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• Quarterly figures show steep like-for-like decline
• Underlying profits also down 27%
• Sales rise 1% but handset prices are cut

Profits at Nokia have plunged over the last three months as the company continues to struggle against rivals such as Apple and RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, in the smartphone market.

The Finnish handset maker reported today that profits fell 40% in the second quarter of 2010 compared with a year ago. Underlying profits were down 27%.

Although net sales were 1% higher at just over €10bn (£8.4bn), the profitability of its handset and service division slipped as the company cut the prices of its higher-end phones to make them more attractive to consumers.

Nokia’s failure to compete better against Apple’s iPhone and the growing number of handsets running Google’s Android platform has put chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo in the firing line. The company is reportedly looking for a replacement, with analysts warning that Nokia needs to get its hands on a “European Steve Jobs” if it is to regain its dominant position in the mobile market.

Kallasvuo called for an end to speculation over his future, telling the US television station CNBC that it is damaging the company. “There has been a lot of speculation on my position, on myself, during the last couple of weeks and that is not good for Nokia and must be brought to an end one way or another,” Kallasvuo said. “At the same time, I’m not in a position here and now to really shed any more light on the topic so I guess this is a no comment. I really concentrate now on the task at hand.”

Kallasvuo also insisted today that Nokia, which makes roughly four out of every 10 phones sold worldwide, had reasons to be optimistic, although the company is only aiming to maintain its share of the mobile device market this year. “The global handset market has continued to grow at a healthy pace, led by some of the less mature markets where Nokia is strong,” he said.

Kallasvuo added that solid sales of cheaper phones to developing markets had boosted the overall performance of Nokia’s handset business.

The average selling price of a Nokia handset dropped to €61 (£52), from €62 in the previous quarter. For smartphones, average prices fell 8% quarter-on-quarter to €143, and are down 21% over the last year.

Today’s figures suggest that Nokia is having to cut smartphone prices to maintain market share at the expense of profitability. Its smartphone shipments were up by 12% quarter-on-quarter at 24m units, in line with Nokia’s estimate for the overall growth of the market.

The company is now pinning its fortunes on the new Nokia N8 smartphone, although its release has already been delayed until later in the year.

Nokia also maintained its prediction that the global handset market volume would grow by 10% this year.

Earlier this week, Apple reported its best ever quarter, partly due to strong demand for the iPhone.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, android, apple, best, Blackberry, cheaper, compare, compared, consumer, global, google, growth, iphone, line, maker, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, months, new, nokia, phone, phones, prices, sam, service, sol, station, three, uk, world

Inducted into Dropped Bar Hall of Shame™

Apple has added another mobile phone manufacturer to its online Dropped Bar Hall of Shame: Nokia.…

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(Source The Register)

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Data from the Android developers site suggests that lots of phones are running 2.1 – but there’s something missing from what we’re being told which may mean it’s exaggerated

How fragmented is the Android platform? Google knows. And it’s quite interesting. The problem is that it’s not quite ready to tell us in detail. Only with winks and nudges.

The chart above comes from data on its developer site about versions accessing the Android Market for apps. A point to note: there’s only one Android device out there which is running 2.2 (aka “Froyo”), and that’s the Google Nexus One. Which has been discontinued.

However, some of the other phones can be upgraded to 2.2; it will be interesting to see what sort of timescale there is on that.

But what must be encouraging for the folks at Google, and Android developers, is that 2.1 is so dominant in that pie chart. (There’s a tiny fraction, 0.3%, consisting of “incompatible versions” – not sure what those would be.)

Because certainly the biggest threat – and the biggest problem – for Android developers is platform fragmentation. Old version of Android can’t run apps that target more recent versions, though old apps can run on the new platform. (Think of it as being like Windows. Sort of.) But the later Android versions have all sorts of features that you don’t get on the others. (You can see the version feature comparison on Wikipedia.)

The timings of the version releases:

1.5: 30 April 2009
1.6: 15 September 2009
2.1: 12 January 2010
2.2: 20 May 2010

That means that this chart covers just one year (roughly).

