Entering iPhone Era: Marking Time in Mobile

UPDATE: There is now a full iPhone market projection with regional and quarterly breakdowns of the numbers, to show what Apple needs to sell to get to 10 M by end of 2008. It is entitled Crunching Numbers for iPhone

Ever since my January keynote on handset design at the big annual 3G event in Tokyo I've mentioned the iPhone in every public presentation. And almost every time I've made the point that June 2007 marks a watershed moment in time. Much like the Western calendar marks time from before and after Jesus Christ, and how the computer world changed totally by the Macintosh - remembering that Windows is Microsoft's copy of the Mac operating system - I am certain that the mobile telecoms world will count its time in two Eras. The Era BI: time Before the iPhone, and the ERA AI: time After the iPhone.

What will change? Pretty much everything. And funnily enough, most of it is not actually caused by the iPhone, they only happen to occur so closely to the iPhone, that the iPhone will be given much of the credit.

Handsets BI and AI

Lets start with the obvious. From June all handset makers will get their first tests of the iPhone. Then Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, SonyEricsson, LG, and the dozens of second and third tier manufacturers will all see what they are up against. Not the outwardly form factor - yes, the iPhone is cool and slick and sexy - but the more important internal software. How do they make it so user-friendly? This is Apple's strong suit. More so than even stunning outwardly design, is the internal software on user interface. The iPhone for most of its parts will definitely be the best phone out there. Yes, it probably will not be perfect at all, not the very first version (although it might be that too) but certainly in most major features, making calls, listening to voice mail, sending and receiving most messages, accessing the web, consuming music and videos - the iPhone will be supreme.

So from June all reviewers around the world will compare all new high-end phones with the iPhone. How near do they arrive in being "almost as good as the iPhone". This is the phrase we will see in most reviews of smartphones. And the yardstick in usability will from now on - and my prediction is that for the fore-seeable future of mobile phones - the latest iPhone. A clear watershed moment in the industry. For the first time a major handset device which was designed from the start to be both a multipurpose smartphone and yet easy to use.

Then the mobile internet, BI and AI

The second and much greater impact is the mobile internet, or the value-add services industry of mobile telecoms. Up to now within the technologists there has festered a dispute about which will rule and why, the fixed broadband internet, the wireless WiFi internet or the cellphone based mobile internet. To what degree they rival and threaten each other, and which might triumph in the end.

It has been a lopsided battle, when most early internet-capable phones were monochrome WAP phones or modest speed GPRS phones with still tiny colour screens. Now we get the glorious sharp 3.5" iPhone screen and its powerful web access software. It was easy to suggest a laptop with a WiFi or WiMax access card would "forever" trump a 2" tiny pocket screen of an early 2.5G or 3G phone. Now we get the big screen iPhone and suddenly the pocket internet seems very plausible. And even at 500 dollars (subsidised) the iPhone costs half that of a laptop. Do we really need a new computer. If all we need is e-mail and music and uploading some pictures to Flickr or Myspace, isn't an iPhone enough?

Watch how all kinds of pundits will suddenly turn their coats and start to sing from the "mobile internet" hymnbook. They will "discover" the internet and data services on cellphones. And then the amazing discoveries that although the wonderful Apple iPod pioneered digital MP3 song files on portable MP3 players, and built a billion dollar industry out of iTunes, actually music on mobile phones is already worth 8.8 B dollars last year, with ringing tones, ringback tones and MP3 files sold to musicphones EACH already larger than all of iTunes.

Similarly there will be all those looking at the various functions on the iPhone and marvel at the mobile internet it "enables" - not knowing there is an 8 year history of it already. Yes, you can play videogames online. But gaming on mobile already makes more money. Yes messaging is a multi-billion dollar business on the web. But messaging is an 80 billion dollar industry on mobile (mostly SMS text messaging). Social networking and digital communties? Yes big on the internet. But at 3.45 billion dollars it is already bigger on mobile. Oh that is why Google has recently been aiming for the next internet, on mobile, they will say in appreciating amazement.

Then some clever analysts will have an "heureka" moment and exclaim that woa, the total content industry on mobile at 31 B dollars in 2006 is larger than on the fixed PC based internet (duh!) and some clever dicks will then observe that actually, since the majority of content revenues on the fixed side of the internet are pornography and gambling, but the biggest content revenues on the mobile internet are from music and social networking - yeah, they will tell you this in amazement, just watch them - some clever media pundits will conclude that while the mobile internet is younger, it is also more mature than the fixed landline internet on PCs. (and our blog readers will say, told you so, if you'd read the book Communities Dominate Brands, you'd have known all this already..)

Advertising BI and AI

And while on the subject of media, then advertising. An industry twice the size of the total internet industry and IT (computer) equipment industry combined - or in other words a little over half the size of the mobile telecoms industry - will also wake up and have their iPhone moment.

Look at this wonderful iPhone !  Look at that big screen. Look at all the internet content and music and gaming and web browsing and video clips. Wait. I'm in advertising. We need to be there. That iPhone is a magnificent advertising media channel. I better have a meeting with the boss...

