ХудожникИконописикони цениWe are all aware that Google recently announced the much anticipated gPhone a few days ago, and it ended up not being a phone at all, but more of an operating system for future phones, open source off course. Google missed an option here that I hope they take advantage of soon, before someone else less capable does.
For years, pundits have expressed an opinion that SMS, or text messaging, is dead. Soon to be replaced with MMS, email or a phone call, SMS was on the way out. However, we have seen as time has gone one, text messaging is the beast that cannot be stopped. If you are under 30, chances are the number of text message you send in a month is considerably higher than the number of dollars you earn in the same month. Twitter and similar services have taken off like crazy, and new companies are popping up daily to take advantage of the propensity to text.
Unfortunately, no one, from the cell phone makers to the carriers, have done much to take advantage of this trend. Granted, we have seen improved phones such as the sidekick and Blackberries galore, but really, they are phones with slightly improved entry.
What Google had a chance to do was create a new niche industry. Imagine a new type of “phone” that was designed from the ground up to do texting and web surfing only. There would be no phone included in this new “cell phone”. The teens in my household only use the phone on their cells when I call them, never when communicating with each other. The gPhone would have access to the web, similar to the iPhone, and focused on Google Applications, with built in IM services and super heavy duty text capabilities.
Well, that is neat and all, but what is different that other phones out there now? It all comes down to the phone plan. Text messaging is expensive, and usually in addition to any standard phone plans available. If you didn’t need the phone part, the carrier could just offer a text/data plans. Rather than having to pay $40+ for the phone plan, plus more for a data plan and then again more for texts, you would pay one flat fee for unlimited text messaging and all the data you could eat.
Now that I think about that, wouldn’t the iPhone make a perfect gPhone? Take away the phone capabilities, increase the IM/text capabilities, and off you go.
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In a surprising move, Steve Jobs announced today that Apple will be releasing their Safari browser for windows. In live tests done on stage at WWDC this morning, Safari on windows shows to be twice as fast as IE7, and nearly twice as fast as Firefox. Apple will be releasing a beta today for windows users.
This is an interesting move by Apple. The release of iTunes on Windows is obvious, why limit iPod use to mac users only, but the windows browser landscape is pretty full. My guess is this has to do with the iPhone. Steve also announced the iPhone will be open to third party apps, but those apps would run in Safari. This now gives everyone, windows and mac users alike full access to Safari.
Update: Apple has also released the Safari 3 beta for Macs.
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In an interesting article, FT is reporting that Apple is on the verge of announcing movie rentals through their iTunes store. With the addition of the Apple TV, this move has been expected for some time now. Imagine being able to log into iTunes, rent a move and have it downloaded to your computer/Apple TV within minutes. Much quicker and more convenient than Blockbuster or Netflix.
A film would cost $2.99 for a 30-day rental. Its digital rights-management software would allow films to be moved from a computer to at least one other device such as the video iPod or iPhone. The software would prevent movies being copied.
This could be a killer deal for Apple. With the pricing, you have to imagine they will not be making much money per rental, but this should drive sales of the Apple TV and the video iPod. The key to the deal is the 30 day window. Many of the existing players in this market have a very limited rental period, as short as 1 or 2 days. With 30 days to view the movie as many times as you want on your computer, Apple TV, video iPod or iPhone.
It will be interesting to see if this will be announced at WWDC tomorrow, or if this will wait until it is closer to being launched.
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