To clarify, I just want to state that I fully believe in the Apple way. I'm not arguing with you or melgross or addabox about any of this. I'm really just trying to figure out stuff about this "smartphone" market, and trying to see what makes sense to someone who might be coming from the non-Apple way. What are those (non-Apple way) people missing? Why can't they see that the iPhone is in another post-smartphone market, or in a higher class of the smartphone market?
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
What makes the best phone is known from using it. So there is no quantafiable measurement. A lot of it is opinion but I don't think it's difficult to tell.
What makes the best OS/UI is the ability and ease of the phones primary functions for the average user. There is no point to functions if they are too difficult or frustrating for people to actually use. What determines the best apps are the usefulness to the average consumer.
No doubt that all us Apple users believe this. And slowly maybe everyone else will come to that realization. But many don't believe that usability is that important. Certainly, the function or capability (e.g. GPS turn-by-turn navigation) matters to them, but the degree of usability of that capability is a secondary consideration, as they seem to have low thresholds for good enough usability. Same thought pattern that Windows users have. Thinking along those lines, innovation in the UI is not as important as innovation in adding new capabilities (features).
Here's another telling example. Copy and paste. Most believe the function is very desirable (whether they actually use it much is an altogether different story). But the fact that iPhone's method is much easier-to-use than on other smartphones is lost on them. So when Apple fans say that Apple took a long time to develop the function but look at how good it is, it falls on deaf ears.
Quote:
You said the iPhone is not competing so much with the Blackberry in Europe. So I listed the functions the BB is best at and asked if the phones you listed are just as good as the BB at those tasks.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. Asia in particular uses SMS more than email. Even in Europe, it's tilting that way. (Email is PC/Internet-based. SMS is not. In Asia, more people have phones than PCs.) So all you need is SMS and a good keyboard. Internationally (and even in the US among the teen crowd), Blackberries are seen as really good SMS phones. Since RIM isn't that well known yet overseas, especially in Asia, Nokia phones are generally where it's at, and the E71 and 5800 have the good keyboard, and all the other added "smartphone" features (PDA functions, music player, GPS, wifi, etc). And so does the Incite and other LG and Samsung phones. None of them are probably as good as Blackberry at pushing email, but they don't care about email.
But how many of those apps are modern apps, and how many are old apps designed for older phones without the capabilities of their more modern ones?
It's like saying that the PC has tens of thousands of apps for MS-DOS, Win 3.1, 95, 98, 2000 etc., for machines going back to the 80288.
Yes, they are there, but does it matter?
What about all of Palms old apps? Some were quite good, but most were for old phones with terrible graphics that can't use multitouch in any useful way, because they were designed for a stylus. How many Pre owners will want most of that?
That's the situation for Nokia. As they discontinue the older phones, the apps hang around, but how useful, or desirable, are most of them on newer phones?
Hey, I agree with you, but why doesn't this argument persuade or even resonate with reasonable people* who discount the iPhone and its potential growth at the expense of Nokia and Palm (and others)? You and I and many here at AI see this and expect this transformation. Even Ahonen sees this change (in his reference to eras), but yet he doesn't see how Apple will grow beyond a niche in the phone market, nor the weakness in Nokia's (weakness in software/UI/user experience) or Palm's (weakness in apps) or even RIM's (weakness in OS) position. Or are we the ones that can't see Apple's weaknesses relative to their competitors? If so, what is it that we aren't seeing?
*I recognize no arguments resonate with iPhone-haters, and there are many of those, but there are also many reasonable people who just don't see what's so great about iPhone, or other Apple products.
No doubt that all us Apple users believe this. And slowly maybe everyone else will come to that realization. But many don't believe that usability is that important. Same thought pattern that Windows users have. Thinking along those lines, innovation in the UI is not as important as innovation in adding new capabilities (features).
You are right when people have not been educated on the understanding of what a better UI is, they won' understand the value of it. But once people are shown the difference they clearly understand.
Quote:
Copy and paste.
A friend of mine has a BB Storm. Out of curiosity I learned how to copy and paste on his phone. A function he never really uses. I showed him how much simpler it was on the iPhone.
Quote:
Ah, thanks for the clarification. Asia in particular uses SMS more than email. Even in Europe, it's tilting that way. (Email is PC/Internet-based. SMS is not. In Asia, more people have phones than PCs.) So all you need is SMS and a good keyboard. Internationally (and even in the US among the teen crowd), Blackberries are seen as really good SMS phones. Since RIM isn't that well known yet overseas, especially in Asia, Nokia phones are generally where it's at, and the E71 and 5800 have the good keyboard, and all the other added "smartphone" features (PDA functions, music player, GPS, wifi, etc). And so does the Incite and other LG and Samsung phones. None of them are probably as good as Blackberry at pushing email, but they don't care about email.
I'm talking about taking care of business not gossiping with your friend. You cannot take care of business with SMS. You cannot send secure files, large pictures, PDF, word, excel, powerpoint documents with SMS.
Hey, I agree with you, but why doesn't this argument persuade or even resonate with reasonable people* who discount the iPhone and its potential growth at the expense of Nokia and Palm (and others)? You and I and many here at AI see this and expect this transformation. Even Ahonen sees this change (in his reference to eras), but yet he doesn't see how Apple will grow beyond a niche in the phone market, nor the weakness in Nokia's (weakness in software/UI/user experience) or Palm's (weakness in apps) or even RIM's (weakness in OS) position. Or are we the ones that can't see Apple's weaknesses relative to their competitors? If so, what is it that we aren't seeing?
*I recognize no arguments resonate with iPhone-haters, and there are many of those, but there are also many reasonable people who just don't see what's so great about iPhone, or other Apple products.
Are you familiar with the expression; "We know what we know, and we don't know what we don't know."?
That's the way it looks to me. Sometimes when something happens that puts our efforts we have expended years at, into a corner, we find it difficult to give them up for what seems to be the unknown. Many times, we've spent a good part of our life building, using or promoting these efforts. Something new is alien to us, and difficult to understand.
Another expression is used in the world of science; "New scientific ideas take over when the last scientist from the previous generation dies."
Thats true in a lot of areas.
People who are used to lumbering phones with small new features added on every generation can't understand why the iPhone with few of these, has become so successful. Those old phone types are an evolutionary backwater, a dead end.
There are just so many buttons, switches, and specialized chips that one can put into a phone. After a while it becomes so complex that it's just too hard to use many of those features. We've read complaints from people here over the years of that very nature. Look at the article about Japanese phones. So many features that are specialized for just one network, or just one service.
The beauty of an iPhone type of device is that with the proper OS, and good hardware that doesn't need all of these physical "things", the same functions can be done much more easily, and even cheaply.
But the "old time" manufacturers (and sometimes, users) don't understand it yet. They've been spending years building, using, and promoting the older, backwater devices.
I am stunned by the level of discussion here and at my blog. I am today travelling in South America and have a short night before my continuing flight tomorrow morning. I promise you I am that Tomi T Ahonen ha-ha - loved the comment by someone who was wondering if i was.. I will prove it to you with my replies. But am dead tired today. I will come back to this discussion hopefully tomorrow, and will address at least those specific discussions that did relate to my postings ha-ha. I promise you, that you will see when I am back on two other sites - I will start to tweet again - I am @tomiahonen - and I will start to post updated answers to the dozens of comments at my blog the Communities Dominate blog.
For those who are interested, I am authoring a series of commentary on the smartphone market, at the blog. The blog articles in the series will not be as long as that forbes commentary ha-ha. the first article was published a week ago and discusses the size of the smartphone market - I think I called it reality to the numbers in smartphones or something like that. The second article will be of perhaps even more interest to all who read this thread - its about the single biggest factor that determines whose smartphone gets the biggest global market share. That may surprise some readers ha-ha - am going to be editing it tomorrow on the flight.
I do have a day job of consulting so please do forgive me for not immediately now replying to more. i promise you, I will be back. I hope to do that tomorrow (Tuesday) or maybe Wednesday, but certainly i will not resume twittering before I have returned here..
And i apologize for the unnecessary lecture about handset subsidies, I was not aware - am not a regular reader of your forum - how well you guys also understand this often cryptic side of the business. But yes, gotta go get some shut-eye now ha-ha..
