And my new phone is ....

Some time ago I speculated that when the time came to replace my trusty old iPhone 3GS I might well consider an Android handset. I like iOS but the allure of a new toy that does everything the same as my iPhone at a premium price might just tempt me away from Cupertino's finest. Lo and behold I have now chosen my new handset for the next couple of years of mobile service and it is ... my trusty old iPhone 3GS running iOS 5. So what gives?

Well after two years of reliable service my phone is still pretty much like new. I've upgraded two major iterations of the operating system and everything still runs and performs fine. Best of all since Apple are still selling the 3GS new it's going to be supported for at least another year or two. So go figure droidheads, do you think that you'll get 3+ years of service from your latest IceCream Sandwich munching device? No, I thought not

Behind the times

I love technology but hate the way that it is highlighted and reported on the news. Here's an example. Back in June this year I wrote a blog about the smartphone being the ultimate convergence device. Low and behold the BBC's technology flagship show - Click - just ran a story about the same thing. Only true to form they sat on the fence when it came to the sum up. Typical.

Show me the money!

I'm no Donald Trump, Alan Sugar or even a Jerry McGuire for sure but here's a fact that might just shock you. Sony have made a loss on every single television it has sold in the last seven years. This means that the best way to do harm to them as a company is to buy a TV from them.

So is this an isolated practice? Let's look at some others:

- Amazon are subsidising every Kindle Fire sold to the tune of $50. This kind of makes more sense when you understand that the kindle is a mobile portal to the Amazon shopfront. Nonetheless the fact remains that if it were priced with a reasonable profit margin it would most likely cost another $150 more. How would you feel paying $350 for a Kindle Fire? It doesn't look so tempting now.

- Google have not made a cent out of Android. Again Android is a loss leader (well a giveaway, actually) in order to ensure that the google advertising revenue stream is retained in the mobile world.

In this world of artificial stock market valuations, ipo's, market shares it's worth actually stopping once and a while to figure out that companies have to make money to survive and invest. And the only company I can think of that genuinely does this is Apple. I can't imagine Apple running a product for seven months at a loss, never mind seven quarters or seven years.

Every now and again it'll launch a device that doesn't meet expectations. Remember the iPod Hi-Fi and the G4 cube. However when these misses occur as a company it is ruthless in cutting its losses and focussing on products that are doing well. And that's just as it should be. Loss leaders and market share grabs are fine but somewhere down the somebody needs to show the money .. or else what's the point?

Flash in the pan

For the last couple of years one of the supposed advantages Android holds over iOS has been its support for Adobe's Flash Player. The argument being that if you want the full web experience iOS just doesn't cut the mustard. The fact that devices that block flash have noticeably better battery life never gets much coverage.

Personally I've never missed flash on my iOS devices, indeed I've even installed a Flash blocker add-on to Firefox on my work laptop. Still this doesn't stop the Flash argument being trotted out every now and again. I wonder how that's going to sound in the future now that Adobe themselve seem to have given up on Flash in favour of HTML5.

Perhaps Steve Jobs was right after all in his open letter on the subject.

iPhone 5

Earlier in the year I speculated as to whether we would see an iPhone 5 or a 4S. That question has now been answered and my hunch that we'd see the former was wrong. I also speculated that we might see an iPhone Nano or cheap iPhone. Again I was wrong. But the most interesting thing is that the iPhone 3GS which is now occupying the low end of the iPhone market is selling like hotcakes in the us *(if AT&T's figures are to be believed).

So droidheads ... I dare you to name a 2 year old Android hansdet that is comfortably running the latest OS and will be supported for at least another 2 years (the lifespan of contracts currently being sold). My 3GS is still going strong and second hand values are still good. As I've previously stated in posts about Mac ownserhip - the upfront costs may seem higher but as a total cost of ownership Apple gadgets are heard to beat.

Two trick pony

I've had the misfortune to be upgraded to Microsoft Office 2010. IMO it's a horrible piece of bloatware that tells you all you need to know about what's gone wrong at Microsoft. It somehow manages to muck up the casual and power user experience - which let's face it is no mean feat. However, what it does have on it's side is legacy, legacy more legacy.

If we accept for a moment that we're about to begin a journey in the the brave new Post PC world then we have to accpept that one of Microsoft's two big ticket items - Windows - will also wither on the vine. This will place extra pressure on the Office suite of products. So my question today is how long will Microsoft resist writing a native port of Office for the iPad?

One trick pony

Some people think that Google is a technology company. Some think that it's a search company. The truth is that it's neither. Google is the worlds most successful advertising company and the vast majority of its profits comes from just two products, AdWords and AdSense. All the rest - Maps, Streetview, Earth, Books, Docs, Android, Chrome, Picasa, TV, YouTube, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc is belly button fluff.