The notable things that 2.2 has that 2.1 hasn’t? Adobe Flash 10.1 support [corrected]; “remote wipe”; Wi-Fi hotspot function; voice dialling over Bluetooth. So now the question is how soon operators (particularly UK operators) will be pushing 2.2 out to Android customers. The suspicion is that the answer is “not soon”, given that 2.1 only just made its way (via an over-the-air – OTA – update).

And be wary – very wary – of trusting these graphics as really indicating the preponderance of Android versions out there. What we don’t know, because these graphs don’t show us, is:

- whether people with newer versions of Android are more likely to access the Android Market (that would push the share for newer versions upwards: and it seems likely, since I’d be very surprised if Nexus Ones really were 3% of all Android phones sold)

- what proportion of Android apps are written for what version of Android. Although Android apps are forwards-compatible (ie if it’s written for 1.5, it will run on 1.5 and every successive release), you’d certainly be put off visiting the Market if you went there once on a 1.5 or 1.6 phone and found that pretty much everything required a later version: you wouldn’t go very much more. That would also push the numbers towards the later versions, and make it look like the more recent versions are doing better. (If you know any data about what proportion of apps in the Market target which version, do tell us in the comments.)

Here’s how the access has changed, according to Google. But again, the same uncertainties prevail: how many? Are people put off? What’s the real growth?

True, Android sales have accelerated this year and 2.1 is getting more prevalent. But that comparatively big chunk of 2.2 accesses indicates, to me anyway, that this is a distorted picture of what handsets out there are truly running.

Of course Google could help us to dispel this all by publishing how many accesses there actually were, and how many downloads. Whereas Apple likes throwing out numbers from the App Store, which gets lots of people going “ooo!”, the problem is that there’s nothing much to compare it with. Come on, Google, get into the game. You said there were 160,000 activations per day. Now tell us about Android Market transactions. It’s the least you could do.

Well, that, and pushing the network operators and/or handset makers to push out version 2.2.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, android, App Store, apple, comments, compare, comparison, google, growth, maker, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, new, phone, phones, sam, sol, uk, update

Oi! Put that light out

An iPhone developer slipped a tethering application onto the iTunes store: getting past Apple’s ban on such applications by disguising it as a pocket torch.…

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(Source The Register)

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During the call to discuss record fiscal Q3 earnings, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) chief operating officer Tim Cook and chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer fielded keen questioning, from investment analysts, about the impact of Antennagate, about supply shortages of iPad and iPhone 4 and about whether iPad is cannibalising Mac sales.


Photo by Yutaka Tsutano on Flickr. Some rights reserved

• iPhone 4 slowdown, post-Antennagate? Apple chief operting officer Tim Cook: “Let me be very clear on this – we are selling every unit we can make currently.”

Any increase in returns? “My phone is ringing off the hook with people that want more supply. It’s hard to test the real question you’re asking because we’re selling every one we can make. The returns that we’ve seen on iPhone 4 are less than iPhone 3GS, the ones for this specific issue are extremely small.”

• Supply and demand: “High demand is never a problem. We are quoting longer lead times that we would like. In the scheme of things, it’s a good problem to have.”

Oppenheimer: “We do not create a shortage for buzz. I don’t know where that’s come from. That’s not our objective – we would like to fill every customer’s order as quickly as we can. The demand for iPhone 4 is absolutely stunning. We are working very hard to catch up with demand. I can’t predict when that will occur.”

When will the iPad supply issues ease? Cook: “We honestly don’t know… [iPad] is not following a typical early adopter curve and then taking a long time to cross in the mainstream. Our guts tell us that this market is very big. For us, it’s a jawdropper.”

Apple has no idea how many people want to buy its products. Asked by an analyst if iPad shortfall was “a couple of million” and iPhone 4 “half a million”, Cook said: “I don’t know – that question is very difficult to answer.” Historically, he said demand was an indicator of how much supply was necessary, but: “I truly don’t know … we have taken bets internally.”