I am stunned by the level of discussion here and at my blog. I am today travelling in South America and have a short night before my continuing flight tomorrow morning. I promise you I am that Tomi T Ahonen ha-ha - loved the comment by someone who was wondering if i was.. I will prove it to you with my replies. But am dead tired today. I will come back to this discussion hopefully tomorrow, and will address at least those specific discussions that did relate to my postings ha-ha. I promise you, that you will see when I am back on two other sites - I will start to tweet again - I am @tomiahonen - and I will start to post updated answers to the dozens of comments at my blog the Communities Dominate blog.
For those who are interested, I am authoring a series of commentary on the smartphone market, at the blog. The blog articles in the series will not be as long as that forbes commentary ha-ha. the first article was published a week ago and discusses the size of the smartphone market - I think I called it reality to the numbers in smartphones or something like that. The second article will be of perhaps even more interest to all who read this thread - its about the single biggest factor that determines whose smartphone gets the biggest global market share. That may surprise some readers ha-ha - am going to be editing it tomorrow on the flight.
I do have a day job of consulting so please do forgive me for not immediately now replying to more. i promise you, I will be back. I hope to do that tomorrow (Tuesday) or maybe Wednesday, but certainly i will not resume twittering before I have returned here..
And i apologize for the unnecessary lecture about handset subsidies, I was not aware - am not a regular reader of your forum - how well you guys also understand this often cryptic side of the business. But yes, gotta go get some shut-eye now ha-ha..
Being the one who was, at first, wondering if it was really you, I am now convinced that it is.
I would like to say, that despite the fact of differing views, we thank you for attempting to connect (I can joke as well) to us here, and hope that you will get some time from your busy schedule to respond to some of our posts.
Quick note. I've now got a bit of time to do online stuff. The discussion at my blog has been very hectic as well. I'll go there first, post a few replies, then come here. Expect my replies here within the hour. And if anyone else still doubts whether I am me, haha, then check out Tomi Ahonen's twitter feed, where I just posted an update that I will head to my blog and to Apple Insider (and Forum Oxford) to continue this discussion.
In comment number 148 Dr Millmoss presented a very valid question, what is a smartphone. It may seem obvious intially, until you dig in. There is a lot of debate and argument about what definition should be used and then, whether that definition is valid or even accurate and then, which phones do or do not fit that definition.
Very many would grant immediately that the RIM Blackberry phones are smartphones. Yet there are technology purists who look at how the OS is made and claim the Blackberry is not actually a smartphone at all, but is technically exactly the same as hundreds of millions of featurephones, built using the same type of technology.
Equally, there are many who say that because of Apple's tight control of the OS, they actually are not open enough to qualify as a smartphone.
There are those who say that the usage of the phone - how it is used - should be the measure, so just because your car has a 4 wheel drive SUV format, but if its used only to drive in the city, it should not be counted as an off-road vehicle..
Now, on this issue, what is a smartphone, which definition is best, which phones do belong and which don't, I honestly do not have a perfect answer for you. Some of you know that I moderate Forum Oxford. My co-moderator, extremely esteemed and respected Ajit Jaokar (who wrote Mobile Web 2.0 and many other books) is just now engaged in deep discusion about what is a smartphone and what is not. I am not in the league of competence of those experts on that thread, to even dare to suggest my views.
So I do the easy bit, ha-ha, as a consultant. I refer to a public reference definition used by those who measure it. So for Gartners's numbers, I use Gartner's definition.
But Dr Millmoss made really a good comment here, that debate is going on in many circles and the classic definition of what is a smartphone is likely to evolve.
PS - I'm very sure that any metrics that will measure smartphones into the next several years, will always include the iPhone ha-ha, so while some purists might want to not count them ha-ha, that is very very unlikely to happen..
Up around the comments #140-#150 there was a lot of back-and-forth about Nokia market share numbers for second quarter 2008 or second quarter 2009. Is it 41% or 45%. I believe this is confusion with Symbian overall market share which has trended clearly above Nokia's own market share as more than a dozen manufacturers have offered a few Symbian phone models as well.
Yes, we agree that the original "defining" features of smartphones are now being spread across all categories. So the question is what is left to uniquely define the category of smartphone, not necessarily what makes the best phone (since smartphone does not by definition equal best phone). This definition might not matter to a user, but it does to those who measure sales (like even Gartner and IDC) and to those who market phones.
This is precisely the argument I had on this forum a while ago. Figures tell us how brilliantly Apple are doing by telling us how much of the smartphone marketshare Apple have without giving any indication as to what actually constitutes a smartphone. It seems to me that the definition of a smartphone hasn't really changed since they first started to appear, which now means that practically every phone out there is a smartphone, which would subsequently make Apple's share of that market look pretty insignificant. Until everyone can agree what constitutes a smartphone, there is absolutely no point in collecting and collating data about these devices, and none of it is meaningful at all. The best way to look at Apple's success is to see how it's doing against ALL mobile phones, as there is no ambiguity over what consitutes a mobile phone, so the numbers can be believed.
Quote:
What makes the best phone is known from using it. So there is no quantafiable measurement. A lot of it is opinion but I don't think it's difficult to tell.
What makes the best OS/UI is the ability and ease of the phones primary functions for the average user. There is no point to functions if they are too difficult or frustrating for people to actually use. What determines the best apps are the usefulness to the average consumer.
Your attempt to define what constitutes a smartphone is doomed to failure from the very beginning. You cannot place things into rigid, structured categories by means of subjective opinion. You need a hard and fast feature checklist that allows you to place each device into one of 2 sections - Smartphone or Non-Smartphone. The only thing that 'ease of use for the average user' allows you to do is say that the phone is easy to use. My mum thinks her Nokia 3210 is easy to use. Does that make it a smartphone? Not by a long shot.
I appreciate the suspicions in your first reply (and I wish I was so famous that there were Tomi-impersonators, haha). There have been so many hoaxes online, too easy to do.. But I also do appreciate it greatly, that you then gave me the benefit of the doubt, and engaged me with several very good comments.
The Nokia pride thing with Finns. Yes, its many things actually, even more than just a small country. Finland used to belong to Swedish kings or Russian Czars, before Finland became independent during the first world war. In Finland telecoms - the infrastructure, fixed landline phones and earlier mobile phones, were almost synonymous with Swedish telecoms giant LM Ericsson (obviously who also are half owner of SonyEricsson handsets now). So when tiny Nokia took on not just over-the-ocean rival Motorola, but our nearest neighbor rival, Ericsson, and eventually overtook Ericsson in handsets, that is a kind of way of a former "colony" if you will, striking back at the former rulers. That "overtaking Ericsson" moment in Finnish telecoms history was reported with as big headlines as any Finnish athlete winning gold in the Olympics or something like that. Yes, even more an issue of national pride.
Also remember, in Finland of only 5 million people, a Fortune Global 100 sized company will have an enormous impact to the total economy. The joke goes that Helsinki Stock Exchange is the Nokia stock exchange, because any little change in Nokia will shake the whole index on a daily basis. I remember there was an analysis at one point early in this decade that something like 20% of the total Finnish economy is directly or indirectly related to Nokia's success, but this was done with the widest definition, so say they included the pay of teachers in schools in those Finnish cities with Nokia factories, etc..
Now, yes, there is certainly a lot of Finnish pride that comes through. Now, separately, think about this side - Nokia was literally the first phone that was used to transmit a person-to-person SMS text message. Nokia was also the first handset maker for whom all phones were SMS enabled. Today we talk of the US being addicted to SMS and President Obama being the first texting president. The SMS itself was not invented by Nokia, it was invented by Matti Makkonen, then of Telecoms Finland (he won the Economist award for IT innovation last year, and happens to be a former mentor of mine).
Nokia execs have been there to see the phenomenon. Nokia execs have been writing white papers and preaching to the world about this fantastic technology, invented in Finland but not by Nokia, and then rapidly deployed by Nokia and exported as an idea to now literally every country except North Korea. There are SMS experts in America, they are emerging now. I see lots of pretty good papers written in the past few years about how a business might do CRM with SMS or how you can do advertising on SMS or do voting like American Idol by SMS etc (Estonia by the way, will become the first country where the national elections will accept votes by SMS.. So its not just a teenager toy ha-ha, SMS that is)
Anyway, my point is, that there is plenty of honest valid merit, in that Finland happened to be the country where the data revolution for mobile started (first digital cellular network etc) and Finnish telecoms experts, whether they worked for Nokia or not, have had a decade more of that exposure and experience. So there is also plenty of reason for some of these "Nokia fanatics" to make issues, where they really have a good point.
