I remember reading of other exclusivity agreements between Apple and carriers in other countries. Must be mistaken. Wasn't iPhone tied to O2 in UK?
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Tony Fadell Talks Original iPhone's Business Model 'Disaster', Amazon Echo, and Self-Driving Cars
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I remember reading of other exclusivity agreements between Apple and carriers in other countries. Must be mistaken. Wasn't iPhone tied to O2 in UK?
While I like Amazon and use them weekly, there is no way in h*** I'm putting an always on microphone in my home from a company who's sole reason for existence is to sell me stuff.
I believe iPhone often launched on a single carrier in new markets, but it wasn't really an exclusivity agreement (especially multi-year like with AT&T) so other entrants soon joined.
Also, when iPhone launched in 2007, Android phones resembled Blackberries. It was not until Samsung and other Android manufacturers leveraged the iPhone's aesthetics and design into their own high-end handsets that they began to sell in any appreciable numbers (and then still far lower than iPhone). And that didn't happen until years after the iPhone's launch and by then, the iPhone was available on more carriers worldwide.
People don't trust Amazon or any large corporation. The Echo was quick to market and cheap. Easy money for Amazon.
Also, self-driving cars have way too much money to be made for them to crawl into the market. An estimated 7 trillion dollar industry finds its way, and fast. Our country and manufacturers will make sure of it.
When people get massive tax cuts and see how much safer the finished product is, they'll trade in their dangerous gas guzzlers the same way they traded in their Razr's.
Also, self-driving cars have way too much money to be made for them to crawl into the market. An estimated 7 trillion dollar industry finds its way, and fast. Our country and manufacturers will make sure of it.
When people get massive tax cuts and see how much safer the finished product is, they'll trade in their dangerous gas guzzlers the same way they traded in their Razr's.
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Five years for me. Longer for you, perhaps. I drove a Honda Insight in 2000. I was using palm-sized computers in 1992. Or 1982, if you count the TRS PC-1. I expect my Tesla Model 3 to be able to do most of the driving in about five years.
I don't think Apple limited it to AT&T per se - they wanted a very different model than previous phones, with previous phones the manufacturer's customer was really the carrier, not you, and the carrier dictated most things about the phone - so, for instance, on Verizon you could buy music and ringtones only from Verizon, the phone and the screen were covered with Verizon logos, the "internet" was likely a Verizon portal, and you didn't really interact with the manufacturer at all. (FWIW my wife wouldn't let us switch to AT&T - I ordered our iPhones he moment they hit Verizon - the one for her was almost an afterthought, she didn't think she'd use it much - soon, they were inseparable.)
In contrast to previous phones, Apple wanted a direct relationship with the customer, and most carriers weren't willing to give them that much control. They shopped it around, and only AT&T (Cingular at the time) was willing to give it a shot. Presumably they got a limited time exclusive contract out of it. Blame that on the other carriers, not Apple.
This, I think, is one of the most fundamental changes that Apple brought to the smartphone world and it is often overlooked. You're no longer buying songs from AT&T's captive portal for $3 each, now you can buy songs from Apple, or install your own songs from iTunes (and maybe those are .mp3's purchased from, say, Amazon), or stream music from a dozen competing services, who are competing directly for your attention, rather than competing to try to get the streaming music exclusive contract with your carrier. Before you had to pick your carrier based on coverage, price, phones offered, and the quality (or lack thereof) of each and every service they offered (J2ME application store, music store, ringtone store, etc.). Often a lot of these services you didn't so much choose as decide to put up with to get the phone or the coverage. Now you can buy your preferred phone, pick a carrier based on coverage/speed/price, and then choose from many different companies for music, movies, etc. That's a huge win for consumers.
> Apple, Google, and Amazon--which ones would you most trust to listen to you all the time?
Personally, when it comes to privacy, I trust Apple more than Amazon.
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And why wouldn’t I trust Apple, Tony? His argument works for Google, but not Apple.
Out of the companies mentioned, Amazon is simply the only company he hasn’t worked for.
I’m kinda tired of hearing about Tony. Seems he’s in the job market though, capitalizing off the iPhone’s birthday. One would think he was the father of the iPhone, not the iPod, with as much as he’s been in the news. I’m sure he certainly thinks that.
I got the 4GB one, because it was less and 4GB on a phone? That was a ridiculous amount of space on a phone.
Except when you talk to the people actually working with it, this statement seems to go down in history along with the automakers still making ICE's I Think from what I've seen,you will be surprised, you have no idea how fast this is moving forward...none. Don't think in linear ways.
Yep. Android was originally meant to compete with Windows Mobile. Nobody back then would even dream of going up against RIM, who had a lock on business comms.
Actually, the Android team's development device was also a real Windows Mobile phone model. (Remember, they were targeting Windows Mobile, not Blackberry.)
Carl, that was only true for dumb phones.
The whole point of Apple making the iPhone was because smartphone owners could load music (and ringtones and apps) from anywhere, and that was a clear threat to the iPod.
A good point. Verizon has said that they declined a deal with Apple because they would be blocked from dealing with customer problems, or selling iPhones through their partners like Walmart... which of course later happened anyway. Also, I doubt that Verizon would've allowed a non-3G smartphone (all their others were 3G) nor been willing to give Apple the customer monthly subsidy money like ATT did the first year.
At least on Verizon, this was never an issue with Windows smartphones. We always could load media and apps from anywhere.
The only thing that was still locked down was access to the GPS. Now that is a restriction that I think the later iPhone 3G helped us get rid of. I thank Apple for that!
Lol. Nope.
Tech world delusion is strong. The general public and entire auto industry is apathetic af toward it.
Yes, at first Apple fell prey to its own greed. They were going to change the way phones were sold:
Apple's plan was to sell the iPhone for $600, PLUS take each buyer's monthly subsidy money (~$10) that AT&T already set aside. AT&T didn't care, as the money was already earmarked. The only people who suffered (without realizing it) were the iPhone buyers who paid full price while also having their subsidy taken by Apple.
It was a great idea to get rich over the long term, and also allowed Apple to radically drop the price when iPhone sales slowed down after a couple of months.
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The problem with that great idea was that soon the iPhone got hacked and unlocked from AT&T. This meant that people could sell the iPhone for use on other carriers with whom Apple had no deal to get monthly kickbacks.
IIRC, the number of iPhones used this way grew to over 20% of sales. This was not good news for Apple at the time, especially after they had dropped the price by $200.
So yep, the next year Apple switched to the same method that every other phone maker used: getting the full phone price up front, while the user cost was subsidized by the carrier. Sure, it was possibly less money over the long run, but also far less risk.
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This is also why we saw Jobs' attitude towards iPhone hacking reverse itself. When he was told about iPhones being jailbroken you could see him take a little pride in how desirable his device was to play with. But after a few months and it became apparent to investors that Apple was losing out on lots of money, you could see him turn hard against it. And it's likely why Apple asked the Library of Congress to make phone hacking illegal. (Their request failed.)
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