It's interesting that while consumers prefer no external antenna, studies have shown that the best reception is had for phones with external pull-out antenna's, the next best is with stubs, and the worst is with internal antenna's.
But this is one place where convenience and style really do win.
Not really been a problem in Europe though since the Analogue to Digital switch in about 1995. We've a much more densely packed population. I can see three phone masts from here for instance and I'm out in the sticks up in the the Pennine hills. I've mountiain biked in much of the country and rarely do you lose a signal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
I'd like to see some evidence of that. Ring tones that are part of songs, etc., yes. But I haven't read anything about phone companies having sold over a billion actual songs over their phone networks.
In the UK alone, songs sold via mobile phone accounted for 7% of all chart eligible sales in March. That's about 70,000 a week and it doesn't include ringtones. It's estimated it'll reach 20% of all sales by the end of the year.
iTunes accounts for about 50% of the charts. Allofmp3, Napster, eMusic, HMV the rest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
And I don't agree about crap phones and xompanies.
You don't agree that Verizon disabling bluetooth or phone companies having systems that don't interoperate is crap? You don't agree that Moto have some of the worst phone interfaces in the business? You don't agree that you're months behind in even getting US made phones on your networks compared to Europe?
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
I can't stand most European phones. Nokia doesn't impress me at all, and neither does does their smartphones, nor any Symbian phones.
Can't say I do either. Nokia sell more than anybody and they suck. SE's UIQ is much better than Nokia's S60 but it's still not exactly cutting edge. Nokia lost it shortly after the 6110. UIQ 3 is quite a leap over 2 though.
I don't think ANY of the current smart phone OSs is that hot to use which is why I'm hoping Apple does something worthwhile in that arena. Symbian can adopt different personalities so Apple can relatively easily add their touch onto a solid base OS that has very light hardware requirements by comparison to Windows, Palm and *nix. It would get them a host of 3rd party developers quickly too.
Not really been a problem in Europe though since the Analogue to Digital switch in about 1995. We've a much more densely packed population. I can see three phone masts from here for instance and I'm out in the sticks up in the the Pennine hills. I've mountiain biked in much of the country and rarely do you lose a signal.
In the UK alone, songs sold via mobile phone accounted for 7% of all chart eligible sales in March. That's about 70,000 a week and it doesn't include ringtones. It's estimated it'll reach 20% of all sales by the end of the year.
iTunes accounts for about 50% of the charts. Allofmp3, Napster, eMusic, HMV the rest.
You don't agree that Verizon disabling bluetooth or phone companies having systems that don't interoperate is crap? You don't agree that Moto have some of the worst phone interfaces in the business? You don't agree that you're months behind in even getting US made phones on your networks compared to Europe?
Can't say I do either. Nokia sell more than anybody and they suck. SE's UIQ is much better than Nokia's S60 but it's still not exactly cutting edge. Nokia lost it shortly after the 6110. UIQ 3 is quite a leap over 2 though.
I don't think ANY of the current smart phone OSs is that hot to use which is why I'm hoping Apple does something worthwhile in that arena. Symbian can adopt different personalities so Apple can relatively easily add their touch onto a solid base OS that has very light hardware requirements by comparison to Windows, Palm and *nix. It would get them a host of 3rd party developers quickly too.
I see that you backed off on the music sales picture somewhat. Phone sales of songs lags mightally behind internet sales, and will for a long time (meaning several years).
But While I don't find any company to be 100% consumer friendly, no matter where they are from, I simply don't find most of the problems you mention to be real problems. Most people simply don't care. The companies here will back down on a number of issues such at the lack of BT support, as Verison did, if there is a large enough part of the customer base that isn't happy about it.
I use Sprint, and I can use my 700p as a modem for a laptop, if I want. Consumers here are different from those in Eurpoe. We want, and demand different things, at times.
I, for one, don't care about most of these issues. Neither do most people I know. Generally, these days, now that you can keep your number when switching cell companies, the company you are switching to will pay the fee owed to the company you are leaving. The phone might work as well. If not, they will either give, or sell you a newer one. It's just not a big deal to most people, as people who care about what phone they have buy another one between every 12 to 18 months anyway. When we look to Europe, what you do there looks strange, and odd, and we ask why you do thangs that badly. you do the same thing when you look here.
It's a matter of perspective more than anything else.
You also still have a much larger number of much smaller markets, while we have one large one. The competition is fiercer there than here, and that's a reason for certain things being the way they are as well.
I see that you backed off on the music sales picture somewhat. Phone sales of songs lags mightally behind internet sales, and will for a long time (meaning several years).
What? I quoted you figures for the UK as an example that it will grow from 7% to 20% THIS YEAR. That's nearly 200% growth in market share in a market that's exploding.
Want another one?
"In Japan, the most developed mobile music market, mobile sales reached US$211 million, representing 96% of all digital music sales, for the first nine months of the year."