Yes. Then they start looking for the case studies. Many will discover mobile advertising success stories from the 54% who consume ads on mobile phones in Japan already today, to the 2 billion ads served in just over one year by our friends over at Admob. But yes, then the advertising mind will suddenly "discover" the iPhone. And they start to talk about the mobile media no doubt (ha-ha, and some will even find themselves to our thinking about mobile as the 7th Mass Media channel, but it will take them longer to notice that yes, mobile as an Mass Media is as different from the internest as TV is from radio)

The Media Industry BI and AI

Similarly to the advertising industry, expect the major media moguls to "wake up" to mobile this June. Why? Not that the 50 or 60 year old board members at TimeWarner and Disney and Viacom etc will actually "use" an iPhone, but rather because the top strategist and CxO level execs at the media giants will be exposed to the Apple marketing blitz around the iPhone. Wait. Did they say TV? What was on that iPhone, was it CNN? and so forth. Soon Hollywood, HBO, Fox News, etc will feature iPhone stories and coverage. Conan O'Brian, David Letterman, Jay Leno, the Daily Show and SNL will all parody the iPhone marketing and it will simply be everywhere.

The music industry already has "gotten the message" and they are now trying to recover from the mistakes of ignoring ringing tones. Music is already onboard. Videogaming was the second to discover mobile already, so don't expect panic in the internal memos at EA etc.

But the rest of the media industries. TV? So in addition to satellite, cable, digital, HD and IPTV - there is STILL another new entrant into the game? But also, wait, this iPhone is very compelling. I could see myself having it at work next to the PC and tuned to CNN or CNBC. Actually I think I'll panic and write a memo.

Radio. Yes, the iPod and podcasting. Now this iPhone brings all the web broadcasts also onto the phone. Wake-up time. Expect panic memos in radio broadcasting.

Newspapers? Yes, the readers are either dying of old age or rejecting the paper formats altogether. But it was slow death on the internet and broadband. (didn't someone say TV Guide had lost 55% of its circulation in one year?) Now look at this iPhone. This will accelerate the death spiral. Time to panic. Let me write an internal memo.

Silicon valley BI and AI

The biggest single change I think will be a new gold rush, a klondyke, that grips the West Coast. The IT industry took it on the chin rather badly with the dot-com bubble bursting. They've been in damage control mode for a few years. The Web 2.0 buzz has some up and energized again, and the bravest investors are already returning to the tech space. But wait for the iPhone moment in IT. If Apple drops Computer from its corporate name. And says its future depends not on the Macintosh computers or the succesful iPods, but this latest gadget the iPhone? And suddenly it fulfills all the heartbreaking failed promises of PDAs and palmtop computers of the past. A new computer paradigm. And the ability to generate all new sales, new software, new interfaces.

New jobs. I need to update my CV. This is the new dawn of the computer age. The real revival after the dot-com bust. Suddenly everybody is rejecting job offers because even better ones are made simultaeously. Except that compared with last time, this time the fastest truly are the Blackberry and SMS generation who snatch the best deals at the last moments with the fastest communications.

Oh, and ironically lost in the shuffle is the fact that Nokia has stopped calling its top-end smartphones, the N-Series as mobile pohnes. The N-Series - the phone series most competitive with the iPhone at launch - has been called Multimedia Computers by Nokia for over two years. But this is something that happened in the dark ages, BI. The true coming of the first honest pocket computer will be attributed to the iPhone (while Nokia N-Series will dramatically outsell iPhones, still this is futile. iPhone will gain the Apple marketing magic)

Microsoft, Dell, HP, Intel, IBM, any IT company will suddenly want a cellphone strategy. Mobile experts will suddenly be in short supply. Crazy job offers will be everywhere. Oh, and if you want a quick boost to your mobile credentials, Oxford runs its short courses on 3G mobile technology in the first weeks of July - featuring also your fave author-blogger-podcasters Alan and Tomi - come there to pick up a certificate in the topmost training in mobile, and be in hot demand in the AI age)

The Family of the Mobilists? BI and AI

There are 80 million bloggers. There are massively more English speaking bloggers in America, in particular the West Coast, than in Europe and Asia and the rest of the world. We've had our expert circles with the Carnival of the Mobilists, the Wireless Watch, our Forum Oxford and so forth. We trust the opinions of the Ajit Jaokars and Russell Buckleys and Walter Adamsons and Chetan Sharmas and Carlo Longinos and Tony Fishes and Paul Goldings and here at Communities Dominate Alan Moore and Tomi Ahonen. But suddenly AI, the massive West Coast blogging community will start to buzz around the iPhone and the "wirelesss" and "cellphone" space. They will think they're discovering it all for the first time. They will make the same mistakes we've made years ago in Japan, in Scandinavia, in South Korea, etc but it won't matter. To the Americans if it wasn't invented there, it isn't really important.

So we will hear all the old stories we've gone through in the past. Should young teenagers get cellphones. Should schools allow cellphones or not. How about restaurants. Is it ok to speak on a phone while in the company of another. How about sending and receiving SMS text messages when speaking to another. Etc. Yes, we all know. But Americans have to go through those lessons as well. Watch the American wireless and cellphone bloggers discover these truths.

SMS texting BI and AI

And finally texting. Again. This is something totally unrelated to the iPhone. But the iPhone will feature SMS texting. Last year 42% of American cellphone owners (ie 30% of the total population) used SMS. This year it will grow, and next year, 2008, it will be about 60% of the total population who use SMS text messaging. It is inevitable. SMS texting is addictive. There is no going back. And soon SMS texting will break through the 100 billion dollar global revenue barrier so everybody will pay attention.

