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November 4, 2009

What do I mean by #iPhone and #antiPhone?

What do I mean when I tweet about the iPhone and the "antiPhone"? 

Al Ries, marketing guru, noted that mature markets tend to be dominated by 2 giants, with miscellaneous smaller players. Think Coke/Pepsi. McDonald's/KFC. Windows/Mac. 

The phone market is going to be iPhone/antiPhone. Not that someone's actually going to market a phone under that name. What I mean is that a challenger will emerge, that will be to iPhone in the phone market, what Mac is to Windows, in the consumer computing market. (And it looks like Android's going to be it.) 

iPhone, antiPhone, plus miscellaneous others 

BlackBerry had a surprisingly good run of the market, but they don't iterate fast enough, in my opinion. It seems like they're trying to out-BlackBerry the iPhone - doing what they've always done, but better. It's just a matter of time, if they don't adapt. 

I remember the CEO of RIM mocking the iPhone's onscreen keyboard, saying that BlackBerry would "never" release a phone without a physical keyboard, because it was "proven" that consumers want a physical keyboard. And then, after the iPhone was released, they came out with a BlackBerry - you guessed it - without a physical keyboard. 

I doubt that's what BlackBerry users want, anyway. And the fact that form factor was never reiterated would seem to bear out my hunch. But it was significant, in that it seems to indicate that RIM doesn't really know where to go next. "Email anytime, anywhere" is no longer a compelling reason to get a BB - not when others are doing it comparatively well. iPhone owns the mobile internet. Android owns mobile open source. BB used to own mobile email.

It's going to be an interesting near future. 

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Filed under  //   Android   antiPhone   BlackBerry   futurism   iPhone   marketing   mobile computing   mobile phones  

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November 4, 2009

"I call you on the telephone / but you're never home." "So?"

Before the mobile phone existed we were calling a place, now we are calling a person.
via google.com

I occasionally wonder how I will explain Sheena Easton's 1983 song to Seth, someday: "I call you on the telephone / but you're never home."

Seth will probably ask, "Why does she want him to be home when she calls him?"

Already, it's hard to recall the time when phones were furniture, tethered to the wall by their cables, resting on specially reserved spots on desks and side-tables. Phones are now glued to ears.

I disagree with Martin Cooper, though. Phones do *not* need to get simpler - in general. They need to be what they're becoming: multifaceted communications devices that connect you via voice and data and video, over every network.

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Filed under  //   futurism   mobile phones   nostalgia   phones   Sheena Easton  

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