But While I don't find any company to be 100% consumer friendly, no matter where they are from, I simply don't find most of the problems you mention to be real problems. Most people simply don't care. The companies here will back down on a number of issues such at the lack of BT support, as Verison did, if there is a large enough part of the customer base that isn't happy about it.
I use Sprint, and I can use my 700p as a modem for a laptop, if I want. Consumers here are different from those in Eurpoe. We want, and demand different things, at times.
And you get them.... a decade later. I've been able to use my phone as a modem since my Ericsson GS18 in 96/97.
I've never heard of a a carrier disabling a feature and the talk on the net of 'Will Verizon/Cinqular/etc allow an iPhone?' is frankly puzzling to us Europeans. It's just not a question that would come up, ever.
Text messaging is a classic example where in the US you couldn't send a message to someone else on a different network and IIRC at one point people had to pay to receive messages?
No wonder it isn't popular.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
I, for one, don't care about most of these issues. Neither do most people I know. Generally, these days, now that you can keep your number when switching cell companies, the company you are switching to will pay the fee owed to the company you are leaving. The phone might work as well.
This never comes up in Europe. You get a PAC code from your phone company, pass that to your new phone company and that's it. Costs nothing, same phone, same number, takes a couple of hours.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
If not, they will either give, or sell you a newer one. It's just not a big deal to most people, as people who care about what phone they have buy another one between every 12 to 18 months anyway. When we look to Europe, what you do there looks strange, and odd, and we ask why you do thangs that badly. you do the same thing when you look here.
What do you think we do badly/strangely?
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
It's a matter of perspective more than anything else.
You also still have a much larger number of much smaller markets, while we have one large one. The competition is fiercer there than here, and that's a reason for certain things being the way they are as well.
Not really. Europe has been one market for quite a long time, unless you're Apple or the music industry who seem happy to ignore EC rules.
On the phone front, the whole of Europe uses one phone standard so a phone bought in Italy will work with a Portuguese carrier with an Irish SIM card accessing a French music sales company.
(The audience listens to some kind of easy-listening pop music, the lights dim, and, to great applause, The Steve walks on stage, he waits for the applause to die down.)
Hi, hi, yes, hello, and thanks for joining us. It's been another great year for Apple. In January, we released our first Intel based Macs, and now, of course, all of our Macs are based on Intel chips, and they're just flying off the shelves. You've all seen the iPod nano, it's now the number one selling iPod in the world
(Massive applause)
...and we've upgraded iTunes with movies and stuff too. Now, I'd like to talk about a brand new product. I'm really excited by it. It's an Apple cellphone. Say hello to the iPhone
(Huge applause. Whoops from audience. Excitement increases as pictures of elegant phone appear on screen. Steve pulls one from his pocket. It's small. It's beautiful.)
Now, we asked our engineers to combine the best of the iPod with some amazing cellular technology. We're producing two versions, a GSM one, and a Verizon/Sprint version. And we're going to sell it directly to anyone who wants it for just $500, or you can buy a subsidized version from an operator that supports it.
(Applause. People mindlessly clap their hands)
Now, let me show you how it works. Let's flip this open, and... ok, notice the scrollwheel. You access all the functions of the phone using this, except on the Verizon model we have a special "VerizonWeb" button on the side. I'm demonstrating the T-Mobile version here though, so you can see the T-MobileWebPlus option, that's the first option, although on other carriers versions of the phone, you can just move that. Obviously if you buy the version from the Apple Store, it will not have the carrier-specific customizations.
(Audience looks puzzled)
Now, let me scroll down to the music, and... oh, yes this one has the "T-Mobile Multimedia Ringtones And Fun! " as the first option but you can scroll down to the playlists. Note that that doesn't appear on the Cingular version, the Cingular version has "GET MORE MUSIC!!!" as the second option on the main menu.
(Audience is getting somewhat restless)
Ok, this is my personal phone, so it has a bit of my music on it
(Steve scrolls through several dozen "REM" playlists, finally settling on "U2's greatest hits")
Ok, and a click on the middle button, and it's playing music. The phone plays through a normal headset or a bluetooth headset.
Well, I'm sure you'll agree it's a great product. We're expecting to replace our utter domination of the MP3 player market with at least a 3-5% share of the cellphone network by 2010. Woo. Yeah.
(Audience claps politely)
Ok, well, on to our next product. I'd like to introduce the WinMac. It's a Mac, but we sell it with Windows instead of Mac OS X. We're actually dropping our entire line of Mac OS X running machines in favour of the new WinMac, and BookWinMac.
(Audience is looking very puzzled at this point)
We decided to go for a classic Boxy Beige design. And we're selling one desktop, and one laptop. We think this'll replace our 100% share of the Mac compatible market with... at least 1% of the PC market.
(Audience begins to throw tomatoes)
Now, er, stop that! Stop. I have more products. Hey. Stop. Ok. Now, as you know, we started putting TV shows on our iTunes Music Store a few months ago, and it's been a great success. But we at Apple felt that we could be doing more. TV shows traditionally have lacked style and elegance. So we decided to come up with a series of great reality shows instead.
