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Friday, March 07, 2008

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It Is All Over But The Crying: Apple SDK

Rob is still having difficulties downloading the iPhone SDK, probably because the servers are slammed, and yesterday he posted that “Apple grabbed the UMPC/Mid Market and took it away.” I have to agree with my friend and colleague and even go further. Apple opened a big door with the announcement and shut quite a few others in the process. Apple not only took the UMPC/MID market away, it will own mobile for some time to come, with everyone else playing catch up. The race to the top is over. Now everyone else can scramble to figure out who is number two.

Here’s why I think this. We’ve only seen teasers of what the Apple SDK will unlock for the future. And the teasers certainly make you want the entire show. The ability to have push email and sync with Microsoft Exchange is huge and will open the floodgates into the enterprise. We won’t see this in play until this summer but Steve Jobs, once again succeeds in sucking the oxygen out of the PR cycles throughout the spring. But come June, the mother of all converged devices will be available. And it will be available in several segments.

For those that want the boutique coolness, it will be there. For those that want it for business, it will be there. For those who want to play games, it will be there. For those that want to develop and push the envelope of the mobile experience, it will be there.

Media, SMS, phone, applications, business apps, GPS, games, you name it, you’ll have it all on the iPhone, and a lot of it on the iPod Touch, both of which will fit into your pocket. What Microsoft, Intel, and VIA are working to accomplish with UMPCs and MIDs, Apple is about to deliver. Timing is everything and Apple is not only out of the gate first, but is about to enter the final turn.

Let’s face, it the UMPC platform is quickly receding. The MID platform is still to come and is unproven. Not only has Apple loaded up their devices with potential for all segments, they’ve come in under the magic $600 price point. Intriguingly, there’s news today that last year’s great hope on the UMPC front, the HTC Shift, is finally beginning to ship in the US, but at a price point of over $1600.

With Venture Capital funding support for developers, Apple has also kickstarted an entirely new developer class, and that will be huge as well. Apple sees the long view in this. Big time. The iPhone we know today, and the version of the hardware we will probably know for the next year or two is only the beginning, and from where I sit, there are a lot of companies that would have liked to have had that as their version 1.0.

Small, $600 or under, always connected, media and the web at your fingertips, and access to your communications. I seem to remember that as the promise of the UMPC a short time ago. UMPC, we hardly knew you.

Game over.

Post Script: As I said, game over. If Apple wanted to put the last nail in the coffin of all of its other competitors, it would steal a page from Amazon’s book. Ditch the old way of thinking about connectivity charges and user fees (or is that usury?) and offer up the versions yet to come with Amazon’s connectivity model.

Tags: Apple, iPhone

3/7/2008 8:50 AM MST

It Is All Over But The Crying: Apple SDK Comments [42] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Friday, March 07, 2008 9:07:22 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

meh, ill take linux/free software/open source based products over apple ones any day...

turn_self_off

Friday, March 07, 2008 9:52:47 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

I'll agree that Apple has taken the Smartphone and the MID markets. But the promise of the UMPC platform was/is to run desktop apps. That is not going to happen on the iPhone.

Chuck

Friday, March 07, 2008 10:10:19 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

You have a great point, Warner, but... not only this is this the carrot dangled in front of us, but the 30% cut that Apple gets is going to be them pulling the carrot away from many developers. To expand on turn_self_off's post, many developers want and expect a less expensive solution.

GoodThings2Life

Friday, March 07, 2008 10:26:18 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

@ GoodThings2Life

The 30% is not a royalty fee. Apple is covering a lot of expense with that money and free Apps are distributed free. The build out of a web store front, the hosting, bandwidth and credit card fees are all includes in that 30%. Plus customers know that the Apps they get will be compliant and will always be up to date. The developer get access to a store that every iPhone customer will shop at, there is no way a developer could have instant access to so many customers through there own efforts. Apple stated that the store is not designed as a money maker, it will probably operate like iTunes for music does at a very small profit with the idea that the money is made on the hardware sales.

kirasaw

Friday, March 07, 2008 10:36:26 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Chuck: Actually, Minimage had mentioned to me previously that a colleague discovered he could run a plain old Unix app on his iPhone as is, so it already can run desktop apps. In fact her point in mentioning that was to dispute my claim the iPhone OS was designed for the device and not just a scaled down desktop OS. Also, the iPhone runs a version of OS X, which can be scaled up as the hardware advances.

