Beating the Tin Drum

As far as the consumer is concerned is it the device, or the functionality it enables, or is it the content it can render that is ultimately the decider? Is it in fact cyclical and does the technology always come first, closely followed by the features and functions and the actual content come last, or are we now at a point of change?

Who today would buy, or even want the pre iPhone mobile? Was it purely down to the iconic design and presentation of the iPhone, or the apps it unleashed and app store? Would the device have been enough without the digital content?

We then have the drivers behind the major offers.

Apple’s iPod enabled iTunes to go mobile and was a phenomenal success like the Sony Walkman before it. But the iPod was nothing more than a mobile jukebox and when smartphones started to compete they needed to do more and the iconic iPhone was introduced. This masterpiece of design was king and spawned the lucrative world of apps and multimedia mobile. But again as Android replicated Apple’s offer they had to once again find something different - enter the iPad. The iPad was another winner and the true multi media player of choice but it wasn’t a phone and it wasn’t small enough to put in your pocket. Apart from the telephony the only real difference between the iPhone and iPad was size and in a mobile world the smaller size does matter too many. So when others started to introduce smaller tablets and larger smartphones the world started to change again.

Interestingly, the only real difference between many of today’s offers is the content and how well it renders of the device.

Some suggest that books are different and needed eInk dedicated readers. The reality is there are not and don’t. Amazon, Nook, Kobo have all adopted an increasingly agnostic device and operating system approach. This ‘platform’ approach is not dissimilar to all the major content services across all digital media. Today you can now play music, watch films and TV, play games, deal with emails, perform full office functions, access all media, community services and the internet on a device agnostic basis.

So devices are basically today’s fashion and quickly becoming tomorrow’s scrap. The apps are being developed for all operating platforms of significance, browsers are fully agnostic and content is available from all with everyone trying to mirror each other’s offer across all platforms. We now have the emergence of the super toys in the form of mobile watches, external snap on lenses and glasses, but is there no reason to believe that these will decide who wins and who losses? Some would suggest that they are a mere distraction and that, like so many before them, they do not offer sustainable advantage.

Maybe we are now entering the world where even the availability of media is not enough and it is the commercial package that will decide the winners. Perhaps the winners will not be the tin manufacturers, who as we have seen, now play on an increasingly level playing field, but the content packagers and community hubs who are becoming the ‘must haves’. Perhaps it’s those who have multi-faceted information on their community. This is where Amazon is scoring day in day out and where those who can design a place in their side lines can also survive. Amazon announced when it launched Amazon Matchbox that it had data on every book purchased since 1995 and I bet every search, basket and much more.

The latest rumour is that Amazon is about to launch a smartphone and give it away free within their service community. It isn’t such a farfetched idea and would certainly fire a shot across of the bows of the mobile technology companies who rely on selling units, be it to network providers, or direct. The shift would be from a device centric world where people watch the sales of smartphones to a service centric world where the consumer is attracted to who offers them the most convenience at the best price on whatever device.

As John Lennon once said, ‘ I may be a dreamer but iam not the only one.’

On-demand Media and Sensory Devices will Change Culture

Our dependency on electronic devices has grown over the last decade. We now appear to be entering yet another cycle of the technology escalation and it resulting cultural change. It will like those before it change how we consume media and how we communicate with others.

The ‘I’ era was one of the Pod, Phone and Pad. It enabled mobility and communication but also created the ‘I’ society who often resembled zombies, switch on, tuned out and transfixed through those white earpieces. What it finally gave us was the platform environment which enabled media to be enjoyed across multiple devices. This platform broke the single device was previously tied to single media. No more Walkmen, MP3 only, eink readers, the smartphone and tablet became the do it all devices for all.

Having created the platform we now appear primed to create sensory devices that themselves will enable a more intuitive interface and also delegate the platform to the cloud. Everything will be available online on-demand and will negate the need to have a local copy or download. This change will be significant as it truly starts to change culture from one of ownership to one of rental and subscription.

So we will have the likes of Google’s Glasses, Apple’s watch and many more sensory aligned devices. Speech recognition will become the norm and retina tracking will negate the need to pitch and squeeze and scroll. Mass robotics are still to fully happen and a device is whatever you wish it to be.

What will come first the sensory device, or the cloud on demand media? Some will suggest the technology is here today and they would be right, but they have yet to be mass adopted and in doing so change the culture.

The media industries now need to gear up for a significant change in business models which itself will create new opportunities for new and well as old media. It’s hard to find a music store on the high street today but when you do look at what they are now selling and recognise their business in now online. Add to that the new services that took up the mantle of Spiral Frog and are delivering on-demand media by subscription and we have a culture change that isn’t going back in the box.