Now, of course it does mean that none of the major, or minor, or any actually, TV networks want to have anything to do with us any more given we're competing with them, but I think you'll agree that this clip of "The Last One Left" will convince you we've made the right decision.
(Lights dim further, and a clip from a reality show is shown on TV.)
(Audience fails to clap)
Ok, well, erm, I thought that'd go over better. Also we've started making our own music for the iTunes Music Store, which is really great. Me and Phil came up with some great stuff in the garage the other day. Unfortunately most of the major music publishers pulled out of iTunes when we told them we'd be selling our own music as well as their's, but, like, it's good music. We've done a whole bunch of cover versions of my favourate REM tunes.
(Audience begins booing. More tomatoes are thrown)
What? I quoted you figures for the UK as an example that it will grow from 7% to 20% THIS YEAR. That's nearly 200% growth in market share in a market that's exploding.
I said that you changed, because your first statement was that in the rest of the world more songs are sold through phones than through the iPod/iTunes combo, which is not true for most of the world.
Quote:
Want another one?
"In Japan, the most developed mobile music market, mobile sales reached US$211 million, representing 96% of all digital music sales, for the first nine months of the year."
I agree about Japan. But it's been a short time for Apple and iTunes, and Apple's sales have jumped as well. So have iPod sales, so we'll just have to see what happens there. But, remenber that the number is from 2005, before iTunes really got off the ground. I'd like to know the numbers at the end of 2006. I'm sure it's pretty different.
But that same report shows that 40% of the digital song revenue is from mobile phones—with MOST of that being song ring tones, not real song buying. So that doesn't really count.
Quote:
They will converge as phone capabilities improve.
Of course they will. That's why Apple has to do something that is better than what the phone companies are doing in that area, which is not much.
Quote:
And you get them.... a decade later. I've been able to use my phone as a modem since my Ericsson GS18 in 96/97.
As I've said, they are different markets. Most people here haven't been interested in this feature until recently, so now they are being accommodated.
[quiote]
I've never heard of a a carrier disabling a feature and the talk on the net of 'Will Verizon/Cinqular/etc allow an iPhone?' is frankly puzzling to us Europeans. It's just not a question that would come up, ever.[quote]
I'm sure that question will come up. European Governments are very protective of their home grown corporations. You can see it in the merger agreements that have been stopped, particularly when American companies are the principal factor. Same thing is true for products. I've seen that over the years as well.
Do you really think that the French would have put that law through if it was a French company that was involved, rather thas Apple? I doubt it very much.
Quote:
Text messaging is a classic example where in the US you couldn't send a message to someone else on a different network and IIRC at one point people had to pay to receive messages?
No wonder it isn't popular.
But, cell calls were cheaper here than elsewhere for a long time, especially than those in Japan where calls were very expensive until reletively recently. That's why they came out with texting in the first place. It uses less network bandwidth, so it was a less expensive alternative to calls. No one here needed that, so it wasn't offered. Only when the Japanese craze started here amongst kids did texting gain interest a few years ago. The networks had to add it on as an extra servive that they weren't set-up to offer, so some of them (not all) charge extra. But those charges are disappearing, ironically, just as the interest in the service is waning.
Quote:
This never comes up in Europe. You get a PAC code from your phone company, pass that to your new phone company and that's it. Costs nothing, same phone, same number, takes a couple of hours.
It hardly matters anymore, though it was a pisser when it did. All of that is, or has, changed. Most people here would rather get a new phone anyway than change a card on an old phone.
Quote:
What do you think we do badly/strangely?
Well, that's a whole 'nother conversation.
Quote:
Not really. Europe has been one market for quite a long time, unless you're Apple or the music industry who seem happy to ignore EC rules.
On the phone front, the whole of Europe uses one phone standard so a phone bought in Italy will work with a Portuguese carrier with an Irish SIM card accessing a French music sales company.
By different markets, I mean the whole language, cultural, political situation that makes it so difficult to get licensing for almost any business. The phone companies have one technical standard, but everything else is broken down into different pricing markets, etc. You can't buy some items in one country at the same equivalent price in another, etc. Auto buying is a mess, etc.
I had some German engineers working on a major machine installation for me. They were telling me that when they come to the US, they buy as much as they can, and send it back, because pricing is so much less here, because of VAT and local laws as to how much something is allowed to sell for as opposed to the same item in another country.
Yeah, I saw that. Could point the way to multi-functional iPod that changes screens and becomes iPod for music and video, iPhone, and an iTV remote control. When you aren't constrained by the limitations of physical keys, your Swiss Army knife can get a whole lot bigger.
Yeah, I saw that. Could point the way to multi-functional iPod that changes screens and becomes iPod for music and video, iPhone, and an iTV remote control. When you aren't constrained by the limitations of physical keys, your Swiss Army knife can get a whole lot bigger.
It seems to lead to the possibility of quite a few things. I'm not sure exactly what...