GT2L: The 30% cut covers hosting and payment processing and puts the product in the App Store, which means direct access from every iPhone. Sure, you could distribute your own apps for less, but the App Store offers exposure and placement. And let's face it, your average consumer will feel more comfortable downloading from the App Store.

Sumocat

Friday, March 07, 2008 11:05:46 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

@Sumocat and kirasaw...

Hey, you can call it what you want or justify it how you see fit, but I don't even like the government taking 30% out of my wallet, nevermind some company because they "advertised" me. (And keep in mind, I'm not a developer, I'm just a good old capitalist and looking at this from a business point of view.)

It's akin to GottaBeMobile demanding 30% of your advertising revenue just because they link to your site once in a while.

GoodThings2Life

Friday, March 07, 2008 11:08:40 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

On second thought... it does demonstrate that Apple is much stronger at marketing than actual technology...

GoodThings2Life

Friday, March 07, 2008 11:49:17 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

On the 30%: as a USER, that amount might also provide some sense that Apple has at least LOOKED at the app to see if it's not crashware.

tom B

Friday, March 07, 2008 12:06:08 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

sucked in by the hype. I'll believe it, if it happens. which will be never unless the general public all start wanting ONE (and only ONE) version of something.

jpfx

Friday, March 07, 2008 12:22:48 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

In the history of technology there are early phases in which vertical integration makes sense. As the technology matures, open architecture is the better model. Apple tends to do well in the vertical integration phase and others move in later and Apple is left holding a small segment of the market and wondering why it is doing so badly when it is so good.

The iPhone is in the vertical integration phase. When open architecture is the right way to go, Apple may be reluctant to adapt. Apple understands these phases - they lost computer market share, they are poised to lose music market share, and they are entering the sweet phase of phone market share. With Google moving quickly on open architecture for phones, Apple may not stay in the sweet spot for long.

Mickey Segal

Friday, March 07, 2008 1:48:31 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

"In the history of technology there are early phases in which vertical integration makes sense. As the technology matures, open architecture is the better model."

History argues otherwise. The reason PC's always suck compared to Macs is partially because there are too many competing BIOS's and such. Palm started to nose dive when they got the boneheaded notion to split hardware and software.

"Apple may not stay in the sweet spot for long."

I'm an Apple fan boy with a lot of stock, but risk goes with the territory with tech. When they hit 20-25% computer market share and 50 plus million iPhones sold, I'll probably "take my profits".

tom B

Friday, March 07, 2008 2:10:18 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

I agree with Warner.
Apple just dropped the bomb.

About the 30%, credit card processing alone is a pain in the ass and it's something you have to pay for anyway if you want to do it yourself.
Sure it could have been 20% but you have a storefront to get your product visibility. It's not all that different from putting your app on Handango, and guess what? Handango keeps 40%, is not the only game in the town, and won't nearly be as visible as the App Store.

By the time MID's arrive on the shelf, if they ever will be displayed in retail chains, the iPhone/iPod Touch will already have a plethora of apps ready to be launched. All with a consistent user interface, design, and having the same hardware platform.

And come on now... it has Spore!

Ever notice how many developers there are for the Nintendo DS? I
ll bet a lot of them are going to want to tap into the hype as well.

I'm still very interested in the development of MID's but Apple just cornered another part of the consumer market again and will probably keep it.

Rodfather

Friday, March 07, 2008 2:24:51 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Not everyone subscribes to the church of Apple.

While I'm sure there product will do well it hardly spells doom for other products.

The IPhone never will hold a candle to the UMPC platform simply because it can’t do what a regular computer can.

Jim

Friday, March 07, 2008 2:30:00 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

"The IPhone never will hold a candle to the UMPC platform simply because it can’t do what a regular computer can. "

The iPhone and the MacBook Air could get together and have a "love child".

tom B

Friday, March 07, 2008 2:30:04 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

GT2L: If GBM hosted my pay-per-view site, your analogy would hold true, but they don't.

If you go it alone, you pull in 100% of the revenue, but you incur expenses. Comparing 100% revenue going solo to 70% revenue through Apple is not a realistic comparison. 90% vs 70% is optimistic but plausible. That is a sizable difference, but you'd be reaching many times more customers, as demonstrated by the iTunes Store.