I like to make the comparison with iTunes and ringing tones. iTunes are worth about 2 billion dollars annually today. Ringing tones are worth about 5 billion dollars worldwide (last year, they may be peaking, so it may actually start to decline this year, or be close to a plateau level). Both are downloadable music, sold in digital formats, and paid for content. And iTunes song is cheaper and by far better quality. But ringing tones are a far bigger global business. Now, where was that ringing tone invented - in Finland. Again not by Nokia (the inventor was a finnish internet company called Saunalahti, later called Jippii Group, which has since merged with finnish carrier group Elisa) but yes, the first 5 phone models in the world, that would accept these silly forms of music, ringing tones, were all Nokia models.
Imagine the moon landing. Who was most competent to talk about moon habitation and hopping along in moon-level gravity in the early 1970s? The US obviously, because they had been there. In very many cases of the mobile telecoms industry, it happened to be that Finland (or Japan or South Korea) was first. These three countries have contributed far more than half of all innovations and inventions to the industry.
(Sorry about long rambling reply but you asked ha-ha) But last point about Finnish Pride. The point you might take to heart, is what do they say in major markets that are not Finland, ie what do they say in the UK or India or Australia. That is where you see Nokia passion that has really no Finnish pride..
You also said that you felt that it was Apple's innovation in the usability of phones, that now propels Apple to very strong growth. Now, I totally agree, the usability innovation was huge and has impacted every handset maker, and will continue to further push the Apple rivals to try to catch up. I've said many times including in my books that Apple's ability to create ever better user experiences is so strong, that nobody will catch them. But, like with Windows, the gap will not grow wider, the gap will eventually grow less wide.
But is that really the cause of Apple's dramatic rise? It is certainly one strong reason, yes. I would argue, that Apple's wonderful UI is causing a shift in behavior, that many users will now for the first time go online using the internet with a smartphone (the iPhone) and many who do learn to surf on an iPhone for the first time, will almost certainly not be willling to take the "backwards step" of abandoing the iPhone and trying to surf on lesser phones. Here in terms of phone users, I see the biggest effect of the iPhone and its UI.
But what propels Apple's rapid rise? Part is the brand, Apple users are often fanatically loyal. Part is the handset esthetic appeal, many will buy a phone because of the way it looks, in some cases this is the overriding reason. Apple is still in a class of its own, when it comes to that ultra-large screen touch screen no keypad of any kind, and flat slim phone. Lots of pretenders, but nothing quite like the iPhone in appearance.
But I do think that the biggest reason is carrier relationships. Apple had very much trouble signing up the first half dozen carriers in the first year. That meant that in most countries aroudn the world you could not get an iPhone locally. You had to have it "smuggled" from the US or another early iPhone country. So there was a large pent-up demand of people who really wanted the iPhone, but it was not sold in their countries. Apple now has expanded that to past 100 countries, now they can more-or-less fulfill their initial potential.
My point, if Apple had had 50 countries in 2007, they would have easily sold 20 million iPhones that year. But exactly like I posted in my prediction posting analyzing the iPhone 2G's chances to reach its very aggressive 10 M unit initial sales target, I said 10M was possible but much beyond that was totally impossble, in very large part due to these difficult carrier relations.
So in response, I'd say yes and no, certainly UI is part of Apple's rise and will certainly help further in Apple's growth and in holding onto loyal customers. But obviously its not the only reason and I don't personally think its actually the biggest reason.
(more replies later, now gotta rush again, my customer meeting is coming up)
I appreciate the suspicions in your first reply (and I wish I was so famous that there were Tomi-impersonators, haha). There have been so many hoaxes online, too easy to do.. But I also do appreciate it greatly, that you then gave me the benefit of the doubt, and engaged me with several very good comments.
The Nokia pride thing with Finns. Yes, its many things actually, even more than just a small country. Finland used to belong to Swedish kings or Russian Czars, before Finland became independent during the first world war. In Finland telecoms - the infrastructure, fixed landline phones and earlier mobile phones, were almost synonymous with Swedish telecoms giant LM Ericsson (obviously who also are half owner of SonyEricsson handsets now). So when tiny Nokia took on not just over-the-ocean rival Motorola, but our nearest neighbor rival, Ericsson, and eventually overtook Ericsson in handsets, that is a kind of way of a former "colony" if you will, striking back at the former rulers. That "overtaking Ericsson" moment in Finnish telecoms history was reported with as big headlines as any Finnish athlete winning gold in the Olympics or something like that. Yes, even more an issue of national pride.
Also remember, in Finland of only 5 million people, a Fortune Global 100 sized company will have an enormous impact to the total economy. The joke goes that Helsinki Stock Exchange is the Nokia stock exchange, because any little change in Nokia will shake the whole index on a daily basis. I remember there was an analysis at one point early in this decade that something like 20% of the total Finnish economy is directly or indirectly related to Nokia's success, but this was done with the widest definition, so say they included the pay of teachers in schools in those Finnish cities with Nokia factories, etc..
Now, yes, there is certainly a lot of Finnish pride that comes through. Now, separately, think about this side - Nokia was literally the first phone that was used to transmit a person-to-person SMS text message. Nokia was also the first handset maker for whom all phones were SMS enabled. Today we talk of the US being addicted to SMS and President Obama being the first texting president. The SMS itself was not invented by Nokia, it was invented by Matti Makkonen, then of Telecoms Finland (he won the Economist award for IT innovation last year, and happens to be a former mentor of mine).
Nokia execs have been there to see the phenomenon. Nokia execs have been writing white papers and preaching to the world about this fantastic technology, invented in Finland but not by Nokia, and then rapidly deployed by Nokia and exported as an idea to now literally every country except North Korea. There are SMS experts in America, they are emerging now. I see lots of pretty good papers written in the past few years about how a business might do CRM with SMS or how you can do advertising on SMS or do voting like American Idol by SMS etc (Estonia by the way, will become the first country where the national elections will accept votes by SMS.. So its not just a teenager toy ha-ha, SMS that is)
Anyway, my point is, that there is plenty of honest valid merit, in that Finland happened to be the country where the data revolution for mobile started (first digital cellular network etc) and Finnish telecoms experts, whether they worked for Nokia or not, have had a decade more of that exposure and experience. So there is also plenty of reason for some of these "Nokia fanatics" to make issues, where they really have a good point.
I like to make the comparison with iTunes and ringing tones. iTunes are worth about 2 billion dollars annually today. Ringing tones are worth about 5 billion dollars worldwide (last year, they may be peaking, so it may actually start to decline this year, or be close to a plateau level). Both are downloadable music, sold in digital formats, and paid for content. And iTunes song is cheaper and by far better quality. But ringing tones are a far bigger global business. Now, where was that ringing tone invented - in Finland. Again not by Nokia (the inventor was a finnish internet company called Saunalahti, later called Jippii Group, which has since merged with finnish carrier group Elisa) but yes, the first 5 phone models in the world, that would accept these silly forms of music, ringing tones, were all Nokia models.
Imagine the moon landing. Who was most competent to talk about moon habitation and hopping along in moon-level gravity in the early 1970s? The US obviously, because they had been there. In very many cases of the mobile telecoms industry, it happened to be that Finland (or Japan or South Korea) was first. These three countries have contributed far more than half of all innovations and inventions to the industry.
(Sorry about long rambling reply but you asked ha-ha) But last point about Finnish Pride. The point you might take to heart, is what do they say in major markets that are not Finland, ie what do they say in the UK or India or Australia. That is where you see Nokia passion that has really no Finnish pride..
You also said that you felt that it was Apple's innovation in the usability of phones, that now propels Apple to very strong growth. Now, I totally agree, the usability innovation was huge and has impacted every handset maker, and will continue to further push the Apple rivals to try to catch up. I've said many times including in my books that Apple's ability to create ever better user experiences is so strong, that nobody will catch them. But, like with Windows, the gap will not grow wider, the gap will eventually grow less wide.
But is that really the cause of Apple's dramatic rise? It is certainly one strong reason, yes. I would argue, that Apple's wonderful UI is causing a shift in behavior, that many users will now for the first time go online using the internet with a smartphone (the iPhone) and many who do learn to surf on an iPhone for the first time, will almost certainly not be willling to take the "backwards step" of abandoing the iPhone and trying to surf on lesser phones. Here in terms of phone users, I see the biggest effect of the iPhone and its UI.