Yeah, I saw that. Could point the way to multi-functional iPod that changes screens and becomes iPod for music and video, iPhone, and an iTV remote control. When you aren't constrained by the limitations of physical keys, your Swiss Army knife can get a whole lot bigger.
Introducing... the iKnifePod.
Cue bad steak-knives infomercial.
Host (Phil Schiller): [Rocks out to some adult contemporary while cutting an aluminium can in half to audience applause]
Phil: "Let's see what the audience thinks. Yes, ma'am, you with the crochet blouse..."
Audience member #12: "Yeah wow, looks great, now I can cut my meat AND listen to the latest hip tunes all at once..."
Phil: "That's right, it's also a great way to get your lazy teenagers to learn to cook for themselves..."
Huh? I'm 72kg (convert to pounds yourself..!) and 5'8". You must be looking at some slanderous paparazzi shots of me while I was on detox/ holiday with a couple of hookers
Huh? I'm 72kg (convert to pounds yourself..!) and 5'8". You must be looking at some slanderous paparazzi shots of me while I was on detox/ holiday with a couple of hookers
I said that you changed, because your first statement was that in the rest of the world more songs are sold through phones than through the iPod/iTunes combo, which is not true for most of the world.
But that's not what I actually wrote.
I wrote "Elsewhere in the world, particularly the far east, more songs are sold via mobile phone than by the iPod/ITMS."
Elsewhere != 'rest of the world'
There's plenty of countries where iTunes doesn't exist.
Quote:
I'm sure that question will come up. European Governments are very protective of their home grown corporations. You can see it in the merger agreements that have been stopped, particularly when American companies are the principal factor. Same thing is true for products. I've seen that over the years as well.
Do you really think that the French would have put that law through if it was a French company that was involved, rather thas Apple? I doubt it very much.
That's just the French and possibly the Italians they seem to have unique ways of interpreting EC directives that they can bend to their own protectionist ends. Elsewhere you'll find most countries are a lot more cooperative with fellow member nations. Some, like the UK also roll over on our back to America, China and Japan even if it's not in our interest.
Quote:
But, cell calls were cheaper here than elsewhere for a long time, especially than those in Japan where calls were very expensive until reletively recently. That's why they came out with texting in the first place. It uses less network bandwidth, so it was a less expensive alternative to calls. No one here needed that, so it wasn't offered. Only when the Japanese craze started here amongst kids did texting gain interest a few years ago. The networks had to add it on as an extra servive that they weren't set-up to offer, so some of them (not all) charge extra. But those charges are disappearing, ironically, just as the interest in the service is waning.
In Europe it's never been the case that calls were more expensive than texting. Calls are typically 20-30p a minute, Text's are 10-12p but you almost always get free minutes and free texts and you can say a lot in a minute. We just like texting. There's situations where you can't use a voice call that texting wins out in. I've 1000 free minutes a month on my phone and 400 text free plus periods where calls are entirely free regardless. I still send around 200-300 texts a month. My servers send me at least 2 a day. My Bank sends me 1 a day per account. Every TV news program that allows comment has a semi permanent 'Text your news to 811088' or whatever on the bottom of it. I pay my bills via Text messages. Some people even VOTE via text message.
Get it yet? Texting isn't going away.
Quote:
Well, that's a whole 'nother conversation.
Not really, this is a thread about phones yes? Seems this is the conversation?
My contention being that if your attitude to what we do in Europe is prevalent in Apple's design decisions then an Apple phone will fly off the shelves like a lead turd in Europe.
Quote:
By different markets, I mean the whole language, cultural, political situation that makes it so difficult to get licensing for almost any business. The phone companies have one technical standard, but everything else is broken down into different pricing markets, etc. You can't buy some items in one country at the same equivalent price in another, etc. Auto buying is a mess, etc.
Individual member states can charge what they want but there are laws which state they have to offer their products to any EC resident at the same prices. That's why at one point us Brits used to buy our cars from Holland as they had cheaper taxes at the time. Each member state has it's own tax laws - they aren't homogenised across the whole of the EC.
Quote:
I had some German engineers working on a major machine installation for me. They were telling me that when they come to the US, they buy as much as they can, and send it back, because pricing is so much less here, because of VAT and local laws as to how much something is allowed to sell for as opposed to the same item in another country.
There are no laws in Germany dictating prices. That's illegal. As I said there are laws specifically in place that STOP them doing that. They have higher taxes, that's all. In the USA you have lower taxes, less social provision and higher deficits.
Comments
It's interesting that while consumers prefer no external antenna, studies have shown that the best reception is had for phones with external pull-out antenna's, the next best is with stubs, and the worst is with internal antenna's.
But this is one place where convenience and style really do win.
Not really been a problem in Europe though since the Analogue to Digital switch in about 1995. We've a much more densely packed population. I can see three phone masts from here for instance and I'm out in the sticks up in the the Pennine hills. I've mountiain biked in much of the country and rarely do you lose a signal.
I'd like to see some evidence of that. Ring tones that are part of songs, etc., yes. But I haven't read anything about phone companies having sold over a billion actual songs over their phone networks.
