Tag Archives: apple

iOS5

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Last week Apple released a number updates to its software platforms and applications. The release coincided with the release of the iPhone 4S, the next generation iPhone. I will try to give you an overview of what was released and what are my impressions so far. While I did install iOS5 on an iPhone 4 and an iPad 2, I have yet to hold an iPhone 4S in my hands. Nevertheless I will try to point out some important things about Cupertino’s mobile os.

Notifications are the first one that comes to my mind as they change the way you use your iPhone. Gone are the notification pop-ups that come and then forever disappear. Instead Apple took a lesson from Google’s book and one-up’ed Androids notification center with widget potential. While the only widget in there are Stocks – I believe there is a great opportunity for developers in the future to build amazing apps specifically taking advantage of the new UI. To look at your notifications just swipe top to bottom.

The second one I was looking forward to was iMessage. As I have been a Blackberry user for a long time I have always missed Blackberry Messenger. Now Apple remedied the situation with iMessage. Not only does the iOS messaging app now support texting and mms but also a messenger system between all iOS5 users including iPod Touch and iPad owners. BBM is officially getting its ass kicked. While it may take a while till everyone upgrades it will be much faster than you might expect. One downside of iMessage is that in its default settings Apple decided that if you don’t have a data connection at the time of writing an iMessage your message will instead be sent as a SMS. This has cost me some roaming messages but can be turned off in the settings. I would have preferred to have it off by default.

I have always considered the Lockscreen of the iPhone to be the most under utilized real-estate on the iPhone. We the changes to the notifications that changes as now the Lockscreen can display up to 10 last notifications which makes it immensely useful. Not only that – you can now switch to the Camera app directly from the Lockscreen as well as manage the music you are playing.

iCloud is kind of a disappointment to me. I have expected something fully baked from Apple but I kind of get where they are at. iCloud allows you to wirelessly sync purchased music, apps, pictures and backup your iPhone or iPad to the cloud. This is obviously cool but in this day and age nothing revolutionary. I was actually looking forward to Documents in the Could – a wireless solution that allows me to forget the file system. Don’t get me wrong it works exactly as advertised – on iPhone and iPad. Apparently Apple failed to mention that iWork for Mac is not yet ready for the wireless sync fest and as such the feature Documents in the Cloud is only useful when you are moving between iOS devices. The moment you want to use a Mac it is back to download => edit => upload to iCloud. I bet a new version of iWork with full support for iCloud is in the works as well as an API for developers but until then iCloud is not ready for prime.

Cutting the cord was also a feature I was looking forward to. Not only do I hate syncing via cable but the way Apple implemented wireless sync means I don’t need to explicitly say please sync or back up. When I open iTunes and have my iPhone on the network it will immediately show up and sync. And did I mention iOS updates are from now on incremental and OTA? Awesome.

These are basically the things I find interesting in iOS5. There is plenty more but I have reserved some features for a review of the iPhone 4S. I will try to get my hands on one asap so that I can try out Siri and the new camera. I think these two features alone and the bump in speed make the iPhone 4S a worthwhile upgrade. But that is for another time and another post.

Is Apple calling Samsung’s bluff?

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The relationship between the two tech titans Apple and Samsung is an interesting one. While they compete heavily in the smartphone and tablet markets with their flagship products, Samsung is also one of Apple’s key suppliers. In fact reports suggest that Apple planned to make component purchases of about $7.8 billion from the Korean giant in 2011.

Recently the companies have been engaged in suing each other. Apple maintains that Samsung’s Galaxy S phones and tablets infringe their patents and basically are a rip off of the iPhone and iPad. On the other hand Samsung is counter-suing Apple for similar reasons.

How did it come to this? Well this is purely my opinion but I think that Samsung gambled. You see the supplier – customer relationship between Samsung and Apple is deep because of the fact that Samsung can provide unbelievable amounts of memory and logic chips. Apple in fact constrained the NAND Flash market by buying up all the memory they could via bulk exclusive deals. The company prepaid a lot of money to get good prices on memory and chips for its iPods and later iPhones. I was working at a prominent semiconductor a few years ago and Apple was a customer as well. So I think the people at Samsung thought if they copy a bit (or a lot depending whom you ask) of the iPhones/iPads design Apple will not dare to sue them and even if they do the relationship and a perceived dependency on Samsung will force Apple to settle in a favorable way for Samsung.

