Applelinks iPhone News Reader - Thursday, March 27, 2008
Good-Bye Desktop PC, Hello iPhone
The iPhone Is No Desktop
Microsoft Looks To Cash In On The iPhone
Microsoft Sees Software Possibilities For iPhone
Apple orders 10m 3G iPhones - report
The iPhone as a Physician Resource
iPhone To Get Haptic Feedback, Sort Of
Report Buyer: New Report Highlights how Music is a Key Drive in the Mobile Phone Market
Good-Bye Desktop PC, Hello iPhone
PC Mag's Lance Ulanoff says:
My generation's concept of what it means to compute is so quaint and firmly rooted in the 20th century. Young people and teens computing 10 or 20 years from now will look back and laugh at people like me (and, most likely, their own parents and grandparents) who sat down at desks and worked on 20-pound boxes.
The decline of the deskbound PC has been under way for years, but recent events convince me that the transition to desktopless computing is accelerating at a breakneck pace. What's next? I have a feeling that mainstream laptops could someday meet the same fate.
What precipitated these changes? The arrival of the Apple iPhone , of course. It's an okay phone and an excellent multimedia device, but now, with the promise the Apple SDK holds and the introduction of the Exchange ActiveSync software, it's about to become much, much more.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2278817,00.asp
The iPhone Is No Desktop
PC Mag's John C. Dvorak says:
Time and time again we've heard that bigger is better - until the technology revolution came along, that is. Now, the emphasis is on smaller, cheaper, and faster. I've always subscribed to the notion that smaller is superior - until recently, when I saw that smaller is actually becoming a problem.
The "big" thing nowadays is to use a powerful laptop as your one and only computing machine. So, people sit at their office desks with the laptop in front of them and squint at the relatively small screen and go blind. They drag the machine everywhere, and if it gets lost or broken, they're toast, since they never perform any kind of backup....
And it's only going to get worse. Everyone thinks that the iPhone is going to be the next major computing platform. Some even hope that it will replace the laptop as the primary PC platform. And what if it does? What are folks going to do when they spill coffee on their iPhones? They've already done a lot worse - they drop them into toilets over and over....
For the full commentary visit here:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2278816,00.asp
Microsoft Looks To Cash In On The iPhone
Big Tech's Jon Fortt reports:
Don't think for a minute that Microsoft is ignoring the iPhone. In fact, the software giant is probing the gadget for profit opportunities.
For a little more than a week, a team of the company's Silicon Valley software engineers has been examining the iPhone software development kit (SDK for short), a set of tools Apple released this month that let outsiders build software for the iPhone and the iPod touch. Microsoft executives aren't sure yet whether they'll find worthwhile opportunities to sell iPhone software – but they seem eager to find out.
To read more, click here.
Microsoft Sees Software Possibilities For iPhone
InformationWeek's Antone Gonsalves reports:
Microsoft plans to offer software for the iPhone, saying in a recent interview that developers are considering a variety of possibilities that include offering Office functionality on Apple's smart phone.
Microsoft's focus on the iPhone stems from Apple's release of a software development kit this month. The iPhone SDK, released in beta, gives developers access to the same tools Apple developers use for building applications that run on the iPhone's Max OS X-based operating system.
For the full report click here.
Apple orders 10m 3G iPhones - report
Macworld UK's Jonny Evans reports:
Apple has ordered the manufacture of ten million 3G-capable second-generation iPhones, according to Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney.
Dulaney cites sources in Asia that told the analyst of the news. He suggests the order for ten million units of the new model handset to be in addition to the ten million V1 iPhones Apple has ordered.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itunes/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=20801
The iPhone as a Physician Resource
PharmExec's George Koroneos reports:
Physicians might soon have an excuse to swap their BlackBerries for fancy newish Apple iPhones. The super-secretive computer firm announced earlier this month that it would release development kits allowing third-party applications to be created for the phone.
Apple's unusual move could be a boon for physicians who are increasingly trading in pen and paper for more high-tech handheld devices. At last they will have the opportunity to use mobile software that goes beyond the underwhelming processing power of personal digital assistants (PDAs) and BlackBerry-style devices.
Epocrates, one of the best-known of the medical and drug software developers, was on hand to present its application at Apple's recent press conference premiering its software development kit (SDK). The Epocrates program features drug dosing information, retail pricing updates, and up-to-the-minute adverse reaction reporting.
To read more, click here.
iPhone To Get Haptic Feedback, Sort Of
The Register's James Sherwood reports:
Haptics - the ability to give users feedback through the sense of touch - aren't officially available for the iPhone yet, but one add-on manufacturer claims a plastic touchscreen overlay is just as good.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/03/26/my_touch_keys_iphone
Report Buyer: New Report Highlights how Music is a Key Drive in the Mobile Phone Market
[ Press Release ]
Report Buyer, the online destination for business intelligence for major industry sectors, has added a new report showing that the worldwide unit shipments of music phones exceeded a billion units in 2007, outnumbering shipments of personal media players like the iPod by almost 300 million units.
Wanted: Multimedia Handsets Consumer Desires Meet Operators ARPU Needs reports that by 2011 over half of all the 941 million phones shipped will be considered music phones. The authors of the report define a music phone as a phone with two features: (1) Music codec functionality: MP3, AAC, etc. and (2) a memory slot which allows for a full featured music experience by allowing the user to carry a personal music library. This is only possible with expandable memory.
The report shows that voice commoditisation and falling voice Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) are driving a shift in wireless operators to focus on data revenue models and services. Music has been the first important factor for the operators to drive the consumption of premium content on the handset. As polyphonic ringtones gave way to realtones, operators found consumers desire to personalise their handsets as a way to enhance ARPUs. The report further shows that music companies discovered a way to sell a form of music which was less susceptible to piracy and provides incremental revenue.
However, authors of the report note that realtones are but one form of cellular music enjoyed. As the ringback tones, full track downloads and streaming music markets join the ringtone market, the mobile music market promises to hit over US$6 billion in 2008. With such significant revenue and customer demand at stake, the operators and handset providers concerted efforts to use music as a central part of their handset strategies.
The report provides research, analysis and forecasts for music phones, multimedia handsets and handsets with multimedia specific features such as phones with touch screens, camera phones, mobile TV handsets, radio phones, and phones with a host of alternative connectivity options.
"Wanted: Multimedia Handsets Consumer Desires Meet Operators ARPU Needs" is available from Report Buyer. For more information click here.
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