In the UK alone, songs sold via mobile phone accounted for 7% of all chart eligible sales in March. That's about 70,000 a week and it doesn't include ringtones. It's estimated it'll reach 20% of all sales by the end of the year.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4854740.stm
iTunes accounts for about 50% of the charts. Allofmp3, Napster, eMusic, HMV the rest.
And I don't agree about crap phones and xompanies.
You don't agree that Verizon disabling bluetooth or phone companies having systems that don't interoperate is crap? You don't agree that Moto have some of the worst phone interfaces in the business? You don't agree that you're months behind in even getting US made phones on your networks compared to Europe?
I can't stand most European phones. Nokia doesn't impress me at all, and neither does does their smartphones, nor any Symbian phones.
Can't say I do either. Nokia sell more than anybody and they suck. SE's UIQ is much better than Nokia's S60 but it's still not exactly cutting edge. Nokia lost it shortly after the 6110. UIQ 3 is quite a leap over 2 though.
I don't think ANY of the current smart phone OSs is that hot to use which is why I'm hoping Apple does something worthwhile in that arena. Symbian can adopt different personalities so Apple can relatively easily add their touch onto a solid base OS that has very light hardware requirements by comparison to Windows, Palm and *nix. It would get them a host of 3rd party developers quickly too.
Not really been a problem in Europe though since the Analogue to Digital switch in about 1995. We've a much more densely packed population. I can see three phone masts from here for instance and I'm out in the sticks up in the the Pennine hills. I've mountiain biked in much of the country and rarely do you lose a signal.
In the UK alone, songs sold via mobile phone accounted for 7% of all chart eligible sales in March. That's about 70,000 a week and it doesn't include ringtones. It's estimated it'll reach 20% of all sales by the end of the year.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4854740.stm
iTunes accounts for about 50% of the charts. Allofmp3, Napster, eMusic, HMV the rest.
You don't agree that Verizon disabling bluetooth or phone companies having systems that don't interoperate is crap? You don't agree that Moto have some of the worst phone interfaces in the business? You don't agree that you're months behind in even getting US made phones on your networks compared to Europe?
Can't say I do either. Nokia sell more than anybody and they suck. SE's UIQ is much better than Nokia's S60 but it's still not exactly cutting edge. Nokia lost it shortly after the 6110. UIQ 3 is quite a leap over 2 though.
I don't think ANY of the current smart phone OSs is that hot to use which is why I'm hoping Apple does something worthwhile in that arena. Symbian can adopt different personalities so Apple can relatively easily add their touch onto a solid base OS that has very light hardware requirements by comparison to Windows, Palm and *nix. It would get them a host of 3rd party developers quickly too.
I see that you backed off on the music sales picture somewhat. Phone sales of songs lags mightally behind internet sales, and will for a long time (meaning several years).
But While I don't find any company to be 100% consumer friendly, no matter where they are from, I simply don't find most of the problems you mention to be real problems. Most people simply don't care. The companies here will back down on a number of issues such at the lack of BT support, as Verison did, if there is a large enough part of the customer base that isn't happy about it.
I use Sprint, and I can use my 700p as a modem for a laptop, if I want. Consumers here are different from those in Eurpoe. We want, and demand different things, at times.
I, for one, don't care about most of these issues. Neither do most people I know. Generally, these days, now that you can keep your number when switching cell companies, the company you are switching to will pay the fee owed to the company you are leaving. The phone might work as well. If not, they will either give, or sell you a newer one. It's just not a big deal to most people, as people who care about what phone they have buy another one between every 12 to 18 months anyway. When we look to Europe, what you do there looks strange, and odd, and we ask why you do thangs that badly. you do the same thing when you look here.
It's a matter of perspective more than anything else.
You also still have a much larger number of much smaller markets, while we have one large one. The competition is fiercer there than here, and that's a reason for certain things being the way they are as well.
I see that you backed off on the music sales picture somewhat. Phone sales of songs lags mightally behind internet sales, and will for a long time (meaning several years).
What? I quoted you figures for the UK as an example that it will grow from 7% to 20% THIS YEAR. That's nearly 200% growth in market share in a market that's exploding.
Want another one?
"In Japan, the most developed mobile music market, mobile sales reached US$211 million, representing 96% of all digital music sales, for the first nine months of the year."
Source: http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/press/20060119.html
They will converge as phone capabilities improve.
But While I don't find any company to be 100% consumer friendly, no matter where they are from, I simply don't find most of the problems you mention to be real problems. Most people simply don't care. The companies here will back down on a number of issues such at the lack of BT support, as Verison did, if there is a large enough part of the customer base that isn't happy about it.
I use Sprint, and I can use my 700p as a modem for a laptop, if I want. Consumers here are different from those in Eurpoe. We want, and demand different things, at times.
And you get them.... a decade later. I've been able to use my phone as a modem since my Ericsson GS18 in 96/97.