In ten years sensory devices may have gone even further than we think possible today and the speed of bandwidth and universal connectivity will make the cloud reality. 

It was a Good Week For Amazon and a Bad Week For The Rest

Well it was a good week for Amazon and a disappointing one for the rest. That may sound a bit harsh but what is becoming clear is that even the strong players and pretenders often lack Amazon’s vision, customer focus, market understanding and delivery and in some cases many of these.

So what was so good for Amazon?

First they raised the device bar and ‘Fired’ everyone up for Christmas. New fire tablets, better Kindle ereader and Fire devices coming to UK. The announcements weren’t earth shattering, but well communicated and sufficient to nullify the opposition. It was if they were being innovative, as the reality was that they were just doing the same as their main competitors in the ereader device market and raising their tablet bar in order to compete better with their real competitors in the tablet arena; Apple, Samsung and Google. They also claimed that the original fire had captured 22% of the US tablet market which should be a significant wake up call for all given its basic features.  

The interesting twist was their media focus. They own: Audible, the leading audiobook player, Lovefilm, a leading European on demand film service, ABE the largest rare and second hand book marketplace, Book Depository a significant global book retailer, are a growing publishing force both for established and new authors and of course are the largest global ebook and physical bookseller buy any measure. They now are clearly starting to intertwine these offers, using ‘Prime’ to generate loyalty and with yesterday’s announcements starting to build a differentiator that will be hard for others to follow let alone compete with. Their new announcements on X Ray and their new serial programme are clear indicators of them pushing the boundaries.

Then we have Judge Cote approving the DOJ settlement with three publishers which some would suggest leaves Apple, who can afford to play hardball and the other two publishers who perhaps can’t afford too, looking exposed.

They also announce that they will be taking on 600 more staff in a new depot at Hemel Hempstead, 3,000 temporary staff over Christmas and creating 2,000 new jobs in the UK. All of which was not lost on David Cameron who welcomed the announcement. How to influence people in high places!

To top it all the share rose 2%.

Nokia never seem to learn. Just when some said that their new Lumia 920 smartphone running the new Windows platform may be one to watch they scored a stupid own goal. It appears that the video which was claimed to have been shot using the new phone was fake and created using a higher quality camera. The result, their share dropped a further 6%.

Having announced three new devices you would think Kobo would have had a good week. However, when you step back, the week will belong to Amazon who clearly upstaged the a poorly timed announcement from Kobo. The one thing you don’t do is beat your chest and declare you are a winner when the opposition is about to wipe the smile off your face. Kobo’s offer is now an also ran and like their service they are seen as having a poor competitive offer. Rakuten need to step up their investment and focus on building a real differentiator if they have any hope of competing in the major markets. It is clear that Kobo now have a narrow media offer and devices are not going to make any difference whatever they price them at. They are competing on the wrong thing, but perhaps like other forgotten pretenders such as Sony, that’s all they have got.

Barnes and Noble now know that they left it too late to venture outside of their comfort blanket – the US. They now have got strong established and committed opposition in the UK and that’s before they even spend a dollar trying to build their profile.

Apple are oblivious to bad weeks but even they must be wondering if agency was wise and why they continue to fight the inevitable. They have their own announcements coming up and the iPad nano (remember they said they would never shrink the screen) and a new iPhone are bound to play to the fans delight, but unless they start to get real on pricing there will soon be a serious price gap with the rest. This was easy to defend when they stood out but as the others improve, like with smartphones, people will start to look seriously at others.

However Apple appears to have bitten the hand that feeds it in their zealous patent actions against Samsung. It is claimed that Samsung is withholding memory chips for the initial shipments of the new iPhone because of a disagreement about pricing. Apple obviously doesn’t like to be dependent on Samsung , but there is only so much volume Apple can get from elsewhere. The Korea Economic Daily reported Apple’s exclusion of some Samsung components earlier today.

It’s a sign that we only have 19 weeks to Christmas. The cards are starting to appear in the shops and despite the potential Indian summer we are starting to think about presents.

HTC UK's Number 1 Smartphone

Apple's iPhone has slipped from number one to sixth place in the list of the most sought after smartphones in the UK claims mobile tracker uSwitch.com which ranks the UK’s favourite mobile handsets based on live searches and sales.

HTC dominate with their Desire model number one followed by its HD brother and the Wildfire model. Them comes the Blackberry Curve, The Samsung Galaxy and then the Apple iPhone 4.

