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Confirmed Windows Phone 7 Devices
Please note that this list is subject to change as more information about the devices is available.
A chart containing rumored and confirmed WP7 devices. Clicking on a phone name provides more detail. There are seven confirmed devices so far.
What Did Antennagate Do To Apple iPhone Sales?
Will There Be An Apple HDTV? Steve Jobs Already Answered That Question.
There've been more rumors lately about an upcoming Apple television set, with one article going so far as to call it inevitable. But in watching Steve Jobs at the D8 Conference last June I think the question was already asked and answered.
Below is an exchange between a conference attendee (Dan Simpkins, CEO of Hillcrest Labs) and Jobs. Jobs does a good job explaining the fundamental reason it's hard to innovate in the television space. One can sense a certain resignation in Jobs' answers that signify, to me at least, he knows Apple can make better use of their resources than to try to break into such an ingrained system.
Jobs' remarks indicate that Apple will continue to dabble in the set top box approach, improving it as they go, but that an iPhone-like breakthrough TV is not possible in the current television market.
Simpkins:
"A topic that was noticeably absent tonight in your talk was television. And you talked about how to make the iPad and the iPhone you need to throw out the human interface in order to really make those products interactive. Do you think it’s time to throw out the interface for television—the classic up, down, left, right—and bring in a new human interface to make television truly interactive and, if so, when is Apple gonna do something in that arena?"
Jobs:
"The problem with the television market— the problem with innovation in the television industry is the go to market strategy. The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everybody a set top box for free—or for $10 a month—and that pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation because nobody’s willing to buy a set top box. Ask Tivo, ask Replay TV, you know, ask Roku, ask VooDoo, ask us, ask Google in a few months.
"So, all you can do—Sony’s tried as well, Panasonic’s tried, a lot of people have tried, they’ve all failed—so all you can do is add a box onto the TV system. You can say, well, gosh, I noticed my HDTV has a bunch of HDMI ports on it, one of them is coming from the set top box, so I’ll just add another little box with another one. Well, you just end up with a table full of remotes, cluster full of boxes, bunch of different UIs, and that’s the situation we have today. The only way that’s ever gonna change is if you can really go back to square one, and tear up the set top box, and re-design it from scratch, with a consistent UI across all these different functions, and get it to the consumer in a way that they’re willing to pay for it. And right now there’s no way to do that.
"So that’s the problem with the TV market. You know, we decided what product do we want the most, a better TV or a better phone? Well, the phone won out, but there was no chance to do a better TV ‘cause there’s no way to get it to market. What do we want more, a tablet or a better TV? Well, probably a tablet, but it doesn’t matter because if we wanted a better TV there’s no way to get it to market. The TV’s gonna lose until there’s a better—until there is a viable—go to market strategy. Otherwise you’re just making another Tivo. Does that make sense to you?"
Simpkins:
"Yeah, absolutely."
Jobs:
"That’s the fundamental problem. It’s not a problem of technology, it’s not a problem of vision, it’s a fundamental go to market problem."
Simpkins:
"But obviously, in the phone area, you were able to recreate that go to market strategy by working with a carrier. So does it make sense to partner with a cable operator to—"
Jobs:
"Well then you run into another problem, which is there isn’t a cable operator that’s national. There’s a bunch of cable operators. And then, it’s not like there’s a GSM standard where you build a phone for the US and it also works in all these other countries. No, every single country has different standards, different government approvals, it’s very, um… balkanized. So, I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out, but that’s why when we say Apple TV is a hobby, that’s why we use that phrase."
Does the iPad Have Competitors? No. Alternatives? No. iPadversaries? Um, ok.
I cheerfully admit that I’ve defined the term “iPadversary” loosely.
I've written about how tech pundits are itching for the iPad to have competition even as they must acknowledge it does not. Articles on the subject have taken to calling them "alternatives" instead of competitors. Now Technologizer's Harry McCracken has gone further, calling them adversaries in a clever take on the name.
I kind of like it.
This isn't a critique of McCracken's piece. Indeed, I appreciate his admission that there's really no rhyme or reason for items included in his list. If we applied some rationality, there's a number of reasonable criteria we could use to toss many of these out:
- Already on sale before the iPad? Then they've got to go, since obviously no one knew, or cared, or bought.
- Pure vapor? I don't mean "just" vapor, as most of these are, but there are some with so few details it's beyond the realm of reasonable thinking to include them on anything but a fun adversaries list.
- Android OS too old? C'mon, is it really anyone's contention that Android 1.5 or 1.6 is a viable competitor to even iOS 3.2, let alone the 4.x coming to the iPad in a month or so, especially long-term?
- And, if you really wanted to be serious, all the vapor devices would go, so 25 items drop off the list.
It seems clear McCracken is just having some fun with all the possibilities, while also providing a nice summary (as much as possible) about these devices. There are 32 of them, and one wonders how many will ever get to the mainstream market.
What's interesting is that if the iPad had even one real competitor—a device where one could make a reasonable case that a meaningful number of consumers would seriously compare the two and pick one over the other as a tablet—then none of this expanded definition of the playing field would be possible. (And the first commentor to point at some 1" thick, 3 pound netbook with the keyboard snapped off as a "real competitor" has lost the concept of the iPad entirely.)
Lacking a legitimate competitor, everyone's free to point out as contenders a number of devices in wildly varying form factors, even though we know the criteria being used is faulty at best. It makes for a fun write up, even fun reading, but can't be taken seriously.