But again the credit will be given to the revolutionary iPhone. No matter that iPhones will form a tiny minority of American cellphones by end of next year. Still, it will be seen as a major contributor to Americans discovering the power of SMS. And then technology historians will write books in the next decade where suddenly all mobile service innovation will be attributed to this device and this moment in time.

Yes the iPhone is a radical device and yes, we need the American IT and media and adveritsing industries to wake up to mobile phones. And yes, the iPhone will bring valuable goals for all user interface design in mobile telecoms, both for handset makers and mobile operators. But all invention didn't happen at Apple or be caused by the iPhone.

But the level of the noise around mobile will double in June. Very many big guns will join the game. That is good. And it will be a change from an old Era, where handset makers like Nokia and Motorola ran the show with the major mobile operators (carriers). Now media giants will join in, as will major IT players and internet companies.

It will be an exciting time, AI.

UPDATE 23 September 2015 (8 years after this blog story was written) - yes now 'in the future' Digg has done a retrospective of what experts wrote about the iPhone at launch, 8 years ago. They included this blog (thank you!). I have done a small reflection myself, about this blog article, and why it turned out so incredibly accurate (I had had LOTS of preparation before writing this blog in 2007). Read all about how this blog article become to be, in this look back from 2015.

FREE INFORMATION - for those who would like to understand the basics of the mobile telecoms industry, its current size, replacement cycles, second subscriptions, mobile content revenues, SMS texting usage etc, I have written a concise 2 page Thought Piece on Size of Mobile Industry. Send me an e-mail to  tomi at tomiahonen dot com   and I'll send it to you for free.

UPDATE - We've had a lot of discussion here in our comments (over 20 comments so far) but this story resonated very widely in the blogosphere and beyond. See Electronic Echoes Part 2 for who all said what. We've been called anything from idiots to best posting of the week

Related postings:

Mobile as 7th Mass Media is as different from internet as TV is from radio

Understanding 2.7 Billion mobile phone owners, the mobile telecoms industry in context

Handicapping the iPhone's chances worldwide

And finally to understand how different the modern mobile phone is from the handset of only 9 years ago, check out this charting how far the pocket device has evolved:

Seven Deadly C's of Cellphones

Comments

[Al]

I like the dream you have - it is a pity reality will soon be faced by both you and Apple.

The biggest problem they have is to get the consumer to use it - and love it so much that it creates a buzz similar to the iPod. Outside of America they are using the same tactic of selling with one operator - this will be a big barrier.

Next is the price - it will cost even when the operator subsidies the cost over 12 months.

Then there is the size - too large for most consumers - no matter how friendly it is.

Then there is the greasy screen which time and time again has been shown to be a complaint of people.

They may get around the screen grease and in 2 years time they may get around the operator lock-in, hopefully they will do as with the iPod and create a iPhone micro and nano to get around the size issues. Then the cost must be dealt with - phones are commodity now - not high price, if you want volume you need to drop the price - or offer something unique for the price - there is nothing that unique apart from the logo. Unfortunately a consumer in a shop will not understand how friendly it is to use - and most of them have now been trained to cope with the unfriendliness of Nokia and Motorola - so they will not "get" it straight away. By the time it picks up a consumer conciousness for friendly it will be copied and no longer unique.

It should try and go for the business market - compete with RIM and microsoft - there is money there - but also a need for email integration. They are going to be a consumer device in a market that is saturated and not valued.

All of these hurdles must be jumped before they can even expect it to become the remarkable achievement the iPod was.

There maybe a BI and AI but no more than there is a BB and AB (blackberry), BN and AN (Nokia) and BM and AM (Microsoft).

[Mehnaz]

I have reading a lot on the iPhone for some time now... Sramana Mitra has been written a series of articles on the iPhone and its impact on the laptop and mobile ecosystem. Read more about the iPhone and the Future by Sramana Mitra.
http://sramanamitra.com/articles/iphone-and-the-future-by-sramana-mitra

[Tomi Ahonen]

Hi Krzysztof, Al and Mehnaz

Thank you for stopping by and posting comments

Krzysztof - hi, thanks !!

Al - good comments and we probably agree to a good degree. I think you are commenting on this story, when you probably would enjoy much my January blog about Handicapping the chances for the iPhone worldwide. I discussed some of your specific points way back then. But I'll briefly comment also here:

On "the dream you have" and you Al think we share Apple's dream, please understand this Communities Dominate blogsite is not an Apple site. We focus on social networking, digital communities, engagement marketing and convergence. Apple is not a major leader in this space (we closely track companies like YouTube, MySpace, Flicrk, World of Warcraft, Habbo Hotel, Cyworld, Ohmy News, Second Life etc). So the dream we have here at this blog is for companies to learn to engage with communities. Apple is not one of the more established companies to do this well, we'd site such companies as MTV, the Guardian newspaper, Three/Hutchison operator and Nokia among equipment makers much more communities-oriented than Apple.

Please re-read the blog entry, we do not in any way "promote" or "hype" the success of the iPhone. We here at this site, recognize there is growing hype around the iPhone, and we examine its impacts to those industries we work closely with, such as media like music and gaming and TV, equipment makers in the converging area, internet and mobile players etc. So while Alan and I are Apple fans, we are not particularly "hoping" or "wishing" for the iPhone to succeed any more than we wish a SonyEricsson or Nokia or Motorola device to succeed or fail. If we like a product or what it brings, we'll celebrate that.

