Opinionated comments on mobile phone industry news

Updated with disruptive arguments.


Considering the iPhone is currently AT&T only, why do people consider 25% high? I'm aware my IQ is below 140, so what point am I missing this time?

If anything, this shows customers are interested in the iPhone, and the operator/carrier is the secondary choice (read: more or less a don't care). Similar to the situation in Europe. Maybe that's why I didn't find this strange.

About 25 percent of iPhone buyers are 'switchers' to AT&T

The iPhone Made People Switch To AT&T


The iPhone and ditto business model is disruptive in a number of ways:

• Apple is more or less completely in control of pricing, and the margin is pretty fat (50% according to Apple; why do they brag about that? simply arrogance?)
• It's locked to Apple (via iTunes) for activation, hence Apple has full insight in who uses the iPhones and can sell those customers after-market stuff by directly addressing them (what other phone manufacturer can do that?), which might generate a lot of add-on revenue
• AT&T came crawling to Apple, not the other way around; that's one of the more mysterious parts, but I figure that if Apple hadn't been successful with the iPod, the situation would have been reversed
• The iPhone relies on soft keys and a display-sized touch screen, increasing flexibility (but not necessarily ergonomics) substantially
• It doesn't support any of the dominating application platforms, instead relying on third-party functionality via the browser
• The information and multimedia functionality is primary, the level of radio technology is secondary
• There's already signs of an iPod-like accessory market; will Apple take 10% of the revenue from that as well?
• I also see indications that Apple will provide continuous firmware updates; that would be very different from traditional manufacturers that want to "sell and forget" so they can provide completely new phone models as quickly as possible; the subsidizing model favors that set up
• Also different from other phone manufacturers I believe Apple will only release a few models (maybe 3 or 4, in different price and functionality levels) per season, compared to e.g. Samsung that releases over 50 models per year

Especially the two last points are quite speculative, but let's see at the end of the year whether I was right.

If anything, I hope Apple's model will make people in the telecom industry think more outside the box.

I'm sure Apple understands they need to churn out new and more cost-efficient models quickly, similar to how they kept away iPod competition and increased (or at least kept) a high margin. Like Bill Gates is supposed to have said: "If you don't outcompete your own products, your competitors will".