The early lead in the apps war and innovation Apple showed with the iPhone is now having to compete with a formidable range of Android devices and apps and cheaper alternatives that can be better bundled into a monthly rental deal with the device coming free

HTC has certainly stolen the mantel and have build a formidable contestant and range of offers. They are not offering just one option and have exploited Android technology to compete head to head with Apple. The big challenge is whether they will now step up and take on Apple on the iPad with a similar approach or leave that battle to the likes of LG, Samsung, Dell, HP etc?

Ten Digital Reflections

If we look back over the decade of the ‘noughties’ we see ten technology/service step changes which have all in their own way enabled publishing to be digital. They may have not been the first to market, but were first to get it right and change things.

iPhone: The iPhone redefined the mobile, the user interface, the operating system, the application, the look and feel and much more. It combined the best of the iPod and iTouch and brought them to a smartphone. It made reading on a phone acceptable and was adopted by young and old.

Amazon Kindle: It started out as just another eInk device and ended up a multi device platform, leaving many so called pretenders in its wake. The single focus Amazon applied and their determination to evolve and protect their customers investment in Amazon, was what ultimately swept the others behind them.

YouTube: Youtube did for film what iTunes did for music. It became the enabler, the changer, the vehicle that promoted us from video watchers, to video makers. It gave the masses a common platform to express themselves and view alternatives. It was and is a 'starmaker'.

epub: As a standard it unified the industry and effectively became a 'category killer'. It is far from perfect today. Many see it not one standard, but as a mere container, with many issues and variations. However it effectively killed off Mobibook, MS Reader and nullified Adobe ebook. It enabled everyone to believe we had a single standard.

Widgets: They may have been overly engineered by some and lacked a common specification, but they started to make everyone think outside the box. Context started to be used to promote and sell content. We started to use the jacket as a container for content, metadata, bibliographic record and even to be a two way communication vehicle. Unfortunately, widgets were often not understood, lacked industry standards and leadership and remain waiting to be fully discovered.

Facebook: Many will ask why Faccebook? Why not MySpace, Bebo, or even those many publishing only pretend social networks? Facebook wasn’t the best social network, but it was the one that was adopted and accepted by all. It may have started as a narrow college vertical, but it then became inclusive of all and it was this that ultimately separated it from the rest. Why do we need book social networks such as Copia or BookRabbit when we have Facebook that can include all book social connections?

ACS4: When Adobe killed off ACS3 and embraced epub under the intial Adept service many industry players said 'no way'. Adobe quickly adapted it to what is now ACS4 and it soon became the DRM service across multiple devices. Love or hate DRM, it is here today and Adobe continues to be the glue that secures epub and Aebooks (PDF) on many devices. It offers the reader the ability to buy from a wide range of resellers and read files on a wide range of readers. It offers the author and publisher the security.

The Blog: We now have social networks, twitter and a host of ways to express and share our views. Some would suggest that the blog post has had its day and that the 'real time' snippet and interaction of Tweets is more powerful. Others would suggests that 140 characters says little and merely reflects our growing sound bite culture. Whatever, blogs were the vehicle that redefined journalism and writing and enabled many to be able to express themselves to a wider audience.

The Google Book Settlement: We all have an opinion on this audacious attempt to highjack an industry for little more than chump change. It sits still on the shelve awaiting judgement, but it has single handily woken everyone up to the issues facing copyright in the digital age, the challenges of orphan works, the nonsense of territorial rights in global digital economy and the fact that as a rights business, publishing stands exposed without even a basic rights registry.

Lightening Source: LSI came of age during the decade. It quickly became the aggregator and distributor of print on demand titles. First exploited by academia and smaller niche publishers, it has now grown into a vehicle to maintain back lists, produce short print runs and enable ‘lost works’ to be brought back into print. Interestingly it also enabled Ingram to quickly grow its digital offer.

Some may ask why we did not include Android, OLPC or even the iPad. The answer is a difficult one in that they all have had a dramatic impact on the market, but we feel that they and others still to offer or consolidate a step change.

What are your top ten and have we missed the obvious?

The New iPhone 4 and iOS 4

Steve jobs has announced at his Worldwide Developers Conference the iPhone OS 4.0 and iOS 4.

iOS 4 will support; multitasking, folders, improved data protection, device management, wireless app distribution, support for multiple Exchange accounts, a unified Mail inbox, SSL VPN support, Exchange Server 2010 support. iOS 4 will be released this summer for the iPhone and iPod touch, and a little later for the iPad.

So as the war between Google and Apple hots up we see Microsoft split in the middle, Adobe aligning the obvious way and literally tens of wananbee tablets lining up for Christmas. Apple continues to set the design stakes whilst Google is clearly stalking with menace. Google will launch Chrome OS later this year and its going to be interesting if this will strengthen or divide its appeal.

