tech tree as a whole is based on the Protoss tech tree with some elements borrowed from the Zerg tech tree.

There are 3 additional stone buildings borrowed from the Aiur type tile sets. There is one very good reason why would the DT have them. These Temples are ancient structures dated from before the DT got expelled from Aiur. I decided that they would like to build something that reminds them of home.

Another reason to use them is because of the 2 additional units I added: The Acolyte and the Dark Zealot. I wanted to implement physical/mental training as a way of building units. It had to be different than the other 3 methods used: Warping, Morphing and Equipping.

The second major concept I came up with is the implementation of the Void idea in providing supply limit. We just had to have more individual behavior with the structures too. So every structure has its own Void crystal that provides it with power and adds a little supply. Every structure.

A third concept I was hoping will make this race distinct is if we had the workers were able to become Warriors too and keep their ability to gather and build.

Another concept I thinks might be worth exploring is team building or the completion of a certain build project by several units simultaneously. While it may seam that having units with so many abilities is an unfair advantage, finding the balance between how many do I send to gather, how many to build and how many to fight may be very tough indeed.

You will notice, there is a lot of merging going on. I figured that DT as people exhibit different psyche in different age and if there were to be merged at young age the result would be different then if they are fully trained DT. If you merge 2 workers, you get a unit that will dedicate its live to gathering resources. However if you merge two warriors, like the Zealots, you get a being that will increase the effectiveness of others.

Merging/linking was an easy way to get some more units into the game by using familiar concepts to ad needed abilities to balance this race

Also while merging increases the efficiency of a particular unit in a certain role, it limits it versatility. Once the merge is complete, there is no going back, and the merged units cannot be trained in anything else.

Here are two new approaches to building structures too.

The Workers could use their energy blades to fuse any encountered material into solid piece and then cut it into blocks with the blade. As such, all stone structures will not require minerals or vespen gas to be completed. Naturally the more Workers you set to the same project, the faster it gets done.

High tech structures might not be warped, instead, the workers may utilize special holographic material projectors that build the structure in layers time. Overall , while Dark Templar are versatile, you will need more workers per building then the Terran if it were to be completed at the same time.

Yet another Idea I hoped to bring uniqueness to this race is the ability to upgrade units by sending them to certain building for training or new equipment. You can still train the unit from a certain building from scratch, but you can also upgrade some existing units to the same status for less time. Example. Instead of building Dark Zealots, you can upgrade your Acolytes to that status.

And starting with the structures, I would like to address everything on that tech tree individually.

The Temple

This is your starting structure, and like the Nexus you can train your Acolytes here. The structure is upgradeable to Dark Temple. I figured there are few building that are more spiritual and religious and made primarily of stone. Those buildings can be repairable. The others high tech ones cannot, just like the Protoss ones.

Purifier

This building has two purposes. First, it’s the DT analog to the Protoss Extractor. It also uses some of the gas for high enery experiments. As such most researches regarding shields and use and storage of energy are done here. One exeption is the Tempest unique shield upgrade. Some upgrades become available only after the ability to field a certain unit in battle are met.

Void Post

Similar to the Terran Armory for it can research all armor and weapon upgrades but no shilds. In adition it can fit the Void Pillars with powerful energy globe to create a formidable defensive structure.

Voidonary

It’s a temple dedicated to studying the powers that come from the Void. In particular the energy blades. In short, Acolytes receive the weapons implants and become Dark Zealots and learn how to channel their energy trough them.

So while initially you can only build Dark Zealots and upgrade acolytes. Maybe later when you build the Dark Temple, you can also train Dark Templar from here.

Mechanory

This looks like a robotic facility to me. I suggest that here the infantry units get merged with a certain exoskeleton permanently. So you can send in either a Acolyte, a Dark Zealot or a Dark Templar and create either a Stalker or a Soul hunter. You can also build Stalkers and Soul Hunters here from scratch for more time and recourses. Why also not have 2 rally points, one for each unit?

Archonary

This is not a high tech building, rather a structure that channels the Void around it. It gives certain knowledge and enables various types of merges between the templar. You must have as many Archonaries as merging you want to handle at the same time, to justify building more. So, if you want to merge 12 Dark Templar into 6 Dark Archons at the same time, you will need 6 Archonaries. I think it’s a neat idea how to use a stupid stone structure from the doodats.

Citadel of Adun

Adun is just as much hero to the Dark Templar ( he saved them) as he is to the Protoss on Aiur. So I leave the building unchanged. However it researches the sneak ability of the dark zealots and acolytes as well as the blink ability of the Stalkers . This Sneak ability requires a special void amplifier that enables these units to cloak themselves prior to a battle for a short time. Dark Templar later learn how to master this ability full time on their own.

StarPad

The original building looked like a flying unit placed on a pedestal for display, I figured that it’s how it will look like when a ship is completed.