I've never heard of a a carrier disabling a feature and the talk on the net of 'Will Verizon/Cinqular/etc allow an iPhone?' is frankly puzzling to us Europeans. It's just not a question that would come up, ever.
Text messaging is a classic example where in the US you couldn't send a message to someone else on a different network and IIRC at one point people had to pay to receive messages?
No wonder it isn't popular.
I, for one, don't care about most of these issues. Neither do most people I know. Generally, these days, now that you can keep your number when switching cell companies, the company you are switching to will pay the fee owed to the company you are leaving. The phone might work as well.
This never comes up in Europe. You get a PAC code from your phone company, pass that to your new phone company and that's it. Costs nothing, same phone, same number, takes a couple of hours.
If not, they will either give, or sell you a newer one. It's just not a big deal to most people, as people who care about what phone they have buy another one between every 12 to 18 months anyway. When we look to Europe, what you do there looks strange, and odd, and we ask why you do thangs that badly. you do the same thing when you look here.
What do you think we do badly/strangely?
It's a matter of perspective more than anything else.
You also still have a much larger number of much smaller markets, while we have one large one. The competition is fiercer there than here, and that's a reason for certain things being the way they are as well.
Not really. Europe has been one market for quite a long time, unless you're Apple or the music industry who seem happy to ignore EC rules.
On the phone front, the whole of Europe uses one phone standard so a phone bought in Italy will work with a Portuguese carrier with an Irish SIM card accessing a French music sales company.
Hi, hi, yes, hello, and thanks for joining us. It's been another great year for Apple. In January, we released our first Intel based Macs, and now, of course, all of our Macs are based on Intel chips, and they're just flying off the shelves. You've all seen the iPod nano, it's now the number one selling iPod in the world
(Massive applause)
...and we've upgraded iTunes with movies and stuff too. Now, I'd like to talk about a brand new product. I'm really excited by it. It's an Apple cellphone. Say hello to the iPhone
(Huge applause. Whoops from audience. Excitement increases as pictures of elegant phone appear on screen. Steve pulls one from his pocket. It's small. It's beautiful.)
Now, we asked our engineers to combine the best of the iPod with some amazing cellular technology. We're producing two versions, a GSM one, and a Verizon/Sprint version. And we're going to sell it directly to anyone who wants it for just $500, or you can buy a subsidized version from an operator that supports it.
(Applause. People mindlessly clap their hands)
Now, let me show you how it works. Let's flip this open, and... ok, notice the scrollwheel. You access all the functions of the phone using this, except on the Verizon model we have a special "VerizonWeb" button on the side. I'm demonstrating the T-Mobile version here though, so you can see the T-MobileWebPlus option, that's the first option, although on other carriers versions of the phone, you can just move that. Obviously if you buy the version from the Apple Store, it will not have the carrier-specific customizations.
(Audience looks puzzled)
Now, let me scroll down to the music, and... oh, yes this one has the "T-Mobile Multimedia Ringtones And Fun! " as the first option but you can scroll down to the playlists. Note that that doesn't appear on the Cingular version, the Cingular version has "GET MORE MUSIC!!!" as the second option on the main menu.
(Audience is getting somewhat restless)
Ok, this is my personal phone, so it has a bit of my music on it
(Steve scrolls through several dozen "REM" playlists, finally settling on "U2's greatest hits")
Ok, and a click on the middle button, and it's playing music. The phone plays through a normal headset or a bluetooth headset.
Well, I'm sure you'll agree it's a great product. We're expecting to replace our utter domination of the MP3 player market with at least a 3-5% share of the cellphone network by 2010. Woo. Yeah.
(Audience claps politely)
Ok, well, on to our next product. I'd like to introduce the WinMac. It's a Mac, but we sell it with Windows instead of Mac OS X. We're actually dropping our entire line of Mac OS X running machines in favour of the new WinMac, and BookWinMac.
(Audience is looking very puzzled at this point)
We decided to go for a classic Boxy Beige design. And we're selling one desktop, and one laptop. We think this'll replace our 100% share of the Mac compatible market with... at least 1% of the PC market.
(Audience begins to throw tomatoes)
Now, er, stop that! Stop. I have more products. Hey. Stop. Ok. Now, as you know, we started putting TV shows on our iTunes Music Store a few months ago, and it's been a great success. But we at Apple felt that we could be doing more. TV shows traditionally have lacked style and elegance. So we decided to come up with a series of great reality shows instead.
Now, of course it does mean that none of the major, or minor, or any actually, TV networks want to have anything to do with us any more given we're competing with them, but I think you'll agree that this clip of "The Last One Left" will convince you we've made the right decision.
(Lights dim further, and a clip from a reality show is shown on TV.)
(Audience fails to clap)
Ok, well, erm, I thought that'd go over better. Also we've started making our own music for the iTunes Music Store, which is really great. Me and Phil came up with some great stuff in the garage the other day. Unfortunately most of the major music publishers pulled out of iTunes when we told them we'd be selling our own music as well as their's, but, like, it's good music. We've done a whole bunch of cover versions of my favourate REM tunes.