If this is indeed what happened than it seems Samsung miscalculated. Apple is suing them in a number of jurisdictions and has successfully blocked the sale of the Samsung Galaxy S tablets in some of them. Samsung is countersuing and most likely would like to force Apple into settlement talks. But if you read the news you will see that Apple is fighting this war on another level. DigiTimes is reporting that Apple is shifting its memory purchasing away from Korea to Japan and processor manufacturing to Taiwan. The purpose is of course to reduce its reliance on the company on the other side of the lawsuits. It seems that Samsung could lose substantial business from Apple.

Samsung may have hoped that Apple would not call their bluff but historically Apple does not like to play games. Especially if partners screw them.

 

HP, Palm and WebOS

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If you haven't been living under a rock for the past few days you most likely noticed that HP, as in the biggest PC vendor in the world, has decided to dump its:

  1. PC business
  2. The smartphone and tablet business
  3. Buy Autonomy for $10 Billion

What will happen to WebOS is unclear. It seem HP is looking to license it to OEM's.

The logic as explained by the CEO Leo Apotheker is that HP needs to get out of the low margin PC business to focus on the higher margin enterprise software market. The logic echoes the one used by IBM when Big Blue sold its PC business to the Lenovo Group. It is a result of the glut in the PC market and the impact of the iPad. I am specifically not saying tablets because let us be honest about it – there is no contender at the moment.

All of us who hoped HP could have a dog in the fight over the new computing in the form of the Touchpad with Palm's WebOS this is sad news. I personally always thought that WebOS is a platform that could give Apple a run for its money if only someone big would put big money behind it and a real strategy. Palm did not have the resources and when HP announced its acquisition of Palm my hopes went up. After all HP has an engineering history and has the wallet to support a big push. 

Unfortunately it seems HP lacks the balls. Only after a few months after the Touchpad entered the market – HP is waving the white flag. What did they expect? First of all if the product was not ready, they should have waited until they feel it is and then launch. And if they felt is was ready they should have soldiered on and learned from the feedback of the customers. One could make the contrast between the launch of the Touchpad and the launch of the original MacBook Air. When that machine launched the reviews called it underpowered, expensive, lacking features and so forth. The sales weren't any good. But did Apple pull the plug? No, because they believed in the vision of a thin super fast computer you could actually carry around. And so they went back and came with the killer laptop that is this generation of the MacBook Air. I think HP did not really have a vision or did not trust the vision of the few who did.

If you believe it is a strategically sound choice – then why did HP buy Palm in the first place? Did they really think they could get it right after only a few month? Apple spent years researching and developing what we today know as the iPhone and iPad. Why on Earth did HP think they could do it faster? I believe when HP decided to buy Palm they should have taken the time to formulate and setup a clear vision and strategy on how to compete with Apple and Android in the smartphone and tablet markets. They should have accepted that while they are buying an interesting platform they need to commit to supporting it in the longer-term. This way it was just a waste of shareholder money.

Google and Motorola

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As many of you know, Google agreed to acquire Motorola Mobility (the mobile spin-off of Motorola) for $12.5 billion. What makes this move interesting is the fact that it is a supplier buying one of its vendors. Motorola has committed a few years back to a single OS strategy for its mobile products with Android being the OS. As such you can see that the company was already deep in the Android camp. Now why would a company like Google do this? Andy Rubin, the lead behind Android at Google, has said before that Google would never build phones but today it seems that is precisely what they are doing. What's up with that?

A few months ago I wrote a post on the strategic partnership Nokia and Microsoft entered into. My conclusion was that the move by Nokia was motivated by the fact that the competition between Android smartphone manufacturers was driving the ASPs down and that the only way to survive was to differentiate itself from he rest of the pack. Windows Phone 7 was that differentiation and gave Nokia the opportunity for relevance again. While the outcome of that is not yet known I stand by that assessment.

Google's acquisition of Motorola is in a sense similar. Motorola is struggling and while it did have some great phones (the Droid family) it has made losses in the past few quarters and was left behind by the likes of HTC or Samsung. I completely understand why they agreed to the acquisition – 40$ per share is more than anyone else would give for Motorola and is a great return for the shareholders – and it is pure cash.

