Posts Tagged CTIA09
Don’t just launch an “answer to Apple’s App Store”
Posted by Melody Adhami in iPhone Blog on April 3rd, 2009
Yesterdays keynote speech by Mike Lazaridis seemed as though the BlackBerry App store was made as a response to the apple iPhone and the Apple app store. And if anyone thought that this may have always been in the plans, the title at the CTIA09 daily show guide said it right “Rim launches answer to the Apple App store”. That wasn’t the only place we heard about the “missing” iPhone and Apple at the CTIA09 event. In fact, they were the topic of most conversations.
At the WipJam developers event, the iPhone app store was a main topic and figuring out how to develop in such a fragmented environment was top of mind for developers. Most of the developers agreed that Apple has made it easy to develop and disctribute apps with the Apple app store. Rim is not the only one that needed to “answer” or respond to the app store. Some panelist and other phone manfacturers such as Sony Ericson opened the ground to the crowd to generate ideas about how to carve a space for their handsets. The discussion that was not brought forward that I find is the answer to these companies is that they need to stop playing catch up and they need to innovate. If Apple owns the music space and they have done a great job with applications, others should focus their efforts elsewhere. Why can’t LG or Sony or Motorrola look into building partnerships with banking or retail or other areas that would tempt users to switch to the handset that provides for their needs.
No iPhone at CTIA but its footprint has changed the industry
Posted by Melody Adhami in iPhone Blog on April 1st, 2009
Today was the first official day at the CTIA09 event in Las Vegas and the industry overall did not paint a gloomy economic picture like so many other areas of business in the US. Although 2 out of 3 keynote speakers spent half of their speeches discussing the economy and its effects, the industry news was all good. 270 Million wireless customers, 2.2 trillion minutes of use, 1 trillion SMS messages, impressive data usage increases and 1 out of 3 handsets are expected to be smartphones by the year 2011. As I was listening to the news, one thought repeatedly jumped to my mind. Apple has changed the rate at which the industry has progressed and I would argue that they have almost single-handedly brought the smartphone market to the masses and no longer are smartphones and data plans just for businesses.
Apple was not present at the event but their footprints can be seen all over the industry. Lets take the keynote speach of RIM (BlackBerry) CEO, Mike Lazaridis for example. The focus of the speach was obviously the new BlackBerry App World which many would tell you is a “me too” move to catch up to the iPhone App store. He then went on to discuss the importance of music and affiliating the BlackBerry with artists such as U2… again, isnt that just a way to catch up to the music and itunes capabilities of the iPhone? Then we saw some applications, most of which are already available on the iPhone application store and the trend continues. A similar story was seen in the speech for the Android platform (although the difference with Andriod is that it is open source and developers have much more flexibility).
The truth though was that there were a lot of people avoiding the topic of the iPhone (rightfully as they are direct competitors) but I find it difficult to ignore. The Apple iPhone has changed the expectations of users from their handsets and has opened up peoples minds to realize that data is not just for the rich or business people. The convenience of information on the go is and should be available to all. This has not only been a great profit for Apple and has helped them carve their name in the mobile space, it has also been great news for the industry as Apple has helped lead this growth.