The StarPad is like an open shipyard and produces all 3 types of flying craft. Corsair, Tempest and Intruder. What is interesting is that the ships are build on the StarPad and can be attacked by ranged troops before they are completed. While construction is underway, the ship slowly speeds so the holographic mater projectors can look at it from every angle.

It might be cool if you can send your Acolytes, Dark Zealots or Dark Templar to get in the StarPad and to be the crew. This way you can cut down on build time and cost of producing the crafts.

Star Beacon

Analogous to the fleet beacon as it provides upgrades to the Corsair and the Tempest.

Speed boost for the Tempest along with additional interceptors and Super Corsair mode trough linking for the Corsair along with Disruption Web spell.

Dark Tower

Similar function to the arbiter tribunal. It has the Cloaking ability of the Shuttle as a research. As well as Speed upgrade or additional capacity upgrade.

Dark Temple

Here you can train all 3 variation of the DT infantry: Acolytes, Dark Zealots and Dark Templar. There are 3 Rally points, one for each unit.

Void Pillar

Unlike th Pilons, it provides only 4 Supply and does not power other buildings. The stricture, however has a bigger sight range and smaller attack area.

Void Ray

Analogous function to the Protoss photon cannon though weaker. It has an energy globe which can double as a detector. However it can only act as a detector or as a weapon at any one time. The player can swich the modes of the structure trough a special button.

Dark Void Ray

This upgrade adds two more modes of operation. It can switch between self cloaking and area cloaking, when it will cloak nearby units/buildings, while itself being visible. Every Void Ray had to be upgraded individually. So now the players will have 4 butons in each building and only one can be active at any one time. Self cloaking, area cloaking, detector and defensive weapon. A skilled player can mount a very elusive attack/defense with several of these buildings.

Some info on the units now.

Acolyte

These are like DT that have passed only basic training. They have equipment suitable for mining and building. You can upgrade them to Dark Zealots or Dark Templar by sending them to the Voidonary or the Dark Temple respectively. Acolytes will have the ability to merge creating the Priest unit.

Dark Zealot

Just like on Aiur there is a sort of a social evolution and the high Templar are the highest level, on Shakuras, we start with acolytes and then we have the Dark Zealots. I personally see them similar looking to the Zealots with weaker armor and shield – 50/80 and one blade blades with 15 damage. Dark Zealots will have the ability to merge creating the Spirit unit.

Dark Templar

While the Dark templar have seldom shown this (as has Kerrigan her psionic storm ability) but they can summon a lightning bold out of Void energies to do maximum damage to single unit. Similary to the Dark Archon, it might require a lot of enery and they might end up loosing their shield. The attack will take time, so faster enemies can escape, same as the Psionic storm feom the High Templar. This ability is trained at the Archonary.

Apart from that new ability I do not see the need to change that unit.

Priest

Created by an archon type of merging, this creature is a very specialized Worker. The Priest can gather more at one time and build faster. It cannot be upgraded or used for other roles, though.

Spirit

Because the Exiles do not have heavy ground units, the merged Spirit of the two Dark Zealots has dedicated his existence to supporting his brethren in battle. It might not be able to fight directly but will have some very useful abilities. Because its an energy being, it might be able to recharge the shields of friendly Protoss. Also it will have a special detector spell. When activated, the unit will stop moving or fighting and will focus to telepathically project the location of the hidden enemy units in the area. This will be an automated ability. It can be overridden by a move command. The detection range will not be as great though and the unit can get under attack while at it.

Dark Archon

I have always thought that Dark means using dark enery and that meant black. Apart from the visual appearance, I do not see any reason to change this mighty unit.

Stalker and Soul Hunters

The only two units with medium range ground to air capability.

Corsair.

Because there is no other unit with light air to ground attack I see the Corsair now firing the same way at ground targets too. In addition can have a linking mode. Similar to merging, as you will need two Corsairs to accomplish it. The Difference is that the process is reversible.

The Corsair will again feature the disruption web ability but to me it function should be different. The web like energy will interfere with the electronic/mind equipment of the enemy detectors and render them useless. It will also interfere with weapons targeting to the point where they can be used at only point blacn range. However the web might also render some cloaked ground units visible including its own DT moving under it.

Super Corsair

Made from two linked Corsairs it is the DT close guarded secret. Essentially a heavy fighter with twice the hit points, shield and attack damage but half the fire rate, acceleration and maneuverability.The link between the two ships is created by the stored energy otherwise used to create the disruption web. Skilled players will only link the ships just before battle to maximize available link time.

Tempest

Many people thought it was a cool unit and I think it is fare to assume that the Dark Templar had their version of the Carrier, just as they had their version of the Dragoon and the Archon.

I however see a lot if engine fairings in the design which make it perfect for a Speed Boost special ability that will allow PRO players to interact with it in a similar way as they do with the Stalker. Distance traveled in Speed boost will generally be higher.

