| Apple - the good & the bad The good:
»news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20080811/tc_nf/61264
A month after Apple launched its App Store online, the iPhone-maker is reporting eye-popping results.
Users have downloaded more than 60 million programs for the iPhone, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Even though most of those applications are free, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told the Journal his company sold an average of $1 million a day in applications. That's a whopping $30 million in the first month.
Some quick math suggests Apple could haul in at least $360 million a year with its latest revenue stream if sales continue at this pace. Apple keeps only 30 percent of the revenues, which the company says covers its administration costs. Developers keep the remaining 70 percent.
"Phone differentiation used to be about radios and antennas and things like that," Jobs told the Journal. "We think, going forward, the phone of the future will be differentiated by software." Android better get moving or Apple & the iPhone will eat its lunch.
The bad:
»news.cnet.com/8301-13953_3-10013···1_3-0-20
Guest post: Jean-Louis Gassée looks into Apple's MobileMe launch misfire and whether Apple can run a worldwide wireless data synchronization service for tens of millions of users. The essay was originally posted on Monday Note.
As Apple found out last month with the MobileMe launch misfires, the lofty promise of "Exchange for the rest of us" translated into a user experience that was neither simple nor easy--in a highly visible way. Four weeks later, the service appears stable but doubts linger: is Apple able to run a worldwide wireless data synchronization service for tens of millions of users?
What happened and what does it mean for MobileMe's future?
Just as it has taken years for RIM (founded in 1984), the BlackBerry (launched in 1999) creators to polish what is the best-selling synchronized smartphone. Details, details and more subtle mistakes and special cases found and fixed. The BlackBerry got its stardom from truly delivering the Simple, Easy, Invisible proposition referred to in the beginning of this essay.
MobileMe aspires to deliver a similarly invisible level of synchronization for people who don't have an Exchange server, hence the "Exchange for the rest if us" slogan. But seeing the launch glitches, I wonder how many people at Apple stooped to using a BlackBerry with an Exchange account. Apple has a long way to go before they can challenge the Blackberry push data model.
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EPS
join:2008-02-13
Hingham, MA
1 edit | The calculations in the first article seem a bit off... why would you assume that App Store sales would continue at the current rate indefinitely? Everything has a greater rate of purchase at the beginning, but it will slow down...
And, Apple also revealed it can kill any App remotely if it needs to... Apple needs to make up its mind about the iPhone platform. Is it really an open platform for developers with the App Store just facilitating the sale, or something controlled by Apple to ensure a quality user experience, with the consequences thereof? Right now it seems to have the worst of both worlds, with things like the "I Am Rich" app... there's no reason this shouldn't be allowed in an open environment, if people want to waste their money, well they know what they're doing. (They deserv it!) But on the other hand, if Apple wants to ensure quality, a monumentally expensive yet useless shiny should be the first thing to get denied. |
 DogfatherPremium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Apple can kill any app remotely incase a malicious app gets through the screening process into the app store.
If they couldn't, and something did get through people would bitch that Apple should be able to remotely wipe an app it sells through the store. |
