AT&T Upgraders Ignore Subsidy iPhonomics

Apple’s forthcoming iPhone 3G S may have twice the speed and, at its 32 GB size, twice the capacity of today’s high-end iPhone 3G, but it is also at least twice the price now that the 8 GB iPhone 3G will drop to a mere $99. Of course, that’s with a new contract and a two-year commitment to stay with AT&T.

Read more »

A Rough Road Ahead for PNDs

This month brought two promising moves in the evolution of connected consumer electronics. Amazon announced the Kindle DX, which it believes will signal a new chapter in textbook and newspaper distribution. And AT&T announced that it would tap Jasper Wireless as its preferred embedded solution to hasten the development of connected consumer electronics or what the carrier calls “emerging devices” (you know, like a camera).

Read more »

The Price of Freedom

In his last post, my colleague Steve Baker touched on some of the few shining stars in the dark void that the technology marketplace has been in 2009. If the sun comes up in 2010, though, consumers will begin to find cable and wireless networks more open to access devices at retail than ever.

Read more »

SanDisk deals a card to wireless carriers

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week, SanDisk revealed its Service Delivery Card (SDC) initiative, following its recent moves to put DRM-free albums and DRM-laden virtual radio stations on microSD cards. In contrast, though, its latest loaded microSD is programmed in partnership with, and for use by, mobile network operators. SDCs are bundled with microSD-equipped handsets and could offer a range of content, including large applications that could springboard the use of application marketplaces that nearly every major smartphone backer now seems committed to rolling out.

Read more »

Pre’s strength lies in Web’s future, not Palm’s heritage

CES 2009 may have been smaller than the 2008 edition, but this time the cell phone that stole the show was actually launched there. Before the rollout of Palm’s new handset (pre-Pre), CEO Ed Colligan talked about the company’s mobile heritage and that it was poised for success, in part, because all it is focused on is mobile. Indeed, Palm doesn’t make components like Samsung. It doesn’t make PCs like Apple. And it doesn’t make set-top boxes like Motorola.

Read more »

Mobile DTV could be a hard cell

A few days after the world focuses on my hometown of New York tonight, I’ll be flying toward its Las Vegas simulacrum en route to the Consumer Electronics Show. My colleagues and I will be participating in a number of presentations and roundtable discussions at CES, including:

• Make the Connection: Consumers and the Next Era of Digital Living at the NPD/DisplaySearch client cocktail reception
• Storage Technology and The Market for Entertainment and Consumer Storage, and Reaching and Informing Consumers and Channel Partners at Storage Visions 2009
• The annual TWICE retail roundtable at CES (a closed event)
• Delivering on Digital Entertainment, an Industry Report Card at CntrStg
• The 2008 Holiday Season: A Giving One or the Grinch? at CES (in the LVCC)
• Mobile DTV Primer: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff at CES (in the LVCC)

I’ll be moderating that last panel, which will bring together representatives from the worlds of broadcasting, wireless service providers, and mobile platforms. Most of the attention at CES is on giant screens, but the past year has seen an explosion in PC-based broadband TV and video on sites such as Hulu and those of the major broadcast networks. That’s a dramatic contrast from the walled gardens that have characterized the mobile TV offerings to date from providers such as MediaFLO USA and MobiTV, the latter of which recently passed the 5 million subscriber mark.

Read more »

Apple at Macworld Expo: “Goodbye hall. See you in the mall.”

Citing the success of its Web site and retail stores as opportunities to market its products, Apple announced yesterday that this would be its last Macworld Expo, one of the few technology trade shows open to the public. SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller will deliver the final Macworld Expo keynote. Given the company’s proclivity to own its customer experience, the move was not surprising. For years, Steve Jobs foreshadowed the waning days of his own keynotes by talking about how many more people were coming to its stores than attending Macworld Expo.

However, it’s not simply the raw floor traffic and greater scheduling and geographic availability of Apple stores that has likely led the company to abandon its once-biannual homecoming, it’s the quality of interactions it has there. Its Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York, for example, is programmed like a cable network — an unending series of seminars and support sessions that provide opportunities to educate consumers about Apple and third-party products sold at the stores. And at both its physical stores and its Web site, Apple has a more direct path to monetization that it has within the walls of Moscone Center (even with its Market Street store just a few blocks away).

Read more »

Wireless at Walmart: The iPhone’s potential impact

Apple creating a stripped-down $99 iPhone for Walmart would be more than just counter to the way that technology products, particularly cell phones, usually proceed in the market. It would be an unprecedented move for modern-day Apple, which has avoided retailer-exclusive SKUs except those in its own Apple Store (the Project Red iPod) and has historically striven for simplicity in its product line. Particularly with the iPhone, Apple has been so focused on preserving the level of user experience that it went weeks with low or no inventory of the original iPhone model leading up to the launch of the iPhone 3G.

There’s little doubt as to why Walmart would want to carry the 3G iPhone. NPD tracked the device as the best-selling handset in the U.S. in Q3, surpassing the Motorola RAZR in a dramatic consumer embrace of Web-savvy smartphones. Recent smartphones such as the T-Mobile G1 and Blackberry Storm already represent the second wave of would-be “iPhone killers” following advanced touchscreen feature phones that appeared earlier in the year.

Read more »

PNDs will navigate the holiday’s bumpy road

Flat-panel TVs and PCs may be the workhorse revenue drivers during the holiday season, but the same big price tags that help them achieve that standing also make them somewhat less popular as gifts. In contrast, portable electronics such as MP3 players and digital cameras have consistently been among the most popular holiday categories for the past few years because of their relatively small price tag and dimensions. They’re cheap to ship directly from an online retailer or to a distant relative or friend. They’re also products that consumers can take great advantage of in their daily lives, which further helps their gift appeal.

In that vein, there’s been doubt cast about how well Portable Navigation Devices (PNDs) will do this holiday season. Despite several attempts to turn them into everyday resources in the vehicle, they are still primarily used opportunistically or what I call the LOFT (Lost or First-Trip) scenario. At the high- end, Dash Navigation, which made a bold attempt to move the industry past LOFT, recently got out of the hardware business. It has, however, been quickly succeeded by Telenav with its slimmer and less esoteric Shotgun.

  Read more »