We have been very critical of Apple also in the past, if you search this site on the iPod you'll find hundreds of angered Apple fans accusing us of being heretics.

With all that, no, Al, we don't "share" a dream with Apple. No doubt Apple DOES "dream" or hope that the iPhone will be a hit product like the iPod rather than a failure like an equally impressive technology product, the Newton before the iPod.

So then you Al take a hit at various shortcomings of the iPhone. I think many you state are fair, some more relevant than others. Some you may have missed, which is why I urge you to read my January iPhone Handicapping posting.

Also it is most important at this point - when we are only weeks from launch, to point out that we won't really know until it launches, and the actual manufactured product is in the hands of first reviewers. When it was announced in January, that is a good time to look at the specs and early info, to put it in context, in particular to those who are not experts of the mobile space, to see how it stacks up against the competition. Now, months later and a few weeks to launch, its rather futile to compare a vaporware product to today's rivals until it actually launches and we actually see exactly what the iPhone is like.

But lets look at your points

Create buzz - this is already happening, long before the iPhone is launched and before Apple's own PR machine gets into gear. No doubt they have created an iconic item of design. The buzz will naturally extend through June. Your point that the buzz needs to be sustained is not relevant to our posting here, whether American major media houses, advertising agencies, IT companies and internet players will wake up to mobile as a new channel. So whether the buzz is sustained past the summer is pretty irrelevant to our posting here. I do expect it to continue, time will tell.

Price. Here you probably are an American and not accustomed to modern, high-end smartphones. The Motorola Razr or LG Chocolate or Blackberry etc are very low-end products. Nokia's top products (a cameraphone with optical zoom and DVD quality recording), the Nokia Communicator series superphones, Samsung's top end (10 megapixel cameraphone) and SonyEricsson's top Walkman phones and Cybershot phones etc are not even considered by American customers. 499 dollars (for the cheaper model iPhone) subsidised with 2 year contract, may seem steep in America. Without the subsidy its somewhere near 800 dollars to 900 dollars as an unsubsidised price. Well, phones costing well in excess of 1000 dollars unsubsidised price sell in the millions in South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, UK, Italy, Israel, etc.

Here simply American audiences (and IT experts) have not been exposed to the best that is out there, that is why American reviews of the iPHone tend to be glowing, and the European and Asian reviews only lukewarm.

But on the price, Apple is a past master of creating new market space, of re-setting the rules and price expectations. The Mac was significantly more expensive than its contemporaries, and every successive Mac model has held an Apple price premium over other PCs. Same for the Newton, same for the iPod. Apple is definitely capable of extracting extra dollars for their products. Am certain they will repeat this with the iPhone.

Weight - this is a mid-range phone for its weight, in the smartphone category. Not a valid point. The Nokia N-80 weighs almost exactly the same. Many much heavier smartphones are out there. You need to understand the iPhone won't compete with the tiny simple featurephones out there. It is a very rich mixture of mid to top abilities. Weight, at this weight - Nokia Communicators (always the heaviest cellphone on the market at every release since 1997) have sold more than any PDA every quarter, the ultimate most-sold PDA in the world, and more than twice as expensive as the average price of PDAs, and nearly twice as heavy as the average PDAs (and having no stylus). But yes, the best-selling high end PDA-smartphone year after year, quarter after quarter. And twice as heavy as the iPhone. Weight? this is not an issue.

Greasy screen - you have a point here. But when I had my Nokia 6630 and my 6680 - both which had 2.5 inch screens exposed (not sliders or clamshells) and placed against the face when making calls, it was a problem sometimes on say a hot day, but not a major problem. The iPhone screen is 3.5 inches in size. Its by no means the first phone with such large screen (the LG Prada is nearly identical in outwardly measurements) - this won't deter those who like it otherwise. It won't be returned because the screen gets greasy...

Commodity - ok, the phones at the bottom end are becoming commodities. But cellphones as commodities in 2007 are MUCH LESS SO than PC's as commodities this decade, yet the Mac continued to sustain a loyal customer base to its computer series. And as to commodities. Water is a commodity. Clean water is available from the tap in all industrialized countries. Yet billions of dollars worth of branded expensive water is shipped in as Evian and Perrier from France to all industrialized countries - even countries with their own mountains and glaciers and the world's most clear and clean environments, like Switzerland and Sweden. If you can turn free water into a branded commodity with so little to differentiate as Perrier and Evian, CERTAINLY an Apple can with the excitement around the iPhone, build customer passions to sustain differentiation with iPhone.

Apple logo only differentiator - that is the critical one no doubt. But here look at the Mac and iPod. Again the Apple logo has held the customer loyalty. A logo alone won't do it, the company behind the logo needs to fulfill the promise, and Apple has been truthful to its customers. Expect this to continue with iPhone, don't see a problem.

iPhone micro and nano? Not anytime soon. Apple has to integrate 3G into the phone and at least a 3 megapixel camera and flash and video recording (for the iPhone to have any chance in Europe and Asia where customers are more demanding). All this adds size, more software, more drain on the CPU and battery, more size, and cost. No, you'll get LARGER iPhones with 3G, not smaller.