Pick up an iPhone Bargain at Wal Mart

Why pay top ticket for the latest must have when you can buy it at a price we can all afford in a supermarket near you. Be it the latest Dan Brown or Harry Potter or now 16 GB version of the iPhone Wal Mart know how to sell a bargin. They have ticketed the iPhone in the US for $97 with a two-year AT&T contract. This is some $100 under the standard $199 cost from others.

Given Apple’s control of everything Apple it will be interesting to know why Apple is allowing such deep discounting just before it next 4th Generation phone next month. Perhaps Apple need to destock the existing inventory to create a switch to the new model. Whatever the reason it spells a good deal for US consumers.

Perhaps they also want to create a further buzz to deflate any rising Android momentum and bring back app developers focus that may have been affected by Apple’s recent tightening grip on everything Apple.

Is Appleworld Closing Its Borders?

The iPad is certainly living up to the market expectations and irrespective of the hype and the knocks, it will change the media market and computing as we knew it yesterday.

Today we read that Appleworld have taken further steps to tighten its control and further restricted what software tools developers can use to write programs for the iPhone and iPad. The software development kit will now be restricted to just three tools and any application submitted to Apple that does not use the mandated tools will now be rejected. Some will say that section 3.3.1 of the development licence is now aimed more at Apple's rivals than raising the quality of code.

A new Facebook group called "I'm with Adobe" has quickly gathered some 6,000 members. Ironically, Adobe have released a software package, Creative Suite 5, which can turn Flash code into iPhone code, but under the new terms and conditions using Creative Suite 5 would lead to an application being rejected.

Looking Foreword

Technology has a habit of working in cycles of favour. What is the ‘must have today’ is often usurped by another and another and so on. So were will the Apple competition and threat coming from?

The current eInk readers will only appeal to those who already have them. They look jaded and as we have said before, who wants black and white TV when colour is available? Colour eInk is 'still coming' but it requires the consumer to face a buying decision and that will not be restricted to one technology choice in the future.

Smartphones today are polarising around the three major players RIM, Apple and Android and leaders such as Nokia and Sony Ericson and innovators such as LG and Samsung are struggling to compete in what is now a different world. Players such as Palm came and are now going.The key no longer is the device but its ecosystem and compatibility with others and one's lifestyle.

Tablets are iPad today and the US demand for the latest ‘must have' has now delayed its international release by one month. 300,000 iPad units were sold on its first day and 500,000 in its first week.

Now rumours are circulating that Google are to deliver a ‘computing’ tablet and not just another ‘media’one. The tablet is to be built on its Android platform. This is an obvious threat just as Android is a strong contender against the iPhone and the Android and Apple apps stores are also locked in combat. If Google were to take a similar 'open approach' to supporting other devices that they adopted in the smartphone market, an Android tablet could come on many devices and have great appeal. Rumours are also rife that HP is working on an Android tablet.

If Google were to fully embrace Adobe there could be an even greater interesting situation. Flash remains a major challenge to the iPad and has Steve Jobs in constant denial. Adobe still own much in the file formatting, design, image and open DRM space and as we move from hard to soft DRM Adobe is also best placed to innovate and bring standards and conformity to the market. A Google, Adobe loose alliance who be formidable within the media space.

The camera is also a major issue. After all we all remember that it was the VHS video camera that killed Betamax and a media device without the full capabilities to capture all media is no more than an obvious limited prototype.

There are others such as the German offer from Neofonie which was badly branded the WePad. Do marketing people every consider the connotations of the names they choose?

Microsoft is also out there with Windows 7 and busy looking for a hardware partner, but manufacturers may still want to push netbook sales and not expose them to tablet cannibalisation.

Apple’s ‘use my tools or out’ xenophobic approach may still encounter an unexpected backlash.

AppleWorld Keeps Spinning

Everything today appears to be Apple flavoured and devotees are certainly immersed in the glow of Appleworld.

While everyone in the UK waits to the 24th April to see their first iPad on the tube, coffee shop, or lounge bar, PCadvisor claims that they are already here and available. Their report claims that 2 resellers Purelygadgets and Simply Electronics, are not only listing the device on their websites but have iPads available to send out immediately. Purelygadgets is offering the 3 versions of the Wi-Fi iPad; 16GB, 32GB or 64GB capacities priced at £689.99, £785.99 and £869.99 respectively and Simply Electronics £545.95, £649.95 and £749.95 respectively.

