One by One, Two by Two

I'm not sure what Apple 'invented' with the iPhone.    They did not invent the touchscreen or a full screen touch interface.   I had an MDA in 2005 that was essentially a thick iPhone.   It had a full size, 3.2" screen touchscreen etc, etc.

They did not invent the smartphone, blackberries had been around for a while, and actually palm has the patent on the smartphone.

The original iPhone lacked key features that were standard at the time, MMS, 3g, video and a LED flash, etc etc.

So the question is WHY was it so popular?   The competition at the time was the Tilt  or the blackberry 8320.

There are two correct answers.
1) design - Look at the original iPhone, then look at the two monstrosities posted above.   enough said.
2) They are apple - I have long said that apple could invent an iBrick, and people would flock to it as the best brick available in the world.

Regardless, Apple's lead in the full touchscreen smartphone market has been enormous for some time, however one by one they are losing those leads

Android overtook iOS in terms of sales last year

I believe the Galaxy Nexus has overtaken the Iphone 4s in the "phone to compare to category"

Today it was announced that Samsung overtook Apple as top smartphone manufacturer.

Here are some other things Apple is about to lose/may lose.  
-Total apps in app-store (early to middle of next year)
-Maybe someday in a couple years they will lose top selling phone to the galaxy S 5
-Best selling tablet OS -Android jumped 27% in one year

Epic apps

We went to a Halloween party at a friends house last night.   We had a problem that our phones allowed us to solve.

We had family that owned one house, and the party was three houses away.   Too far for a monitor to reach.   The entire family was invited, but it was after 7:00 when our girls go to bed.   I needed a baby monitor that would reach a city block.

Enter a number android baby monitor apps.  I used this one.

I placed a phone next to our baby monitor in the house.   When the phone hears a noise at a set decibel level for a short period of time, it calls a contact from your phonebook.   The receiving phone gets to listen to the monitor and hang up when done.

An iPhone can do the above, but cannot do the below.

I did get a couple calls throughout the night.  When i determined it was not an issue, I hung up, and the baby monitory app was able to call again next time it was triggered with no reset.   I got a total of three calls over 5 hours, and each time I was able to listen into the baby monitor.

The iPhone version of the above app can only make ONE call.   Then, the owner has to re-set the app, which means I would have had to make 2 additional trips back to the house.     It is a restriction in the iOS software.

Did I mention the android version is free and the iOS one is $2.99?  Android has SO MANY more free apps its silly.

Fragmentation v 3.0

  Google released their Galaxy Nexus last night.   It is quite an impressive phone and a HUGE leap forward compared to the model they released just 10 months ago (not 16).   Of course all the latest specs, etc, etc.

  Their presentation was quite stunning, and quite funny at times.  They had three technical hiccups with the software, but overall it was very impressive.  You can watch the whole thing here.  Just for fun, you can watch the fruit themed companies here.  Google didn't have any pictures of squirrels, but anybody that says Apple's presentation is better is just plain making stuff up.

  They did it all without bashing or comparing to the competition, like apple does.   They dont need to, because I believe GOOGLE Nexus phones are superior in almost every way that counts.   Note:  Asking SIRI how much wood a woodchuck chucks does not count. That function of SIRI is a "party trick" and has no purpose, just like 3D phones.

  One thing they didn't address, and which is a arguable the biggest problem for the android platform, is fragmentation.   They released another phone, with another version of their OS, with a different screen resolution.   Being a nexus phone, I believe that all apps will work on it, but its just silly.  Other items I was disappointed in.

  - Still the same app drawer/icons.   Apple's UI is visually stunning and simple, but functionally deficient.

 - Fragmentation.  This is not a problem for GOOGLE phones, but for android in general

 - The notification system is still kind of cluttered.   There is nothing wrong with it, but it could be better

 - Google didn't have removable storage in the Nexus S, and the left it out of the Galaxy as well.  

   My official recommendation to all buyers is to get on the Google Nexus bandwagon and never leave it.   You will always have the most advanced software, hardware, and important apps available to you..

Very interesting......

I love marketing.   Its the business of getting people to do what you want, regardless of what reality is.  I totally fell for it...

When Apple introduced the iPhone 4s' camera specs, I was like.. COOL!    They had fancy words and fancy pictures of of squirrels and stuff.   I thought to myself, the iPhone 4s' camera is the best camera on the market, all because marketing told me so.

Reality check

Apple has really lost its edge.   I'm NOT saying that the SGSII camera is better, I'm saying that the camera on the iPhone 4s is not gods gift to squirrels,  it is average for a high end smartphone.   Somebody else could do the experiment and have similar but different results.

What is the plural possessive of iPhone 4s?

iPhone 4s presales are HUGE! : UPDATE

  Apple has sold 4 million phones since launch.   I can't determine if I consider that impressive or not.   Regardless, 4 million divided by 4 days is 1 million per day, or roughly 100k more per day than Android.  It will take android about a week to catch up, and keep Apple in its 28% market-share.