We already know indy recording artists sell through the iTunes Store. They could host their own music and it'd be completely iPod-compatible. But instead, indy artists, even big names like Radiohead, sign up with iTunes to reach more customers. From a business standpoint, it makes sense to give up some revenue to sell many times more units.

Sumocat

Friday, March 07, 2008 2:44:13 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

The iPhone and the MacBook Air could get together and have a "love child"

they could call it 'jornada' perhaps?

jpfx

Friday, March 07, 2008 4:23:52 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

tom B: You illustrate my points exactly. I wrote "Apple is left holding a small segment of the market and wondering why it is doing so badly when it is so good" and you responded that "PC's always suck compared to Macs", yet the market share says otherwise.

Mickey Segal

Friday, March 07, 2008 4:44:11 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Tom b Wrote "The reason PC's always suck compared to Macs is partially because there are too many competing BIOS's and such".

Actually, that's what made the PC the cheap and versatile platform it is. Let's face it, Macs are now PCs anyway, just running MacOS. Proprietary is never good.

Macs are great, the iPhone is a joy to use, but to say 'PCs always suck' is a very misguided statement to make. My Portege M700 and Quad Core desktop (and HTC Advantage with custom rom come to think of it) would argue otherwise.

Gavin Miller

Friday, March 07, 2008 4:46:18 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Wow, just wow. Warner, I never thought you the type to buy into the hype this much.

I'm not a fan of proprietary technology. And, SDK or not, the iPhone still falls into the Apple locked-down ecosystem. Not to mention the fact that it doesn't have Flash, is still using EDGE, locked into AT&T (as a former 5 or 6 year Cingular subscriber, I'm happy to be gone and have no intention of going back, especially considering I'd have to pay double what I'm paying for my Sprint SERO plan to get the same number of minutes and unlimited data).

Aside from multi-touch (which I've been calling the next big thing since a LONG time before Apple announced the iPhone), that particular device holds no interest for me and I certainly don't think it kills the UMPC/MID.

FlyingShawn

Friday, March 07, 2008 4:46:48 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Like all things there are 'pros and cons'. I think in this there are more pros than cons so it will fly.

One thing you have to agree on is that Apple is THE company that is making all the running at the moment. Their technology developments, their business strategies and their products is keeping the brand in front of everyones eyes and its fascinating to watch and to speculate.

Mel

Friday, March 07, 2008 4:47:30 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Now come-on, I didnt expect you guys to subscribe to the "game-over" garbage so quickly. The market, from high end mobile devices to MIDs has just received a healthy boost of competition. As for the iphone being an umpc thats a laugh and a half.

This is nothing but good healthy competition, it should be celebrated but proclaimations of "game-over" are as useless as statements about the end of history.

Maybe it will be year or two but eventually you will be posted a nice retraction of this grand statement and we will all be the better off with healthy competition in these markets.

Osiris

Friday, March 07, 2008 5:07:23 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

I'm sure Warner is being deliberately provocative to engender discussion..............

Gavin Miller

Friday, March 07, 2008 5:39:55 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Apple will someday replace the ARM with an Intel MID chip in iPhone and iPod Touch. And as before with OS X going from PPC to Intel, the huge catalog of already here apps will work with just an Xcode recompile. But then iPhone will also run "desktop" software (not Photoshop but certainly Office). So UMPC is dead and Apple will have a huge headstart on anyone thinking of building an Intel-based MID.

As for the 30%, it's generous compared to what you can get elsewhere for the same type of "retail" service - plus Apple is putting a stamp of approval, at least from a security point of view. Handango asks for 40% and provides nowhere near as much visibility. Others ask for 50-70% for mobile apps (read Michael Mace (former Palm exec) over at mobileopportunity.com).

mark

Friday, March 07, 2008 6:35:26 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

I think most people overlook that it isn't the developers that will lose 30%. Apple's fee actually won't have much of an impact at all on the developers. The market doesn't work like that... the 30% loss will just get pushed onto the customer. Developers will probably even make more (because of the advanteges stated by others and by charging 30% more to cover the fee). I don't think it's a really big issue anyways.

CiaoCiao

Friday, March 07, 2008 10:20:12 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Some great comments here. And to be clear, I'm not actually just saying game over to engender conversation. At the moment, I truly believe it. As I said, timing is everything. By the time MIDs roll out, Apple will have sucked the oxygen out of PR land, come out with apps and most likely a 3G version of the iPhone. Go back and look at some of the things Intel was saying at CES. Version 1 of the MID platform is nothing compared to version 2, etc... that's a long roadmap. The big difference? Apple is already on the road and running and Intel hasn't gotten out of the chute yet.