Google acquired Android as a defensive strategy to cover the bases and be able to offer advertising revenues from mobile search. In doing this we're led to believe that Eric Schmidt double-crossed the Apple Board and Steve Jobs. How do Apple respond? Litigation yes, but also product acquisituion. Siri for voice cuts Google out of the search equations and C3 3D maps will cut Google Maps from iOS.

Apple's blanket refusal to negotiate its iPhone/iPad intellectual property and patents to Android maybe high risk but if it comes off we may be wondering where Google will be in ten years time.

The Post PC era

If you read back in this blog you will understand that whilst many people initially dismissed the iPad as a glorified iPhone without the phone, I predicted that it would be a hit. I now believe that iPad (or tablet computer) is primed to replace the PC as the default tool of choice by the information based workforce.

Why? Because for many employees a tablet, whether iOS or Android based, will meet most of the functions they now use their desktops,laptops and blackberrys for. Email, word processing, spreadsheets, voice & video conferencing, BI dashboards and reporting consumption, web enabled data entry, etc. can all now be done using an iPad style device. The tablet is also poised to become a collaboration device in the way that the PC and even laptop can't. More than that I believe that iOS will win out over Android.

Can you imagine software using NFC and SIRI to record attendance, minutes and actions of a meeting and then automatically update time recording/project tracking software of its occurence and cost. I can.

So here's what I'd be doing (and I have suggested this to my CIO).

1. Read the following http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/02/07/i-want-my-ipad-avoiding-it-consumerization-pitfalls/

2. Stop handing out Blackberry's. They are the dead man walking of the mobile industry.
3. Put your Windows 7 upgrade plans on hold whilst you evaluate a mobile migration.
4. Pick your mobile os of choice. Yes folks - It's just like the Windows vs OS/2 argument again. iOS or Android. My money is on iOS as it is more secure, less fragmented and Apple will most likely win the current round of patent wars.
5. Incentivise and support a pilot program of your chosen Mobile OS.
6. Encourage employee's to BYOD's to work.
7. Evaluate Mobile BI offerings.
8. Investigate a custom mobile development strategy. The question remains whether you want to develop generic HTML5 WebApps or dedicated native apps (Objective C for iOS or Java for Android)

The Network is the Computer 2

In an earlier post I extolled my beliefs from 1997 that the Network Computer would be big. Of course it flopped and the PC carried on as the main business tool of choice but one of the revelations from Steve Jobs biography is that the iMac that Apple launched in 1998 upon Steve Jobs return to the company was originally intended to be a Network Computer. It's not surprising that given the closeness between Larry Ellison, the NC's father, and Steve Jobs and their shared ambition to take a chunk out of Microsoft that they will have discussed such things and shared ideas.

Of course the price of PC's plummeted and undercut the savings of the NC. So whilst I may have been wrong in my beliefs at least I was wrong in good company - namely Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison.

Technology meets Liberal Arts

Anyone who studies the origins of the Qwerty keyboard will get the irony that they key layout was designed not for humans but for machine limitations of early physical typrewriter (i.e. to reduce interference between the 'typebars').

I've always felt that Apple might have attempted to change this legacy by coming up with an ingenious new way of interacting with a computer via a new sort of keyboard. And in a way they have - but not as I was envisaged. Note that as I've already stated in previous post I'm not suggesting that Apple have invented anything new here. Apple's strength is not innovation but lies in picking up available technologies, usually poorly implemented, and hitting the sweet spot of user adoption which Jobs described as the intersection between Technology and Liberal Arts.

This happened with the original Apple PC's (Keybaord/screen), then with the first Mac's (Mouse/GUI) then the iPhone/iPad (touch) and now Siri (voice). Let's just think about that for a moment. At the intersection of every one of these user interaction is Apple. That's an amazing track record.

So what's next - my money would be on thought interaction - but that's a long way off I guess. Will Apple still be there. I guess that will depend upon just how much Steve Jobs did or didn't control everything at Infinite Loop.

And now the end is near

I've somehow managed to avoid owning a Blackberry all of my career ... until now that is. My current employer is still in the slightly delusional belief that Blackberry's are an essential corporate tool. So I now carry a brand spanking new Bold 9780 in addition to my personal iPhone 3GS which is still going strong.

I expected that there would be pros and cons between the two devices but I just can't get over just how bad the Blackberry is. Nothing is intuitive and the screen is truly awful. Indeed the one thing that should be great, and what Blackberry are reknowned for, is the keyboard. However, even that is crap. My old Palm Treo had a much better physical keyboard.

So if RIM can't make a great smartphone, can't make a decent touchscreen phone, can't make a decent tablet, can't keep their back end servers running then what can they do?

I guess not much - and judging by the latest reports (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/03/rim_market_value/) the market tends to hold that view also.