Report: iPhone outpacing rivals in Europe without 3G - Page 2

Dont want to rain on your parade, but each to their own... Does your Dad work for Apple?

Several people I know who have/had the phone (actually of the 4 only 1 has actually kept the phone and chiefly because of the browser app)... the others proclaimed that the iPhone as a phone blows chunks --poor signal quality, lousy SMS limitations, no MMS (for a smart multimedia phone this is quite an ommission).. it's a great iPod, great browser but their consensus was that it sucks as a phone. Their perosnal experinece has kep me from getting it - that the the absurd tariffs.

Given the numbers sold in the UK, and the amount that 02 has to give up to Apple, I dont think Vodaphone is crying. They probably put twice as many N95's in their customers hands in the time the iPhone has been out

Teno, I'm not trying to be mean, but you are simply wrong here. There are some settled issues in wireless, one of them is that Asia is indeed the most advanced and demanding market in the world.

It's almost like me saying "two plus two equals four", and you saying, "Not in my opinion!". You can do it, but...



Again, I think it has to do with implementation. Asian carriers have thus far done a better job of that with mobile TV than US carriers have. Verizon is now building out a separate MediaFLO network that should provide a better user experience for mobile TV. If THAT fails even after it's fully built-out, maybe then I'll come around to your way of thinking.

Although really, who knows. Once US carriers go 4G (which isn't that far away), the user experience will improve by another order of magnitude and perhaps THEN it'll achieve mass acceptance over here. It's just far too early to throw in the towel.



Convenient things usually are.




I would agree with you there.


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I don't live in Asia, but I know people who have or do.

You're right in that aspirational Chinese consumers will WANT to buy iPhones (for status and other reasons), but that's not the question... their ability to pay the iPhone's price is. Again, avg per capita income in China is several times LOWER than in Japan or Korea. That's not an opinion, it's simply a fact.

Yes, there is a sub-class in China of very well-off people who could afford the iPhone. Is it anywhere near as big as the '528 million subscribers' figure tossed around? Uh... nope. And, as you admit, many Chinese are on cheap phones... because they HAVE to be, given their low (by Western standards) income.

Now, is the well-off class in China big enough to provide significant sales for the iPhone? Yes. It is so very big that it currently dwarfs the Japanese and Korean markets, so now Apple doesn't have to care about Japan and Korea? Uh, no. And if you believe so, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to offer you that's one helluva deal.

It's more like Europe situation, where to do well in Europe, you have to do well in the UK and France and Germany and Italy. To clean up in Asia, Apple wants to do well in Japan and Korea and China. In a few years that could change, but that's where we're at now. And saying that the rich class in China alone is going to buy 10M iPhones is a bit silly. The rich class in China isn't as large as the number of folks who can afford the iPhone in the US, or in the Euro area, yet neither of those areas is buying at anything like a 10M iPhones per year pace.

So... the Chinese will be ESPECIALLY iPhone crazy, far beyond even the US, and have a much higher penetration rate among those who can afford it than the US? I doubt that.

Actually, Japan is a much better candidate for that kind of enthusiasm. They LOVE gadgets, especially high-quality ones. I'm very interested to see how they're going to react to the iPhone once its available over there. But the competition will be fierce, as they have many very highly-featured phones there.

Far as no 3G for the Asian launch goes, that would be pointless. Apple likely wouldn't do a China-only launch (that'd be like doing a Euro launch with only the UK; instead, they did the UK, France, and Germany in rapid succession), and 3G is pretty much a requirement to do at all well in Japan and Korea.

It's much more likely that the Asian launch iPhone will be 3G (after all, it can still step down to 2.5G if that's all that's available, so China would lose nothing), and that same phone will also supplant the current 2.5G iPhone in Europe and the US as well. One world, one phone, more or less (though Korea could alter that, by having so much CDMA/EVDO).

Apple seems to like having as few models as possible, for economies of scale, among other things.

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Fine Asian is the most advanced and demanding market in the world. I'm not saying it isn't.

What I do disagree with is that the US will follow what ever Asia is doing. The US market is necessarily interested in doing what Asia does. The mobile phone industry in the US is a little over twenty years old, at what point in that time have we followed Asia?

If this were true you would see a pattern. Not only is there no pattern we are going in different directions. The most popular smarphone OS' in the US are Windows Mobile, Palm, and Blackberry. While Symbian and Linux are the top two dominant smartphone OS' for the rest of the world. The most popular phones in Asia don't become the most popular phones in the US.


In the age of DVR, Video On Demand, YouTube, iTunes, network television download sites and the various other ways people are empowered to watch what you want when you want. I don't see live TV having much of a chance on any device outside of your home television.

What I can see becoming popular with mobile video is the ability to download or stream any movie or television you choose. There is no special futuristic technology or infrastructure needed to do that. Downloading and streaming is possible on the iPhone (and most other smarphones) right now.

The limiting factor mostly are the studios and networks allowing the content to be provided at file sizes and bit rates that can be downloaded or streamed to phones.


To make this possible would require building an entirely new infrastructure and teaching people how to use it. After doing all of that in the end what problem does it solve? What convenience does it add?

Well Teno, I'm glad you now understand the nature of the Asian market a little better. The rest of our conversation is just a fundamental disagreement on the nature of reality, and will be settled by time, not by us.

All I can say is, kick back and watch the show. Judging from your comments, I think you'll be rather surprised at how it turns out.