As for the UMPC side of the equation? Between the Asus Eee PC and the Asus Eee PC wanna be's and the MID, the UMPC has already been shoved to the side. Show me the wave of developers who are working on apps for the UMPC, whether they be client or for the web. I'd even settle for a small creek, much less a wave. Heck, we can't even get an OS on UMPCs that works within the screen sizes that exist at the moment by allowing users to start up the device. Don't get me wrong, I still believe there is a place for UMPCs, but I don't see anything really happening there to make that a reality. I just don't.

Don't get me wrong, there are things not to like about how Apple is doing this, and I don't think the next version will be the device for all time that cures what ails you. But at least if it takes several iterations for these mobile platforms to really get there, Apple has a head start. Further, they've captured the imagination, hype or no, and...... they can put devices in the hands of potential customers. Which is something that has been severely crippling the UMPC market from day 1, just like the Tablet PC market, before it, and I'm betting the MID market to come.

And then there is that price point.

If there is a player that can change this it will be Google with its Google Phone. Oh, yeah, that's still to come as well.

Warner Crocker

Friday, March 07, 2008 11:25:14 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

"but I don't even like the government taking 30% out of my wallet, nevermind some company because they "advertised" me. (And keep in mind, I'm not a developer, I'm just a good old capitalist and looking at this from a business point of view.)"

You're not a capitalist at all, you're a communist or a freetard. With authority figure issues.

Many developers will build successful businesses with this new model. I can see the possibility of a one or two person shop selling a million copies of a "HOT" game or app in a year at 15 dollars profit per copy.

Of course it will be a winner, not a winer.

zato

Saturday, March 08, 2008 6:12:13 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

If Apple can invigorate the market so much the better, especially if it pushes Microsoft, Google, et al to bigger and better things, where we all benefit from improved pricing and functionality.

Gavin Miller

Saturday, March 08, 2008 6:24:30 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Another issue with the current incarnation of the iPhone is battery life. The battery lasts all day if you are using it as a phone, but if you start using it like a UMPC / MID it starts chewing up battery life pretty fast. This is a problem on a device without a swappable battery.

The best move for small tablets and MIDs is to add phone capability and do all the usual right things like have hot-swappable batteries. That would be a more obvious move if not for the backsliding on battery swappability in Tablet PCs. Although the discussion at http://www.gottabemobile.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4388 makes it sound like this is a bug in Vista, there seems to be no way to report bugs in Vista so things don't get fixed the way they did in the old days when Microsoft paid attention to customers.

Mickey Segal

Saturday, March 08, 2008 6:38:28 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

I am glad that Gavin and Osiris are voices of reason here and haven't been drinking the kool-aid.

Apple is competing but not the ultimate victor... precisely for the reasons we've expressed.

GoodThings2Life

Saturday, March 08, 2008 8:10:45 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

"but I don't even like the government taking 30% out of my wallet, nevermind some company because they "advertised" me. (And keep in mind, I'm not a developer, I'm just a good old capitalist and looking at this from a business point of view.)"

what you are is a classic freetard anarchist who wants to have everything and pay for nothing. The "I'm not actually a developer" comment just shows what a lamer you are- you have no idea what is involved in being a developer. Actual Apple developers are overwhelmingly applauding this move as it gives them a structure and ecosystem they can rely on to generate a revenue stream to compensate them for their work.

wls

Saturday, March 08, 2008 8:41:20 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

GoodThings2Life, absolutely correct: The iPhone/iPod Touch family of products will spur competitive ideas among those creating MIDs. But like Osiris says, "Maybe it will be [a] year or two..." before others catch up. *A year or two*.

So I think we're all agreeing that Apple will most likely lead the market for the next year or maybe two in the MID space.

Might Microsoft create a skunkswork project that creates a new shell that's MID/UMPC friendly and launch it along with the MIDs this summer and blow everyone away? Maybe the Haiku will see the light of day. Could happen. Most likely not though.

Might Intel be able to leverage the shear variety of MIDs/OSes/apps and argue that choice itself makes the market? It could. But will that outshine the competitive offerings? Not likely.

Might Google step up with its Android software and align with Adobe Air/Flex/Flash and fill the void? It might. Very low probability.