So why wait? Why not be the first to be seen carrying one, or coolly reading something while all around stare? How many will be walking the London Book Fair aisle nonchalantly showing one? Will it be even more hip not to have one at the show?

The Appleworld machine doesn’t stop and they have now announced OS4. Not does the new operating system add 100 new features but it can finally do what others do today - multitask. It also heralds yet another model at the end of June 2010 during Apple's annual Worldwide Developer Conference. Unfortunately because of hardware demands, only the latest iPod Touch and iPhone GS smartphones will be able to offer multitasking capabilities. Never mind we can all do the annual upgrade and old models can be handed down to the less hip relatives.

The announced update also includes a mobile advertising platform ‘iAd’ that will be used to place adverts in applications made by third parties. iAd pitches Apple head to head with Google and its successful advertising model. As always Apple also want to make revenue sharing simple giving 60% to external developers, but significantly, they wish to change the paridim and have the adverts inside the apps. That way they don’t lift a finger and collect 40% of revenues – smart move.

Having lost out to Google on AdMob, Apple acquired Quattro Wireless mobile advertising network in January. This is key to iAd and they obviously have their sights set a lot higher than the $300 million they paid for Quattro. Of course Facebook and Twitter are also thinking advertising. They also force more to adopt HTML5.

Apple claim to have sold 450,000 iPads, 600,000 electronic books and 3.5m applications downloads for the iPad in the first 5 days. Impressive figures and a determination to convert all to Appleworld.

So we see ‘giant battles’ as the likes of Google and Apple square up to each other, Amazon tries to outmanoeuvre them and Adobe ploughs its own furrow but still hold many of the content keys. There is obviously always Microsoft but like the UK Liberal party don’t expect to see them win. Some may not survive the next decade.

And Our Mobile Winner Is...

So in the week the world was Slated and Amazoned , we took the long overdue step of upgrading our mobile.

We choose Android and HTC Hero and were pleasantly surprised how good it was and the apps that were available. The real reason was we got free full access Skype included and for us that is important for those international daily calls to India, Australia etc. We also got Spotify premium for 24 months for free which whatever way you look at it is a good deal.

We didn’t find all the unusual apps we love on the iPhone but did find all the ones we would use such as Shazam, Scan2PDF, Last FM, etc and some we had missed such as beebplayer (online BBCTV and iplayer) and some great social connections into Twitter,and Linkedin etc. and the world of Google.

Android is a serious competitor to the iPhone.

Mobile World Continues Spinning

Today we read that many of the leading publishers are cutting deals their with Apple and while we all deliberate on this, the potential iTunes store for all digital stuff, Apple Slates and Tablets and the 27th of the month, the mobile world continues to spin.

The Android versus Apple battle continues with LG Electronics launching its LG InTouch Max GW620, their first Android smartphone with both a 5-line QWERTY and touchscreen keyboard. The LG InTouch Max also has a 5-megapixel camera, a 3-inch touchscreen and a 1500mAh batteryand is available on T-Mobile for free on a two year contract with unlimited data for as little as £20 a month or from Virgin Media on an 18 month contract for £22 a month.

The Nexus One is less than a month old and can still only be bought in the US, but already Motorola is playing catch up with its Shadow; a new high end mobile phone that looks like a small tablet with a slide out keyboard. The device will come with an HDMI port, an 8 mega pixel snapper with 1080p video recording, a 4.3 inch screen with a resolution of 854 x 480 pixels and of course Android OS.

Now we have Amazon selling its Amazon MP3 store on Android, which offers tunes for download direct to your Nexus One phone at UK prices. The app requests a Amazon.com user account, but conveniently allows a Amazon.co.uk account in the UK. The Amazon MP3 store will not only the Nexus One and Android compete with the iPhone , it also has the ability to sync songs with more than one computer.

Finally Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, says Google's Nexus One mobile phone is his favourite gadget, but he does owns two iPhones as well!

iPhone Now in Second Place In US

So as we deliberate our next mobile we read in Computerworld that the US iPhone user base is now bigger than Windows Mobile-based models and now only second to Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry. It was therefore also interesting to note that yesterday RIM suffered a serious cross network outage that effected all consumer BlackBerry users in the US. Interestingly corporate users appear not to have been affected and the outage was apparently caused by some "routine" RIM maintenance work that occurred at around 2:00 a.m. US Central time on Thursday. This is not the first serious outage, in April 2007 had a 12-hour email outage and they also suffered again in February of last year.

However Apple continues to grow unchecked and it is now claimed that around 9 million Americans now use the iPhone as primary phone. It still is way behind RIM’s 15 million but with each glitch and the emergence of more apps the writing could be on the wall for that device which was built on email.