Intruder

Anyone recognize this as the doodad from the twilight map in the StarCraft map editor or the Xel’Naga Warcruiser from the Defenders of the Khala mod. Whether is was a lost unit or not, when I look at it I see the Dark Vessel described in the novel The Queen of Blades. If we make it true to the story it should have upgrades such as cloaking, and high capacity cargo hold for up to 8-12 Dark Templar. No weapons though. And while cloaking the ship might not cost energy, it can lower its speed considerably to make up for the added advantage in secrecy. I also see this unit be upgradable to a late game detector to act as a complex support unit for large fleets, or heavy scout.

The Exiles as a race might need a couple more units or Buildings to be on the level with the other 3 Races.

I see this update as a patch to Brood War as I would like to play the Brood War Protoss missions both with the Protoss and later with the Exiles as we explore Shakuras to its fullest.

With so much unused graphics and now few unused units developed for StarCraft II I had this suggestion for Blizzard. While we wait for Starcraft II, how about one patch for Brood War that adds another race like The Exiles? Nothing fancy like the Xel'Naga or the Hybrids or some fan made up fiction, just something that would enrich the game without having to jump ahead in the storyline or design a race from scratch.

I hope the StarCraft community will appreciate these ideas.

Post WWDC iPhone Thoughts

2008-06-23T20:16:00.001+03:00

Post WWDC iPhone Thoughts

I was halfway wrong with my predition for the iPhone sales for the
second quarter. There are three reasons for that:
1. Apple had only 6 milion iPhone to sell
2. Apple stoped iPhone advertising during May and June.
3. Apple has desided to swich to another bussiness model with the new
iPhone 3G which will not be so strait forward to unlock and resell.

So Apple not only was not trying to sell record numbers of the first
generation model but they were actialy trying to slow down sales so
they could not run out too long before the next model.

The end result being that iPhone sales moment decreased untill Apple
and its partners run out of iPhone's during the middle of May.

Steve Jobs said at Macworld that Apple plan to launch into 12 Markets
in 2008 with a strech goal of 25 countries. Obviously this strategy
revolved around the old bussiness model, where they had only one
exclusive partner in each country. The 6 milion iPhones from the first
generation were though out to be sold out locked to these specific
carriers.

What some may fail to recognize is that durring that first year, Apple
simply could not afford to change its business model, simply cause
they did not have enough iPhones to sell. They have also correctly
withheld themselves from launching the iPhone in China, where the grey
market was triving with Unlocked iPhones.
In fact each Russia and China operated more iPhones illegaly than any
of the European Apple partners legaly.
So, the iPhone hackers have not only unlocked the iPhone, they are to
be blamed or thanked for Apple changing it entire iPhone business
model. In the battle with the iPhone unlocking, it is clear that the
hackers won.
It maybe well be that Apple also did not plan to release an SDK as
early as they did. However the hacker 3rd party software comunity
spread by the installer app changed that. It pushed Apple into
following the will of the people.
It is amazing how Apple had managed to create a device that is an
instant winner but at the same time they have failed to pick out the
right model for its distribution. Had they chosen the new business
model last year the Apple could have sold 2-3 times as many iPhones in
many more countries.

So has the iPhone lost its chance especialy now that the competition
is catching up with iclones like the Samsung Instinct, Blackberry
Thunder Nokoa 5800 and others?
No

Steve Jobs was very clear to say that the iPhone OS is 5 years ahead
of everyone else. So even if the competition has somewhat closed the
gap in the hardware looks and features, it is still way behind in the
software that is the true magic behind the iPhone.
Apple may be new to the mobile phone business but they learn fast and
they do not stand still.
The new iPhone 3G have truly delivered in the places where the old one
lacked. Apple could have sold easily another 10 milion this year had
the iPhone kept the price and added only 3G and more countries to the
list. They are however adding a lot more at half the price. For those
people living in those 70+ countries iPhone 3G will be a killer deal.
A fresh break from the complicateness of todays mobile devices.

How will the competition react? Take Verizon for example. The much
advertised Samsung instinct that was supposed to Kill the iPhone
lowered its prices from $199 to $127. Would this help? Just how much
Value for Money is the Instinct? Apple traditionaly offers new
products at the same price as the precious generation. Verizon were
rightfully expecting the new iPhone 3G to cost the same $399. So they
priced their obviously inferior product at the agressive $199. How
shoked were they to learn that the iPhone 3G cost the same $199. They
would not have sold one Instinct at this new scenario. So they droped
the price with $70. But will that be enough? No. The only way for them
to keep the same advantage is to price the phone at $49 or even $1. Of
course they cannot do that and consequently every person that owns an
iPod Nano will probably get an iPhone 3G as a new generation iPod + a
phone and Internet comunicator for the same price.