  The reason I can't determine if I'm impressed or not is this:  Some people will say this smartphone war is a war of manufacturers, some will say its a war of individual phones, and some will say its a war of operating systems.

Either way, Apple is in trouble over the next couple of years.

OS vs OS is settled, Android sells WAY more handsets.

Manufacturer vs Manufacturer, Apple wins because they are the only company that makes the iPhone.

Phone vs Phone, Apple wins again, but the Galaxy S II phones is selling extremely well for an individual Android phone.   By well I mean about 13 million phones in 6 months, while Apple has sold about 40 million.

So what kind of war is it?   The general consensus is a OS war, because that is what format wars have been considered historically.

In the Mac vs PC war of the early 90's, PC has clearly won, and is still winning.   Everybody refers to it as Mac vs PC, not Apple vs IBM or Apple vs Gateway, etc.

On the flip side.... (I really tried to think of an argument to make it phone vs phone or manufacturer vs manufacturer and I couldn't..)

Super phones will replace.....

In the next 5 years or so, super phones will begin to compete with....

Laptops

Desktops

Game consoles

DVD players

I would say replace, but there will always be a market for stand alone systems.

Imagine this.   In 2015 the NVIDIA Tegra Stark processor series will be 75 times faster than todays dual core processors.   What do you do with that much processing power?   The answer is, everything...

I am only one person, and I can only do one or two things at a time.   Why do I need 4 different devices with processors in my house(just for fun, i actually have around 15)?   If I can only use one processor at a time, I should only need one processor.  I cant watch a movie and play a video game at the same time for example (work with me here).

When i want to use a laptop, I set my phone next to it (an advanced version of the Motorola webtop) and use the keyboard, screen, and mouse in a "shell" laptop.  All processing is done on the phone and it is done wirelessly.   Since these shells have no CPU, there is no need to upgrade it every year or two.  You only upgrade your phones.

I'm done with my laptop and want to play a video game, say COD 10.   My phone wirelessly connects to my TV, a controller connects via Bluetooth to the phone and we're gaming.

I'm done gaming and want to watch a movie.   The movie streams from my Android phone to my Google TV box and we can watch Shrek 8.   With enough CPU power you can use your laptop at the same time.

Going off to work the next day, I take my phone with me.   At work, i set it in a cradle, and it wirelessly connects to my keyboard, mouse and monitor.   Done at work, take it home and do the same thing.

All of this technology already exists, but it is in its infancy.  

WiGig (wireless 7 gigabyte/second data transfer)

Motorola webtop (very primitive, but proof of concept)

Asus Padphone (link)

Apple Airplay

So how do Apple and Google play into this?   Apple will have a closed system, so your iPhone X will only work with Apple products, purchased from the Apple store.  This includes Apple laptop shells, Apple TV, and iTunes media.  iTunes COD 10 will be 25% more expensive than Android COD 10, because apple currently takes a 30% share of app sales while android takes 5%  You can see this economy in action by comparing iPhone app prices to Android app prices.

Meanwhile, Samsung, HTC, and Motorola will have standardized everything, and it will all be compatible with each others hardware.   You can have a Samsung laptop and a Motorola Google TV set top box.  It will all work with your HTC phone.

Where does Microsoft fit in?   They are in the BEST position to do this.   Your Windows Mobile phone will have Microsoft X installed on it.   Microsoft already has all the software (i.e. Autocad) games (i.e. Call of duty) compatible with one platform.   Microsoft X will be backwards compatible with all games and software made previously.  When connected to your webtop, Microsoft X looks like windows does today, and runs all the programs you use today.   When connected to your TV, it runs any xbox, xbox360 or xbox 720 game ever made.

iPhone 4s presales are HUGE!

The iPhone 4S has had RECORD breaking pre-sales.   I mean HUGE!

HUGE PRESALES!

They sold a record breaking 1 million phones in the first 24 hours.

I am going to assume that they sold more phones in a single day Friday than any day in history.  I'll also assume that the iphone 4 and 3gs sold a negligible amount, but lets give them credit and say 100k phones.

So to summarize, Apple sold or pre-sold 1.1 million phones on Friday, which will be their biggest day of sales for the next 12 months.

Meanwhile on the android side of things, android is only activating almost one million phones per day.... every day of every week of every year, and growing at a staggering rate.... (link)  *note this article is calculated on historic data, but we have ever reason to believe its true.   Does this ever get mentioned on CBS?  Probably not.

On average Apple is selling 250k iPhones per day, with 0.75% growth week over week. (link).   Android is selling 800k devices per day with 4.4% growth week over week..

So far, Android sales have been cannibalizing blackberry sales.   At some point Android sales will either slow down or start to cannibalize another competitor, and I bet that competitor is going to be Apple.