KEY POINTS:
We've been looking at the iPhone lately and its impact on other companies. They either have similar offerings already and look as if they want to emulate Apple's App Store (Google, Microsoft ...), while others, without smartphone devices, are enviously eyeing the phenomenon and wondering how they can get a piece of the action. The danger for them is that Apple has a huge lead already.
Dell, the PC company that pioneered an online sales model which Apple successfully emulated to some extent, is said to be plotting a foray into the cell phone arena from as early as next month, according to Reuters.
Perhaps a Dell smartphone is a really bad idea, to make and sell a new device in a bid to revitalise a business already badly hit by declining PC sales. Dell lost its mantle of world's largest PC maker to Hewlett-Packard two years ago and things haven't improved much since, despite founder Michael Dell's return to the hot seat. A Dell smartphone would place the company firmly against Apple; Michael Dell has been derogatory of Apple's efforts in the past.
But apparently Dell has been designing prototypes for over a year. If launched, the Wall Street Journal reported they would use Google's Android operating system, and Microsoft's Windows Mobile. One model will even feature a touchscreen. However, Dell may still abandon plans, the WSJ added without going into any details.
Barking mad, you might say. Of course, those who like to see Apple knocked off its pedestal - even one Apple built for itself - will be girding their loins and sharpening their tongues.
What is Dell so envious of? The iPhone is by far the most popular mobile-phone gaming platform in the US. Of the top 10 models of phones used for downloading games, four are iPhones, which hold the top three spots as well, according to market research company comScore.
The 8GB version of the 3G iPhone tops comScore's list, followed by the original 8GB version, then the 16GB 3G iPhone. The old 16GB iPhone trails the others, but even so is still at number seven. In Europe, Apple isn't as dominant: the 16GB iPhone 3G still tops the list, but versions of the Nokia N95 come in at second and third.
Apparently about 1.1 million US iPhone owners have used the device for downloading games. Alistair Hill, an analyst at comScore, says this is because "the App Store is incredibly easy to use. It's marketed very well, so everybody knows about it, and also it allows game developers to develop for it in a very easy and transparent way."
Another company well aware of the iPhone effect is Research in Motion with the BlackBerry. The earlier models only displayed emails in text form, rather than in the graphically richer HTML format, as the iPhone does. But the latest model, touted by some as 'an iPhone killer,' is the Storm, now available in New Zealand. It does display HTML.
Simon Hendery, here on the Herald, says "It was this HTML display capability, rather than the iPhone-copying touchscreen functionality, that first impressed me about the new BlackBerry Storm ..." Hendery found little between the two devices as far as usability went, although he still put the iPhone as slightly better.
For me, though,a major handicap of the Blackberry Storm would be its lack of Wi-Fi. I use my iPhone at home on my wireless network for downloading apps and controlling iTunes playing over my stereo and stuff like that. When I'm out and about I like to use Tomizone's 'hotspot network in cafés around the country - and in Australia (and Britain, and the US ...). That means if I'm checking email or looking at websites I'm not chewing through my Vodafone cell plan data allocation.
Still, read the rest of Hendery's review if you're thinking about a $999 Storm, plus plan (to compare with an iPhone plan, look at Vodafone).
PC World had a good look at the Storm, too, saying "The gales of the BlackBerry Storm just weren't strong enough to wash away Apple's iPhone success."Daniel Ionescu said on the PC World site that this was due to average reviews, customer complaints over bugs, plus concerns about OS stability.
Ionescu said a half-million BlackBerry Storm devices were sold in the US from November, again quoting the Wall Street Journal. During the same holiday period, Apple sold more than two million iPhones, representing over a quarter of the North American smartphone market.
RIM might be ruing the day it conceived of an iPhone-competitive device or, more likely, RIM is learning to make something better. As, hopefully, Apple is too. Not that I have any complaints about my iPhone, I absolutely love it - but I am aware of rumours of iPhone OS 3 and faster iPhone processors in the wings.
RIM did try to address user complaints and released a software fix for the BlackBerry Storm in December. That hasn't stopped users voicing complaints over the device's basic functionality, for example the lack of a conventional QWERTY keyboard when the phone is used in portrait mode, unlike on the iPhone and others.
The Storm is costly for RIM in other ways. Quoting iSuppli, Reuters reports that the Storm has a materials and manufacturing cost of US$202.89 compared to US$174.33 for the initial production costs of an 8-gigabyte iPhone 3G. iSuppli listed the Storm's total component count at 1177, the iPhone's at 1116.
- Mark Webster mac.nz
