In the past month we have seen the annual Macworld trade show. I spent a day on the show floor, and it is kind of devolving into iPodworld. The big news of course was the iPhone, revealed well ahead of schedule and not universally well received. I want one, but critics point out that the marketplace is very crowded, the technology moves very fast and while the iPhone looks very glam and sexy in the US marketplace, other regions like Japan are already way ahead of where Apple will be six months from now. I think there is a big difference between the phone market and the PC market, where Apple has operated so far. In the PC marketplace, there is virtually no competition. There is one monopolist, Microsoft, who has the marketplace locked up and dictates progress or lack thereof. Then there is Apple, which is trying to carve out a niche for itself in this Microsoft-owned arena, and does so with some success by creating compelling products that play strongly in some areas (media, the home) which allows them to largely ignore the areas where Microsoft is most deeply entrenched (cubicle land, etc.).
In mobile phones, the situation is entirely different. There is no market incumbent that stifles innovation, but a host of players who compete on a fairly level playing field. There’s Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, LG, Samsung, Siemens, Pantech, Sagem, RIM, Palm, … and those are just the players operating in North America. They are responsible for an incessant cavalcade of flip phones, smart phones, camera phones, music phones, even phones on which you can make and receive calls. The existence of several local markets across the world?the USA, Japan, every European country?with their own culture, requirements and local phone companies allows for a regional variation in phone features, so technologies can mature on a relatively small scale. There is actual competition in this market, which fosters actual choice for the consumer and makes it much more interesting to watch than the PC market. Seeing Apple enter this melee is even more interesting.
Bill Gates flew off the handle, and no one was there to stop him. Many bits have been spilled over the utterly uncritical interview in Newsweek, and it has been soundly refuted. ‘Nuff said.
Apple’s new I’m a Mac, I’m a PC ad pokes fun at what is supposed to be a Security feature in Vista: the fact you have to approve certain actions taken by programs running on Vista that could change or reconfigure your PC. I haven’t used Vista myself but, as John Welch noted in Information Week, Vista doesn’t actually tell you what it is trying to have you approve, and approving doesn’t require anything in the way of authentication. It’s just an ‘Allow, Cancel’ dialog box that anyone who walks up to your PC could click. Any other OS at least requires you to enter your password when authenticating for potentially PC-altering stuff. The ad is the best one yet in the Mac vs. PC series.