But what propels Apple's rapid rise? Part is the brand, Apple users are often fanatically loyal. Part is the handset esthetic appeal, many will buy a phone because of the way it looks, in some cases this is the overriding reason. Apple is still in a class of its own, when it comes to that ultra-large screen touch screen no keypad of any kind, and flat slim phone. Lots of pretenders, but nothing quite like the iPhone in appearance.
But I do think that the biggest reason is carrier relationships. Apple had very much trouble signing up the first half dozen carriers in the first year. That meant that in most countries aroudn the world you could not get an iPhone locally. You had to have it "smuggled" from the US or another early iPhone country. So there was a large pent-up demand of people who really wanted the iPhone, but it was not sold in their countries. Apple now has expanded that to past 100 countries, now they can more-or-less fulfill their initial potential.
My point, if Apple had had 50 countries in 2007, they would have easily sold 20 million iPhones that year. But exactly like I posted in my prediction posting analyzing the iPhone 2G's chances to reach its very aggressive 10 M unit initial sales target, I said 10M was possible but much beyond that was totally impossble, in very large part due to these difficult carrier relations.
So in response, I'd say yes and no, certainly UI is part of Apple's rise and will certainly help further in Apple's growth and in holding onto loyal customers. But obviously its not the only reason and I don't personally think its actually the biggest reason.
(more replies later, now gotta rush again, my customer meeting is coming up)
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Very interesting. A lot of good points. There's no real way to respond to that.
I'm not at all following the last chunk of that, about the reasons for Apple's success.
The argument appears to be that, while the superior UI and user experience account for some of the iPhone's rapid market penetration, the larger reason is that Apple didn't have agreements with a lot of carriers outside of the US at first, but subsequently did.
That would explain why the iPhone's market penetration might have been somewhat delayed; I can't see how it's an explanation for its overall success. All I can think of is the idea that pent up demand accounted for a sudden explosion of sales, but again that just explains a particular delta in the sales graph, not overall numbers.
I'm not at all following the last chunk of that, about the reasons for Apple's success.
The argument appears to be that, while the superior UI and user experience account for some of the iPhone's rapid market penetration, the larger reason is that Apple didn't have agreements with a lot of carriers outside of the US at first, but subsequently did.
That would explain why the iPhone's market penetration might have been somewhat delayed; I can't see how it's an explanation for its overall success. All I can think of is the idea that pent up demand accounted for a sudden explosion of sales, but again that just explains a particular delta in the sales graph, not overall numbers.
Perhaps I'm missing something?
The reason i have for that is that by making deal with just AT&T, Apple was able go get Visual Voicemail done, and good exposure here in the US, which then drove up demand elsewhere.
If Apple had done deals with a number of carriers at one time, it's very possible that without the exclusivity, Apple's phone would have been dumbed down, and who knows whether they could have been able to convince all those carriers of the value of the App Store?
Are the phones you listed really used as business phones in Europe? Are they used for advanced email, calendar, and contact syncing?
Yes they are. And it's very straigtforward. I'm on my third Nokia phone, where I'm doing E-mail, calendar and contacts syncing to Exchange and now gmail with my E71. And I started late in the game. Many business people used the communicator series to do serious business work which included E-mail, contacts etc. but wasn't limited to these way before the E and N-series Nokia phones or LG Chocos and Samsungs came to market.
So European and Asian business users have been using E-mail on their phones for a long time before the iPhone with varying degrees on cumbersomeness and ease.
Even though many here cite Nokia, LG, Samsung et al to be feature ridden, but unable to do Email + syncing, that's not even close to the truth. Capability and feature wise these have had practically all iPhone's 3G's features + then some for years. The main difference is the UI (and now the growing ecosystem). This is where the beef seems to be. And of course marketing sexyness/perception.
I'm primarily looking at the BlackBerry as the gold standard for email. BlackBerry handles email accounts in ways that the iPhone is not capable of. I'm not talking about phones that simply do email. I'm talking about phones that can handle sophisticated email accounts and open most common document formats.
Europe may have different LG and Samsung phones than we do in the US. The LG and Samsung phones we have are extremely simple email devices and have nowhere near the sophistication of the BlackBerry.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jahonen
Yes they are. And it's very straigtforward. I'm on my third Nokia phone, where I'm doing E-mail, calendar and contacts syncing to Exchange and now gmail with my E71. And I started late in the game. Many business people used the communicator series to do serious business work which included E-mail, contacts etc. but wasn't limited to these way before the E and N-series Nokia phones or LG Chocos and Samsungs came to market.
So European and Asian business users have been using E-mail on their phones for a long time before the iPhone with varying degrees on cumbersomeness and ease.
Even though many here cite Nokia, LG, Samsung et al to be feature ridden, but unable to do Email + syncing, that's not even close to the truth. Capability and feature wise these have had practically all iPhone's 3G's features + then some for years. The main difference is the UI (and now the growing ecosystem). This is where the beef seems to be. And of course marketing sexyness/perception.
I'm primarily looking at the BlackBerry as the gold standard for email. BlackBerry handles email accounts in ways that the iPhone is not capable of. I'm not talking about phones that simply do email. I'm talking about phones that can handle sophisticated email accounts and open most common document formats. .
So you changed the question did you?
I don't know what your definition for "sophisticated email accounts" is, but the Nokia mail client at least knows how to handle multiple mailboxes and folders on the mail accounts (POP, IMAP) as well as open several doument formats such as PDF, Word, Excel etc. Push mail has also been available for several yeasrs with exchange active sync, intellisync and other apps.
I haven't used blackberry (or samsung) for E-mail so I can't compare the quality of the experience, but that wasn't your original question. I also stated "with varying degrees of cumbersomness and ease". The current clients are quite good though.
Your original question however was, are the "other" phones used for business E-mail , contacts, calendaring and documents in Europe and Asia and the answer to that was: yes. In fact for a decade now (since the intro of the first QWERTY Communicator series). Even more so with the current E-series enhanced mail clients and encrypted memory and filesystem capabilities.
The gold is beginning to look a bit tarnished, the iPhone handles email accounts in ways the Blackberry is not capable of.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
I'm primarily looking at the BlackBerry as the gold standard for email. BlackBerry handles email accounts in ways that the iPhone is not capable of. I'm not talking about phones that simply do email. I'm talking about phones that can handle sophisticated email accounts and open most common document formats.
Qualcomm has become the largest mobile telecom equipment maker in the world --- in terms of market cap, it's bigger than Nokia, Siemens, Ericsson, Acatel-Lucent, Motorola, Texas Instrument, Broadcom...
People like to think that GSM "won" over CDMA --- yet Qualcomm somehow becomes the biggest winner of them all.
Nokia has built a very large business by selling progressive upgrades of their handsets.
The handset market was fashion driven, with people replacing their handsets every 18-24 months. That model worked in the past.
But there has been a sea change in the handset market caused by the iPhone.
The reason the iPhone is enjoyed by customers, is down to one reason: It does not suck. It is not a terrible product. It's nothing fancy but It's pretty much okay.
That is the reason that consumers love it. Consumers using the iPhone have an epiphany, they suddenly realise that their Windows Mobile, Palm OS and Symbian smartphones are utterly terrible. They are unforgivably bad. They are terrible products.
Yes, the features are exactly same - but using a Symbian phone is so eye-gougingly tedious, no one can be bothered to.
The secret sauce is not hardware. It's not about touchscreens or compasses. ANYONE can buy the hardware.
The secret sauce is the software.
The iPhone is not just a UI. It's Unix, it is Cocoa, it is OpenGL. It is Xcode.
Android is less credible, but there is a credible roadmap.
Palm had to be radical, they had PalmOS. A fine and long history behind it. And the engineers took-off and nuked it from orbit. The only way to be sure was to start again with a completely new platform.
Nokia's roadmap is not a roadmap. There is a short drive followed by a very tall cliff above some sharp jaggy rocks beside an ocean of acid.
Symbian is in a bad way. Developers hate it. And it just is not fixable. It needs to be nuked.
Nokia's backup plan is the Linux-based Maemo. They are coy about this, because leaving Symbian for Maemo will be seen as leaving your wife for a younger woman. It doesn't look good.
But the Maemo roadmap is even worse than the Symbian roadmap. This younger woman still needs putting through college, and to honest she's no looker.
The problem for Nokia is the 18month upgrade cycle. Nokia customers are upgrading their phones and they are not replacing them with Nokias. Every 24 months their market share could halve unless they have a handset that is clearly *better* than iPhone. The clock is ticking.
