I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
After a day to digest the iPhone news I have a few more thoughts.
They are going after a very broad market:
- Kids. Addition of parental controls makes sense and I’m not aware of any other phones doing that. Clever.
- Consumers. They are hitting a price point that makes this a fairly compelling device at the moderate to high end consumer level.
- Small Business Owners. Integrating the iPhone with push email and shared contact services gives smb’s access to services normally associated with enterprise software. Questions remain over if they will allow hosted domains, or if the client applications will work with Google Mail.
- Enterprise. It may take another version but this is a credible first offer to Enterprise customers.
The breadth of this is also noticeable in the simultaneous launch in 20 countries, coordination of device and hosted services with MobileMe and embracing Windows users. Even the way that the country sub-sites all updated was impressive. This is an awesome execution project. Compare to HP who launched 50 new products today, including a gorgeous looking laptop, that I can’t find on HP.com.
They are also going Enterprise. Not just iPhone but broadly with Exchange support in Snow Leopard, the next update to the MacOS. This was overshadowed but is big news on its on.
Apple have become a broad execution company. What other companies are executing simultaneously on so many fronts - to this quality?
As well as this, it’s hard to think of another company that can hype up the entire world like Apple can. They have the marketing side cracked as well. Nuts.
Yet there are some holes. Like iHome that Lance notices and I’m hot on. Would be nice if Apple fixed their home beachhead before heading to the Enterprise.
There are a few potentially insidious bits. Coated in sugar.
The distribution network of iTunes is potent and quite reasonable priced at 30% margin which includes hosting and credit card payments. As it goes to so many countries all ISV’s need to think - do we have an iPhone app strategy just to get access to that channel. That is very interesting for SaaS vendors. Software + Services to get the distribution.
The application notification service ties Apple into such a wealth of information. Yet it makes sense to solve the background application issue. This is a scary/brilliant part of their strategy. Very, very clever.
The MobileMe applications were slick. The demo’s looked like some of the the best web apps I’ve seen to date. More importantly, here is a compelling Software + Services model.
So Apple gets hardware, software, clips the ticket on apps, and has regular SaaS revenue. A multilevel, vertically integrated cash machine.
Who is doing this stuff at Apple? The very few exec’s they wheel out don’t really blow you away and have gaffed a few times. It can’t just be SJ. There must be a very tight strategy team in there somewhere.
Will I get an iPhone? Depends on the soft keyboard experience. I assume they’ve learnt a lot in the last year and it will be improved. The BlackBerry is still the ‘power email’ device.
I don’t think Vodafone locally know too much yet but the burning questions are
- Price/plan?
- What if you’re already on an Enterprise plan?
- Visual Voicemail?
- Mobile data rates?
A lot of stuff came together today. A few holes but the breadth of execution is unprecendented. Fanboy or not, that’s what impresses me.
blog
You forgot to mention developers… I think Apple’s biggest market they are going for are the developers. They need the developers to create the awesome apps that will drive sales of the iPhone. It’s a virtuous circle - the devs will see that customers want to use the iPhone, so they start developing cool apps (with motion-tracking, geo-location, multi-touch), and these cool apps draw in more customers.
Also, as for the keyboard - I’ve used both a Blackberry 8310 and an iPod Touch and I can type WAY faster on the iPod Touch’s keyboard. That’s mainly because Apple have figured out how to auto-correct words properly. It’s a bit like predictive texting - you have to give it a chance to see it work properly.
As for the contract pricing… who know’s..? The silence from Vodafone has been deafening (way to ride the hype.) But at a pricepoint of $299 or $449, Vodafone will have to REALLY drop the ball to stop me from buying one.
I agree - developers are a key target with the launch of iPhone 2.0 and the SDK. And there is a lot to like for developers - the combination of the iPhone hardware, the OS, and development tools is pretty appealing.
It is quite an interesting thought that Apple is drawing developers to the flock via the iPhone. Could have larger implications as it will be pretty painless for developers to transition across to OS X desktop…
I still think the biggest cool bit about this update, in combination with the SDK/AppStore, is the integration of A-GPS.
If Web2.0 was about social-networks, then Mobile2.0 is about the integration of social-networks into physical locations/spaces.
The official press release mentions that the iPhone will be available on both prepay and contract on Vodafone, which is good news.
http://www.vodafone.co.nz/personal/about/media-centre/2008-media-releases/apple-iphone-3G.jsp
Also, re. Vodafone PR silence, I have my suspicions that this was part of the distribution agreement/NDA for all iPhone resellers as all the other international distributors have been equally scant in terms of information.
Is there a definitive word on whether it will work on Telecom’s network? I am stuck with a Telecom phone that was supposed to sync with my Mac and won’t.
You can guess which item I’ll be dropping…
TV1 news last slated the NZD price as $270. Yeah right!
I think one of the most powerful uses of the iPhone will be to automate salespeople with online Customer Relationship Management software. Using an iPhone and a free powerful CRM like SugarCRM your sales staff can view customer information from your corporate CRM in real time and update the CRM as event happen… no waiting to get back to the office!
No need for a laptop now for travelling salespeople!! It’s all on the iPhone.
