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Apple iPhone and related items (cont.)

editor said:
You have to admire Apple's PR machine and its media fanboys. According to the BBC, the iPhone has sold around 5m phones since launching in June 2007 while the humble Palm Centro - launched in the US four months later - has sold near enough 2m phones.

But if you compared the amount of press coverage, you'd think that the iPhone has outsold the Centro by a factor of twenty to one or something - and the same applies to other successful phones by Nokia, LG etc.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7443543.stm
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Perhaps Palms press department aren't up to scratch? Palm should be on to them saying 'look we've achieved nearly half the sales in less time in the face of an insane amount of coverage for our competitors' etc...
 
tarannau said:
And it's not as though others in the industry (and beyond) don't tend to follow Apple's lead in design either - take the spread of translucent highly coloured electronics after the imac, or white headphones after the ipod.
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They're a good company, but no better or smarter than, say, than Nokia, who have sold infinitely larger amounts of more advanced smartphones with far less press hyperbole.

I'm not sure white coloured cabling or translucent plastic cases are particularly revolutionary. In fact, I'm not even sure that Apple were the first to employ them (e.g. the Handspring Visor Deluxe of 1999 was translucent), although they certainly popularised it to some consumers. But I'm not knocking Apple's excellent design skills.
Kid_Eternity said:
Perhaps Palms press department aren't up to scratch? Palm should be on to them saying 'look we've achieved nearly half the sales in less time in the face of an insane amount of coverage for our competitors' etc...
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Well, they haven't got the vast budget of Apple's $$$$ computing empire to fall back on, although in the States there's tons of press for Palm products.
 
editor said:
Well, they haven't got the vast budget of Apple's $$$$ computing empire to fall back on, although in the States there's tons of press for Palm products.
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Fair comment, but it isn't that hard to knock together a press release in response, fire it off then do a few call backs...
 
Oh come on, what's Palm's press release going to say. Is the angle going to be 'Formerly dominant PIM leader glad to make up some ground. Now the undisputed 3rd choice!'

Bear in mind that Palm may be raising sales with the low-margin Centro, but there's little sight of increasing profit. Palm's continuing to lose money (lost $32 million on decreasing $312 million turnover last year) - discounting to prop up market share's only a short term solution at best. They badly need something new and profit generating.
 
tarannau said:
Oh come on, what's Palm's press release going to say. Is the angle going to be 'Formerly dominant PIM leader glad to make up some ground. Now the undisputed 3rd choice!'

Bear in mind that Palm may be raising sales with the low-margin Centro, but there's little sight of increasing profit. Palm's continuing to lose money (lost $32 million on decreasing $312 million turnover last year) - discounting to prop up market share's is only a short term solution at best. They badly need something new and profit generating.
Click to expand...

'Palm's CEO (or whatever) commenting on the iHype pointed out the success of the Centro'...or 'Palm Centro smashes iPhones in sales'...
 
It's not that much of a success if you have to forego profits in favour of treading water to keep up with the others.

The Centro's doing well, but it's squeezing the last out of a product in decline. It's not much of a PR angle really.
 
Because so many have an iPod, its newsworthy. Without the iPod factor (still a great product), I don't think it would get much press.
 
tarannau said:
IThe Centro's doing well, but it's squeezing the last out of a product in decline. It's not much of a PR angle really.
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You're missing the point, which was about the iPhone contining to garner a wildly disproportionate amount of hype when compared to vastly more successful and genuinely innovative handsets.

I'm not criticising Apple, and I only mentioned the Centro as an example of a phone that has performed extraordinarily well yet received a comparatively microscopic amount of publicity in return.

As for the press angle, it seems that Palm's idea to pitch itself as the first low price, full function smartphone is something that seems to be inspiring Apple to follow suit right now.

And as for low profit margins, it's quite common for a company to seek market traction by underpricing profits on products - which seems to be what Apple is set to do with their next phone!
 
tarannau said:
It's not that much of a success if you have to forego profits in favour of treading water to keep up with the others.

The Centro's doing well, but it's squeezing the last out of a product in decline. It's not much of a PR angle really.
Click to expand...

It actually is, it would gain press because an attack from the head of a company on another usually does (see Mozilla attacking Jobs on sneaking in safari). Also, as the Ed rightly points out it establishes Palm as offering a cheaper but as effective alternative (and perhaps re-positions them within the market).
 
The new iPhone is likely to be subsidised too, so they're no different to Palm or any of the other manufacturers offering low margin phones to excite/entice the market.
. And crucially, the handset will be offered at lower prices - or even for free. Those who sign up for a contract costing £75 a month will be offered the handset for no extra charge, breaking with Apple's earlier attempts to avoid the large subsidies common in the rest of the industry. Elsewhere, the gadget is likely to be subsidised to lower the price, which could drop from £269 to as little as £100
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jun/09/iphone.apple?gusrc=rss&feed=technologyfull
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wwdc2008invite.jpg


Kick off is 5pm our time right?
 