Can Nokoa compete with the iPhone 3G? Not directly. Nokia is famous
for making every possible combination of form factor and features in
the mobile phone industry. They will likely offer a very low end
touchnscreen phones and a very high end ones. However there is one
thing that they cannot do and that is offer their iclone in 70+
countries at the agressive price that Apple has put forth.
Recent information suggests that AT&T has subsidized the iPhone by as
much as $350, making the cost of a new and unlocked iPhone 3G at $550.
This is a very big subsidy and it clearly shows the fate the carriers
have in the iPhone as a device with long life. AT&T have effectively
postponed any profit they might get from the phone to the second year
of the customer contract. Nokoa has a tradition of selling its phones
unlocked. In some cases however, they also sell there phones
subsidized. But these subsidies are a fraction of the total cost, not
75% as is the case with the iPhone 3G. Why is that? Simply because
they do not expect to sell many phone and therefore make profit
through the economy of scale. Actialy the real reason is quite
different. Nokia has always made devices with a ton of features.
However these features do not get really used as they are complicated
and usually rank up high bills. With the iPhone, Apple has for the
first time put the Internet in your pocket. Internet that is actialy
easy and fun to use. 98% of the iPhone owners are browsing and 80% are
sending SMS, consequently making larger mountly bills. Nokia users
boast to have more features than the iPhone, but because they do not
get used, these features tend to drive the handset price up, as the
carrier cannot subsidize the phone price considerably.

So by making an extremely easy to use devevice, Apple has managed to
make the iPhone part of very powerfully business model. One that is
perfect for both carriers and end users.

What about RIM? Can the new Blackberry Bold stand up to the iPhone 3G?
No. Although The Bold may compete in the bussiness world with iPhone,
just like the new Nokia E71, it can never have the a consumer impact
the iPhone will. Needless to say the Bussiness users will actialy find
the iPhone a much more powerfully and easy to develop platform for.
The Blackberry bold will likely also cost equally or more to the
iPhone 3G and will not be competitive at all.
So, are not RIM aware of that? Yes, and they are developing the
Blackberry Thunder as a response. Contrary to their. Previous
statements, RIM does finally see potential in the touch screen phones.
A little too late though. It is likely that the Thunder will be have
some bussiness features and will target more the unique iPhone
multimedia features. RIM however does not have the worlds largest
online music store at its back, nor the graphical capabilities of the
OS X iPhone. Needless to say from the pictures leaked so far it does
look uglier and more bulky. Not to mention that it has 6 control
buttons in contrast to the iPhones only 1 home button. It is likely
that RIM will push to features of the device to compete with the
iPhone but that will only make it so much more expensive and a hard
sell.

The iPhone is the first Apple device that has a mountly plan fee. This
has enabled Apple to put the power of the OS X, the iPod and much more
in a products that is affordable to almost everyone. This is a
marketing and engineering feat unlikely to be duplicated by anyone soon

Written, Edited and Sent from my iPhone (mostly in a Train and a Car)

Short iPhone Podcast 04

2008-06-10T17:01:00.003+03:00

And the final episode I recorded 3 days before WWDC 2008.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ojbmy22mv52

After I watch the presentation, I might combine all these podcasts into one post and make some comments about what I guessed right and what not.

Short iPhone Podcast 03

2008-06-06T14:27:00.002+03:00

The third episode is also here.

Download and listen with quicktime.

http://www.mediafire.com/?i2xokwizl8e

Short iPhone Podcast 02

2008-06-06T14:25:00.002+03:00

Here is the second recording. Again about 20 min of talk.

Because I forgot what was it about, you will just have to download and listen to it

http://www.mediafire.com/?i2xokwizl8e

Short iPhone Podcast 01

2008-06-06T14:00:00.002+03:00

I actualy recorded this 5 days ago, but with no internet connection at home I still have to resort to public WiFis to upload the file.

In this episode I reveal the mystery why the iPhone share in the US smarthphone amrket has dropped to 19%.

Anyway, this is the first and the best episode so far, so just download the file and listen to it with quicktime.

http://www.mediafire.com/?i2xokwizl8e

Short iPhone Podcast Intro

2008-06-02T00:26:00.004+03:00

Are you one of those people that brouse the net endlesly for iPhone
rumours, just because they can't wait for WWDC on June 9th?

Well if the answer is yes, you might be in luck.

Download the following file and listen to it via QuickTime.

This is not a video file. I just had not other way of uploading it.

http://www.mediafire.com/?nnf4m919izt

How can the 3G iPhone still surprise us

2008-05-18T11:32:00.007+03:00

I doubt there is anyone in the world right how, who will be surprized if Apple reveals a 3G iPhone during WWDC starting on the 9th of June 2008. Besides the introduction of a 3G, the new iPhone is often rumored to have a GPS chip, along with front iSight camera for video chat.

So, even if know for sure that Apple reveals all that, there are still a number of developments around the iPhone, that I think have a chance of happening and will surprise most people.

1. Sales.

Apple is no doubt going to release the sales figures for the iPhone to date. Looking back in time to Macworld 2007, Apple forecast 10 Million iPhone sales by the end of 2008. Since then most insightful analysis have indicated that overall, the iPhone is exceeding expectations.