Saturated? Hold on. Did you say the cellphone market is saturated? You've been reading the wrong (probably American) analysts on telecoms who don't understand cellular. USA has slipped to second-to-last in the industrialized world in cellphone adoption (with Canada dead-last) with only about 75% cellphone penetration (measured per capita, not per household like broadband or PC). One of the world's leading countries in cellphone penetration is Hong Kong. I was chairing at the biggest telecoms event of Japan in Tokyo in January where Hong Kong wireless carrier/mobile operator Peoples presented. Hong Kong has 130% cellphone (subscription) penetration, yes meaning 1.3 cellphones for every living person, babies and great-grandparents all included. And what did Peoples say? They said Hong Kong is STILL growing.

You have nearly TWICE as many cellphones and subscriptions to sell in America before you approach saturation. European AVERAGE penetration is 105% (source Informa) and leading European countries like Italy and UK are at 120%. Sorry, saturation is a total red herring as I've explained in Business Week, Wall Street Journal etc. This one Al you simply had wrong.

Go for business market, attack Blackberry - this also Al you have wrong. You probably think "because iPhone is a smartphone, and Blackberry is a smartphone, iPhone needs to target Blackberry". But now consider rather, the Blackberry is a Hummer, the iPhone is a Ferrari. Perhaps rather than try to convert Hummer users to drive Ferraris, its better for Ferrari to target Porsche, Corvette, Jaguar etc owners.

And they are totally different products with totally different customers and needs and buying patterns. Blackberry is sold as a corporate/enterprise e-mail device and sold with company e-mail integration. The Blackberry is poor at media consumption (music players, cameras, videoplayers, etc) because it is a business tool

The iPhone is a mediaphone, an entertainment phone, with great music and video, modest camera, probably good internet access - but no integrated corporate e-mail system. It is bad for business real needs, and very expensive "executive toy" with too many frills, to satisfy price-conscious corporate communication tool buyers. That is why most early Nokia E-Series business phones did not have built-in cameras or shipped without pre-loaded games etc. It is because the corporate buyer does not want to subsidise its employees with freebie entertainment toys.

Here you have it wrong. Apple can't go against Blackberry just like a current model line Ferrari is hopeless to get Hummer buyers (no ground clearance, no "weight" or heavy "protection" in case of crash, no back seat, no cargo space, etc).
Apple has to go against Nokia N-Series, SonyEricsson Walkman phones (not Cybershot phones), LG Chocolate, etc.

Also Al, what you miss is things such as no 3G, the one carrier per market strategy, a very diverse and complex operator/carrier market outside of North America.

Most of all, Apple has never experienced this market situation. When the Apple 2 launched or the Newton, they had no major branded global players to fight against. When the Mac and iPod launched, they had only one major global rival (IBM and Sony respectively) and in BOTH of those cases, the global rival had decided this market was not strategic, so the global rival was ignoring Apple. With IBM in 1984 when the Mac launched, IBM was still delusional about the relevance of the PC. When the iPod launched in 2001, Sony was focused on the Playstation, its major profit engine, and with portable music players was peddling the minidisk digital recorders.

Never before has Apple had well-entrenched, global players with larger sales volumes, global footprints, established reseller channels. The big five (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, SonyEricsson and LG) each have seen Apple coming to this space, and the handset makers DEFEATED Apple already in "Round 1" - the battle of the iPod vs the musicphone. Last year Apple sold under 50 million iPods and today have shipped a total of just over 100 million in six years. Last year 309 million musicphones were sold. Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and SonyEricsson each have sold more musicphones - portable MP3 players - than ALL Apple iPods sold last year. Even LG is catching up, the LG Chocolate (a musicphone) is LG's best-selling phone model in Europe and America.

So Apple has never went into this battle before, where it has forewarned its rivals, they are very well entrenched competitors, and they are TOTALLY focused on keeping this market. Sony - the world's largest consumer electronics company - decided it can't compete in cellphones alone anymore, and joined with Ericsson. Before Sony made this decision they were selling nearly 100 million handsets per year. iPhone hopes to sell 10 million. Sony said 100 million made them too small. In this market of almost 1 billion handsets sold worldwide per year, profits are very difficult to come by, with Motorola, LG and Samsung each reporting loss of profits in at least one quarter over the past two years. Nokia diverged its networking business to focus just on its phone market. Siemens, the world's largest engineering company, and ranked 6th largest phone maker, quit the phone business altogether.

Its a rough hard market, Apple will find. That is the toughest part of trying to reach 10 million in sales.

But current Mac owners, and most iPod owners, are sharing the Apple dream, they want the iPhone. And if it delivers on THEIR expectations, even if it is "outrageously" expensive the existing Apple customer base is big enough to get close to the 10 million sales level.

Finally you say "all this needed to become remarkable achievement that the iPod was" - you again miss the whole point of our blog. We are talking of a watershed moment - for industries OUTSIDE telacoms. All major handset makers - Nokia, Motorola, etc - have already said the launch of the iPhone will be a watershed moment in the handset manufacturing business. Future phones will be compared to the iPhone. What we talk about in our blog, is that there is a BIGGER story, the impact to media, advertising, IT and internet industries especially those with headquarters in America (most major media and advertising, many IT and internet players).

For that audience it is irrelevant if the iPhone is a hit or flop. They either will wake up during this summer or they dont. And if the buzz around the iPhone is big enough, they will wake up.

That was our point. Thanks for writing Al

Mehnaz, I think your posting is somewhat an advertisement, but yes since you do say you discuss the iPhone, I'll let it be here.