Bottom line is that yet another article of this type serves to prove the only non-vapor and actual fact that we know: there is no iPad competitor right now.
Analysts Report Apple Not Finished Releasing Products
Several analysts today claimed that Apple is not finished releasing products, and that the Cupertino company may have devices in the pipeline for release in the coming months and years.
According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, new products could come as early as this year. “Apple’s iPhone has had a camera since the beginning, which is why I think a touch-based iPod shuffle is in the works.”
Citigroup’s Rich Gardner agrees. “MacBook Pros and iMacs are selling, and I think CPUs, graphics chips, and other stuff inside PCs is still being made, right? I believe Apple might update those products in the future.”
RBC Capital analyst Mike Abramsky is more bullish. “I think Apple may actually introduce something new, like they have countless times over the last decade, though I can’t say why I feel that way.”
Not everyone agrees with these reports, however. AmTech’s Shaw Wu is doubtful. “Apple has invented everything there is to invent. The Magic Trackpad is clearly the end of the line; what could possibly be left? From here on out they just coast.” He also noted that Apple will likely shut down its web site by the end of 2011.
In Apple's footsteps, Microsoft to introduce their own touch mouse.
The mouse is the result of a Microsoft Research program dubbed "Mouse 2.0".
Great name, as in "We need our engineers to 'Mouse 2' Apple's web site and discover the hardware they'll make next."
I guess we'll see an Arc Trackpad in 2011.
FYI, though I joke about Microsoft following Apple, I do own an Arc Mouse and Keyboard and like them both.
With iPad, Apple is No. 3 in portables, Let the Howling Begin
The best thing about this isn't that Apple jumps to #3, but rather that it's become realistic to include tablets in the mobile PC numbers to begin with. At the iPad launch just a few months ago this was unheard of, but the iPad has proven so capable it's not a wild idea, it's becoming obvious.
Traditional PC vendors—who still have no iPad rival—will howl and protest at this suggestion. We'll be told that only the type of PC we've been using for years fits in this category. Their rhetoric will be tailored not only against products they don't sell, but also to soothe baffled consumers and IT groups who can't imagine that "portable" isn't synonymous with laptop.
We'll see a lot of this, but ultimately it will fail. When the iPhone came out there was lots of talk about how it wasn't really a smartphone, but that BS didn't last, either. The market defines product categories, not the tech shills and marketers who want to bend a definition to include only what they sell.
Apple's New Magic Trackpad: A MacBook Feature Comes to the Desktop [u]
Steve Jobs comes back to Apple and we all know what happened. Michael Dell comes back to Dell and, wow.
The SEC says that the company should have disclosed to investors that it was drawing on these reserves, but did not. And it claims that, at their peak, the exclusivity payments from Intel represented 76% of Dell’s quarterly operating income, which is a breathtaking figure.
It's bad enough Dell never did particularly well after Dell's return, but now we discover it would have been even worse had it not been for "accounting shenanigans" through the use of "cookie-jar reserves" made up of Intel's money.
In The Face Of Android's Success, Perhaps Its Best Phone Dies
Google warned potential customers last week that it was close to discontinuing the Nexus One, and this Android OS smartphone didn't last much longer -- Google has sold its last unit.
Against the backdrop of recent reports about impressive Android sales, perhaps the platform's best phone, the Nexus One, has been discontinued.
Though released a few months ago, the Nexus One's specs are still impressive. A 1GHz processor, 800 x 480 AMOLED screen, 5MP camera, etc. It was certainly not canceled for being out of date. But I'm not interested in phones just for spec geeks—the sum of the parts is what matters—it's the non-geek areas where the phone is more impressive than its flashier peers.
While many Android phones are getting bigger, the Nexus One is a relatively compact, smooth phone that fits well in the hand. The design is low-key, and in my opinion looks better for it.
And then there's the distribution. The phone was sold direct, either unlocked or with a contract for T-Mobile or AT&T, and was unencumbered by any of the carrier or manufacturer add-ons we see creeping into the Android world.
In comparison to many new Android phones, the Nexus One:
- Did not include third-party carrier or manufacturer "crapware"
- Did not include a third-party UI, such that another Android user may not even recognize it
- Represented a "clean" Android install
- Can install the latest Android release (2.2)
That last point is interesting. Android phones released even in the last month (e.g., DroidX, Galaxy) are running Android 2.1. The addition of third-party UIs, software, and carrier requirements make testing an OS release more time-consuming. These phones will likely be certified for 2.2 at some point, but by then that release may be old news. Nexus One's "clean" nature made new release certification a relatively speedy affair.
I don't think the Nexus One cancelation had anything to do with design, hardware or software. Rather, I think it was a victim of its own distribution. Buying online with little chance to touch/feel the phone hurt it. Out of sight, out of mind. It was also a victim of Google being wholly unprepared to deal with client support issues. The decent buzz it had at the beginning was soon crushed by bad buzz about support.
I wish Google had done a Nexus Two, but I understand why they did not. Google's interest in Android is to get it in as many hands as possible and sell ads. In Google's eyes, a Nexus Two would provide no advantages to them or their ad buyers over any other new Android phone. The fragmentation of varying UIs, services, and other add-ons doesn't need to concern them. Sheer volume and ads, that's their business model. I'm not knocking the model (it's very successful), but it's in keeping with it that they not waste resources on another Nexus.
Pity, though. I think Google inadvertently showed everyone the best way to make an Android phone.