The reason why Google invested one and a half years worth of net income into this deal is much more complex.

First of all there is the patent thing. The Android ecosystem is under attack for infringing on patents from all directions. Apple, Microsoft and Oracle are gearing up for more and will not relent easily so Google needs to build out its own arsenal of patents to defend it. While the jury is out there whether the infringements are real or not – I'll leave this to the experts – the fact is that Google's future platform may be in jeopardy. Because of lawsuits Samsung is unable to sell its Galaxy S phones and tablets in Australia and Europe and Oracle seems to be winning in the Java lawsuit where a victory by Oracle would shake the very foundation of Android. Motorola has quite a patent portfolio and while it will not stop the existing lawsuits it may help deter more of the cropping up.

The second reason for the acquisition is in my opinion the fragmentation of the Android ecosystem. There are currently numerous versions of Android out there, each having a different experience and none of them really being able to compete with the iPhone. Google wants a flagship device the likes of the Nexus series. But even the Nexus phones were still phones of partners. By acquiring Motorola Google gains the ability to build the one true Google Phone and replicate the vertically integrated experience of Apple.

Unfortunately I don't think it is a good move. First of all if Android does really infringe on the IP of other big players Google could have settled that before, but by dumping  the free OS on to the market without making deals before – it forced the hands of Apple, Microsoft and others. Motorola's patent portfolio will help in the defense but it will still be very costly, and with more lawsuits Android will become one hell of an expensive business. How many ads does Google have to sell to get that back?

Google wants to run Motorola as a separate business but I don't believe that can work very well. If they want to get this integrated experience they will need to work very closely together. And we all know how difficult post-M&A integration  is. Getting a real return on this investment will be very difficult. Some pundits mentioned that technically Google does not need to make Motorola profitable but again here I don't agree. What point is there to have a separate business to build the best of the best smartphones and not to have it to make money? If the flagship phones can not make money – which can?

And what will Samsung, LG and HTC do? They are the reason Android has been successful and they got royally screwed. Google just put them into the position of just another not-Googley Android phone manufacturer. While Google got statements from them saying how happy they are – is that reality or a PR stunt? Read them and you tell me. Microsoft is already opening their doors to all the manufacturers and stating they are the only open platform left. And after this move by Google – it may sound as an interesting proposition to the Asian OEMs.

Apple in the enterprise

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Today I had an interesting discussion with professor Stijn Viaene regarding Apple in the enterprise. One of the points he made in the course (Value Added Enterprise IT) was that Apple is inherently not a company serving the enterprise. The issue at the core of his argument was that Apple does not have structures in place to support a large deployment of Macs, iPhones or iPads in a multinational enterprise. I must say – I agree.

Apple launched its business support service called Joint Venture a few weeks back and while it is a step in the right direction it is not enough. The service will provide dedicated support for anyone deploying Apple products on a larger scale with the initial package starting at $499 for 5 systems. The service will provide a dedicated Joint Venture website where customers can manage their interaction with Apple. Companies can order trainings, workshops and request support through the website and Apple will help them get started in one of the its retail stores. 

While the service is focused on business it seems to be more oriented on small companies with a limited amount of systems. I am not sure how it would scale with multiple hundreds of systems distributed over geographies – especially in places where Apple does not have direct presence. The service seems to cater to the same customers Apple was always popular with – creative studios, small time publishing, educational institutions and similar organizations. Stijn Viaene also mentioned another interesting point – Apple rarely does things without putting all of its might behind it. This seems like a reluctant move in a direction Apple has rarely wondered. 

Apple has always been a consumer focused company and it seems hard for them to enter the Enterprise IT environment. I suspect a part of the reluctance is that the company loves to interact with the end user of their products and does not like to sell to people who govern and not really use its technology and products. Steve Jobs once said about enterprise IT "..the people that make those (IT and purchasing ~ my comment) decisions sometimes are confused" meaning IT people making decisions and choices for equipment may not understand the user as Apple does. This is a fundamental issue of Apple – they do get the consumer or the end user very well – but they have to go through the IT department in the enterprise. Apple does not like middle men.