They threw every feature possible into the N97, It has a tractor beam, and a blade that gets boy scouts out of horse's hooves. But no one likes it.
Prediction:
Nokia's market share of smartphones will dwindle to below 25%. Symbian users will not migrate to Maemo if iPhone is better.
Comments
What makes the best phone is known from using it. So there is no quantafiable measurement. A lot of it is opinion but I don't think it's difficult to tell.
What makes the best OS/UI is the ability and ease of the phones primary functions for the average user. There is no point to functions if they are too difficult or frustrating for people to actually use. What determines the best apps are the usefulness to the average consumer.
No doubt that all us Apple users believe this. And slowly maybe everyone else will come to that realization. But many don't believe that usability is that important. Certainly, the function or capability (e.g. GPS turn-by-turn navigation) matters to them, but the degree of usability of that capability is a secondary consideration, as they seem to have low thresholds for good enough usability. Same thought pattern that Windows users have. Thinking along those lines, innovation in the UI is not as important as innovation in adding new capabilities (features).
Here's another telling example. Copy and paste. Most believe the function is very desirable (whether they actually use it much is an altogether different story). But the fact that iPhone's method is much easier-to-use than on other smartphones is lost on them. So when Apple fans say that Apple took a long time to develop the function but look at how good it is, it falls on deaf ears.
You said the iPhone is not competing so much with the Blackberry in Europe. So I listed the functions the BB is best at and asked if the phones you listed are just as good as the BB at those tasks.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. Asia in particular uses SMS more than email. Even in Europe, it's tilting that way. (Email is PC/Internet-based. SMS is not. In Asia, more people have phones than PCs.) So all you need is SMS and a good keyboard. Internationally (and even in the US among the teen crowd), Blackberries are seen as really good SMS phones. Since RIM isn't that well known yet overseas, especially in Asia, Nokia phones are generally where it's at, and the E71 and 5800 have the good keyboard, and all the other added "smartphone" features (PDA functions, music player, GPS, wifi, etc). And so does the Incite and other LG and Samsung phones. None of them are probably as good as Blackberry at pushing email, but they don't care about email.
But how many of those apps are modern apps, and how many are old apps designed for older phones without the capabilities of their more modern ones?
It's like saying that the PC has tens of thousands of apps for MS-DOS, Win 3.1, 95, 98, 2000 etc., for machines going back to the 80288.
Yes, they are there, but does it matter?
What about all of Palms old apps? Some were quite good, but most were for old phones with terrible graphics that can't use multitouch in any useful way, because they were designed for a stylus. How many Pre owners will want most of that?
That's the situation for Nokia. As they discontinue the older phones, the apps hang around, but how useful, or desirable, are most of them on newer phones?
Hey, I agree with you, but why doesn't this argument persuade or even resonate with reasonable people* who discount the iPhone and its potential growth at the expense of Nokia and Palm (and others)? You and I and many here at AI see this and expect this transformation. Even Ahonen sees this change (in his reference to eras), but yet he doesn't see how Apple will grow beyond a niche in the phone market, nor the weakness in Nokia's (weakness in software/UI/user experience) or Palm's (weakness in apps) or even RIM's (weakness in OS) position. Or are we the ones that can't see Apple's weaknesses relative to their competitors? If so, what is it that we aren't seeing?
*I recognize no arguments resonate with iPhone-haters, and there are many of those, but there are also many reasonable people who just don't see what's so great about iPhone, or other Apple products.
No doubt that all us Apple users believe this. And slowly maybe everyone else will come to that realization. But many don't believe that usability is that important. Same thought pattern that Windows users have. Thinking along those lines, innovation in the UI is not as important as innovation in adding new capabilities (features).
You are right when people have not been educated on the understanding of what a better UI is, they won' understand the value of it. But once people are shown the difference they clearly understand.
Copy and paste.
A friend of mine has a BB Storm. Out of curiosity I learned how to copy and paste on his phone. A function he never really uses. I showed him how much simpler it was on the iPhone.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. Asia in particular uses SMS more than email. Even in Europe, it's tilting that way. (Email is PC/Internet-based. SMS is not. In Asia, more people have phones than PCs.) So all you need is SMS and a good keyboard. Internationally (and even in the US among the teen crowd), Blackberries are seen as really good SMS phones. Since RIM isn't that well known yet overseas, especially in Asia, Nokia phones are generally where it's at, and the E71 and 5800 have the good keyboard, and all the other added "smartphone" features (PDA functions, music player, GPS, wifi, etc). And so does the Incite and other LG and Samsung phones. None of them are probably as good as Blackberry at pushing email, but they don't care about email.
I'm talking about taking care of business not gossiping with your friend. You cannot take care of business with SMS. You cannot send secure files, large pictures, PDF, word, excel, powerpoint documents with SMS.
Hey, I agree with you, but why doesn't this argument persuade or even resonate with reasonable people* who discount the iPhone and its potential growth at the expense of Nokia and Palm (and others)? You and I and many here at AI see this and expect this transformation. Even Ahonen sees this change (in his reference to eras), but yet he doesn't see how Apple will grow beyond a niche in the phone market, nor the weakness in Nokia's (weakness in software/UI/user experience) or Palm's (weakness in apps) or even RIM's (weakness in OS) position. Or are we the ones that can't see Apple's weaknesses relative to their competitors? If so, what is it that we aren't seeing?
*I recognize no arguments resonate with iPhone-haters, and there are many of those, but there are also many reasonable people who just don't see what's so great about iPhone, or other Apple products.
Are you familiar with the expression; "We know what we know, and we don't know what we don't know."?
That's the way it looks to me. Sometimes when something happens that puts our efforts we have expended years at, into a corner, we find it difficult to give them up for what seems to be the unknown. Many times, we've spent a good part of our life building, using or promoting these efforts. Something new is alien to us, and difficult to understand.
Another expression is used in the world of science; "New scientific ideas take over when the last scientist from the previous generation dies."
Thats true in a lot of areas.
People who are used to lumbering phones with small new features added on every generation can't understand why the iPhone with few of these, has become so successful. Those old phone types are an evolutionary backwater, a dead end.
There are just so many buttons, switches, and specialized chips that one can put into a phone. After a while it becomes so complex that it's just too hard to use many of those features. We've read complaints from people here over the years of that very nature. Look at the article about Japanese phones. So many features that are specialized for just one network, or just one service.
The beauty of an iPhone type of device is that with the proper OS, and good hardware that doesn't need all of these physical "things", the same functions can be done much more easily, and even cheaply.
But the "old time" manufacturers (and sometimes, users) don't understand it yet. They've been spending years building, using, and promoting the older, backwater devices.
I am stunned by the level of discussion here and at my blog. I am today travelling in South America and have a short night before my continuing flight tomorrow morning. I promise you I am that Tomi T Ahonen ha-ha - loved the comment by someone who was wondering if i was.. I will prove it to you with my replies. But am dead tired today. I will come back to this discussion hopefully tomorrow, and will address at least those specific discussions that did relate to my postings ha-ha. I promise you, that you will see when I am back on two other sites - I will start to tweet again - I am @tomiahonen - and I will start to post updated answers to the dozens of comments at my blog the Communities Dominate blog.
For those who are interested, I am authoring a series of commentary on the smartphone market, at the blog. The blog articles in the series will not be as long as that forbes commentary ha-ha. the first article was published a week ago and discusses the size of the smartphone market - I think I called it reality to the numbers in smartphones or something like that. The second article will be of perhaps even more interest to all who read this thread - its about the single biggest factor that determines whose smartphone gets the biggest global market share. That may surprise some readers ha-ha - am going to be editing it tomorrow on the flight.
I do have a day job of consulting so please do forgive me for not immediately now replying to more. i promise you, I will be back. I hope to do that tomorrow (Tuesday) or maybe Wednesday, but certainly i will not resume twittering before I have returned here..
And i apologize for the unnecessary lecture about handset subsidies, I was not aware - am not a regular reader of your forum - how well you guys also understand this often cryptic side of the business. But yes, gotta go get some shut-eye now ha-ha..
