Scott Adams: iPhone Identity

“… your iPhone would become the primary way you identify yourself to the world. Someday the store cashier will see your face pop up on a screen when you are next in line because your phone will be transmitting your identity at all times. No more swiping credit cards or writing checks. If your actual face matches the face on the cashier’s screen, you’re good to go, and your payment preferences (credit or debit) would automatically kick in.”

“With your phone in your pocket your car doors open when you get near, the front door of your house opens when approach, your lights adjust to your personal preferences, and all of your online passwords do auto-fill. When your phone is with you, the world will continuously conform to your preferences as you pass through it.”

Apple taking over mobile?

The first iOS gadget shipped in 2007 and just a whole bunch of folks scoffed at the notion anyone would pay $400 for a mobile phone. What’s happened since then?

  • Nokia’s smartphone handstet market share dropped from 24% to 16% in one year.
  • 97% of all tablet traffic in the United States comes from iPads. The number is 100% in Japan and 99% in the UK. (The global average is 89%.)
  • last year Google earned about $102 million from apps sales, while Apple raked in $1.7 billion.
  • Apple has ordered two manufacturers to build enough iPhone 5 handsets to sell 15 million in the first month of sales (August or September).
  • 40% of all smartphone buyers in Europe say they intend to buy an iPhone next time they buy a phone.
  • There are 910 million mobile phone subscribers in China (where the iPhone is very popular)
  • Apple has sold 25 million iPads to date and one analyst believes Apple will sell a billion of them.

“Consumers don’t want tablets, they want iPads”

“Fifty percent of respondents preferred Apple over all other brands. There is a remarkable degree of unanimity in consumer’s preferences for the iPad over competing products. … In the US, we find that Apple has more than double the brand appeal of BlackBerry, HTC, Motorola, Nokia and Samsung combined. These manufacturers have a very high level of brand equity and visibility in adjacent categories. It is striking that they hold so little appeal for consumers in tablets.”

WSJ’s All Things Digital

My favorite line from this post: “Apple is succeeding in the category because it reinvented it.”

Growing up with the iPhone

The iPhone belongs to the little girl’s mother but one assumes she’ll have her own (or her mom won’t). They’re watching YouTube videos (I believe I hear the lilting strains of “Friday”).

The iPhone will be a transparent part of their lives (rather than the magical device it is for us). As adults, they’ll laugh at the quaint old iPhones of their youth (think rotary dials and party lines). How they will communicate in that oh-so-close future, I cannot imagine.

A little child shall lead them

I am endlessly fascinated by technology. How we use it and how it changes us. The photo is of a couple of regulars at the Coffee Zone. I remember when dad switched to the iPhone. And later when he started asking me about the iPad. It seems ages ago but it was only months ago.

She plays games on the iPad and watches Netflix movies. But there will soon be nothing she cannot do on the device.

It’s inconceivable (to me) that she won’t have this with her in class. That will be delayed because not all of the kids will have them and etc etc.

I can’t even imagine how this will change education. Of course, education will have to change but that seems inevitable.

We’ve had hallway discussions at our company about the various tablets and platforms (Android, Windows, iPad, etc). My friend Phil (a very smart guy) assures me a lot of companies will take the “safe and secure” route of Windows devices.

But the kids in this little girls class could care less about Word and Excel and all the rest. They want to have fun and create and that will be on the iPad (for the forseeable future). You can take it to the bank.

The importance of design at Apple

“…a friend of mine was at meetings at Apple and Microsoft on the same day and this was in the last year, so this was recently. He went into the Apple meeting (he’s a vendor for Apple) and when he went into the meeting at Apple as soon as the designers walked in the room, everyone stopped talking because the designers are the most respected people in the organization. Everyone knows the designers speak for Steve because they have direct reporting to him. It is only at Apple where design reports directly to the CEO.

Later in the day he was at Microsoft. When he went into the Microsoft meeting, everybody was talking and then the meeting starts and no designers ever walk into the room. All the technical people are sitting there trying to add their ideas of what ought to be in the design. That’s a recipe for disaster.”

–From an interview with John Sculley

TED Talk: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

In a recently-released TED video, author Simon Sinek explains what he sees as the secret to Apple’s success and makes a case for the real reason the company is so innovative–even though it has “the same access to the same talent, the same agencies, the same consultants, the same media.”

Apple to offer online TV subscriptions?

I’d hate to see the math on what DirecTV really costs, based on how many channels/programs I watch each month. And I thought I wouldn’t live to see a) cable/sat unbundle programming or b) a serious alternative. But maybe I was wrong.

“Apple is eliciting tentative interest from some networks in its proposal to offer a TV subscription package via the Internet. Theoretically, customers would be able to tune in online, allowing them to cancel their cable or satellite subscriptions.

Broadband Internet subscriptions to TV networks could potentially destabilize the bedrock of the television business, which relies on subscribers paying for dozens of bundled channels.

The blog All Things D reported last month that Apple was proposing a $30-a-month supplement to its iTunes service to the networks. The networks would receive monthly payments from Apple.”

Rest of the story is here.