According to comScore, some 36 million Americans own a smartphone, while around 196 million rely on a traditional cell phone. So the market has significant potential and the capacity for five times more growth in the US alone.

The interesting challenger is the Android pack with devives such as the Motorola Droid and the Google aPhone. We don’t envisage Palm as a contender and Nokia are spreading their bets but are in danger of losing the plot.

Tesco to Sell iPhones

It seems the UK is now open season for all who want an iPhone. Only yesterday we were offered one from a service provider who isn’t supposed to have a contract and today supermarket giant Tesco announced that it hoped to offer the phone "in time for Christmas".

The Tesco deal will be tied to Tesco Mobile who already has 2 million mobile customers and is a joint venture with O2. Tesco has not revealed tariffs, but you can guarantee they will be "competitive".

Vodafone and Orange have signed deals to sell the phone but others clearly will sell and support contracts for iPhones. The question is what this does to the balance of the market and also others who are trying to gain ground? Tesco will certainly empty pockets and brings the iPhone right alongside the weekly shop. The one big casualty will be the devices that are tied to operating systems who haven’t got an app store and whose system doesn’t appeal top the developers. So who would you back: Blackberry, Symbian, Android, Palm, Windows?

We have an iPhone but our second contract is up for grabs as we speak – watch this space.

Smartphone App Wars

Who will win the mobile app store battles and the associated operating system wars?
Samsung will launch a mobile application store in Europe on Sept. 14 for its Omnia smartphones. They join iPhone, Nokia’s Ovi, Rim/Blackberry and Palm Pre stores and as many operating system battles, carrier exclusives and even device showdowns.

In August Samsung released its mobile widget software development kit (SDK) and its Application Seller Site a month earlier. Users will initially be able to select from about 300 apps, including games and e-readers and they predict that this will increase to around 2,000 by the end of the year. Their SDK is different in that it will let developers create widgets for different Samsung phones using different operating systems, including the company's own proprietary OS.

Nokia is the market leader in terms of phones, smartphones and mobile but has struggled to get third-party developers to develop applications for their phones. They are not alone, after all why do you want to develop 4 apps that each have to be maintained and may not all earn out?

Then we have the formidable LG Electronics, which in July launched an online store for mobile phone applications.

Finally we have Microsoft who is hoping the launch in October of its new mobile phone software, will revive its flagging position in this lucrative market. Today they are estimated to have some 9% share against the 14.3% they enjoyed only a year ago. They are behind RIM’s 20.9% and Apple’s growing 13.7% and a long way behind Nokia’s 45%.

Microsoft’s big card is its ability to run Windows Mobile Office productivity apps such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. But is that enough and a strong enough differentiator today? They claim a trusted brand but is it it trusted enough and although they can line up all the big guns in support we think it too late, too tired and somehow lacking. Will it fully support touch and compete with the new touch environment.

What is clear is that consumers need to keep their options open in what is a dynamic market.

Exclusive Deals Are Anti Consumer

O2 looks certain to loose its exclusive iPhone deal in the UK on October 9th. Does this mean prices will drop? Well there may be some variance but it is hardly likely to be significant. What is more interesting is that it appears that O2 will retain an exclusive on the new 3GS so what you gain on the swings you loose on the roundabouts.

This obsession with exclusive deals is good for the winning network but bad for consumers. By restricting the iPhone to one network in countries such as the UK and US it can adversely suppress demand, force many into unwanted contracts and eventually, as others catch up create alternatives which are often more open. However, the Palm Pre has followed the exclusive approach and even been stupid enough to select the same network so creating little choice and marginalising the market further.

How are likely to be winners out of this madness? One sure winner is likely to be Google who have chosen a different and more inclusive approach and all the other manufacturers may lack apps but may not be that far behind , or even ahead on everything else.

Wake up Apple it time to exploit not restrict your asset.

iPhone News

We note that over one million iPhone 3GS units were sold in just its first three days and take a quick look at iPhone world..

Three Book App Moments
OUP has made 11 of its reference dictionaries available for the first time on the iPhone and iTouch Apps at £8.99 each. They are searchable, have unlimited bookmarking and you can email the definitions to friends.

The available titles are: Oxford Dictionary of Accounting; Oxford Dictionary of Biology; Oxford Dictionary of Business & Management; Oxford Dictionary of Chemistry; Oxford Dictionary of Computing; Oxford Dictionary of Finance & Banking; Oxford Dictionary of Law; Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary; Oxford Dictionary of Music; Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy; Oxford Dictionary of Politics.