All this being said, will I purchase a MID when they come out? You bet. Will I explore writing apps for it? Yes. Will my development efforts lean towards Linux or Windows? I haven't decided yet. But at the same time am I going to look into writing for the iPhone/iPod touch family? You bet. And I think one or two others are doing the same. :-)

Loren Heiny

Saturday, March 08, 2008 9:53:02 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Hey, folks, this is a fantastic discussion. Let's keep it that way and keep it going without resulting to name calling and insulting positions we don't agree with. There are some real points of interest and real points of disagreement being talked about here, so let's keep it to that. Shall we?

Warner Crocker

Saturday, March 08, 2008 10:17:17 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

The whole point of the UMPC is that it is a small computer.

It doesn’t need custom apps because it is meant to run what regular computers run.

As for the OS Windows XP tablet runs fine on my Samsung Q1U with no issues at all.

While pricing isn’t where it should be yet UMPC's are here to stay and can only get better.

Jim

Saturday, March 08, 2008 10:41:01 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Actually, thinking about it, if we all end up working in the cloud will we just need fast internet connectivity and a nokia/iphone like tablet with a desktop class browser?

For example, I watched the end of Scotland beating England 15 to 9 at the rugby today streaming over HSDPA on my N95! Cool tech and your team winning, bliss!

Jim's comment above I tend to agree with but that got me thinking about what we really need to do on the road (or on the sofa). I remember years ago, around the time MS put 'active desktop' onto the Windows 98 SE Desktop there was a load of talk about what we now call cloud computing and it's taken all that time since for us to get to Office Live Beta and Google Docs Beta, effectively letting you work from any internet enabled device.

I guess this is where we are going and the real winners may well be the devices that integrate seamlessly with these apps, whoever makes them.

Gavin Miller

Saturday, March 08, 2008 10:58:26 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

30% is the sweetspot. Anyone from the game industry will tell you that 70% of the revenue as income will be a dream come true.

alanine

Saturday, March 08, 2008 12:58:42 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Warner, I agreed with you and within the next 10 years we will be doing most of our computing on a mobile device.
For those who don't agree check back to the early days when a computer processing speed is 12 mhz and today it is clocking as fast as 3ghz.
For MID and laptops the other winner is the company that can produce a battery that can run for days on a single charge.

AdamC

Saturday, March 08, 2008 3:06:04 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Did anyone notice that User Apps on the iPhoone will not be allowed to run in the background? They will have to close to answer a call.

Chuck

Saturday, March 08, 2008 3:59:30 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

The marketplace has decided UMPCs aren't worth buying. I have a Samsung Q1 Ultra, but my next computer won't be a UMPC.

iPhone and iPhone software sales will speak for themselves. The iPhone is looking more and more like the iPod phenomenon. Most of the few people buying music from Amazon are listening to that music on their iPods. Apple will run over Nokia, RIM, MS, Motorola, Samsung, Sony, Palm etc. like they were standing still. While Apple works their way up to mobile dominance Apple will also steadily increase their worldwide PC market share at the expense of Windows machines.

Virtuous

Saturday, March 08, 2008 4:02:35 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

yep, its been doing the rounds chuck.

funny thing is that i dont think its a hardware limitation...

turn_self_off

Saturday, March 08, 2008 7:28:09 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Quoting Chuck: "I'll agree that Apple has taken the Smartphone and the MID markets. But the promise of the UMPC platform was/is to run desktop apps. That is not going to happen on the iPhone."

@Chuck

Your right. It won't happen on the iphone..........MUHOOHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! :P

Olternaut

Sunday, March 09, 2008 7:44:55 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I don't agree with the Apple just took over the UMPC market". I have a iPhone, and I just picked up a OQO Model2. If anyone has the right idea then it's OQO. The iPhone is going to be a niche market gizmo for quite a while. I was wondering around Friday and one of my clients had a server problem. With the OQO and it's built in mobile broadband it was no problem at all to RDP the server and knock it out.
Once the SDK bears fruit perhaps it'll become more business user friendly I'll wait and see what is developed. Right now, my OQO and my Sprint Moqul are my constant companions.

Daniel

Tuesday, April 29, 2008 9:43:52 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

@ the guy who said the iphone can already run desktop apps just because a friend's friend claimed they saw someone running an "old unix app" ... dont be kidding, the iphone's cpu isn't even x86.

this is why it cant run desktop apps and never will in its current form.

cmonex

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