May 2007: Monthly Archive

Think Secret has posted a speculative story about who will carry the iPhone in Europe. Orange and Vodaphone are listed as the top contenders.

The article doesn’t mention the most important thing about the European carrier, however (important, at least, to North Americans). There are businesses who make it their work to take advantage of foreign economies to purchase an unlocked mobile device and then resell it in a different nation. Some nations, like Belgium, mandate that all phones are sold unlocked. So, one might be able to buy an unlocked iPhone via Belgium, for example. The purchaser may end up with a European warranty, sending their device across the Atlantic to have it serviced, or an outright refusal to service the warranty.

The idea is that the purchaser gets an iPhone on Rogers or T-Mobile, etc, instead of Cingular. It’s not possible to get an iPhone on Sprint, Verizon, or Alltel, unless you can get one of them to give you a SIM card, which you likely can’t. We will, of course, post updates as they come.

According to a survey by Markitecture (via Ars Technica), only 6% of people polled plan to buy an iPhone in the next year. Only six percent, they say! You know, if they follow through, that could put Apple in front of Microsoft in market share, currently at 5.7% (via Canalys). The article doesn’t say if it was a global or national survey, however.

Markitecture notes that the RAZR had about 6% of the phone market at its peak. Ars Technica doesn’t note the margin of error, but 6% of the global phone market (around 1 billion phones) is 60 million phones. At $500 each that’s 30 billion dollars. Granted, not net profit. If Apple is looking for 20% profit margins, as they’re wont to do, it looks like they’d potentially grab about 6 billion dollars.

It’s starting to look like Jobs set the bar low in January when he announced he was looking for 1% of the global phone market. Of course, one doesn’t like to set goals and then miss them, it makes one look bad. But, that’s part of what makes watching Jobs fun. When they destroy the 1% goal, he’s going to act like the most astounded person in the world. Whaaaa?

Apple PR officially revealed that Steve Jobs will be doing the keynote on June 11th during Apple’s WorldWide Developer Conference. I know, he pretty much does it every year, so it’s not exactly groundbreaking earth-shattering news. But, it means he’ll probably trot out Leopard, the new version of Mac OSX.

Odds are very good that he’ll remind everyone about the iPhone too. I suspect he’ll probably put some of the lingering questions to rest about the iPhone. Hopefully he’ll tell us what day we have to get in line to purchase one. Since it’s WWDC, I’m guessing that he’ll announce some sort of SDK and official capacity for third party apps. Otherwise it would be like rubbing developer faces into mud: “Here’s a groundbreaking platform that changes everything that you can’t be part of! Besides buying one! And switching to Cingular!” Not likely; or at least, not for long. Personally I think we’ll see 3rd party applications in iTunes the day the phone is out.

via Wired

John Gruber of Daring Fireball has a story similar to my recent Ballmer article except longer, more in-depth, and more eloquent.

Sling today released Slingplayer for Mac OSX. Having this done and in a stable state should make it easier for them to release a player for the iPhone….