(Audience begins booing. More tomatoes are thrown)
Well, anyway, thanks for coming
(The Steve runs off the stage.)
What? I quoted you figures for the UK as an example that it will grow from 7% to 20% THIS YEAR. That's nearly 200% growth in market share in a market that's exploding.
I said that you changed, because your first statement was that in the rest of the world more songs are sold through phones than through the iPod/iTunes combo, which is not true for most of the world.
Want another one?
"In Japan, the most developed mobile music market, mobile sales reached US$211 million, representing 96% of all digital music sales, for the first nine months of the year."
Source: http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/press/20060119.html
I agree about Japan. But it's been a short time for Apple and iTunes, and Apple's sales have jumped as well. So have iPod sales, so we'll just have to see what happens there. But, remenber that the number is from 2005, before iTunes really got off the ground. I'd like to know the numbers at the end of 2006. I'm sure it's pretty different.
But that same report shows that 40% of the digital song revenue is from mobile phones—with MOST of that being song ring tones, not real song buying. So that doesn't really count.
They will converge as phone capabilities improve.
Of course they will. That's why Apple has to do something that is better than what the phone companies are doing in that area, which is not much.
And you get them.... a decade later. I've been able to use my phone as a modem since my Ericsson GS18 in 96/97.
As I've said, they are different markets. Most people here haven't been interested in this feature until recently, so now they are being accommodated.
[quiote]
I've never heard of a a carrier disabling a feature and the talk on the net of 'Will Verizon/Cinqular/etc allow an iPhone?' is frankly puzzling to us Europeans. It's just not a question that would come up, ever.[quote]
I'm sure that question will come up. European Governments are very protective of their home grown corporations. You can see it in the merger agreements that have been stopped, particularly when American companies are the principal factor. Same thing is true for products. I've seen that over the years as well.
Do you really think that the French would have put that law through if it was a French company that was involved, rather thas Apple? I doubt it very much.
Text messaging is a classic example where in the US you couldn't send a message to someone else on a different network and IIRC at one point people had to pay to receive messages?
No wonder it isn't popular.
But, cell calls were cheaper here than elsewhere for a long time, especially than those in Japan where calls were very expensive until reletively recently. That's why they came out with texting in the first place. It uses less network bandwidth, so it was a less expensive alternative to calls. No one here needed that, so it wasn't offered. Only when the Japanese craze started here amongst kids did texting gain interest a few years ago. The networks had to add it on as an extra servive that they weren't set-up to offer, so some of them (not all) charge extra. But those charges are disappearing, ironically, just as the interest in the service is waning.
This never comes up in Europe. You get a PAC code from your phone company, pass that to your new phone company and that's it. Costs nothing, same phone, same number, takes a couple of hours.
It hardly matters anymore, though it was a pisser when it did. All of that is, or has, changed. Most people here would rather get a new phone anyway than change a card on an old phone.
What do you think we do badly/strangely?
Well, that's a whole 'nother conversation.
Not really. Europe has been one market for quite a long time, unless you're Apple or the music industry who seem happy to ignore EC rules.
On the phone front, the whole of Europe uses one phone standard so a phone bought in Italy will work with a Portuguese carrier with an Irish SIM card accessing a French music sales company.
By different markets, I mean the whole language, cultural, political situation that makes it so difficult to get licensing for almost any business. The phone companies have one technical standard, but everything else is broken down into different pricing markets, etc. You can't buy some items in one country at the same equivalent price in another, etc. Auto buying is a mess, etc.
I had some German engineers working on a major machine installation for me. They were telling me that when they come to the US, they buy as much as they can, and send it back, because pricing is so much less here, because of VAT and local laws as to how much something is allowed to sell for as opposed to the same item in another country.
http://www.macnn.com/blogs/?p=98
This is as good a place as any to post this.
http://www.macnn.com/blogs/?p=98
Yeah, I saw that. Could point the way to multi-functional iPod that changes screens and becomes iPod for music and video, iPhone, and an iTV remote control. When you aren't constrained by the limitations of physical keys, your Swiss Army knife can get a whole lot bigger.
Yeah, I saw that. Could point the way to multi-functional iPod that changes screens and becomes iPod for music and video, iPhone, and an iTV remote control. When you aren't constrained by the limitations of physical keys, your Swiss Army knife can get a whole lot bigger.
It seems to lead to the possibility of quite a few things. I'm not sure exactly what...
Looks to be much more than most suspect.
http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.ph...nsing_devices/
Heh. First there were rumours of "no touch". Now it's "multi-touch". Next it's "super-multi-feelgood-ohyeah-touch".
Heh. First there were rumours of "no touch". Now it's "multi-touch". Next it's "super-multi-feelgood-ohyeah-touch".
Just be careful where you go with that. You could get arrested.
By the way. how come you're so skinny?
Yeah, I saw that. Could point the way to multi-functional iPod that changes screens and becomes iPod for music and video, iPhone, and an iTV remote control. When you aren't constrained by the limitations of physical keys, your Swiss Army knife can get a whole lot bigger.