The latest figure we have is 5.7 million sold before 6th of March. One of the Big news and surprises we may hear is that Apple has sold the 10 million iPhones already.

How is that possible? Well first, there was a big boom in unlocking in February, and 16GB model. March 6 announcement likely injected further enthusiasm in many developers and enterprises to buy the iPhones.

Third, I don't think anyone have even paid attention on how the low US dollar has afflicted iPhone salles. When iPhone started selling the US dollar had 25% more value, than now, making it very affordable for foreigners to buy iPhones from the US.

Forth, by the time of WWDC 2009, given the recent unavailability of the iPhone already in US, and UK, there will likely be no iPhones officially left in the stores. Perhaps only France and Germany will still have some.

We all assumes that by 10 million iPhone sales, Apple meant all iPhone models released by 2008 including the 3G one. However, Apple might have cleverly disguised their plans to sell 10 million only from the first version.

2. Processor

Almost one year ago Intel showcased a ultra thin notebook design in collaboration with Ziba, named Metro

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/notebook-supermodel/intel-unveils-worlds-thinnest-laptop-almost-skinny-as-a-razr-263359.php

This laptop however, never went beyond the concept stage. The reason: Apple was developing its own version of the concept in close collaboration with Intel and 6 months later, Apple revealed the Macbook Air - the world's thinnest notebook.

One remarkable thing about the Macbook Air, often overlooked is that is has a custom made chip by Intel, which is 60 smaller in packaging, compared to the standard model.

In September, Intel also demoed the new 45nm based processor chip

later called Intel Atom.

A long with that , Intel demonstrated an elongated iPhone like device using it. It is stated in the following press releases that the Atom Processor is made for devices with screen size of about 4.5-5in .

http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/20/intel-demos-iphone-like-mid-of-the-future/

Some other recent developments have given rise to the recent rumor that Apple will showcase a new mini tablet like device (aka iPad) using the new processor. I think people are missing the point set by the previous example. So while Apple may introduce a Atom based bevice during WWDC, it not going to be the iPad. Its going to be the 3G iPhone. Why? Because Intel like to make custom chips for Apple. Chips that are much smaller than the standart ones and eable Apple to produce amazingly compact, yet powerful devices.

3. Camera

The iPhone camera is nothing special in specs, but the iPhone has made it a breeze for people to make very decent shots and as a result, the iPhone is now the number one device uploading pictures to Flickr, putting even the mighty Nokia N95 behind.

The company manufacturing the iPhone sensor is likely Micron

http://news.softpedia.com/news/iPhone-Camera-Sensors-Will-Be-Produced-by-Micron-48644.shtml

People have even managed to point the exact model of their CMOS chip

http://www.robertphotoblog.com/2007/apple-iphone-camera/

If you look at their catalog, you will see that they have a new 3MP chip in testing now.

http://www.aptina.com/products/image_sensors/mt9t013d00stc/#overview

Since both chips have similar size, Apple can easily introduce a better camera in to new iPhone.

What is more, a few Months ago, Apple has a job opening for a engineer responsible for the iPhone camera app integration. This just plainly sais that Apple is like to release a new camera app in the 2.0 software update. Video recording is now even more likely as a new processor will help greatly in real time high quality video compression on right on your iPhone.

4. Syncing

It is almost 100% sure that Apple will also roll out some for more wireless .Mac sync for the iPhone. This could be coupled with a new 802.11n Wi-Fi chip to be able to keep pace with the increased storage of the expected 32GB model.

5. Presentation.

We were all in Wow the way Steve Jobs presented the iPhone originally as 3 separate devices and then saying that it was just one products.

Revolutionary Phone

Breakthrough Internet Communications Device

Widescreen iPod with touch controls

This year Apple may add a few more sides to the iPhone:

Advanced gaming platform

Ground-breaking pocket camera

Revolutionary pocket Mac

Can’t Wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The iPhone Pandemic

2008-05-16T17:51:00.013+03:00

Last winter quarter (calendar Q4 2007) the iPhone was on sales in only 4 countries in the world.

It was not 3G, it did not have GPS or even maps with location, it wasn't enterprise friendly and did not have any 3rd party apps support. Most of all, it was not easily unlocked and it was sold trough only one carrier per country.

Yet somehow Apple managed to sell some 2.3 million iPhones, and this device alone gave Apple 6.5 percent share of the world smartphone market.

This holiday season or the calendar Q4 2008, Apple will have a much bigger deal for the world. The iPhone will have 3G, GPS, and 3rd party apps. It will be enterprise and game console ready. It will sell troughout the world (the map depics all known and rumoured launch countries), and it will sell in many cases with more that one operator per country. If that is not enough, the 3G iPhone will likely cost less with subscription and will largely be available unlocked too.

In short, Apple will have a widely available, cheeper and much more capable iPhone, that is much more supported by the world industry as a whole.

This turn of events will likely make the iPhone the best selling smartphone in the world by a wide margin just in time for Macworld 2009.