• Cannibalisation? Cook: “Internally, we focus on exactly the opposite – the synergy between … the Mac share is still low – so there’s still an enormous opportunity for the Mac to grow. The more customers we can introduce to Mac through iPhone, iPad and iPod touch – you would think there’d be some synergy with the Mac there.”

• And more… On AT&T (NYSE: T) – Cook: “They have been a first-class partner and have pioneered the smartphone [market] from a network point of view in the US – that’s all I have to say about that.”

A data center Apple has been building in North Carolina is on schedule to be completed by end of this calendar year. Sounds like an iTunes Store initiative.

Cook flat-out refused to answer a question about how Apple intends to make good on its promise to open up FaceTime.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, 3gs, all, apple, iphone, iphone 3gs, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, new, phone, phones, returns, sol, test, Touch, uk

Apple has posted its best ever financial quarter on the back of strong Mac
and iPhone sales, and the successful debut of the iPhone 4.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: apple, best, iphone, new, phone, uk

Cheap pops at Cupertino

A Texas IP attorney who spotted Apple laying claim to expired patents is planning to see the company in court, or get a few dollars anyway.…

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(Source The Register)

Tags: apple, source the register

Nokia has started its search for a new chief executive after failing to make
up ground against upstarts such as Android and the Apple iPhone, according to
reports in The Wall Street Journal .

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

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Reports that phone-maker Nokia has launched top-level search as it struggles with falling profits and declining market share

Nokia is reported to be searching for a new chief executive as its CEO for the past four years, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, struggles with the company’s falling profits and market share, notably in the smartphone market.

The report in the Wall Street Journal of the top-level search follows reports on Bloomberg at the end of last week that the board of the Finnish company was calling for changes after seeing the company’s value slump by $77bn (€60bn) – about 67% – in the three years since 2007, when first Apple’s iPhone and then Google’s Android platform have transformed the smartphone market.

Although Nokia is the world’s largest phone-maker, and has the largest market share in smartphones at about 41%, it has issued two profit warnings in the past three months and seen its stock fall by 25% this year alone as it was forced to delay newer smartphones.

Nokia’s last big success in the smartphone market came four years ago with the N95, which boosted profits in its smartphone division to 21%. But since then Apple, Android and RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, have eaten away at Nokia’s profitability, so that the division’s profit in its most recent figures was just 12%.

James Kelleher, an analyst at Argus Research in New York, told Bloomberg that a new chief executive is “the first order of business”. Nokia’s share price has dropped to €6.83, from €20.81 on June 29, 2007, when the iPhone went on sale.

The Android platform also poses a considerable threat to Nokia: Google announced earlier this year that it was activating 160,000 Android phones every day.

An analysis by Goldman Sachs earlier this month comparing smartphone companies’ profitability in 2007 with 2009 suggests that Apple has grabbed a growing slice of profit from the handset industry. While total profits remained static in total at about $14bn since 2007, the American company took up to $8bn in 2009, and is expected to take more than half the industry’s profits in 2010 and 2011 – despite selling far fewer handsets than its rivals.

Earlier this month the new head of Nokia’s Mobile Solutions division, Anssi Vanjoki, wrote a combative blogpost on Nokia’s “Conversations” blog in which he declared that “the fightback starts now” and said that “I am committed, perhaps even obsessed, with getting Nokia back to being number one in high-end devices. Achieving this will require performance and efforts over and above the norm.”

He also insisted that there were no plans to adopt Google’s free Android software platform; Nokia will instead remain with its own open-source Symbian and Meego mobile operating systems: “Symbian and MeeGo are the best software for our smartest devices. As such, we have no plans to use any other software. Despite rumours to the contrary, there are no plans to introduce an Android device from Nokia,” he wrote.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, android, apple, best, Blackberry, blog, free, google, iphone, largest, maker, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, months, new, nokia, phone, phones, sol, test, three, uk, world

Not sharing location info with carriers

Apple has sent Congress an explanation of its location-based information-gathering and privacy policies.…

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(Source The Register)

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Not sharing location info with carriers

