KEY POINTS:
What to do when times are bad? Copy something that's working, of course. At least, that's the conclusion all the other smartphone makers seem to have come to. And the object of their jealous lust is Apple.
Of course.
AdMob's latest metrics report shows the iPhone is leading other smartphones in mobile internet usage in the US - at 51 per cent, reports Ars Technica! It also confirms that the iPhone and iPod touch are the number one devices for mobile internet access in the US - and worldwide.
The iPhone has not only proved a sensationally successful device even in these gloomy times, despite a few perceived shortcomings, but Apple's iTunes-based App Store model has made it even better. First smartphones came out that looked and acted like iPhones in significant ways, and now the copyists are hard at work on replicant App Stores.
Google Inc will allow developers to sell applications for its Android cell phone operating system beginning next week in the United States, as the search giant strives to expand in the smartphone world dominated by Apple Inc, says Reuters.
As Richard Windsor, a technology analyst with Nomura Securities in London, said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (which Apple is not attending): 'Imagination is expensive in a year such as this.' Indeed.
Apple has been the elephant in the room it the Barcelona conference. It's what everyone's talking about despite no official stall or presence.
Why all this lust? Well, the potential market for phone-based video games is 1.5 billion (the number of mobile phones around the world). There are 'only' 20 million iPhones out there. Yet, in one example, Gameloft cites Apple as its most important client. As Gonzague de Vallois, Vicepresident of Gameloft put it to Spanish newspaper El Mundo recently (interpreted and posted on The Mac Observer), "I think the iPhone has shaken the entire ecosystem of the mobile industry - it has changed everything."
The App Store has certainly made the fortunes of some developers and companies. It gets money back quickly to the developers to help keep their development moving, and it's ridiculously easy for customers to find what they want and install it, all of which makes the iPhone (and, in most cases, the iPod touch) the device that just keeps on keeping interesting.
Apple's dominance could all change soon, if any of the other companies trying to get a slice of this Apple pie do a halfway decent job, anyway. Companies announcing their own software stores this week include Nokia, Microsoft and LG. France Telecom SA's Orange mobile network is, too, and Samsung and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd had already announced their versions a few weeks ago.
At the very least it will give the Apple hate brigade an opportunity to try something Apple-like on a brand they can tolerate. But some have concerns - as an executive with a major European telecommunications operator complained privately to Reuters correspondent Eric Auchard: "Everybody is trying to catch the iPhone. They are pushing things out to market that just aren't ready for prime-time."
Auchard notes that "The proliferation of 'me-too' products is a trap because products must take shortcuts or sacrifice profit margins to undercut Apple on price. That digs equipment makers into a deeper hole because smartphones have been faster growing and more profitable than other handsets."
HTC, for example, has just launched its second handset running Google's Android smartphone operating system. Surprise - on the new model HTC has followed Apple's lead and dispensed with the hardware keyboard in favour of a touchscreen input. But weren't all those non-Apple smartphone lovers loving to knock the iPhone's touchscreen input?
Meanwhile, Apple is most likely hard at work on a new model, say those in the know - a slimmer, faster iPhone for mid-year release.
You have to hand it to Apple - the company sells its products at a premium to fund extensive R&D to create epoch-shaking products. Then the rest of the world gets to benefit with cheap knock-offs.
The rest of you should be celebrating, not knocking.
Mark Webster, mac.nz