P.S. The list with possible iPhone countries is current as of 27.05.2008

Let's look at the numbers for a second. The following table lists smartphone sales for Q4 of 2005, 2006 and 2007. I have added projection for 2008 based on a less than full exponential increase due to the iPhone. The iPhone sales on the other hand are based on the average iPod sales increase for the same quarters in its first 3 years.

Here is how will that translate into the smartphone market share for the 4 companies.

It's clear that Apple will be still #2 in the world, but with just one device. If we add the sales to the iPod touch, Apple will be virtually the worlds pocket-held computer leader in terms of a common platform in the market.

Predicting the iPhone sales before 2009

2008-04-29T23:07:00.026+03:00

The best way to predict iPhone sales is by looking at the history of the iPod sales and picking out the one year which best describes the iPhone momentum and applying the figures to the what is know so far.

These are the iPod sales for every full year since its introduction:

The most obvious trend is the amount of sales of the last quarter being much greater compared to any of the other 3 quarters. We all know this is due to the holyday season. Because we have some sales figures of the iPhone already we can see its sales per quarter to be following the same momentum.

Note that iPhone was not on sale during Q2 and was selling for only 3 DAYS during Q3.

Since Apple seams to be happy with this trend each year, we can assume they plan the same situation for the iPhone sales in 2008. Because we have the results from the first quarter – 2008 Q2, we can use two methods to calculate the other 3 quarters:

1. Average iPod quarter sales increase compared to the same quarter the previous year.

2. Average iPod quarter sales increase compared to the Q2 of the same year.

If we use the average data from the 6 consecutive iPod sales years and we apply it to the iPhone based on the known 2008 Q2 sales, we get the following results.

Method 1.

If this scenario manifests we will see a total of 18,245,636. That’s over 18 million iPhones or 80% above Apple’s goal.

Method 2.

If this scenario manifests we will see a total of 18,901,934 . That’s close to 19 million iPhones or 90% above Apple’s goal, however very close to the 20 million they have reportedly ordered so far. (10 million last year and 3+7 million this year)

There is actually a simpler and more accurate way to use the iPod’s sales figure to foretell the iPhone 2008 sales performance. That is to measure the iPhone grouth and use only the most similar iPod year to predict the iPhone sales. The best way to do that is to compare the results of all strong Q1s to the following Q2s. If a naturally low Q2 it shows an increase then the rest of the year will likely be very successful and see a phenomenal growth compared to the previous year.

Here are the iPod Q1Y and Q2(Y+1) results

It is particularly interesting to see that in 2004 and 2005 the naturally low second quarter has shown better results than the naturally strong first quarter of the previous year. What this has resulted is in tremendous iPod sales increase during 2004 and 2005.

Now lets look at the only available such statistic for the iPhone

On first glance, it would seam that iPhone is likely to perform better but similarly than the iPod performed in 2003, 2006, 2007 and likely in 2008 . However Apple has said that they will account for all iPhones sold after 6^th of March as part of the Second quarter - Q3.

This is the key to the Pandora box. Apple has reported only January's and February's iPhone sales for Q2!

What this means is that iPhone sales could have been 1/3 more had Apple reported the March iPhone sales as part of the first quarter – Q2.

Futher, the golden age of iPhone unlocking started around the middle of March when the Zibri unlocking solution allowed for one click - 4 minutes uncloking that anyone can do. It was probably another week or 2 before this started to affect iPhone sales around the world.

So not only did we miss to see the impact of the March 6 announcement on iPhone sales, but also most of the effects of effortless illegal unlocking. It will therefore be fare to say that had Apple reported all sales until the 1^st of April the first quarter result would have been at least 50% better.

Now the 2008 iPhone sales potential look so much more like iPod one from 2004 and 2005.

We just estimated probable iPhone Q2 sales as 2.5 million iPhones. What will the sales look like during the next 3 quarters if we assume the average increase as seen in the iPod in 2004 and 2005.

In total if the above logic happens to be true, Apple could potentially sale up to 42,857,089 iphones by the end of 2008.

Yes that almost 43 milion iPhones.

Well, I hope that Apple orders some more than the 20 milion iPhones they have already ordered so far, case they will run out of stock very fast indeed.

There are a few developments in the around the iPhone that are likely to help achive these phenomenal sales.

- Worldwide Widespread availability of a reasonably prices Unlocked iPhone (<500$)>

- Availability of a carrier specific but very affordable iPhone with contract (<300$),>

- Official introduction in countries such as Australia, China, India, Switzerland, Austria, Ilaty and others before the year is up.

- The 200,000 + registered developers for the iPhone Platform trough the SDK, developing many games and apps after June, 08

- KPCB's 100,000,000 iFund for the iPhone platform stimulating developers, bussinesess and people to invest in the iPhone platform.

- Successful performance of the enterprise update of the iPhone its adoption by 1/3 of fortunes top 500 companies that has shown interest so far.