Apple has sent Congress an explanation of its location-based information-gathering and privacy policies.…

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(Source The Register)

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Apple is planning to expand the reach of its iPad tablet device.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc’s attempt to smooth over a controversy surrounding its iPhone 4 failed to impress investors, as the computer maker’s shares stumbled on a day when technology stocks rose.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

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Early experiences by various testers show growing interest in new interface experience from Microsoft – but excitement is restrained

The early previews of Windows Phone 7 – for which reference hardware has started shipping to developers – are in. What to make of them? I think the best way to describe them would be a crouching ovation: people who’ve tried it like the fact that Microsoft is trying something different with the mobile experience, but they really can’t decide if it’s going to be a success or not.

Engadget’s in-depth preview (an intriguing concept) is sort of positive: “Microsoft still has a few months before it intends to get the first volley of Windows Phone 7-based products to the marketplace, but we’ve recently been provided with reference hardware — a not-for-retail Samsung called “Taylor” that’s closely modeled on the Symbian-based i8910HD — to get a feel for where they’re at as the clock ticks down.”

Quick briefs: “We were extremely surprised and impressed by the software’s touch responsiveness and speed. In fact, this is probably the most accurate and nuanced touch response this side of iOS4. It’s kind of stunning how much work Microsoft has done on the user experience since we first saw this interface — everything now comes off as a tight, cohesive whole. It really put one of our major fears about Windows Phone 7 to rest. We haven’t seen any substantial lag while using the device, and the short transitions between applications or pages are well suited to the overall experience.”

Although: “the controversial cut-off text is still present, and while we happen to like the way it looks, it’s definitely an acquired taste, and there are times when it just doesn’t work, like in the Office hub where PowerPoint looks like it reads “PowerPoir.” And two other things: “There are two big omissions here, in our opinion. The device won’t support copy and paste, and won’t support third-party multitasking of apps. We knew this would be the case given what we heard at MIX10, but it doesn’t stink any less now. The former really doesn’t make any sense to us, especially since Microsoft did a good job of nailing text editing and selection (at least in Word, and really… you guys make Word), and it looks like it would only be a short walk to a contextual pop-over for copy and paste functions. The latter is practically inexcusable in this day and age — even Apple (which has been a complete laggard in this area) now supports basic multitasking.”

But they like the keyboard (“the keyboard in Windows Phone 7 is really, really good. We’re talking nearly as good as the iPhone keyboard, and definitely better than the stock Android option. It’s one of the best and most accurate virtual keyboards we’ve used on any platform — and that’s saying a lot”) and screen resolution (“the Windows Phone 7 standard 480 x 800″).

Then again, there are points where Engadget’s not so happy, which tallies with some of the doubts I expressed earlier (though I must point out that I’ve not held a WP7 phone, nor seen it demoed): “Windows Phone 7 doesn’t have “contacts,” per se — it has a People app, and there’s quite a difference. This is a thoroughly social platform, and it doesn’t really seek to make any sort of differentiation between people you talk to / text / email, those you just casually observe, and those with whom you’re “friends” in name only. If that kind of philosophy reeks of Motorola Blur or Palm Synergy, you’re on the right track; as soon as you add a Windows Live, Exchange, or Facebook account, it pulls in every contact associated with that account and disperses associated content throughout your entire phone — there’s nothing you can do about it. That means, for example, that your Pictures app could have a bunch of shots of your ex’s aunt’s new boyfriend’s dog in it (more on that in a bit), and there’s not a whole lot you can do to stop that behavior without completely removing your Facebook account from the phone.

“With Exchange, this strategy is probably fine in most cases — contact sync is one of the main reasons you use Exchange ActiveSync, really — but seriously, Facebook is another matter altogether. If you’ve got a lot of Facebook friends, this renders your People app all but useless as a traditional phone contact list.”

