Tag Archive for 'iTunes'

Apple’s AppStore: Results and the Kill Switch Debacle

Published
by
Ainsworth Boyle
on August 12, 2008
in Industry News
. 0 Comments

Last week, The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article that covered some of the breaking news surrounding Apple’s AppStore and the 3G iPhone. Without a doubt, the initial statistics are impressive: $30 million in sales in the first month and 3 million 3G iPhones sold. I’ve used the AppStore several times, for both free and purchased applications (Tetris and Stagehand), and I am confident I’ll continue to purchase useful applications. I will admit, however, that I’ve cleared out several useless downloads (i.e. flashlight) from the first week with the phone. But amid the great news are several developers who are unhappy with Apple’s ability to remotely disable a program.

Thanks to the AppStore and iPhone OS X 2.0, the iPhone is the next frontier in software development. As I mentioned in my last Blackberry vs. iPhone articlethe system comparison has come down to an OS war. In his latest interview, Steve Job’s added, “Phone differentiation used to be about radios and antennas and things like that. We think, going forward, the phone of the future will be differentiated by software.” (Credit TUAW)

Knowing that the Apple’s iPhone strategy has created a gold mine for powerful mobile applications, why are developers so unhappy with the remote disable feature? It seems like more developers are jumping on the, “It’s a conspiracy!” wagon than the, “That’s smart OS development!” wagon. I was taken back by one blogger assuring this was Apple’s ability to disable all MS applications in one pull. Why would Apple do that?

Have AppStore developers forgotten one of the key reasons people are switching to Apple?! Apple integrates any and all necessary features to ensure the OS cannot be compromised or difficult to use. This is not Apple admitting they have a faulty screening process (we’ll give them a pass on the I Am Rich app); this is Apple protecting the OS that has created legitimate business opportunity for mobile developers (complete with Location Based Services).

This is not Apple’s desire to be able to shut down their competitor’s applications; they don’t need that. Apple is simply trying to avoid destroying the full-potential of mobile apps.

- Ainsworth

MobileMe: Re-Launching the iPhone vs. BlackBerry Debate

Published
by
Ainsworth Boyle
on July 16, 2008
in Industry News
. 1 Comment

When Phil Schiller first introduced MobileMe at WWDC he likened it to “push for the rest of us.” Now that the iPhone supports Exchange, and MobileMe offers a consumer-level solution, the debate of iPhone vs. BlackBerry is back. Many of the complaints I had heard were related to the lackluster e-mail service always loading, and the inability to easily manage junk mail.

MobileMe, the 3G service, and the iPhone 2.0 OS resolves these issues and more. During the first introductory days of the MobileMe service, “Push” was choppy and delayed by several minutes. By the end of the weekend, I was able to erase and re-sync/Push my contacts, calendar, e-mail, and bookmarks. Monday morning, I made a couple of changes using iCal and Address Book and the changes were at my iPhone just a minute later.

But, even before this feature, the largest complaint was not calendar or contact syncing; it was e-mail. If you’re wondering if Apple resolved the junk filter issue, you’ll still be disappointed. They have, however, made a small step by allowing users to easily delete multiple e-mails. The 3G network and Push e-mail have made e-mail faster, with no “loading…” screen, which was an irritating feature of Apple’s “fetch” solution. It’s not perfect yet; I hit a terminal “loading…” screen when I dropped service while opening an e-mail. Compared to iPhone 1.x, it’s night and day.

With Apple on the path to creating a MobileMe service that ousts BlackBerry’s Push service, what more is there left to compare? Keyboard? OS?

With the rumors of BlackBerry’s touch screen Thunder device, it’s even more of a debate of operating systems, and I don’t think BlackBerry is suited for an OS war.

- Ainsworth

See Also:
MobileMe on Wikipedia

My Experience at the 3G iPhone Launch

Published
by
Ainsworth Boyle
on July 11, 2008
in Industry News
. 0 Comments

Last year I made it to the initial iPhone launch. I arrived at a small AT&T store, on Linton Blvd, in Boca Raton, FL, six hours early. I was one of the first 20 people in line and just after 7:30PM I walked out of the store with one of the first iPhones.

This week, I’m on vacation in New York City. Late last night I debated making the trip over to the legendary 5th Avenue Store - I was at that store’s grand opening - but I decided a local AT&T store might be the better bet - I should have remembered AT&T stores sold out last year and Apple stores did not.