Thank you for writing

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[OIM]

Trackback: La Era iPhone

Summary: Anda la blogosfera tecnológica tremendamente revuelta a raíz de un artículo del célebre Tomi Ahonen en la que predecía la llegada de una...

Blog: El Observatorio de Internet Móvil

[Paul Jardine]

Hi Tomi,

I liked the article and I very much hope that things do happen as you predict, however I was interested in mxmora's comments and your response to them.
If, and it's a big if, Apple gets the iPhone right and they are not 'walled in' by their partnerships with the operators, then I think that what we will see is the arrival of the real internet on the mobile platform.
Think about the reasons that SMS is successful. It's because it's easy to use, it works and you can send a message to anyone you can make a call to. Typically the other messaging channels, such as email, IM etc did not meet those criteria, but with the iPhone, maybe they will.
I think one of the biggest effects of AI will be the demise of Symbian (even though it's installed on a lot of handsets), I would expect that Windows & Linux platforms start to become more prevalent on the new AI devices. The services will become more transport-agnostic (e.g. SMS/IM - the distinction will blur, the service will become more similar).
As you rightly said in your response to mxmora, there are plenty examples where mobile is the preferred delivery mode for services, but these are in instances where the price is right. The mobile operators are learning that, but slowly, and the launch of the iPhone will bring increased price pressure on the current mobile content services.
Will AI kill the 'golden goose' and make the internet on mobile the same as the normal internet? I'm not sure, but things will definitely get cheaper and the volumes of users of the 'internet on mobile' (I refuse to call it mobile internet) will go up exponentially. In the end, the mobile operators should be opening up and pulling down the walled garden, because if they don't then people will find other ways to get out, and the iPhone will probably make it easy.
I'm not the first to make this comparison, but it's probably a similar kind of event to the launch of the Apple II computer; the game changed, but in the end Apple were not the major benefactors.

[Charles Gordon]

Very interesting post. Insomuch as I must strongly resemble "the massive West Coast blogging community" discovering mobile devices for the first time via the iPhone, I am reminded of Leif Ericson. He may landed in North America, but it wasn't until Columbus that it was really discovered. There may have been plenty of devices that much earlier had the features of the iPhone, but you have to give Apple credit for finally making it relevant to the masses. The other manufacturers were stooping to the level of swapping out color faceplates to sell to the fashion crowd. Times are exciting again, thanks to Apple.

[Alan moore]

Charles, I think you are right.

The iPhone may not be perfect, but it has broken the mold, created interest, and given the handset manufacturers a bit of a fright.

Thanks for posting

Alan

[wansai ounkeo]

Absolutely amazing Posting you have here! Unfortunately I just have enough time to write this before I log off to go home. I will continue with some of my own responses once I get to my abode. I just had to tell you that my thoughts were almost in sync with your own on this matter and you had it well written out. Cheers =)

[peelay]

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We are legit,and registered company,We are the leading exporter&factory for mobile phone and Portable DVD,Car DVD,MP3,MP4,LCD TV,Plasma TV,IP phone,USB Phone,bluetooth earphone,bluetooth USB dongle,Laptops,etc.
We ship worldwide via FEDEX,UPS and DHL. All these products are all brand new,safely sealed in its original factory box and package with all its complete accessories and manuals.
we deliver within 2 days to buyer doorstep:
We have all brands of Mobile
Phones,Ipods,xbox
360, Sidekicks,Nextels phone,Laptops for sell at cheap and
affordable prices, they ranges from Nokia/Samsung/LG/Sony
Ericsson/Motorola/Alcatel/panasonic With Bluetooth, all
Brands and Models of Nextel Phones, we want you to get back
to us with your quote so that we can begin a good business
relationship.
You can contact us for more information at
[email] [email protected]

SONY VAIO A217S-- 100GB-- 512MB RAM-- XP HOME-------------$300
SONY VAIO B1VP-- 40GB HD-- 512MB RAM-- XP PRO--------------$330
SONY VAIO T370P/L-- 60GB HD-- 512MB RAM-- XP----------------$200
SONY VAIO A215Z 60GB HD-- 512MB RAM-- XP------------------$2450
SONY VAIO A397XP-- 80GB HD-- 512MB RAM-- XP----------------$300
SONY VAIO B100B08 60GB HD-- 512MB RAM-- XP---------------$250
SONY VAIO B100B08 60GB HD-- 512MB RAM-- XP---------------$400
SONY VAIO FS295VP 80GB HD-- 512MB RAM-- XP---------------$350
SONY VAIO FS215Z 100GB HD-- 512MB RAM-- XP---------------$350
SONY VAIO A417M 80GB HD-- 512MB RAM-- XP-----------------$450
SONY VAIO B1VP-- 40GB HD-- 512MB RAM-- XP PRO-------------$200
SONY VAIO T370P/L-- 60GB HD-- 512MB RAM-- XP PRO----------$400
SONY VAIO LAPTOP-- VGN-A117S---------------$300

NOKIA N90......US $170
NOKIA N91......US $175
NOKIA N92......US $180
NOKIA N93......US $210
NOKIA N95......US $300
NOKIA N97......US$320
NOKIA E70........$170
NOKIA E90........$300
NOKIA N70......US $165
NOKIA N80.......$200
NOKIA N800.....$210USD
NOKIA 8800 SIRROCCO....US$200
NOKIA 8800 ------------ US$190

