Monday, January 11, 2010

The iPhone's best days are here, now.

The iPhone is a real hit; there is no doubt about that. "Duh," you say. So do you think Apple is just going to run away with the smart phone market? Not so fast...

The Boy Genius Report (or BGR as it prefers now) on October 28th of last year produced a nice graph that shows the iPhone quickly growing it's market share in the smart phone market to 30% in September of '09. That's pretty respectable; so what's to keep that growth in market share from just going and going and going? There is one good reason, Google and their new Andriod OS for smart phones.

The Android OS has been out for over 2 years now but the handsets that use them have only been around for about a year. Though 2009 there were a few new offerings of smart phones that sported the Android moniker but there wasn't a lot of attention focused on it until Verizon began their Droid ad campaign. The media blitz really put Android on the map and has raised the level of exposure. Verizon offers the Motorola Droid and the HTC Eris handsets, both running Android. The Droid runs Android Eclair 2.0.(.1) and the Eris runs Android 1.6.

The Android 2.x release is the break out winner in the marketplace and Google has added fuel to this fire by releasing their new HTC based phone the Nexus One. The Nexus One does the Droid one better because it is using the latest Android 2.1 (not 2.0.1) OS.

Enough background and history about Android. Why is it going to overtake the iPhone? The answer is simple, the iPhone runs the MacOS and like everything Apple, they control everything about the iPhone from the materials that go into it, to the OS, to the carrier that can offer it.

Google on the other hand has taken the approach that any phone maker can take and use the Android OS on any phone. This is very similar to what Microsoft did in the early 80's with DOS and then later with Windows. Back then any PC maker that made an IBM compatible PC based on the Intel (and later the PowerPC) microprocessor could run
the OS.

This created a commodity market for the PC and allowed market forces to drive down the price of the IBM compatible PC. The Mac on the other hand was still a PC that was completely controlled by Apple. To this day it means that if you want a Mac and the MacOs, you have to go to Apple and pay whatever they ask for that PC.

Given the fact that the Mac architecture (both hardware and software) is completely controlled by Apple, the environment is very stable. There are very few compatibility issues because there are relatively few permutations of the Mac hardware and software. This is one of the major reasons that people are willing to pay up to 50% more for a Mac today than a PC.

As the market for smart phones heats up over the next few years Apple will continue to market the iPhone the same way they market the Mac. And like the Mac, they will continue the policy of asking the consumer to pay a premium for the Apple name.

Google on the other hand is giving away the Android OS to all who want it without charge. Manufacturers can even add proprietary enhancements to the OS without releasing the source for those enhancements, thus giving them differentiation in the smart phone marketplace. This will contribute to the flood of Android phones in the marketplace with the phone hardware becoming a commodity, much like IBM compatible PC hardware.

The standardization of Android smart phones also has the potential of offering some degree of portability for users. The use of the phone and the applications developed for it will work on multiple phone models from multiple vendors giving the consumer a wider choice of phones to choose from. In a few months when Verizon Wireless comes out with it you can pick up a Nexus One if you don't like the Droid.

This is the beginning of the Android era of smart phones. Within the next three years the Android OS will become the dominant OS in the smart phone market. Apple will still have the iPhone and who knows, maybe by then all the major carriers will offer it on their new 4G, LTE networks.

As I said before, the best days for the iPhone are here and now.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Domain name TheBeautifulGigbit.com... I got it!

You know I really hate having to come up with screen names but I think I kind of like this one. So I decided to try getting the domain name. Hey It hadn't already been grabbed by someone. Cool now I've got the blog and the domain name. I'm going to try to link the domain name up to this blog next week after the domain registration has gone through. Until then, it will most likly take you to my primary domain ComputCafe.com. That's nothing more than a glorified bookmark page for my personal use. But anyway...

Hello World!

Hey who remembers K &R? Don't know what that is? Don't feel bad, just Google it.

Anyway, I created this blog because a friend asked me how to and how much it would cost to set up a blog. There is one he really likes called CalculatedRiskBlog.com and he was interested in trying his hand at building a blog.


Well I've been doing computer programming for 30 years and have been in the thick of the whole internet 'thing' for lack of a better term. And when someone asks me a question like that I either know the answer or know how to get one quickly. And sure enough I saw the blogspot icon pop up on the Firefox tab when I went and looked at CalculatedRiskBlog.com.

I then went to blogspot.com (which redirected me to blogger.com, but so what) and found that it was all free! Great! I sent my friend an email and gave him the good news. Now he is getting up the momentum to get a blog of his own. So I know the next question is something like "Hey I want to do so and so on my new blog. Can I do that?" So I thought I'd best get a first hand look at how this is done and here I am.