Over at ZDNet UK, there’s another preview which goes (like Engadget) into plenty of detail: “Microsoft has stripped away all unnecessary information (almost too much, actually — the status bar displaying battery life, signal strength, and so forth goes into hiding after a couple of seconds) and soft buttons, and created a Start screen that consists of ‘live tiles’, which are essentially dynamic widgets to your favorite apps, contacts and hubs, and also display alerts, such as new email and missed calls. You can rearrange the order of the tiles and remove them by doing a long press on the screen. You can also ‘pin’ new tiles, but to do so, you must first navigate to the list of apps or the People hub, find the item that you want to add and then pin it to the Start screen.”

OK, and those hubs… “The names of the hubs are pretty self-explanatory. For example, the People hub merges contact information from your various accounts and then displays them in one long list. A swipe to the right will show you Facebook status updates (unfortunately, Windows Phone 7 will not have Twitter or MySpace integration at launch) and lets you add comments, while another swipe will brings up the people you’ve contacted most recently.”

“This type of panoramic UI runs across all the various hubs with bold, attractive text splashed across the top to identify different subsections (a.k.a. Pivots) and in some cases, a small contextual toolbar along the bottom of the screen to help you perform app-specific tasks.”

“Some might complain that this type of navigation requires too much scrolling and can be overly complicated. Admittedly, this is true when compared to Apple’s iOS 4 and Google’s Android, and may be a turn-off for consumers. On the other hand, we appreciate the ability to do so many things from one place without having to launch several different apps, so we have to give Microsoft kudos for thinking of this kind of organisation. We also like the consistent UI, which makes it easy to work the other hubs.”

Another point which has been made elsewhere: “What’s interesting about Windows Phone 7, though, is that at times it feels as though you’re getting two completely different experiences on one phone. The Start screen/menu list and some apps — such as the phone dialer, email inbox and calendar — are completely minimalistic, while other aspects of the phone, including the aforementioned hubs and multimedia features, are more sophisticated and elegant. It doesn’t hurt the navigation, as such, but is doesn’t make the phone feel like a cohesive unit either.”

And the big question: “Will this resonate with users? Frankly, we think it’ll be a hard sell initially. Despite all the improvements made to the UI, it’s still more involved than other operating systems. That said, we’d also caution you not to dismiss it completely, simply because it’s different. Change is scary, but it can also be a good thing.”

It’s a long review, which you’re urged to read in detail.

Meanwhile the Wired Gadgetlab has put its sticky fingers all over the screen: here’s the video. Their principal comment: “Still the lack of any kind of real app store is a major hindrance. Also, Microsoft just will not give up on the Zune marketplace. It’s admirable, but maybe they should re-examine their reasoning for keeping it.” But surely the Zune Marketplace is Microsoft’s leg up to an App Store? Abandoning it would look weird.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, all, android, App Store, apple, best, comments, compare, compared, consumer, email, gadget, google, HD, iphone, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, months, moto, motorola, new, palm, phone, phones, review, reviews, sam, samsung, sim, sol, test, tmobile, Touch, twitter, uk, update

BANGALORE (Reuters) – Jobs’ offer of free iPhone cases eases Apple PR woes – analysts

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

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LONDON (Reuters) – Speech-recognition software maker Nuance is launching software apps for the Apple iPhone in Britain as the company grows more confident that its voice-to-text technology is ready for global markets.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

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Major mobile manufacturers have taken issue with Apple chief executive Steve
Jobs’s claim that reception issues are not just an iPhone 4 problem.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: apple, HTC, iphone, mobile, new, nokia, phone, uk

Google has called time on US sales of its flagship Nexus One device, two months after pulling the plug on direct sales through its website.


Photo by mackarus on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Sales of the Android-powered device had been disappointing since its US launch at the beginning of the year, the unconventional initial point of sale – online-only – putting many customers off. The web store “remained a niche channel for early adopters,” admitted Google vice president of engineering in a blog post, adding: “It’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone”.

Although the Nexus One will be a disappointing setback for Google, the device widely-heralded as a market challenge to the Apple iPhone, work on the Nexus Two will only be hastened.

Google’s end-of-the-line news was announced in a blogpost on Friday, when all eyes were locked firmly on Cupertino with Apple’s iPhone 4 showdown.

