Jerry Fahrni: “When our conversation was over and the gentleman had finished his cereal he simply picked up his coffee cup in one hand, his iPad in the other and walked out the door. I suppose that just about sums up the value of utilizing technology in a mobile form factor.”
This is how I see an iPad being useful. It’s really a personalized digital news paper. Grandpa used to sit at the table eating breakfast, reading the news paper. Now we do that with the iPad.
Nokia Plan B: “We are a group of nine young Nokia shareholders. All of us have worked with Nokia in different capacities in the past. We plan to challenge the company’s strategy and partnership with Microsoft in the next Annual General Meeting scheduled for May 3, 2011.”
Based on a preview of MeeGo, Plan B doesn’t look so good.
Loic Le Meur: “How do you think it will evolve? One platform will win? When html5 is good enough apps will die and web based on all devices will win? How many appstores will we have to register our app to?”
I say ‘No’ because I don’t think a web browser can beat a native application. The web is definitely a least common denominator way to reach an audience and give them a taste of what’s possible, but if you want a rich, and deep, experience nothing beats native. Most mobile applications tend to be fairly shallow, not all, but most. That leads to the question Loic is posing. His products are fairly shallow (that’s not an insult, just an observation) so an HTML 5 version may be plenty “good enough” to satisfy his users.
I for one would go off and write a native app because that’s how I roll. I’m a native snob.
Computer World: “IDG News Service – Nokia on Sunday hinted that Microsoft essentially won a bidding war against Google to supply software to the world’s largest handset maker and that the software giant agreed to pay “billions†of dollars for the privilege.”
That explains a lot.
I was preparing to write a post based on some tweets by Robert Scoble. I thought Nokia had kind of lost their minds based on those tweets. They definitely have the talent to make Android do what they want, it would take time to do it, but they could do it. If Microsoft is supplying them custom builds of Windows Phone that will take time as well.
Microsoft has essentially bought a hardware company to help push Windows Phone 7. Not bad, not bad at all. If this works, and Nokia can patch up the disaster this deal caused internally, it could help push Windows Phone into competition with the iPhone and Android.
It could happen.
Mike Rundle: “Because the future of mobile hardware design is for it to fade away completely and have the focus be the OS and apps it runs.”
Yes, software is king. It’s good to be the king.
Scobleizer: “What is it? The smallest little phone I’ve ever seen. It’s like a large pebble in your hand. Smooth and really nice to hold.”
One would hope they have more to offer than a small phone, right? What about the competitor to the iPhone and the plethora of Android devices?
Guess we’ll find out today, noon Pacific.
Darn, the Pre 2 looks pretty darned amazing.
gdgt: “It’s amazing to see how many Nokia fanboys are in gaping disbelief over Stephen Elop’s “burning platform” memo. Despite confirmation by the BBC and other outlets that it’s real, guys like Tomi Ahonien are still in complete freaking denial. (He first claimed it was a hoax, now he thinks that the memo could be “taken out of context”. Nice Try.)”
Go read the memo from the CEO. It’s amazing and it’s what a CEO should do. He just kicked each and every one of his employees in the back side and said “Let’s get moving, we’re getting our butts handed to us!”
Nokia had a prime opportunity a couple of years ago. They should have purchased Palm.
Mashable: “If you’re a mobile operator, it’s good to have an iPhone in your inventory. This was proven Thursday as Verizon’s first day of iPhone 4 pre-orders turned out to be the most successful first day of sales in the history of the company.”
I’d imagine that will leave the Apply nay sayers a bit perturbed. The big question for Verizon: will the network hold up under the new load?
Fortune: “But now that Verizon (VZ) has the iPhone, many Americans will be taking a closer look at how the rate plans stack up. To help them choose, the cost-saving service BillShrink has produced a handy chart — copied in full below the fold — of the various plans offered by the four major U.S. carriers.”
Nice look at your options on the different carriers. They’re all pretty close, but Sprint and T-Mobile are pushing hard for your business. No iPhones, but plenty of really nice Android phones.
Fortune: “As I’ve stated before (and I still can’t understand how they do this) Virgin, who use Sprint’s(S) very solid nationwide 3G network, blow them all away by a long shot. For $25 a month (that’s AFTER tax) unlimited data and text, 300 anytime minutes. $40/month bumps you up to 1200 anytime minutes and $60 is unlimited minutes.”
This is pretty darned amazing. $25.00 for 300 minutes with UNLIMITED text and data? Makes me go hmmmmm. Especially if you can get a nice Android phone with tethering.
AppsLab: “But why not get a keyboard to attach to your tablet? Yeah, let’s replace that bulky laptop with a skinny tablet and a bag full of accessories. Reminds me of the Sony Vaio I used in 2001; all the cords and accessories I needed to make it useful outweighed the actual laptop.”
This is the same sort of stuff people said about computers when the Internet became popular. We still have computers. I don’t know about you but to do my day job I’d be hard pressed to replace my eight core beast with a tablet, or iPad. I still need computing power to get my job done. Heck, I still need a real computer to do iOS work. I see rows and rows of computers at work. The place the tablet, or iPad, will be handy is in your home. It’s a casual computing device. Much better suited for consumption than creation.
tap tap tap: In the end, I think that both Apple’s and Google’s models will thrive and there won’t be a clear-cut winner. They’re ultimately two completely different markets, targeted toward two different kinds of users… and two different kinds of developers.
That’s a good way to look at it. There are those of us completely sold out to iOS and there are those sold out to Android.
We all win.