In another launch IDW Publishing is a new line of digital comic apps allowing fans to download comics directly to their iPhone or iPod Touch. The 12 new movie-related digital comics are a must-read for all TRANSFORMERS fan, setting the stage for the upcoming TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN film. The iPhone comics are supported with a custom landing page on the iTunes store and feature panel-by-panel viewing, easy to use controls, such as “swipe” navigation, and a convenient table of contents function. These come on the back the 40 digital comics, such as Star Trek: Countdown that IDW have already created.

After reference and comics we also note that The Audiobooks app has captured the number one Apple's free App spot for the books category. The app introduces a catalogue of 1,800 free audiobooks to iPhone and iPod Touch users and potentially offering a audiobook long overdue moment.

The catalogue of nearly 10,000 hours of listening is to be applauded as it uses recordings from the LibriVox Project, which is a collection of volunteer-read audio books from the public domain.

Market News
Meanwhile anyone who doubted that Apple had created the winner of the smartphone pack need to look no further than the news that a survey, by market research firm Crowd Science, found that 40% smartphone users who don't have an iPhone want one next time round and 80% upgrade to the next Apple device next time. Interestingly only 14% of non-BlackBerry users would switch to a BlackBerry device for their next mobile phone. According to Gartner Apple has doubled its share of the worldwide smartphone market in the first quarter to 10.8% from 5.3% a year ago. Another interest note from the Crowd Science study was that 71% of smartphone subscribers use them for both personal and business purposes, with only 3% using them just for business.

The Downside
One downside appears the news that all the exclusive carriers appear to wantto charge for tethering, or being able to use the iPhone as a mobile modem for the laptop. Some say its hard or almost impossible for them to detect and others point users to simple way to break it via benm.at. Tethering is an obvious benefit to mobile people and was made available as part of OS 3.0 so it seems harsh that the carriers are using to raise revenues and create a barrier to buy when it would be a major plus if it was free within the unlimited Internet access plans.

The other downside appears to be the news that the Interim Federal Communications Commission chair Michael Copps is calling for an examination of exclusive handset deals to establish if they are restricting innovation. US Senator Kerry wrote to the FCC suggesting that such deals risk giving too much power to dominant networks, with particular reference to the iPhone and AT&T.

Interactive Advertising Displays

UK based digital creative agency Clusta have partnered with CBS Outdoor to develop an iPhone-enabled advertising platform for digital LCD screens at London’ largest shopping mall at Westfield. The platform, will enable consumers to control the advertising display on the 57” HD KLCD screen via their iPhone.

The iPhone can make the object represented on the display spin to the left or right and also, by using the ‘pinch’ and ‘stretch’ finger gestures, zoom in or out of the object displayed on the screen and change the colour of the item. The technology is planned to be developed for other smart phones and also include SMS interactivity to receive more information about the product.

Want the latest movie download, blockbuster or just more details on a product? Who needs a kiosk when you can see, select and potentially download in front of a advertising display. Today advertising displays don’t engage they merely broadcast, tomorrow they may capture interest or make a sale.

As We Await Apple

So as the world awaits Apple’s next announcements on Monday and the undoubted media blitz that will follow we have taken a quick look at some of the others vying for space in this crowded market.

Palm Pre
The Pre has made its long awaited entrance and now its down to the consumers to decide whether it lives up to the hype or becomes just another also ran. The webOS, Palm's new operating system enables concurrent applications open at once. You simply organized the apps like a row of cards and you flick the screen to switch between them. WebOS will also notify you of events that need your attention, no matter which application you're in. Again, making the iPhone look cumbersome and others just clumsy and slow. The Pre’s webOS aggregates contacts and calendar items from multiple sources, like Google, corporate Exchange servers, and can even insert your friends' Facebook photos into your contacts list. This obviously wins over the iPhone’s in many ways but is it enough to make consumers buy or even switch allegiance? Will we get iphone app overload and will the Pre give us the apps that are clearly driving this market?

Whether you get a Pre or not, its has clearly raised the bar on the software will leave its mark on the phones you buy in the future.

LG
We have long awaited LG GD910 mobile watch will be hitting the UK in July but unfortunately only being available via Orange and with a £1000 price tag. The price will almost certainly put off many from being James Bond but will it become a designer status symbol for chavs or merely a nice product at the wrong price? As previously reported it has a 1.4 inch touchscreen, looks good being only 14mm thick, has 7.2Mbps HSDPA, voice recognition, text to speech capability, Bluetooth, MP3 player and tells the time too.

HTC
HTC are about to unveil its third Andriod mobile and rumours suggest the announcement will be on June 24th . The HTC Hero is expected to launch in two models, one with touchscreen only and one packing a QWERTY keyboard and so offering appeal to all. With Google’s arsenal of potential opportunities and its cross platform design, the Andriod phones are certainly ones to watch.

