Phone Bulletin

In the smartphone world there are a myriad number of indicators that tell us which mobile provider or manufacturer is superior. We can look at the data for phones shipped, devices sold, market share, earnings, and profits. We can compare size, revenues, and cultural power in our bid to find the most successful company in the industry.

Recently, a new indicator of success has emerged: applications. All smartphone, regardless of the manufacturer and operating system, come with access to a unique library of apps. These apps can not only demonstrate the strength of a product, but they can also forecast future changes and growth by telling us where the money is being sent. If large companies are having apps developed more for one operating system over another, or if most enterprising software engineers are focusing their efforts likewise, then this says some about relative product strengths.

Recently, the app battle has been playing out between the two dominant players in the market: Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone. The numbers suggest that, even though the Android has surpassed the iPhone when it comes to market share, Apple’s product still reigns supreme, at least as far as the app indicator goes. Since the launch of Apple’s App store, the iPhone has had app sales and download numbers that far surpass Android. Even though Apple is more discerning when accepting apps to its store, it wins by tremendous margins in every key category – average price, total number of apps downloaded, and total revenue from apps sold.

Coming in at third in the application battle is the Windows Phone, which has seen its sale, creation, and downloads of apps skyrocket in recent months. Microsoft estimates that the Windows Phone Marketplace will surpass 50,000 apps by January after hitting 40,000 only this month.

The growth stands as a testament to the current successes – and future potential – of the Windows Phone operating system. It has surpassed RIM’s BlackBerry OS, it has entered into a partnership with Nokia after the latter abandoned its Symbian operating system, and it recently unveiled the “Mango” update that has been well-received by critics.

But, despite all these successes, the growth in its app marketplace truly reflects the Windows Phone’s arrival as a major and lasting player in the industry. The growing number of apps means, after all, that developers are increasingly being drawn to the system – and that they believe it has a long term future. Furthermore, of course, the marketplace wouldn’t be gaining apps this quickly if the device wasn’t enjoying strong sales.

Evaluating mobile companies based on the number of apps they offer can surely overlook many other important indicators. Regardless, when it comes to the Windows Phone, it’s hard to interpret the growth in apps as anything besides a positive and noteworthy trend.

Samsung Passes Apple as Top Smartphone Seller

Quarterly figures released this week have revealed some interesting – although not altogether surprising – news: according to Samsung and to market analysts, the phone company shipped more smartphones than Apple this past quarter. Samsung shipped 27.8 million smartphones during this time, which equates with 23.8 percent of the market, compared to Apple’s 17.1 million shipments for 14.6 percent of the market.

There are several factors that can explain Samsung’s tremendous current success. First of all, the company has been noted for its quality by consumers and technology experts. With sleek, appealing designs, the most advanced Android features, and a line of brands that appeal to all demographics – whether wealthy, low budget, high tech, or utilitarian – Samsung’s wide appeal and consequent success directly relates back to the quality of its phones.

But Apple’s phones are of no less quality, which brings us to the most probable cause for Samsung’s recent rise: its global penetration. The global smartphone market has grown 44 percent in just one year, meaning that there are 117 units in use worldwide. The biggest growth occurred in regions where Apple’s omnipotence is less guaranteed and in demographics that can’t necessarily afford the most expensive phones on the market. By appealing to these areas and these people, Samsung has positioned itself to take advantage of the current smartphone boom.

The battle between Samsung and Apple for shipment figures is fitting, considering that the two companies have already spent most of the year fighting in court. Most recently, Apple filed a lawsuit claiming that Samsung copied the iPhone and iPad in developing its Galaxy device. Samsung, in turn, has filed counter-lawsuits against Apple, and this legal feud appears to have no end in sight.

That legal feud may be the more substantial one in the first place. After all, alongside the news of Samsung’s quarterly supremacy are warnings from many commentators that this development should be taken with a grain of salt. The most recent quarter did not include Apple’s release of the iPhone 4S, meaning that shipments dropped off because many consumers were waiting for its arrival and that sales should easily pick up in Apple’s next quarterly report. Furthermore, even though Samsung ships more phones, Apple enjoys better margins and better profits.

Ultimately, it appears as though the jury is still out – in both the court and the marketplace. At this point, all we know with certainty is that the competition between Apple and Samsung will likely benefit consumers with some excellent new smartphone options in the year to come.