The Nexus One will continue to be sold through Vodafone in Europe, despite stumbling belatedly into a competitive market. Developers will still be able to get their hands on the phone, though the web store will discontinue shipping to Europe.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, all, android, apple, apple iphone, blog, google, iphone, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, months, new, phone, phones, sol, uk, vodafone

TORONTO (Reuters) – Apple Inc appears to be deliberately distorting the issues surrounding the iPhone 4′s antenna design by asserting that Research In Motion’s BlackBerry has similar reception problems, RIM said.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

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Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer, certainly thought so. So we thought it might be worth a point-by-point comparison

Comparisons are odious. That’s why it’s usually journalists and marketing people who indulge in them. So indulge me while I pick some apart.

Quoth Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer – the man who makes sure that the money is coming in right, who makes sure that the wheels of the company’s bank accounts are turning fast enough to satisfy shareholders – earlier this week: “One of the things that I want to make sure that you know today is that you’re going to be able to use the Windows Phone 7 and not have to worry about how you’re holding it to make a phone call.” He said it at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference, adding: “It looks like iPhone 4 might be their Vista.”

Though Turner wasn’t to know it, Apple was even then preparing its press conference to explain what (if anything) it was going to do about the whole iPhone 4 reception issue. 22 days after the release of the iPhone, Jobs led a press conference explaining that anyone who’d bought an iPhone 4 could have a free “bumper”. (The office joke: 1 day to diagnose the problem, 21 days to prepare and rehearse the presentation.) Those reception problems? Common to all phones, insisted Jobs, who deflected lots of questions in his customary expert way.

That leaves the “PR experts” who earlier this week told Cult of Mac that Apple would have to recall the iPhone 4 looking pretty stupid. Because they were stupid. Pause for a moment and remind yourself: on what grounds are items recalled? Oh yes, when they cause injury or death, or pose a hazard to the public. Losing your data reception because you (avoidably) covered the exposed antenna definitely likes in the category that Twitter calls #firstworldproblems. The idea that Apple would recall a device on that basis is simply laughable. In every newsroom, there’s a point early in the day when your news edior asks you what’s going to happen over some scheduled story: on Friday morning (UK time, before Cupertino was yawning and turning the alarm off) I was asked what would come out of the Apple press conference, and I said that Apple would portray problems with antennas as common to the entire industry, that it would offer free bumpers or cash refunds, or a full refund for anyone who wanted them, and that there was no chance of a recall. Do you think I qualify as a PR expert on that basis?

But let’s go back to the eminently sane and reasonable Kevin Turner. In his speech, he acknowledged that in the areas both of Vista and mobile phones, Microsoft had a bad patch. He’s happy now to praise Windows 7, and is full of expectation for Windows Phone 7. (Others differ, of course, but we have to wait and see.)

However, the idea that the iPhone 4 might be Apple’s “Vista”? Let’s try the comparisons.

Vista: fell seriously behind schedule, requiring Jim Allchin to take the project through a “reset“.
iPhone 4: released on the schedule everyone expected, at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

Vista: dropped much-promised features including WinFS as part of the “reset”.
iPhone 4: we don’t know what features were planned for it; we only know what we got, which is a ceramic case to (try to) improve signal reception, and a screen with a remarkable pixel density.

Vista: met enormous resistance from consumers, who couldn’t understand why it looked and ran so differently from its well-received and hugely popular (if insecure) predecessor, Windows XP.
iPhone 4: sold 1.7m in first three days, of whom 75% were owners of the previous version, according to data on both sides of the Atlantic from Bloomberg and AQA.

Vista: met even greater resistance from Microsoft’s main customers in enterprises, who didn’t like the fact that it didn’t run a lot of the software that ran on Windows XP.
iPhone 4: ran any and all apps that ran on previous iPhones and/or iPod Touches.

Vista: offered substantially greater security and reliability than predecessor.
iPhone 4: offered the same security and reliability as predecessor, plus cooperative multitasking.