All Toshiba laptops
Toshiba Satellite PRO L10--------------- $320
Toshiba M200--------------- $500
Toshiba R100--------------- $450
Toshiba Qosmio E10--------------- $650
Toshiba Satellite PRO L20--------------- $250
Toshiba M100--------------- $680
Toshiba M300--------------- $740
Toshiba Portege--------------- A200 $320
Toshiba Satellite L10--------------- $330
Toshiba Qosmio F20--------------- $500

Apple Iphone 8gb............$300
Apple Iphone 4gb............$250

Dell Laptops
Dell Latitude D600--------------- $290
Dell Latitude D500--------------- $200
Dell Inspiron 6000--------------- $350
Dell Latitude D505--------------- $340
Dell Latitude D610--------------- $460
Dell Latitude D510--------------- $320
Dell Inspiron 9300--------------- $530
Dell Inspiron 700m----------------$1020
Dell Inspiron 700M for Home (Pentium M 1.70GHz, 512MB, 40GB)== $550
Dell Inspiron 2200 for Home (Celeron 1.50GHz, 256MB, 40GB)== $400
PLASMA TV PRICES
Samsung HP-R5052 50 Plasma TV AT JUST $900
Gateway 42\" Plasma TV 16 : 9 AT JUST $750
Panasonic TH-37PWD8UK Plasma AT JUST $920
Dell W5001C 50-inch High AT JUST $700
Samsung SPN4235 Widescreen AT JUST $850
Pioneer Plasma 61\" HDTV AT JUST $900
Pioneer PDP-5060HD Plasma tv AT JUST $650
Samsung SPN4235 Widescreen tv AT JUST $1000
Sony FWD-50PX1 50\" Plasma AT JUST $1,200
Sony KDE-61XBR950 Plasma TV AT JUST $1,400

ipods
20GB iPod 20GB iPod .............45USD
Apple 4 GB iPod Mini Pink M9435LL/A ......40 USD
Apple 40 GB iPod photo....................40 USD
Apple 4 GB iPod Mini Silver M9160LL/A ....40 USD
Apple 60 GB iPod Photo M9830LL/A..........60 USD
Apple 60 GB iPod photo ...................55 USD
Apple 30 GB iPod Photo M9829LL/A..........50 USD
Apple 512 MB iPod Shuffle MP3 Player......40 USD
Apple 4 GB iPod Mini Blue M9436LL/A.......45 USD
Apple 2 GB iPod Nano......................50 USD
Apple 4 GB iPod Nano......................60 USD
Apple 30 GB iPod Vidoe...................110 USD
Apple 60 GB iPod Vidoe...................150 USD
Apple 80 GB iPod Vidoe...................200USD

play station 2 ....$130
play station 3 .....$250

Sony PSP giga pack(colour white)...$150
Sony PSP giga pack(colour black)...$150
Nintendo WII for just .............$200

Xbox Video Game System Console $150
Xbox 360 Core System $170
Xbox 360 Platinum System $120
Xbox 360 \"Premium Gold Pack\" Video Game System $130

Here are the Price list for different products;

SONY ERICSSON P800(UNLOCK)-- US$180
SONY ERICSSON P900(UNLOCK)---US$200
SONY ERICSSON P980i(UNLOCK)---US$200
SONYERICSSON P990 JUST FOR ...$210USD
Sony Ericsson P910i.....270 USD
SONY ERICSSON W800i AT JUST $140usd
SONY ERICSSON W900i AT JUST $220usd
SONY ERICSSON 810i AT JUST $240USD
SONY ERICSSON W550i AT JUST $190USD

MOTOROLA RAZOR V3 FOR JUST ......$120USD
MOTOROLA MPX 200 FOR JUST ......$115USD
MOTOROLA RAZR V3C FOR JUST.......$140USD
MOTOROLA V3I DOLCE & GABBANA .....$160USD
MOTOROLA V3X................. ....$150USD
MOTOROLA V3C......................$155USD
MOTOROLA MPX 220 AT JUST $120usd,
MOTOROLA MPX 300 AT JUST $160usd,
MOTOROLA V661 AT JUST $145USD
Motorola V303.......100 USD
Motorola V400.......150 USD
Motorola V500.......150 USD
Motorola V501.......200 USD
Motorola V525.......150 USD
Motorola V80 with Bluetooth...260 USD
Motorola V872.....200 USD
Motorola V878....180 USD
Motorola V300....150 USD

SIDEKICK 1 .......................$100
SIDEKICK 2 .............................$120
SIDEKICK 3 ...................$150
SIDEKICK 3 LX..............$200

DWADE SIDEKICK 3 ..............$170
CURTURE SIDEKICK 3 .........$155
JUICY SIDEKICK 3 .............$165
SIDEKICK 3 LARGE...........$160
GREEN SIDEKICK 3..........$175

PALM TREO 650 AT JUST $140usd
PALM TREO 700W AT JUST $160usd
PALM TREO 600 AT JUST $120usd
ETEN G500...$280
ETEN Torg 120..$320
ETEN M600 ...$320
ETEN G500 GSM GPS PDA...$280

Buyers should contact us on Office Mail: Office Mail:

[email protected]
[email protected]

[mark joel]