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My partner's 18 year old son has an N 95. I have an iPhone. To even suggest the two can be compared is an insult.

I sit less at my G5 now because the iPhone allows me to:

a) Download late night programmes from Eye TV to the iPhone so I can watch them on the Magic Bus to work.
b) Play all the music I ever need in a day.
c) Make calls which are brilliant in their clarity.
d) Surf all my football web sites on the bus or in my spare minutes at work or stood at the bus stop. (I've never seen or used anything faster than EDGE but I'm happy happy.)
e) Text to my heart's content thanks to the brilliance of the software keypad.

And still I guess I must mention the fact that overall the software makes the iPhone a joy to use. If I ever meet the designer of the RAZR software he will be soundly beaten.

Pry the iPhone from my cold, dead hands.

That's pretty arrogant. Are you implying you've taught me the nature of the Asian market. My sentiments have been quite the opposite. I never directly disagreed that the Asian mobile market is advanced.

I took issue with how comfortable you felt in declaring the type of phone people will desire in Asia. I'm sure people in Asian are not entirely monolithic and they all don't want the exact same thing. But you felt comfortable in putting them all in the same box. What base of empirical knowledge are you pulling from to feel qualified to state what people in Asia want?

I also took issue with the sentiment that the US is following Asia. We are not for various reasons. We do not have all of the same technology. But that is just as much a cultural difference as it is technological advancement.

To sound like an old record--

The iPhone is great---2g 3g whatever it is great--

But in the U.S ---ATT still stinks---can you ever even call them and get a live person??

all you get is a recording--to push this number and you frequently end up in a loop.


Why Apple did you sign up with the worst carrier in the U.S.?????

Ugh. Teno, you did a pretty good imitation of disagreeing with me when I stated some things about the Asian markets that are facts, as far as most ppl are concerned. All I did was share info with you, since I doubt you're as into wireless as I am. If that's 'arrogance', well then guilty as charged.

And really Teno, it's a no-brainer to latch onto the fact that the markets in Japan and Korea will pretty much require a 3G iPhone and advanced features. Check their 3G penetration rates for yourself, check out the competing phones in those markets for yourself. The Japanese sometimes complain when they get "only 5 Mbps per second" over their cellphone connections, lol. You honestly think an EDGE-speed phone would play well there, at the iPhone's likely price points? That's silly, and you likely know that, or at least I hope you do. So why sputter and hiss at my stating of the obvious?

Finally, yes, I do agree with you that some of the differences between the US and Asian markets are cultural. But you seem not to understand, or not want to understand, that many of them are indeed firmly technological. And also that, because we ARE indeed quite a bit behind the Asian market technologically in wireless, we DO tend to 'follow them', technologically.

That is something that really has never been in doubt in the wireless industry in the past few years, I would hope you 'get that', instead of throwing up a blanket "Not in my opinion!". It's really not something to get defensive over, there are sound reasons why the US tends to lag most of the rest of the developed world in deployment of the latest wireless technologies. And by the same token, there are advantages that WE have over the rest of the world, such as our rates for voice minutes being a lot cheaper than they are in Europe. We in the US can gab on and on on our cellphones, but they have to text most of the time.

So, I guess I'm not sure what you're angry about. I state the obvious, and you seem to have a problem with it, either because you don't know what's going on in the industry so much (nothing wrong with that, not everyone wants to be a wireless geek), or because it somehow points to Apple not doing well with the iPhone overseas? Even the latter point really isn't one, since Apple WILL release a 3G iPhone in Asia, and will likely do well over there. Pointing out what they need to do well over there isn't a slam against Apple, it's just being realistic. Not that one should be afraid to slam Apple when and where they deserve it.

In closing Teno, calm down and stop being so defensive and angry. You obviously are a huge Apple fan, as am I (though I appear to be a more critical one most of the time). There really isn't much to get upset about here, but if you choose to anyway, I'll understand.

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These two statements from my earlier posts give the crux of my disagreement.

How do you know how demanding the Japan and Korean markets are? Do you study global economics?

I fundamentally disagree with this article. They are more advanced to some degree. But its just as much cultural differences as it is technological advancement. People in the US are not as interested in having swiss army phones. The only technology they list that we don't have in the US is the barcode on the phone.

Where did I disagree with facts?


I never said they didn't.


I never said it would. I only challenged your definitive knowledge of what Asian people want.


Perhaps in concept but not necessarily in implementation. Video on the phone is more ubiquitous in Asia, but its not likely to be used in the same way in the US.


Well at least I clearly stated what was my opinion and did not attempt to pass it off as fact. My opinion is based on how the US mobile industry has gotten to where it is and where it appears to be going. Since I live in the US I am more qualified to speak to that than to what Asian people will want.


I don't feel what you are stating is obvious. Its your opinion biased by what you want reality to be.


I'm not angry at all. But I think it takes a lot of hubris to feel justified in placing limits on one group of people, even to prove them technologically advanced.

now you understand why we are apple mega fanboys........apple interface rules. the rest is just wasted effort.....like vista yuch
my company now allows me to get to a program with my apple and firefox, i am windows free for the first time.....free free

LOL. I guess it just wouldn't be AI without Teno 'not getting it'.

Sorry Teno, not tryin' to be mean, honestly.

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Because Verizon said no to Apple's terms, Sprint's been a basket case ever since the Nextel merger, and T-Mobile and Alltel are too small.

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