Tomi T Ahonen :-)
www.tomiahonen.com
Hi
I am stunned by the level of discussion here and at my blog. I am today travelling in South America and have a short night before my continuing flight tomorrow morning. I promise you I am that Tomi T Ahonen ha-ha - loved the comment by someone who was wondering if i was.. I will prove it to you with my replies. But am dead tired today. I will come back to this discussion hopefully tomorrow, and will address at least those specific discussions that did relate to my postings ha-ha. I promise you, that you will see when I am back on two other sites - I will start to tweet again - I am @tomiahonen - and I will start to post updated answers to the dozens of comments at my blog the Communities Dominate blog.
For those who are interested, I am authoring a series of commentary on the smartphone market, at the blog. The blog articles in the series will not be as long as that forbes commentary ha-ha. the first article was published a week ago and discusses the size of the smartphone market - I think I called it reality to the numbers in smartphones or something like that. The second article will be of perhaps even more interest to all who read this thread - its about the single biggest factor that determines whose smartphone gets the biggest global market share. That may surprise some readers ha-ha - am going to be editing it tomorrow on the flight.
I do have a day job of consulting so please do forgive me for not immediately now replying to more. i promise you, I will be back. I hope to do that tomorrow (Tuesday) or maybe Wednesday, but certainly i will not resume twittering before I have returned here..
And i apologize for the unnecessary lecture about handset subsidies, I was not aware - am not a regular reader of your forum - how well you guys also understand this often cryptic side of the business. But yes, gotta go get some shut-eye now ha-ha..
Tomi T Ahonen :-)
www.tomiahonen.com
Being the one who was, at first, wondering if it was really you, I am now convinced that it is.
I would like to say, that despite the fact of differing views, we thank you for attempting to connect (I can joke as well) to us here, and hope that you will get some time from your busy schedule to respond to some of our posts.
Quick note. I've now got a bit of time to do online stuff. The discussion at my blog has been very hectic as well. I'll go there first, post a few replies, then come here. Expect my replies here within the hour. And if anyone else still doubts whether I am me, haha, then check out Tomi Ahonen's twitter feed, where I just posted an update that I will head to my blog and to Apple Insider (and Forum Oxford) to continue this discussion.
Back in a little while
Tomi Ahonen :-)
www.tomiahonen.com
Very many would grant immediately that the RIM Blackberry phones are smartphones. Yet there are technology purists who look at how the OS is made and claim the Blackberry is not actually a smartphone at all, but is technically exactly the same as hundreds of millions of featurephones, built using the same type of technology.
Equally, there are many who say that because of Apple's tight control of the OS, they actually are not open enough to qualify as a smartphone.
There are those who say that the usage of the phone - how it is used - should be the measure, so just because your car has a 4 wheel drive SUV format, but if its used only to drive in the city, it should not be counted as an off-road vehicle..
Now, on this issue, what is a smartphone, which definition is best, which phones do belong and which don't, I honestly do not have a perfect answer for you. Some of you know that I moderate Forum Oxford. My co-moderator, extremely esteemed and respected Ajit Jaokar (who wrote Mobile Web 2.0 and many other books) is just now engaged in deep discusion about what is a smartphone and what is not. I am not in the league of competence of those experts on that thread, to even dare to suggest my views.
So I do the easy bit, ha-ha, as a consultant. I refer to a public reference definition used by those who measure it. So for Gartners's numbers, I use Gartner's definition.
But Dr Millmoss made really a good comment here, that debate is going on in many circles and the classic definition of what is a smartphone is likely to evolve.
PS - I'm very sure that any metrics that will measure smartphones into the next several years, will always include the iPhone ha-ha, so while some purists might want to not count them ha-ha, that is very very unlikely to happen..
Tomi Ahonen :-)
www.tomiahonen.com
I hope that helped
Tomi Ahonen
Yes, we agree that the original "defining" features of smartphones are now being spread across all categories. So the question is what is left to uniquely define the category of smartphone, not necessarily what makes the best phone (since smartphone does not by definition equal best phone). This definition might not matter to a user, but it does to those who measure sales (like even Gartner and IDC) and to those who market phones.
This is precisely the argument I had on this forum a while ago. Figures tell us how brilliantly Apple are doing by telling us how much of the smartphone marketshare Apple have without giving any indication as to what actually constitutes a smartphone. It seems to me that the definition of a smartphone hasn't really changed since they first started to appear, which now means that practically every phone out there is a smartphone, which would subsequently make Apple's share of that market look pretty insignificant. Until everyone can agree what constitutes a smartphone, there is absolutely no point in collecting and collating data about these devices, and none of it is meaningful at all. The best way to look at Apple's success is to see how it's doing against ALL mobile phones, as there is no ambiguity over what consitutes a mobile phone, so the numbers can be believed.
What makes the best phone is known from using it. So there is no quantafiable measurement. A lot of it is opinion but I don't think it's difficult to tell.
What makes the best OS/UI is the ability and ease of the phones primary functions for the average user. There is no point to functions if they are too difficult or frustrating for people to actually use. What determines the best apps are the usefulness to the average consumer.
Your attempt to define what constitutes a smartphone is doomed to failure from the very beginning. You cannot place things into rigid, structured categories by means of subjective opinion. You need a hard and fast feature checklist that allows you to place each device into one of 2 sections - Smartphone or Non-Smartphone. The only thing that 'ease of use for the average user' allows you to do is say that the phone is easy to use. My mum thinks her Nokia 3210 is easy to use. Does that make it a smartphone? Not by a long shot.
I appreciate the suspicions in your first reply (and I wish I was so famous that there were Tomi-impersonators, haha). There have been so many hoaxes online, too easy to do.. But I also do appreciate it greatly, that you then gave me the benefit of the doubt, and engaged me with several very good comments.
The Nokia pride thing with Finns. Yes, its many things actually, even more than just a small country. Finland used to belong to Swedish kings or Russian Czars, before Finland became independent during the first world war. In Finland telecoms - the infrastructure, fixed landline phones and earlier mobile phones, were almost synonymous with Swedish telecoms giant LM Ericsson (obviously who also are half owner of SonyEricsson handsets now). So when tiny Nokia took on not just over-the-ocean rival Motorola, but our nearest neighbor rival, Ericsson, and eventually overtook Ericsson in handsets, that is a kind of way of a former "colony" if you will, striking back at the former rulers. That "overtaking Ericsson" moment in Finnish telecoms history was reported with as big headlines as any Finnish athlete winning gold in the Olympics or something like that. Yes, even more an issue of national pride.
Also remember, in Finland of only 5 million people, a Fortune Global 100 sized company will have an enormous impact to the total economy. The joke goes that Helsinki Stock Exchange is the Nokia stock exchange, because any little change in Nokia will shake the whole index on a daily basis. I remember there was an analysis at one point early in this decade that something like 20% of the total Finnish economy is directly or indirectly related to Nokia's success, but this was done with the widest definition, so say they included the pay of teachers in schools in those Finnish cities with Nokia factories, etc..
Now, yes, there is certainly a lot of Finnish pride that comes through. Now, separately, think about this side - Nokia was literally the first phone that was used to transmit a person-to-person SMS text message. Nokia was also the first handset maker for whom all phones were SMS enabled. Today we talk of the US being addicted to SMS and President Obama being the first texting president. The SMS itself was not invented by Nokia, it was invented by Matti Makkonen, then of Telecoms Finland (he won the Economist award for IT innovation last year, and happens to be a former mentor of mine).
Nokia execs have been there to see the phenomenon. Nokia execs have been writing white papers and preaching to the world about this fantastic technology, invented in Finland but not by Nokia, and then rapidly deployed by Nokia and exported as an idea to now literally every country except North Korea. There are SMS experts in America, they are emerging now. I see lots of pretty good papers written in the past few years about how a business might do CRM with SMS or how you can do advertising on SMS or do voting like American Idol by SMS etc (Estonia by the way, will become the first country where the national elections will accept votes by SMS.. So its not just a teenager toy ha-ha, SMS that is)
Anyway, my point is, that there is plenty of honest valid merit, in that Finland happened to be the country where the data revolution for mobile started (first digital cellular network etc) and Finnish telecoms experts, whether they worked for Nokia or not, have had a decade more of that exposure and experience. So there is also plenty of reason for some of these "Nokia fanatics" to make issues, where they really have a good point.