Heh, I like that photoshop :)
Gold star to the most ludicrous interpretation of its meaning!
 
It's an odd phenomenon because it's not as though Apple invented the smartphone or any of its features – touch screen devices have been around for years and lots of mobile phones already had music capabilities on phones. What Apple did was package it -- and market it -- in a way that made it attractive to mainstream consumers.
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There's the point of it all.
 
Kid_Eternity said:
It actually is, it would gain press because an attack from the head of a company on another usually does (see Mozilla attacking Jobs on sneaking in safari). Also, as the Ed rightly points out it establishes Palm as offering a cheaper but as effective alternative (and perhaps re-positions them within the market).
Click to expand...


No it wouldn't. Are Palm really going to gain kudos by shouting loudly that they're still being outsold by Apple and their much more expensive phone, despite Apple having no pedigree in this market sector. It's a piss weak angle of attack, particularly when you drop price to become the bargain basement option in the market.

Palm next OS and phones are crucial. Apple's expanded the market and it's time for them to lay their cards on the table.
 
tarannau said:
No it wouldn't. Are Palm really going to gain kudos by shouting loudly that they're still being outsold by Apple and their much more expensive phone, despite Apple having no pedigree in this market sector.
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I'm not sure if Palm are actually being outsold by the iPhone worldwide to be honest, not that I think it's particularly significant.

Palm are a much, much smaller company than Apple with a zillioneth of their marketing clout. If you're going to compare them to anyone, try Nokia or Samsung.
 
The Lord has arrived!
10:06 am Steve has taken the stage.
10:05 am The lights have dimmed.
10:04 am Crowd still settling, music still playing.
10:02 am Apple employees are still working to get the crowd settled.
10:01 am Al Gore is in the crowd and being shown on the displays.
9:57 am People are continuing to stream into the hall as various classic rock songs play
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And nothing remotely new here:
The video demonstrated searching contacts, which filters contacts as you type.
10:10 am Starting with enterprise. Exchange support out of the box -- push email / contacts / calendars, auto-discovery, global address book, remote wipe.
Click to expand...
 
It'll help sell the iphone to business though. Good to see it.

EDIT: Booooring developer stuff. Come on, get to the gadget porn.
 
tarannau said:
No it wouldn't. Are Palm really going to gain kudos by shouting loudly that they're still being outsold by Apple and their much more expensive phone, despite Apple having no pedigree in this market sector. It's a piss weak angle of attack, particularly when you drop price to become the bargain basement option in the market.

Palm next OS and phones are crucial. Apple's expanded the market and it's time for them to lay their cards on the table.
Click to expand...

You work in pr?
 
Crispy said:
It'll help sell the iphone to business though. Good to see it.

EDIT: Booooring developer stuff. Come on, get to the gadget porn.
Click to expand...

Yeah come on. Suppose if they did the money shot 1st there'd be no-one left at the end. I've been to these dev conferences, key note is boring a fuck.
 
Sunray said:
Yeah come on. Suppose if they did the money shot 1st there'd be no-one left at the end. I've been to these dev conferences, key note is boring a fuck.
Click to expand...

I went to an Apple keynote at the Paris Mac show a few years back. It was like a religious rally. Everytime the Lord Jobs spake forth the crowd went bonkers :D

There weren't any big announcements at that one. No new gadgets. Think it was iLife or something boring like that :D
 
Lisarocket said:
I went to an Apple keynote at the Paris Mac show a few years back. It was like a religious rally. Everytime the Lord Jobs spake forth the crowd went bonkers
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That sounds like my vision of hell, to be honest.

I mean, nowt wrong with lovin' the product, but the idolisation fanboy stuff gives me the heebeegeebees.
 
This is interesting:

10:46 am Both games will be on the App Store at launch for $9.99 each. Next -- Band, written by an independent developer from the UK.

10:44 am Next -- Pangea Software. They have ported 2 games to the iPhone. The first game is Enigmo, which is a physics-based game. Makes advanced use of the touch controls as well as the CPU. The second game is Cro-Mag Rally, which is a 3D racing game -- the iPhone itself is the steering wheel.
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I bet Nintendo is watching this with interest. Games a third of the price of the DS' on a phone with graphics that aren't that far off the DS'? Potential to be big competition in the mobile gaming market for them...
 
editor said:
That sounds like my vision of hell, to be honest.

I mean, nowt wrong with lovin' the product, but the idolisation fanboy stuff gives me the heebeegeebees.
Click to expand...

I knew you'd say something like that Ed :D;)

It was interesting to experience it once...:hmm:
 
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