BRAND NEW APPLE IPHONE UNLOCKED 8GB STILL IN MANUFACTURE BOX WITH FULL ACCESORIES.
WE SHIPP WORLD WIDE
PRICE: $300

SHIPPING: $50

Brand New Apple Iphone 8GB Unlocked

Specifications

New, Retail Boxed learn more 8 Gigabytes of Storage 3.5 Inch Widescreen Diagonal Display Size Silver/Black Color USB data/charging cable included iPod Docking Adapter included Polishing Cloth Stand Quick Start Guide 6 Month Original Manufacturer Warranty Headphones included.

contact:

[email protected]
[email protected]

[chris ban]

Hello Valued Customer,

We sell mobile phones phones and various kinds of laptop.we sell in

Unit price and in quantity price Unlocked, sim-free, Made in Finland

Phones with one year international warranty.All nokia N series in

Stock:N90/91/92/93/95/745/70/8800.contact us on :[email protected]
Prices

Apple Iphones 16gb===320euro
Nokia n95 with 8gb===265euro
Nokia n93i===========230euro
Nokia n95============250euro
Nokia n93============220euro
Nokia n92============200euro
Nokia n91============190euro
Nokia n90============180euro
Nokia n75============180euro
Nokia n70============175euro
Nokia 5700[cute]=====295euro
Nokia e61i[excutive]=280euro
Nokia 6500[classic]==285euro
Nokia N95 w/8GB =====260euros
Iphone[wonder machine]===============330euro
Samsung u600[cute]===================300euro
Thurayah 2520[executive]=============390euro
Motorola w375[camera+flip]===========275euro
Samsung c300]cool]===================305euro
Motorola k1[slid]====================300euro
Sony erricson s500i[slide]===========305euro
Sony erricso t650[stylish]===========290euro
Samsung product latest pentium 4=====340euro
Note book toshiba====================305euro
Dell pentium 4=======================335euro
Samsung pentium 4====================305euro
Toshiba Satellite A75-S206 Pentium 4=320euro
Starbook 520 notebook computer=======335euro
And other latest laptop and note book, place your order now.
MAIN-OFFICE:
IP PHONES INC
CALLE COLON 7,
46100 BURJASSOT, SPAIN.
TEL./FAX : +34 963 107 507.
TEL.(Atencion al cliente 24hrs.): +34 677 670 814.
C.I.F.: B- 81846206.Nokia N95 w/8GB = 260euros

[Tomi Ahonen]

Ciao OIM and hello Paul

Thank you for writing.

OIM - thank you.

Paul - interesting point. Notice first, that it is sheer fantasy to ever expect the internet as we now know it - ie PC based - to be "free" on phones, just like it is sheer fantasy to expect voice or SMS text messages to become free on phones.

There is a fundamental law of nature that is at play. The spectrum is a finite resource, there is not enough capacity to give it for free. There will always be a price for our mobile services. No matter how great Skype is doing killing the traditional fixed landline business with truly free calls, they won't be free on mobile. Some providers may offer free calls (like Blyk) but then we face the economic realities of a much smaller advertising industry, that is unable to sustain mobile telecoms. Yes, for given small players, but not the whole industry.

So the premise, that while voice prices, text messaging prices and mobile internet access prices are declining - that is true - it will not become zero, not in the net ten years at least (maybe in the 4.5G or 5G eras, near 2020 but not even by the launch of 4G near 2012). The premise is flawed.

We can build so much capacity in fibre (and essentially often just light up dark fibre already laid into the ground) that the cost of data transmission is near zero. We can very easily provide basic data transfer services - on broadband - for nearly free. But not on mobile. There is very limited spectrum. In 2G we ate it all up already. The incumbent 2G operator business cases were built on the concept of unsustainable business in 2G, they had to have 3G just to handle the voice and text messaging traffic. Now we add dramatically more data traffic (internet on mobile as you say). Soon we are again at congestion. Then we need 4G. And that will again run to congestion well before the network licenses run out.

But it doesn't have to be free, to be dramatically more used. That is clear from Apple iPhone users - on 2.5G technology, not 3G - and they use the internet on the phones dramatically more than non-iPhone users.

So that trend will be strongly supported by the iPhone.

As to your prediction that Symbian will suffer out of this? Ha-ha, well, I think very differently about that. We need to understand mobile phone handset economics for this. They sold 1.15 billion mobile phones last year. Apple will sell probably 10 million this year (just under 1 percent). About 150 million of the phones this year will be smartphones - and over half of those Symbian devices. All other smartphone operating system makers (RIM, Microsoft, Apple, Google Android etc) will have trivial market shares.

Why would Symbian die out of this? Nokia is using Symbian in its smartphones - that alone will keep Symbian very much alive for a considerable period of time...

But good talking with you Paul, lets see how this all plays

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[AVA30Tate]

I took 1 st business loans when I was 25 and that helped my business a lot. Nevertheless, I require the short term loan over again.

[PICKETTLaura29]

Following my investigation, billions of people in the world get the personal loans from various banks. Thence, there is a good chance to find a financial loan in all countries.

[صور مراد علم دار]

thank u man
good nice

[VelezJUANA25]

I opine that to receive the home loans from banks you should present a great reason. However, once I've received a short term loan, just because I was willing to buy a building.

[jailbreak iPhone]

if you jailbreak your iPhone you can use any carrier

[iPhone Application Development]

some of the interesting thing i saw in this but the this is this era is only for mobile phones or in short i must say era of iphone...

[louboutin sales]

The Sydney-based bank is only allowed to operate wholesale business in non-local currency for the first three years in China subject to the nation’s regulatory policies.