- The 45 new international stores Apple is planning by the end of the year selling officialy unlocked phones. (Locked phones only sold in the carrier stores)

- Introduction of a 3G/GPS version of the iPhone to initially complement and then replace the current model.

However to calculate the end sales a much more simple approach may be used. Approach that is more in line with Apple current optimism of the sales. Optimism that they will slightly exceed the projected 10 million sales.

I gues it all depends on how aggressive Apple wants to be in sales and how much they have learned from the global illegal unlocking about the actual demand for the iPhone and the bussiness model they should be pursuing.

The worst thing that now can happen to Apple is not that iPhone will not be successful but that they will greatly underestimate demand. Thus likely losing a very good chance to climb their market share higher than their the most optimistic projections. Something like the Amazon Kindle wifi digital book.

Data used:

iPod Sales: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ipod_sales_2008_Q1.svg

iPhone Sales: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Iphone_sales.svg

3G iPhone vs Nokia Xpress 5800 Media Tube

2008-04-12T15:13:00.010+03:00

A few details were unveiled recently about long expected iPhone killer from Nokia, the Xpress 5800 Media Tube. What a long name actually. At the same time, some unofficial details seam to surfice about the 3G model of the iPhone, that Apple will apparently unveil this June.

Let's compare them with what we know.Bear in mind that 2 things have been assumed about the 3G iPhone. First, its 2.5 mm thinner than it use to be and second it also supports GPS.

So rather than just list the specs of the two device, I will only list the differences.

Size:

based on dimensional data give, Nokia's Tube apparently takes 31% more volume in your pocket. An advantage for the iPhone.

Weight:

Nokia's Tube is 104 grams, while the iPhone is currently at 135 grams. However, the new 3G iPhone model is going to be thinner and likely lighter, so its a Draw in my opinion.

Screen:

The iPhone still has 46% bigger screen area, allowing for finger activated keyboard. This is a big plus for it, since Nokia's Tube users will need a stylus for much of the controls, typing included.

Resolution:

Nokia Tube's screen has approximately 235dpi, while the iPhone is at 163dpi. However, the iPod Nano Apple shipped last september had 204dpi screen, so it is entirely possible that the new iPhone has at least 204dpi screen too. Still a possible small advantage to the Tube here.

Supoted Aps:

By the time the Tube launches, iPhone will definitely have more useful native apps available to it if we consider the curretly industry momentum. The bigger screen and keyboard will also mean greater functionality. Also the Aps Store for the iPhone is way more easy method for distributing Aps than anything else out ther. An advantage for the iPhone again.

Operating System:

Mac OsX is definitely in a league of its own in terms of desktop computers, let alone mobile phones, where everybody else's OS is much less powerful. A huge advantage for the iPhone here too in terms of future potential

Touch Interface:

iPhone will use almost two year proven Multy touch UI, while the Tube will be the first Nokia device to feature their Touch (not Multy touch) Simbian UI. So the iPhone has a big advantage here too.

Camera:

Tube's 3.2 Megapixel camera with auto focus is definately supperior to the iPhone current one, but it is almost 100% certain that by the time the Tube lauches, the iPhone will have a much batter camera too. That's based on the 5 and 8 Megapixel camera sensor prototypes demonstrated already. So, I think its a draw here.

Memory:

The Tube has 140Mb of internal Memory vs the current iPhone's 128MB. Given the recent drop in memory price and the addition to native aps to the iPhone, I suspect then the new model might actually double its memory to 256MB. So I will say, its a draw for now.

Lauch date: 3G iPhone is in 2nd quater of 2008, while the Nokia's Tube is stated for first quater of 2009 release, giving the 3G iPhone at least half and year head start.

Distribution: Nokia has a huge distribution advantage over Apple in terms of mobile devices. However, Apple is gaining with every month and by the time Nokia releases the Tube, Apple is likely to be able to compete with it in most of all available markets. Actualy iPhone is currently being used all around the world and its market share in 3rd world countries is actualy going to overtake Nokia's smartphone one very soon. Nokia will only keep a market advantage in 3G Europe, but its 3G phones perform worse than the iPhone in the rest of the world. So its going to be an overall draw in terms of distribution.

Price: Nokia's closest iPhone smartphone competitors have always costed more, because they are always sold unlocked. If the current trend continues it is likely that the Tube will still be a lot more expensive than the iPhone, giving the the later a very important advantage.

Conclusion:

The Xpress 5800 Tube is not an iPhone Killer and never will be. There is no device that will ever be able to compete with the iPhone in terms of awesomeness and capability. Why? because that's is how it is with all Apple products. The iPod, the iMac and the others are all the benchmarks in the industry. IPhone is likely to overturn the mobile industry same as the iPod did with the mobile player industry. Apple will never settle for a second best design and performance.

Is the Apple product line up complete?

2008-03-24T12:26:00.010+02:00

Let's look at the desktop Macs.