(credit: Incase)

1984 was the year Apple released the Macintosh and changed personal computing forever. They capitalized on the device’s inaugural year by creating a Hollywood-grade television advertisement inspired by George Orwell’s masterpiece “1984”, in which a woman wearing an Apple logo being chased by the novel’s Thought Police hurls an Olympian hammer into the projection of the propaganda-spouting Big Brother. The commercial’s message was obvious: the personal computer experience was no longer going to be based on the priorities of bottom line-minded manufacturer moguls. Apple was going to offer the public a computer designed to their wants and needs.

Apple Computer has come quite a long way since 1984. Steve Jobs launched it, was fired from it, returned to it, and most recently left again for good. During that time he led the efforts to create such revolutionary products as the iMac G3, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. The company as a collective is responsible for where personal computing technology is today, and nothing reflects that more than the fact that it’s the second most valued company in the world.

That success, per the Jobs playbook, had been at the cost of individual designer freedom and most important of all, absolute secrecy. Seriously, when it came to the next big steps and the next big decisions, Steve Jobs was adamant about Apple’s motives remaining as unknowable as those of a chess grandmaster. It kept them one step ahead of the enemy in every way imaginable. Jobs, the ruthless genius that he was, always knew how important that secrecy was. At the end of the day, the freedom of expression the Apple experience offered to the public was at the expense of the freedom of expression of Apple employees. Nothing they said or did could ever compromise the secrecy of their projects.

So now there’s this lost iPhone 5 prototype left at a Frisco bar. As you know this same exact event happened last year and is being dealt in a similar way: Apple is the primary investigator of the theft. This was highlighted by the San Francisco Police Department’s admission that they never received a report about an iPhone gone missing at that bad. As it turns out the department’s press team wasn’t alerted that the police were “assisting” Apple with the investigation into who took the iPhone prototype.

So Apple, by-way of police assistance, is currently conducting searches in residences they suspect the iPhone 5 may be being held. The evidence linking these locations was both incriminating and Apple’s to have first before the police: in-phone GPS tracking. The phone was not recovered at the location search, however the inhabitant told investigators he was at the bar the iPhone was last seen the night it went missing.

It’s a testament to how much the Steve Jobs way of doing things remains the core of Apple Computer. Essentially, they aren’t messing around with the confidentiality of the latest iPhone release, which may or may not hit shelves next month. It’s classic Jobs in spirit, as he personally called the possessor of last year’s stolen iPhone 4 prototype asking for it to be brought back to Apple headquarters. In the two weeks since he left his post as CEO, Jobs still holds a presence over the company’s actions even if he isn’t there to execute them himself.

Apple continues to represent personal computing freedom. They accomplish this by preserving secrecy through private police action.

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As more and more people start using smartphones the costs have gone down quite a bit but not with everything. There is no longer, under any provider, a data plan that allows users unlimited access. AT&T and T-Mobile, which are the second and fourth largest U.S. carriers, already put the axe to their unlimited data plans a while ago. T-Mobile USA now charges people based on their monthly data usage. As far as AT&T is concerned, they have a tiered system where users can pick which one would best meet their needs. It seems that the industry was loosing out on a lot of money by giving customers the option to buy into limitless connectivity. Now, as Verizon has stated, there are no longer phone providers or carriers that offer unlimited data.

This is all happening due to unsurpassed success, not failure. The smartphones are too popular. The death of unlimited wireless data is happening because providers have been seeing a mass proliferation in the use of data and it’s, predominantly, due to the smartphone market. Apparently about 77 million people in the U.S alone had them in the first few months of the year, which is up over 10 percent from the same time the year before that. The figures are climbing and the big carriers didn’t see it coming that quickly. Smartphone users have climbed and their data usage has almost doubled. These statistics are what pushed the industry to make a big change to their current business model.

The announcement came as another blow to the limitless data model. It’s not going to affect everyone, just new customers or anyone looking to upgrade their old phone to a smart phone. Now, it seems, that many carriers are going to start charging people per-megabyte usage. With Verizon, you can get 75 megabytes of data usage per month for about ten dollars. But it hasn’t always been completely open. Even when T-Mobile did offer total data access, the company would slow down the data speeds for unlimited plan customers who use up their monthly allotment. This wasn’t always known by the customer. It was legal because they still, technically, had unlimited data but it wasn’t at the same strength. It’s likely that it’s going to stay this way. We’ll probably see data wars between the providers long before we see a return to any unlimited plans.

To put in plainly, there’s far more money to be made with limited or capped data plans. Growth and maximum profits aren’t possible with a fixed-price model. This is especially the case if people continue to use and get smartphones in the kinds of numbers the industry has seen in the last couple years. Though everyone that has the old unlimited data plan will still have it. It’s not like its going to be taken away, but providers are going to have to find another gimmick to keep people streaming in.

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