KungPowThinking

New York Times reports today that the carriers are finally starting to understand why everyone hates them so much. Talk is that the carriers are making moves to open their networks for software developers in order to make themselves more attractive to consumers, or something like that. As mentioned in the article, a key factor in the decision making process for the carriers is obviously a product of the early success of Apple’s App Store, not to mention the pre-App Store buzz surrounding jail-broken iPhones.

Personally, I think this is barely news-worthy (as in too little too late), and most likely misses the point all together. My take is that the success of iPhone applications has been in spite of the carriers (even AT&T), and that merely opening up the networks for application development is only the first step. As anyone who has worked on designing, developing and marketing mobile applications can attest, the problem Apple solves is much bigger than whether or not software can be developed for phones. Apple’s centralized and extremely consumer oriented approach to mobile software distribution is revolutionary, and I don’t see it’s success being repeated anytime soon. Let’s analyze the current problem:

• There are too many phones and too many platforms in the hands of consumers, and many are difficult to develop on (Apple’s Solution: the iPhone)
• Phone manufacturers (Nokia, Motorola, etc.) pretty much suck, at least as compared to Apple, when it comes to design and development of consumer friendly software (Apple’s Solution: amazing software design and developer tools)
• In most cases software is extremely difficult to install on phones (Apple’s Solution: iTunes already installed on millions of computers Mac and PC alike and the App Store)
• Distribution of applications is either centralized under the carriers themselves or completely decentralized in the hands of the developers. Neither of which is good at it. (Apple’s Solution: take the carriers out of the picture and give the developers a low cost or zero cost distribution channel)

Apple has made significant efforts to solve just about all of these issues and more by providing an end-to-end solution (from developer to consumer). I won’t argue that it’s perfect or that it’s impossible for someone else in the mobile space to reproduce (MS has a good shot). My argument is that it’s revolutionary in the same way the iPod and iTunes were revolutionary. Basically, the formula is similar to why Apple succeeded w/ the iPod and iTunes despite competition from manufacturers like Sony, ancient models for music distribution, and technology inept publishers. My gut feeling is that the mobile phone carriers will succeed in overcoming these hurdles just about as well as their counterparts in the music space - not at all.

So, I bought my iPhone 3G the day it came out. The lines and heat were ridiculous, but I got lucky and was able to cut in line when two of my friends decided to give up, drop out of line, and go home. Even with being able to skip in front of a few hundred people I still waited at least three hours. Here are some of my observations on the phone and the process.

• Waited in line for hours but the activation process took all of 5 minutes. The whole time I was in line I was wondering why the Apple Store had employees standing outside and milling around instead of all hands on deck activating phones. It would have been nice to see them processing requests outside basically walking around with a bag of 3G’s, a tablet (if Apple made a tablet) and a credit card reader selling/activating phones. They could have at least had a VIP line for existing iPhone customers. Oh and when is someone going to build a credit card reader addon and point-of-sale software for the iPhone/Touch?
• It was so hot one of my friends who dropped out of line was absolutely exhausted. Waiting in the sun ruined her weekend.
• Met the CEO of a startup. We talked shop - user experience, how to make content actionable, etc. He’s in closed beta right now so I’ll save commentary on his stuff till a later date.
• I got a black 16gig. I like the plastic better than the metal, and it fits in my pocket better. I just wish Incase would hurry up with their Slider case for it.
• I now have 1700 songs and 1 movie on the phone with an assortment of apps. Oh yea, there is about 3gigs of free space left for all the pictures I don’t take.
• The voice quality and volume is way better. No doubt about it. Although I will say voice gets a wee bit “peachcanny”.
• 3G is a ton faster than Edge. It’s not even close. I’ve actually mistaken my 3G connection for slow wifi in some cases. I know this isn’t the same for everyone, but the coverage in NY isn’t bad. The 3G also has a significant range increase on detecting wifi signals.
• Battery life is about the same. I charge just about every day. I don’t mind because I use the internet and apps on the thing constantly. The only sure-fire battery killers are games like Super Monkey Ball. I’m on wifi most of the time I’m browsing and I think all of my settings are close to default, although I do check email every 15 min.
• Favorite apps so far are: Shazam, Pandora Radio, Twitteriffic, and Urbanspoon.
• Least favorite apps are: Where, Loopt, Wordpress (cause I can’t get it to work), and AIM.
• App updates for Facebook’s app and Pandora have definitely helped.
• Syncing takes forever because it decides to back up the phone every time. I’m sure I can figure out a way to turn this feature off if there is one, but I don’t have to sync nearly as often anymore.
• Some things are slower. It seems like typing has hiccups - doesn’t matter what is being typed or in which app. Contacts are slowish, and every once in a while the sound effects don’t make noise. I am starting to think it has something to do with how I hold my phone and the proximity sensor not the actual phone though.
• It’s crashed four times since I got it. AIM crashed it twice, Super Monkey Ball crashed it once, and Facebook once. No data loss that I know of.

Let’s see. I think that’s all I got right now. If you have any questions post a comment. Oh yea, I definitely like it much better than my previous iPhone, and I’m actually surprised to hear myself say it.