I like to make the comparison with iTunes and ringing tones. iTunes are worth about 2 billion dollars annually today. Ringing tones are worth about 5 billion dollars worldwide (last year, they may be peaking, so it may actually start to decline this year, or be close to a plateau level). Both are downloadable music, sold in digital formats, and paid for content. And iTunes song is cheaper and by far better quality. But ringing tones are a far bigger global business. Now, where was that ringing tone invented - in Finland. Again not by Nokia (the inventor was a finnish internet company called Saunalahti, later called Jippii Group, which has since merged with finnish carrier group Elisa) but yes, the first 5 phone models in the world, that would accept these silly forms of music, ringing tones, were all Nokia models.
Imagine the moon landing. Who was most competent to talk about moon habitation and hopping along in moon-level gravity in the early 1970s? The US obviously, because they had been there. In very many cases of the mobile telecoms industry, it happened to be that Finland (or Japan or South Korea) was first. These three countries have contributed far more than half of all innovations and inventions to the industry.
(Sorry about long rambling reply but you asked ha-ha) But last point about Finnish Pride. The point you might take to heart, is what do they say in major markets that are not Finland, ie what do they say in the UK or India or Australia. That is where you see Nokia passion that has really no Finnish pride..
You also said that you felt that it was Apple's innovation in the usability of phones, that now propels Apple to very strong growth. Now, I totally agree, the usability innovation was huge and has impacted every handset maker, and will continue to further push the Apple rivals to try to catch up. I've said many times including in my books that Apple's ability to create ever better user experiences is so strong, that nobody will catch them. But, like with Windows, the gap will not grow wider, the gap will eventually grow less wide.
But is that really the cause of Apple's dramatic rise? It is certainly one strong reason, yes. I would argue, that Apple's wonderful UI is causing a shift in behavior, that many users will now for the first time go online using the internet with a smartphone (the iPhone) and many who do learn to surf on an iPhone for the first time, will almost certainly not be willling to take the "backwards step" of abandoing the iPhone and trying to surf on lesser phones. Here in terms of phone users, I see the biggest effect of the iPhone and its UI.
But what propels Apple's rapid rise? Part is the brand, Apple users are often fanatically loyal. Part is the handset esthetic appeal, many will buy a phone because of the way it looks, in some cases this is the overriding reason. Apple is still in a class of its own, when it comes to that ultra-large screen touch screen no keypad of any kind, and flat slim phone. Lots of pretenders, but nothing quite like the iPhone in appearance.
But I do think that the biggest reason is carrier relationships. Apple had very much trouble signing up the first half dozen carriers in the first year. That meant that in most countries aroudn the world you could not get an iPhone locally. You had to have it "smuggled" from the US or another early iPhone country. So there was a large pent-up demand of people who really wanted the iPhone, but it was not sold in their countries. Apple now has expanded that to past 100 countries, now they can more-or-less fulfill their initial potential.
My point, if Apple had had 50 countries in 2007, they would have easily sold 20 million iPhones that year. But exactly like I posted in my prediction posting analyzing the iPhone 2G's chances to reach its very aggressive 10 M unit initial sales target, I said 10M was possible but much beyond that was totally impossble, in very large part due to these difficult carrier relations.
So in response, I'd say yes and no, certainly UI is part of Apple's rise and will certainly help further in Apple's growth and in holding onto loyal customers. But obviously its not the only reason and I don't personally think its actually the biggest reason.
(more replies later, now gotta rush again, my customer meeting is coming up)
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Hi Melgross
I appreciate the suspicions in your first reply (and I wish I was so famous that there were Tomi-impersonators, haha). There have been so many hoaxes online, too easy to do.. But I also do appreciate it greatly, that you then gave me the benefit of the doubt, and engaged me with several very good comments.
The Nokia pride thing with Finns. Yes, its many things actually, even more than just a small country. Finland used to belong to Swedish kings or Russian Czars, before Finland became independent during the first world war. In Finland telecoms - the infrastructure, fixed landline phones and earlier mobile phones, were almost synonymous with Swedish telecoms giant LM Ericsson (obviously who also are half owner of SonyEricsson handsets now). So when tiny Nokia took on not just over-the-ocean rival Motorola, but our nearest neighbor rival, Ericsson, and eventually overtook Ericsson in handsets, that is a kind of way of a former "colony" if you will, striking back at the former rulers. That "overtaking Ericsson" moment in Finnish telecoms history was reported with as big headlines as any Finnish athlete winning gold in the Olympics or something like that. Yes, even more an issue of national pride.
Also remember, in Finland of only 5 million people, a Fortune Global 100 sized company will have an enormous impact to the total economy. The joke goes that Helsinki Stock Exchange is the Nokia stock exchange, because any little change in Nokia will shake the whole index on a daily basis. I remember there was an analysis at one point early in this decade that something like 20% of the total Finnish economy is directly or indirectly related to Nokia's success, but this was done with the widest definition, so say they included the pay of teachers in schools in those Finnish cities with Nokia factories, etc..
Now, yes, there is certainly a lot of Finnish pride that comes through. Now, separately, think about this side - Nokia was literally the first phone that was used to transmit a person-to-person SMS text message. Nokia was also the first handset maker for whom all phones were SMS enabled. Today we talk of the US being addicted to SMS and President Obama being the first texting president. The SMS itself was not invented by Nokia, it was invented by Matti Makkonen, then of Telecoms Finland (he won the Economist award for IT innovation last year, and happens to be a former mentor of mine).
Nokia execs have been there to see the phenomenon. Nokia execs have been writing white papers and preaching to the world about this fantastic technology, invented in Finland but not by Nokia, and then rapidly deployed by Nokia and exported as an idea to now literally every country except North Korea. There are SMS experts in America, they are emerging now. I see lots of pretty good papers written in the past few years about how a business might do CRM with SMS or how you can do advertising on SMS or do voting like American Idol by SMS etc (Estonia by the way, will become the first country where the national elections will accept votes by SMS.. So its not just a teenager toy ha-ha, SMS that is)
Anyway, my point is, that there is plenty of honest valid merit, in that Finland happened to be the country where the data revolution for mobile started (first digital cellular network etc) and Finnish telecoms experts, whether they worked for Nokia or not, have had a decade more of that exposure and experience. So there is also plenty of reason for some of these "Nokia fanatics" to make issues, where they really have a good point.
I like to make the comparison with iTunes and ringing tones. iTunes are worth about 2 billion dollars annually today. Ringing tones are worth about 5 billion dollars worldwide (last year, they may be peaking, so it may actually start to decline this year, or be close to a plateau level). Both are downloadable music, sold in digital formats, and paid for content. And iTunes song is cheaper and by far better quality. But ringing tones are a far bigger global business. Now, where was that ringing tone invented - in Finland. Again not by Nokia (the inventor was a finnish internet company called Saunalahti, later called Jippii Group, which has since merged with finnish carrier group Elisa) but yes, the first 5 phone models in the world, that would accept these silly forms of music, ringing tones, were all Nokia models.
Imagine the moon landing. Who was most competent to talk about moon habitation and hopping along in moon-level gravity in the early 1970s? The US obviously, because they had been there. In very many cases of the mobile telecoms industry, it happened to be that Finland (or Japan or South Korea) was first. These three countries have contributed far more than half of all innovations and inventions to the industry.
(Sorry about long rambling reply but you asked ha-ha) But last point about Finnish Pride. The point you might take to heart, is what do they say in major markets that are not Finland, ie what do they say in the UK or India or Australia. That is where you see Nokia passion that has really no Finnish pride..
You also said that you felt that it was Apple's innovation in the usability of phones, that now propels Apple to very strong growth. Now, I totally agree, the usability innovation was huge and has impacted every handset maker, and will continue to further push the Apple rivals to try to catch up. I've said many times including in my books that Apple's ability to create ever better user experiences is so strong, that nobody will catch them. But, like with Windows, the gap will not grow wider, the gap will eventually grow less wide.
But is that really the cause of Apple's dramatic rise? It is certainly one strong reason, yes. I would argue, that Apple's wonderful UI is causing a shift in behavior, that many users will now for the first time go online using the internet with a smartphone (the iPhone) and many who do learn to surf on an iPhone for the first time, will almost certainly not be willling to take the "backwards step" of abandoing the iPhone and trying to surf on lesser phones. Here in terms of phone users, I see the biggest effect of the iPhone and its UI.
But what propels Apple's rapid rise? Part is the brand, Apple users are often fanatically loyal. Part is the handset esthetic appeal, many will buy a phone because of the way it looks, in some cases this is the overriding reason. Apple is still in a class of its own, when it comes to that ultra-large screen touch screen no keypad of any kind, and flat slim phone. Lots of pretenders, but nothing quite like the iPhone in appearance.