Introducing... the iKnifePod.
Cue bad steak-knives infomercial.
Host (Phil Schiller): [Rocks out to some adult contemporary while cutting an aluminium can in half to audience applause]
Phil: "Let's see what the audience thinks. Yes, ma'am, you with the crochet blouse..."
Audience member #12: "Yeah wow, looks great, now I can cut my meat AND listen to the latest hip tunes all at once..."
Phil: "That's right, it's also a great way to get your lazy teenagers to learn to cook for themselves..."
By the way. how come you're so skinny?
Huh? I'm 72kg (convert to pounds yourself..!) and 5'8". You must be looking at some slanderous paparazzi shots of me while I was on detox/ holiday with a couple of hookers
Huh? I'm 72kg (convert to pounds yourself..!) and 5'8". You must be looking at some slanderous paparazzi shots of me while I was on detox/ holiday with a couple of hookers
Look at post #110.
I have no comment about your hookers though. At least none that I should post.
Look at post #110...
I still don't get it
I still don't get it
You were away too long. 8)
Isn't there a difference in the width of your info column? All the rest are the usual width, but yours is skinny.
You were away too long. 8)
Isn't there a difference in the width of your info column? All the rest are the usual width, but yours is skinny.
Wow weird. I can't see it, resizing my browser in Firefox in various ways, here at 1024x768. Ah, at least it makes me stand out (even more) YEAHH
Wow weird. I can't see it, resizing my browser in Firefox in various ways, here at 1024x768. Ah, at least it makes me stand out (even more) YEAHH
I knew you would be happy.
I said that you changed, because your first statement was that in the rest of the world more songs are sold through phones than through the iPod/iTunes combo, which is not true for most of the world.
But that's not what I actually wrote.
I wrote "Elsewhere in the world, particularly the far east, more songs are sold via mobile phone than by the iPod/ITMS."
Elsewhere != 'rest of the world'
There's plenty of countries where iTunes doesn't exist.
I'm sure that question will come up. European Governments are very protective of their home grown corporations. You can see it in the merger agreements that have been stopped, particularly when American companies are the principal factor. Same thing is true for products. I've seen that over the years as well.
Do you really think that the French would have put that law through if it was a French company that was involved, rather thas Apple? I doubt it very much.
That's just the French and possibly the Italians they seem to have unique ways of interpreting EC directives that they can bend to their own protectionist ends. Elsewhere you'll find most countries are a lot more cooperative with fellow member nations. Some, like the UK also roll over on our back to America, China and Japan even if it's not in our interest.
But, cell calls were cheaper here than elsewhere for a long time, especially than those in Japan where calls were very expensive until reletively recently. That's why they came out with texting in the first place. It uses less network bandwidth, so it was a less expensive alternative to calls. No one here needed that, so it wasn't offered. Only when the Japanese craze started here amongst kids did texting gain interest a few years ago. The networks had to add it on as an extra servive that they weren't set-up to offer, so some of them (not all) charge extra. But those charges are disappearing, ironically, just as the interest in the service is waning.
In Europe it's never been the case that calls were more expensive than texting. Calls are typically 20-30p a minute, Text's are 10-12p but you almost always get free minutes and free texts and you can say a lot in a minute. We just like texting. There's situations where you can't use a voice call that texting wins out in. I've 1000 free minutes a month on my phone and 400 text free plus periods where calls are entirely free regardless. I still send around 200-300 texts a month. My servers send me at least 2 a day. My Bank sends me 1 a day per account. Every TV news program that allows comment has a semi permanent 'Text your news to 811088' or whatever on the bottom of it. I pay my bills via Text messages. Some people even VOTE via text message.
Get it yet? Texting isn't going away.
Well, that's a whole 'nother conversation.
Not really, this is a thread about phones yes? Seems this is the conversation?
My contention being that if your attitude to what we do in Europe is prevalent in Apple's design decisions then an Apple phone will fly off the shelves like a lead turd in Europe.
By different markets, I mean the whole language, cultural, political situation that makes it so difficult to get licensing for almost any business. The phone companies have one technical standard, but everything else is broken down into different pricing markets, etc. You can't buy some items in one country at the same equivalent price in another, etc. Auto buying is a mess, etc.
Individual member states can charge what they want but there are laws which state they have to offer their products to any EC resident at the same prices. That's why at one point us Brits used to buy our cars from Holland as they had cheaper taxes at the time. Each member state has it's own tax laws - they aren't homogenised across the whole of the EC.
I had some German engineers working on a major machine installation for me. They were telling me that when they come to the US, they buy as much as they can, and send it back, because pricing is so much less here, because of VAT and local laws as to how much something is allowed to sell for as opposed to the same item in another country.
There are no laws in Germany dictating prices. That's illegal. As I said there are laws specifically in place that STOP them doing that. They have higher taxes, that's all. In the USA you have lower taxes, less social provision and higher deficits.