A low end class called Mac Mini
A middle/consumer class called iMac
A proffesional class named Mac Pro

There three products here and it has stated that way for some years.

The Next most oldest category is the Laptop:

An consumer class called MacBook
A feature full class called MacBook Pro
An utra-light class called MacBook Air

There are tree produce here as well, though the last one is still fresh.

Next are the iPods.

An utra small one called iPod Shuffle
A feature full middle class called iPod Nano
A high capacity one called iPod Classic
A touchscreen one called iPod Touch

Four products. It feels a bit redundant it will make sense to reduce your product line to 3 models again. But which one will fall out. The oldest model in the line up is the iPod Shuffle. However it is still in its first generation. Morever it is extremely practical and affordable, and so it is likely to stay. Besides it is too small to incorporate a touch screen.

The iPhone Nano is a full featured iPod that has got video playback in it last generation. It is incredibly small and features a 204dpi display. It still looks good and appart from a memory upgrade or a price drop, it is likely to stay. The iPod classic is just like the iPod nano but with slightly larger display and 40 times the capacity. This is because it contains a hard drive. The HDD's are however a more unreliable and power hungry compared to a Solid State Drives. The HDD are old technology and are being replaced with SSD in ultraportable devices. At a certain point the memory size stops to matter and other factors become important, like the size of the screen or the funtionality.

The iPod Touch is the newsest iPod model. This device is essentialy an iPhone withouth the phone and camera. It is similar in size to the iPod classic but it so much more capable exept for memory size and battery life. It is the future of pocket entertainment

The first two product lines differed in 3 categories:

size
features
price

In the iPod line up the iPod Classic has similar featured to the much more affordable iPod Nano and the price of the much more capable iPod Touch. And so it is likely to drop out of the line up.

What of the iPhone?
If there there is any logic so far it makes sense to have 3 iPhone models. We could see a more affordable phone from Apple called iPhone Nano and we could see a a high end one called iPhone Pro.

The rest of the products offered by apple can also be arranged to fill the 3 consumer types categories, save for one. The Desktop Controller.

The Keyboard and Mouse and the devices that have seen some of the least amount of inovation in resent years. Granted, they are simple devices but even here Apple may introduce a innovative and advanced product. If anything, the past two years have seen Apple emerge as the leader in Multi-Touch displays and controls. These have been introduced into the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro but are still looking for the their carrier device in the desktop environment.

It's interesting but the Mighty Mouse does feature some touch control already. It's just not multi touch. Possible upgrades for the keyboard include backlight buttons or the entire concept can follow the Optimus Maximus keyboard.

Was the lack of 3G iPhone a failure so far?

2008-03-23T00:41:00.002+02:00

One of the most criticized aspect of the iPhone is the lack of 3G. That's like living in the city and someone telling you that you don't have a 4x drive or something. Ignoring fuel consumption is similar to ignoring battery life.

Yet Nokia headsets had 3G for quite some time now. Apple has stated its main reasons for omitting the 3G chip for now being battery performance and popularity. It quite remarkable by how much battery life the iPhone outperformed other the 3G phones with browsers. At the end of the day, what is more important to you? Having a fast phone or having a live phone?

I only have to look into the 3G/Edge coverage map in my country to see the logic behind Steve Jobs second argument, popularity. I basically have 3G only inside the major cities and not along the roads.

The EDGE coverage is complementary equal to that of GSM save for the mountains and sparsely populated areas. In practice i can have access to countless WiFi spots in the main cities. Too bad that most of them are locked.

Another good argument against 3G at the moment is the different standards of US and Europe, forcing companies like Nokia to develop region specific handsets.

iPhone EDGE on the other hand works everywhere in the world and does not affect your battery life as much.

A recent statistical survey show iPhone to claim over 70% of mobile browser usage in the US! Everybody else, including the 3G phones adds to less than 30%. Wow, it seams there was another barrier than a speed barrier to have the internet in your pocket. In Europe, the picture is different but iPhone still has the second place, not that far behind ALL of Nokia headsets put together, 3G and 3.5G included.

We all know the reason for these results: The phenomenal user interface and its reliable operation. The full Safari browser on the iPhone has actually shown to almost negate the speed advantage of other 3Gcellphones That's at least to a test shown on youtube and performed in Germany.

If ones think about it, the reason we actually wish for faster speeds on the iPhone is because the experience is so much like on a desktop that we forget that this is not one. With other headsets with clumsy web control, it more difficult to appreciate the extra speed of 3G.

So at thispoint I prefer to have a service I can use on the iPhone at all times without having to switch it off due to power consumption concerns, like the WiFi. Besides, imagine the monthly traffic and bills if you had such a capable internet device in your pocket. The prices are simply not there yet.

Was the lack of 3G a failure for the iPhone? Not at all. It was a well balanced choice made by Apple, reflecting the need of the fast majority of people. That is to have and iPhone that holds up to a day of heavy use.