Vista: was the subject of a court battle which exposed internal emails from Microsoft, revealing disquiet inside the company over OEM PCs which described themselves as “Vista-ready” even though they would not be able to run any but the lowest-specified versions of Vista.
iPhone 4: is the subject of a claim by the Wall Street Journal that people within Apple knew about problems with the antenna, but that Jobs nixed their criticisms because he liked the design. At the press event on Friday, Jobs called this “total bullshit”. Decide for yourself who’s telling the truth.

Vista: Microsoft never “apologised” for Vista, since it didn’t feel the need to.
iPhone 4: Jobs admitted that “we’re not perfect” but then added that nobody is. You’d be hard-pressed to really call it an apology.

Vista: Wouldn’t run on some Microsoft execs’ machines when they tried to upgrade them.
iPhone 4: Worked OK – though some people updating older phones have had problems with the latest (iOS 4.0.1) update “bricking” them.

So on balance, is the iPhone 4 really like Vista? It’s hard to overstate how monumental a screwup the development of Vista was. The entire development had to jettison key elements, such as WinFS (for search), and try to focus on getting the operating system out of the door. And as soon as it was released, people started complaining about its weird user interface experience; which led a Chinese Australian to set up a site where people could unload about it. (He was snowed under within days.) It’s still worth looking at that site, and seeing whether the points that people have made there have been fixed in Windows 7.

In short, the iPhone 4 antenna issue isn’t Apple’s “Vista moment” – despite what Turner might wish. It’s an annoyance to people who’ve spent that money, but Jobs’s numbers about the low level of returns (1.7%) compared to the 3GS (6%) – which will be pored over by analysts, and will have the force of a financial statement, meaning that if Jobs has fibbed then he’s theoretically liable to be hauled in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission – indicates that unlike Vista, users are actually very happy with it. (That’s also the anecdotal response I’ve had on Twitter.)

Sure, you might be annoyed, if you queued overnight or for hours in the baking sun, that the phone isn’t perfect. But there are lots of phones; personally I don’t have an iPhone or an iPad, because presently I think they’re too expensive for what they offer. You could easily choose another. The snark on view on Twitter indicates, to me, a strange sort of envy on the part of many people; a desire to see a company brought down because of its hubris, rather than its failings.

Certainly, Apple has never wanted for hubris, but it does try to live up to its own aims.

But what about the company that made Vista? There are still challenges ahead for Microsoft: the fact that Google is winning Office customers over to its much cheaper Google Apps products (something that Turner alluded to in his speech – search for the first mention of ‘Google’); the fact that it is only managing to grow its Bing search engine share by spending $1 for every $1 of business it brings in; the fact that Windows Phone 7 remains an unknown quantity which the company has all but staked its reputation in the mobile market on. (Sales of Windows Mobile licences, the previous generation, are dwindling; it would be interesting to see what the licensing revenue is for them. Apparently HTC, once – possibly still – the biggest licensee of Windows Mobile is going to go with Windows Phone 7 – though it seems to be doing rather nicely out of Android at present.)

Lastly, the point that so many people overlook about Apple relates to its ambitions for the iPhone. These are rarely stated. When Steve Jobs launched it in 2007, he said the ambition was a 1% share of the entire phone market: “10 million units and we’ll go from there.”

That’s not the sort of barnstorming that you expect from most companies; they talk about capturing huge chunks. Apple wasn’t looking to get huge share. But you can bet that, being Apple, the plan was to make a lot more than 1% of the profit out there. Apple doesn’t necessarily want to dominate the market for smartphones (though it would certainly be happy to do that, just like the market for digital music players, where it effectively has a monopoly). It just wants to dominate all the profit. The cost of issuing these free bumpers to iPhone owners is going to be about $50m at the most (assuming 5m buyers and a $10 cost to Apple for the whole transaction.) The issue might have cost it more – but you can bet it’s not going to stop it rolling on. That’s perhaps the only way in which the iPhone 4 is really like Vista: it’s not going to stop the next stage of its ambitions.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

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