ACER
Acer’s new Tempo F900 smartphone arrival to the UK appears imminent. First shown in Barcelona in February the device looks set to have a £429 price tag. It features a 3.8 inch VGA screen, Internet Explorer 6, with JavaScript and Adobe Flash Lite, and high-speed HSDPA. Acer has clearly stated it wants to be a smartphone player and have adopted Acer 2.0 user interface to aid navigation and ‘desktop’ customisation, in addition to Google Search, Google Maps and YouTube. Acer is not alone in the move from netbook to mobile and could bring some interesting user friendly aspects to the table.

INQ
UK based INQ is to launch a Twitter phone which it claims will be the first mass-market phone to have a client for the social networking phenomenon built-in. It will use the internet to send and receive tweets, rather than text messages. The question is what is so special and surely everyone else can easily follow. Like Skype you don’t buy a device just make it easy to twitter or do you?

Palm and Apple Will Contest June

June looks to be the ‘mobile month’ with the much awaited launch of the Palm Pre in the US on the 6th June and whatever Apple are going to announce two days later on the 8th.

We can only speculate on the Apple moves but we can clearly state the Palm Pre ones. The device announced as the ‘iPhone killer’ finally arrives albeit in the US only and also only on the Sprint network. No launch date has bee announced for the UK. The much-anticipated handset will cost $199.99 (£129), after a rebate, and buyers must take out a two-year contract when signing.

One of the most appealing features of the Pre is webOS, the operating system that combines a variety of online services into a finger-friendly user interface. The phone automatically recognises when owners connect to social or e-mail services and builds up a global list of contacts and login details as it is used. Unlike many other phones, the handset also allows owners to have several different applications running at the same time.

The large touch screen, Wi-Fi, 3G, GPS, 8 GB of storage, and Bluetooth, all stack up well against rivals like the iPhone 3G, BlackBerry Storm, and the T-Mobile (Android) G1.

Palm will also be launching the Touchstone charging kit June 6. This puck-sized device can charge the handset wirelessly. The Touchstone charging kit will be sold for $69.99. Palm is also investing in an iPhone-style software development kit for third-party developers to create applications for WebOS called theMojo SDK.

The Pre's release date could be a gamble coming two days before Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference and theBlackberry Storm, was also billed as the iPhone killer.

Kindle 3 Versus One Billion iphone Apps

The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon is developing Kindle 3 and this will be a larger screen version designed to be attractive and compete in the newspaper and magazine markets. The article speculates that the K3 could be out in time for the 2009 Christmas shopping season.

They are obviously aware that Plastic Logic is coming over the hill and both the Hearst and Murdoch empires are looking to do their own thing and also if Barnes and Noble make a move its likely to be around the same time.

The big question is will eink be the technology that prevails and despite the media attention given to these ebook readers today will they merely become the single dimensional dinosaurs of tomorrow? Larger screens add significant cost to the eink technology. Today and for the foreseeable future eink remains grayscale and may be ok for text but is seriously unsexy for graphics, illustrations, photos and can’t play video. No matter how big they make the screen we would rather use the smaller, compact and more portable iPhone or even iTouch.

So it was very interesting to see that Apple have started to countdown not to Christmas but to their one billionth app downloaded milestone on the App Store. iPhone sales hit 17 million last month and in less than a year of their launch the apps have proved a huge market success and huge competitive differentiator with all the competitors now scrambling to catch up.

As we write the counter is at 938,718,000 and counting very fast! Apple are giving away prizes for the lucky billion app person.

The top ten free book apps are:

Kindle for iPhone
Stanza
eReader
Wattpad
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Beamitdown software)
Shakespeare (Readdle Playshakespeare.com)
Love Poems (Beamitdown software)
Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen (Beamitdown software)
King James Bible Audio (iToursoftware.com)
Alice in Wonderland (Beamitdown software)

The top ten free book apps are:

Classics (the only one in either list to feature in the top ten of all application)
Star Trek Countdown 1 (iVerse Media)
Star Trek Countdown 4 (iVerse Media)
Star Trek Countdown 2 (iVerse Media)
Star Trek Countdown 3 (iVerse Media)
Star Trek Countdown 1 (iVerse Media)
King James Bible (DMBC)
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (iceberg reader)
A Twilight Trivia (twilight Movie and Book)
New Moon: The Twilight Saga, Book 2 by Stephanie Meyer (iceberg reader)
Mohandas Gandhi Quotes (Brighthouse labs)