So ... almost a year in, despite some fairly obvious mis-steps (no-one on my side of the Atlantic was remotely surprised that Apple had badly misjudged the UK and European markets, for instance), I think it's worth reflecting on a some quite astonishing achievements:
1) Widely acknowledged game-changer of a user interface. Five years ahead, as Jobs claimed? Maybe not, but no-one has yet come up with an imitation that's even worthy of the name.
2) Changed the relationship between phone manufacturer and network. No longer is the phone necessarily just a giveaway with the contract. Add value to the handset and -- My God! -- people will pay for them, and handsomely. What a revelation that has been to the mobile industry.
3) Changed the business model for handset manufacturers. See those razor-thin margins you've all been putting up with? Now, take a look at these great, fat profit margins!
4) Achieved a whacking great profit on a v1.0 product - sold out of a stock of -- what? -- five or six million units and got the retailers to swallow the discount to clear the last of the inventory.
Going forward ... I think we'll see the 3G iPhone any day now and, I strongly suspect, a new model, probably the much speculated iPhone Nano at a lower price point, in time for the Christmas 08 market.
It seems pretty definite that we'll see Apple back away from carrier lock-in and exclusivity, and third party application development is obviously going to expand the possibilities of the platform in ways that, I suspect, none of us can currently imagine.
Ten million phones in 2008? I think that the number is going to be largely irrelevant - I strongly suspect that Apple has invaded this market in a way more profound than any of us can adequately grasp.
So: that's a rosy, best case kind of scenario. Where do you folks think Apple needs to watch itself? Where are the pitfalls going to come from and what might derail this seemingly purposeful march ...?
Cheers!
Jim
1) Widely acknowledged game-changer of a user interface. Five years ahead, as Jobs claimed? Maybe not, but no-one has yet come up with an imitation that's even worthy of the name.
2) Changed the relationship between phone manufacturer and network. No longer is the phone necessarily just a giveaway with the contract. Add value to the handset and -- My God! -- people will pay for them, and handsomely. What a revelation that has been to the mobile industry.
3) Changed the business model for handset manufacturers. See those razor-thin margins you've all been putting up with? Now, take a look at these great, fat profit margins!
4) Achieved a whacking great profit on a v1.0 product - sold out of a stock of -- what? -- five or six million units and got the retailers to swallow the discount to clear the last of the inventory.
Going forward ... I think we'll see the 3G iPhone any day now and, I strongly suspect, a new model, probably the much speculated iPhone Nano at a lower price point, in time for the Christmas 08 market.
It seems pretty definite that we'll see Apple back away from carrier lock-in and exclusivity, and third party application development is obviously going to expand the possibilities of the platform in ways that, I suspect, none of us can currently imagine.
Ten million phones in 2008? I think that the number is going to be largely irrelevant - I strongly suspect that Apple has invaded this market in a way more profound than any of us can adequately grasp.
So: that's a rosy, best case kind of scenario. Where do you folks think Apple needs to watch itself? Where are the pitfalls going to come from and what might derail this seemingly purposeful march ...?
Cheers!
Jim
