Forget the iPhone, unchain the iPod
Dear Mr. Jobs,
If you really want to own the hand-held device market, forget about the iPhone, just add some real functionality to the iPod Touch. As I’ve stated numerous times, I’ll never switch to AT&T, and approximately two-third of Americans are with me on that. Even you can sway us. You see, we still need our phones to make calls.
Just yesterday I was out and about with my iPod and clicked the Safari button to see what would happen. There was a WiFi network available, and that’s becoming more common every day. So why not ditch this phone thing, get in with Google on the bandwidth buying spree and go with VOIP?
Look you don’t play well with others — especially those old-school blue chips. Remember Motorola? You can’t tell me that the AT&T story will end any differently.
So here’s what you do for total hand-held domination:
- Put an email client on the iPod. Web-based email — excepting .Mac of course — sucks. Everyone hates it.
- Get Skype working on the iPod. How hard can that be? You’ve done a hell of a job with YouTube. In fact, just buy Skype and make it less dorky. I hear the honeymoon at eBay is over. They’ll part with it.
- Fix Safari. We can understand why you don’t love Flash, but the rest of the world does.
Now you have a hand-held device that’s better than the iPhone because AT&T is out of the picture. I mean, look at them, they’re selling refurbished PDAs for $30 next to your lovely iPhone. Mr. Jobs, they are not worthy. Move on before they embarass you further.
Sure, AT&T is going to sue you, but Apple lawyer’s are pretty good in court. And it’s pretty easy to renege on a deal with them. NASCAR screwed them pretty good and got away with it.
I’d make Apple my carrier tomorrow. I bet the other two thirds of Americans might too.
Apple phone home
If Sony, Creative, HP, and company can’t seem to slow the iPod jaugernaut, maybe Nokia, LG, and Samsung can. Earlier this month, ABI Research cited the possibility of 4-gigabyte hard drives in mobile phones rendering the portable MP3 player obsolete.
“As the cellular handset becomes the one device that the world carries, the standalone MP3 player may well be left behind,” says Alan Varghese, ABI Research’s principal analyst of wireless semiconductor research. “What’s important to many users is having one device that handles mobile music as well as the other functions—phone calls, digital photography, email, web browsing—now performed by mobile phones.
Intersting point. I need to carry a phone, but choose to carry an iPod.
Only two things stand in the way of this outcome. The ingenuity of the MP3 player designers, especially Apple, and the really awful marketing track record of mobile carriers.
It’s not so secret that Apple’s working on some sort of wireless communication device. The patents have been applied for, and the rumors have been flying. If Sony or Apple were to design the ultimate mobile phone, it surely would bypass the mobile carriers’ online music (and video) services.
There’s evidence that consumers would prefer such an outcome. Strategy Analytics reports that mobile carriers price their music offerings 100% to 150% beyond what consumers are willing to pay. The report notes customers are willing to pay a 35% premium for access to their tunes on a wireless device. Sony and Apple would happily take that… after you buy their phone.