Jobs did say at the keynote that I would be available for around USD199 everywhere, so $270 + contract might not be that far off the mark, but I’d say more likely 299. Don’t forget that the USD199 is subsidised by the two year contract on AT&T’s data plan.
Hmm - yes - the cost of data. That’s going to be the big one to watch. It’s all very well having a gorgeous sexy phone, but if it’s going to rival the petrol prices in running costs, it’s not so attractive.
Cheers
SYC
@James. The press release says contract only.
SJ said $199 but that’s the price AT&T can sell it for, and they’re subsidising that heavily by being exclusive (and letting Apple clip the ticket). Voda NZ is neither exclusive nor letting Apple clip the ticket so the wholesale purchase price will be higher.
So NZ pricing is unlikley to be a US/NZ conversion price.
Actually SJ indicated that the iPhone won’t cost more than $199 USD around the world. Based on that statement, the 8GB iPhone 3GB should cost $299 here.
And that press-release from Vodafone is a funny thing - it keeps on changing. When I first read it yesterday morning it said “prepay and contract”, then later that day it mysteriously changed and the prepay part disappeared. But today, it’s back again and it says both “prepay and contract”. The 4th paragraph in states this:
@rod, Stuart is right. It has now changed back again to not mention prepay.
You can actually see the original press release, which was issued by Apple (and used by Vodafone it seems here): http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/06/09vodafone.html.
It still mentions prepay in the original form.
James
Quick update for those who are interested:
Alison Sykora from VF just replied to me re. prepay/contract:
> Can you confirm whether the phone will be available on prepay?
No, on-account only. The Apple site release is generic (doesn’t have country by country detail) and I’m afraid the Herald used this info.
This is the killer app for me. I’m using the desktop app, but now for the iPhone, a location-aware to-do list…
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/iphone/
On the tele last night …
http://3news.co.nz/Video/ScienceTech/tabid/311/articleID/58986/cat/189/Default.aspx#video
Any idea if you can plug the iPhone via USB to your MacBook to provide your Macbook with 3G internet? And give the Vodem a kiss good-bye?
@Sigurd, doesn’t look like it works right now out of the box, but a jail-broken phone with some extra software can so it is possible one or more of the apps in the new AppStore will let you do this.
See http://lifehacker.com/software/feature/use-your-iphones-internet-connection-on-your-laptop-327066.php for an example of how it works with the original iPhone.
James
It is also missing a Bluetooth tether mode.
@Rod
Do you really believe Vodafone’s silence is because they don’t know much about the structure of the offering yet?
–
Seeing how they restructure their data offering is what I’m most interested in. Those of you who have been to the US recently will have seen how people are using the devices where the cost of data is not prohibitive.
@Brendon. Yes, this space is moving pretty fast and I’m sure they need to find out how they fit into the global deal - and have to untangle how that would work in NZ.
I’m sure there is also an element of keeping their powder dry as well. No point going big until the consumers can actually act.
I suspect/hope there will be a radical change in data pricing. That would be a big deal internally and huge amount of marketing work to get though in a short time.
To me they’re acting as you would expect.
Here’s my take on the data plans that Vodafone will offer…
I’ll take a stab in the dark and say that Vodafone will offer an unlimited iPhone data package for $99 per month.
The reason for this is that Vodafone already offer a 3GB package for $69.99 on contract. There is no way that any iPhone user will be able to use 3GB in a month - that’s because there are currently no apps that need that much traffic in a month. Even the mobile iTunes store only works on WiFi at the moment. This may change with the iPhone 2.0 as new apps are released, but my understanding is that the SDK is very limiting as to what you can do over the 3G network, as Apple don’t want users to run out of battery too quick.
Also, the current iPhone can’t be used as a modem (over bluetooth or cable) and I haven’t seen anything that says the new version will be able to act as modem either. So there’s no way that you could connect your iPhone to your computer and download gigs of content through your unlimited plan.
So if Vodafone are smart (read: sneaky) they’ll know this, and will offer an unlimited plan at a premium over the 3GB plan. So customers will think that they are getting an awesome plan when 99% won’t ever come close to 1GB, let alone the 3GB plan that’s currently on offer.
[...] posted this as a comment on Rod’s blog, but thought it was worthy of it’s own post here [...]
iPhone Video Conferencing kit released …
http://gizmodo.com/5015395/apple-introduces-iphone-3g-videoconferencing-kit-zomg
Ha ha - yes, saw that this morning… (I assume you read the article and didn’t just read the headline…??)
What a shame that VF have just told ~ 75% of their customer base who are Prepay customers that they don’t really want their business!
I just got a text from vodafone asking to register interest in knowing more about the NZ iPhone deal. So, no news yet, but I’m sure there’s a lot of Vodafone staff working around the clock on this push.
http://vodafone.co.nz/iphone
Anyone interested in this capacility on their iPhone?
http://www.drury.net.nz/2008/02/18/meet-some-high-value-bits/
What data plans will Vodafone offer for the iPhone 3G…
UPDATE: Official pricing has now been released, read here for more info:
http://stuart.amanzi.co.nz/2008/07/08/vodafone-have-well-and-truly-screwed-iphone-customers/
I’ll take a stab in the dark and say that Vodafone will offer an u…
[...] posted this as a comment on Rod’s blog, but thought it was worthy of it’s own post here [...]