This years launch was 8:00AM; I strolled up to AT&T 86th and 3rd street store in New York City at ~8:30. I was about 150 people deep, give or take the handful of people that “ran into friends who happened to be standing in line.”

As many of you know, the activation process was now set to be done on sight. That only worked for the first customer as both AT&T and iTunes (Apple) would crash by 8:15.

As I got to the front of the store, the countdown began: “We have no more 16GBs and only 10 8GBs. We are accepting direct fulfillment.”

At this point, I began running the number of line cutters through my head, realizing I was 11 from the front. No more announcements would come, yet I was invited into the store with the chain closing behind me.

5 minutes later my AT&T salesman was handed an iPhone 3G and told, “That’s the last one.” Alas, I was handed my new iPhone 3G and told that the remaining activation process would have to be done at home using iTunes.

Needless to say, the new phone is sexy… however, iTunes is still struggling through the activation process. Once I’m able to get through the set-up process I’ll be sure to add updates on the MobileMe experience; I know there are a few debates about it’s ability to dethrone BlackBerry.

- Ainsworth

Mobile Marketing and Ideal Product Placement

Published
by
Ainsworth Boyle
on June 5, 2008
in Advertising
. 0 Comments

In every retail store… in every marketing medium… marketers pay a premium to hold the ideal spot.

On the retail shelves at your local Apple store, third-party companies pay top dollar to be at eye-level. On the big-demo iPods plastered across the Apple store walls, artists paid even more to have their album listed on the static iPod screen. And on the box of that lovely music device that will fill the stockings of the rampant content generation… yep… someone paid to be there too.

The plethora of on-pack marketing agreements don’t sit with just the big companies with retail space or pretty boxes designed in California. In fact, the heart of Business 2.0 revolves around target marketing. Catch the eyes and ears of your market and provide them with offers your database knows they want.

It’s no different than the billboards on the highway, or the sponsored Google Ads. Behind all these product placement strategies are studies that show: being in the line of sight of your target market will increase your sales. Of course, these studies were merely supporting the gut-instinct of an innovator years before.

Companies have scrambled to bid on the box of one of the 110 million iPods sold since its release - a box that barely makes it through the first 24 hours of unwrapping. This is all because that lovely album art complete with the artist’s name and current hit single will be in the direct line of sight when that box first enters the recipient’s hands.

Product placement… despite being about the right place at the right time… for a few seconds at best… is a proven science. Imagine having the control to dictate the right place and the right time.

No more analysis for the right street corner… in the right city… at the right time… with the right distributer.  Enter… right here… right now… on a device that no one can ignore: their cell phone.

Could there be a better place than in your consumers pocket… and a better time than right when you want it?

So while some companies are still pushing the same research dollars into the same variable-filled marketing channels, the new-age companies are experiencing viral growth like never before, because there is no better place than everywhere 250 million subscribers are, right when you need them.

The next medium of product placement has arrived… in your future consumers’ pockets.

- Ainsworth

Websites Can’t Save Radio…

Published
by
Ainsworth Boyle
on April 28, 2008
in Radio
. 3 Comments

If radio understood the appeal of the internet, they’d know a great website isn’t the key to the battle to raise revenues.

Despite a growing database of purchased MP3’s, an iPhone, and an in-car iPod cable, I still enjoy listening to the radio. I have several routine drives that I make throughout the work week, and at least two of them are spent using the radio to catch concert news, hear sports updates, or stumble upon a new band. I think of radio like a nice blog, I visit because they offer a mix of opinions and content I can’t find anywhere else (i.e. it can’t be downloaded from iTunes). New music, a pinch of throw-back music, and DJ commentary add a spin that you might find in a podcast, but podcasts don’t have the same feel.

But in a suffocating attempt to leverage new media, radio stations are building content-oriented websites and promoting them on-air to their listeners. This was a great idea when users were listening to radio in the workplace… but with the boom of iTunes, most people who work at a computer aren’t listening to the radio. Instead, radio is slowly being limited to in-car entertainment.

The biggest problem with website-oriented in-car entertainment? No one is by a computer! So why are Radio DJ’s asking their in-car listeners to go search the station website to learn more about an artist, concert, or song? The last thing radio needs to do is push more people to the internet, especially for content better served by a Google search! In the off-chance a consumer remembers to look for the information, the chances of them using the radio website to find it are slim. Sure, there are exceptions, like station specific information, but by the time someone gets to a computer, do they really care? In an society dictated by instant gratification, I doubt it. If listeners are really looking for funny videos or concert clips they’re better off on YouTube… and the listeners know this!
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