But I do think that the biggest reason is carrier relationships. Apple had very much trouble signing up the first half dozen carriers in the first year. That meant that in most countries aroudn the world you could not get an iPhone locally. You had to have it "smuggled" from the US or another early iPhone country. So there was a large pent-up demand of people who really wanted the iPhone, but it was not sold in their countries. Apple now has expanded that to past 100 countries, now they can more-or-less fulfill their initial potential.
My point, if Apple had had 50 countries in 2007, they would have easily sold 20 million iPhones that year. But exactly like I posted in my prediction posting analyzing the iPhone 2G's chances to reach its very aggressive 10 M unit initial sales target, I said 10M was possible but much beyond that was totally impossble, in very large part due to these difficult carrier relations.
So in response, I'd say yes and no, certainly UI is part of Apple's rise and will certainly help further in Apple's growth and in holding onto loyal customers. But obviously its not the only reason and I don't personally think its actually the biggest reason.
(more replies later, now gotta rush again, my customer meeting is coming up)
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Very interesting. A lot of good points. There's no real way to respond to that.
The argument appears to be that, while the superior UI and user experience account for some of the iPhone's rapid market penetration, the larger reason is that Apple didn't have agreements with a lot of carriers outside of the US at first, but subsequently did.
That would explain why the iPhone's market penetration might have been somewhat delayed; I can't see how it's an explanation for its overall success. All I can think of is the idea that pent up demand accounted for a sudden explosion of sales, but again that just explains a particular delta in the sales graph, not overall numbers.
Perhaps I'm missing something?
I'm not at all following the last chunk of that, about the reasons for Apple's success.
The argument appears to be that, while the superior UI and user experience account for some of the iPhone's rapid market penetration, the larger reason is that Apple didn't have agreements with a lot of carriers outside of the US at first, but subsequently did.
That would explain why the iPhone's market penetration might have been somewhat delayed; I can't see how it's an explanation for its overall success. All I can think of is the idea that pent up demand accounted for a sudden explosion of sales, but again that just explains a particular delta in the sales graph, not overall numbers.
Perhaps I'm missing something?
The reason i have for that is that by making deal with just AT&T, Apple was able go get Visual Voicemail done, and good exposure here in the US, which then drove up demand elsewhere.
If Apple had done deals with a number of carriers at one time, it's very possible that without the exclusivity, Apple's phone would have been dumbed down, and who knows whether they could have been able to convince all those carriers of the value of the App Store?
Are the phones you listed really used as business phones in Europe? Are they used for advanced email, calendar, and contact syncing?
Yes they are. And it's very straigtforward. I'm on my third Nokia phone, where I'm doing E-mail, calendar and contacts syncing to Exchange and now gmail with my E71. And I started late in the game. Many business people used the communicator series to do serious business work which included E-mail, contacts etc. but wasn't limited to these way before the E and N-series Nokia phones or LG Chocos and Samsungs came to market.
So European and Asian business users have been using E-mail on their phones for a long time before the iPhone with varying degrees on cumbersomeness and ease.
Even though many here cite Nokia, LG, Samsung et al to be feature ridden, but unable to do Email + syncing, that's not even close to the truth. Capability and feature wise these have had practically all iPhone's 3G's features + then some for years. The main difference is the UI (and now the growing ecosystem). This is where the beef seems to be. And of course marketing sexyness/perception.
Regs, Jarkko
Europe may have different LG and Samsung phones than we do in the US. The LG and Samsung phones we have are extremely simple email devices and have nowhere near the sophistication of the BlackBerry.
Yes they are. And it's very straigtforward. I'm on my third Nokia phone, where I'm doing E-mail, calendar and contacts syncing to Exchange and now gmail with my E71. And I started late in the game. Many business people used the communicator series to do serious business work which included E-mail, contacts etc. but wasn't limited to these way before the E and N-series Nokia phones or LG Chocos and Samsungs came to market.
So European and Asian business users have been using E-mail on their phones for a long time before the iPhone with varying degrees on cumbersomeness and ease.
Even though many here cite Nokia, LG, Samsung et al to be feature ridden, but unable to do Email + syncing, that's not even close to the truth. Capability and feature wise these have had practically all iPhone's 3G's features + then some for years. The main difference is the UI (and now the growing ecosystem). This is where the beef seems to be. And of course marketing sexyness/perception.
Regs, Jarkko
I'm primarily looking at the BlackBerry as the gold standard for email. BlackBerry handles email accounts in ways that the iPhone is not capable of. I'm not talking about phones that simply do email. I'm talking about phones that can handle sophisticated email accounts and open most common document formats. .
So you changed the question did you?
I don't know what your definition for "sophisticated email accounts" is, but the Nokia mail client at least knows how to handle multiple mailboxes and folders on the mail accounts (POP, IMAP) as well as open several doument formats such as PDF, Word, Excel etc. Push mail has also been available for several yeasrs with exchange active sync, intellisync and other apps.
I haven't used blackberry (or samsung) for E-mail so I can't compare the quality of the experience, but that wasn't your original question. I also stated "with varying degrees of cumbersomness and ease". The current clients are quite good though.
Your original question however was, are the "other" phones used for business E-mail , contacts, calendaring and documents in Europe and Asia and the answer to that was: yes. In fact for a decade now (since the intro of the first QWERTY Communicator series). Even more so with the current E-series enhanced mail clients and encrypted memory and filesystem capabilities.
Regs, Jarkko
a) set up a new Gmail account from the handset,
b) handle email attachments larger than 4MB.
The gold is beginning to look a bit tarnished, the iPhone handles email accounts in ways the Blackberry is not capable of.
I'm primarily looking at the BlackBerry as the gold standard for email. BlackBerry handles email accounts in ways that the iPhone is not capable of. I'm not talking about phones that simply do email. I'm talking about phones that can handle sophisticated email accounts and open most common document formats.
Actually, Nokia didn't do a good job at all.
Qualcomm has become the largest mobile telecom equipment maker in the world --- in terms of market cap, it's bigger than Nokia, Siemens, Ericsson, Acatel-Lucent, Motorola, Texas Instrument, Broadcom...
People like to think that GSM "won" over CDMA --- yet Qualcomm somehow becomes the biggest winner of them all.
This is how Qualcomm "wins".
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/0...ticompetitive/
The handset market was fashion driven, with people replacing their handsets every 18-24 months. That model worked in the past.
But there has been a sea change in the handset market caused by the iPhone.
The reason the iPhone is enjoyed by customers, is down to one reason: It does not suck. It is not a terrible product. It's nothing fancy but It's pretty much okay.
That is the reason that consumers love it. Consumers using the iPhone have an epiphany, they suddenly realise that their Windows Mobile, Palm OS and Symbian smartphones are utterly terrible. They are unforgivably bad. They are terrible products.
Yes, the features are exactly same - but using a Symbian phone is so eye-gougingly tedious, no one can be bothered to.
The secret sauce is not hardware. It's not about touchscreens or compasses. ANYONE can buy the hardware.
The secret sauce is the software.
The iPhone is not just a UI. It's Unix, it is Cocoa, it is OpenGL. It is Xcode.
Android is less credible, but there is a credible roadmap.
Palm had to be radical, they had PalmOS. A fine and long history behind it. And the engineers took-off and nuked it from orbit. The only way to be sure was to start again with a completely new platform.
Nokia's roadmap is not a roadmap. There is a short drive followed by a very tall cliff above some sharp jaggy rocks beside an ocean of acid.
Symbian is in a bad way. Developers hate it. And it just is not fixable. It needs to be nuked.
Nokia's backup plan is the Linux-based Maemo. They are coy about this, because leaving Symbian for Maemo will be seen as leaving your wife for a younger woman. It doesn't look good.
But the Maemo roadmap is even worse than the Symbian roadmap. This younger woman still needs putting through college, and to honest she's no looker.
The problem for Nokia is the 18month upgrade cycle. Nokia customers are upgrading their phones and they are not replacing them with Nokias. Every 24 months their market share could halve unless they have a handset that is clearly *better* than iPhone. The clock is ticking.
They threw every feature possible into the N97, It has a tractor beam, and a blade that gets boy scouts out of horse's hooves. But no one likes it.
Prediction:
Nokia's market share of smartphones will dwindle to below 25%. Symbian users will not migrate to Maemo if iPhone is better.
Whereupon, Nokia will switch to Android.
C.