There seems to be mass confusion as to how an “alternative” iPad Touchscreen Tablet will do.

Part of this perception is based on the “success” of the Android OS. If you simply use market share as an objective, then Android can be called a success. Never mind that Google makes very little return since it’s “free.” Even the manufacturers have made very little profit as it’s simply another nearly nameless-faceless phone. A few hundred thousand sell at full price (with a contract) but very soon, its price falls to BOGO … this is a typical ad for Android phones. The full range of choices from $29 to $199.

Of course, in the US, Android is pretty the default OS of choice on Verizon. They only sell Android or RIM phones.

And for Verizon, which OS are you going to go with? There is only one free phone OS – Android plus you get to ride on Google’s name recognition. Why pay when there’s free?

But the main problem with Android is that as its free – no two Android phones have the same OS Look & Feel. In fact, there are literally NO TWO ANDROID PHONES from the same manufacturer that run the same OS and LOOK SLIGHTLY TO VASTLY DIFFERENT.

Each Android phone runs a DIFFERENT Android OS, a different manufacturer look and UI and in many cases, the telco then ADDS another UI look & feel.

It’s no wonder that LG, Samsung (and Nokia with their own various OSes) sell 400 million phones while Apple is selling 17 million phones but YET Apple makes MORE MONEY than ALL of THEM COMBINED.

(From Fortune)

And this is BEFORE the iPhone 4 which was released in June 2010.

What does this mean when Apple is only 3% of the market but makes 39% of the profits?

It means CONSUMERS are willing to pay MUCH MORE for an iPhone. Even if you believe that a massive swath of people are “fooled” into buying the iPhone, clearly it’s working but more importantly, it means there is ONLY one brand & phone worth MUCH MORE.

The iPhone is ONE unified OS. Like it, love, hate it – you learn it once and you can use an iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch and iPad.

No Android, Blackberry, WIN, Palm, Symbian, or Java phone can make that claim.

EVERY PHONE has a different OS look, feel and UI.

And if you can use iTunes (and 160 million people do), you know how to sync and buy media for EVERY iOS Device.

No such PC or Mac application for Android, Blackberry, WIN, Palm, Symbian, or Java phones that is unified and a constant.

So, sure, Android phones are an acceptable OS – like going from the Nokia 8700 to the Moto RAZR to the Blackberry – you just have to learn that OS, no biggie – and the norm that everyone just accepted. Generally, going from one to another meant you had to spend less time learning the new OS – one reason for the Blackberry success. It’s like the last one.

And this was the norm that was accepted until Apple launched the iPhone.

Now, there is the iPhone and there is the rest.

Some people do not like the iPhone, do not like Apple, are simply contrarians, do not wish to spend $199 or $299 on a phone with a contract or of course, in the US – unwilling to switch to AT&T or not willing to switch from Verizon – so of course, they choose an Apple competitor but as the profit chart shows, clearly, they are NOT willing to pay as much for a non-iPhone.

So, where does this leave the Android-Blackberry-WIN tablet market?

In the bottom bucket.

The iPad is established as the best tablet. Most critics who thought they’d hate it like it or even love it.

In addition to the Apple name, the iPad also has the iTunes ecosystem that most people in the market know – they know that by plugging it in, they can transfer all their music, movies, tv shows, and now books.

It’s a known, liked and loved.

That is why there is/was a market for the iPad. We like, love our iPhone & ipods – yes, it would be great to have a bigger screen and we trust Apple to deliver.

In today’s society, if you work and want to be a part of society, it’s expected you have a cell phone. You don’t have to like it and you may not like being reachable and tethered by that’s society today (and that extends to about 80% of the 6 billion on Earth) so for those who do not care – if you have to choose a phone, you might just choose the cheapest like that $29 Android phone in the Best Buy ad. Again, clearly, iPhone buyers are willing to spend the most – all other makes, OS or telco choices – not so much.

So, why would they even buy a tablet?

The vast majority of non-Apple OS buyers want a phone – do they want more? In other words – do they even want a tablet? If they were only willing to pay as little as possible for the phone version, are they even a viable market for a tablet?

Blackberry – beyond the reason that their company buys their phone for them, most choose the Blackberry because it has a keyboard and the email just works. Has anyone outside of RIM ever said – what a GREAT OS – I just wish it were much larger. After 4 years, RIM still has fewer than 10,000 apps in their app store – clearly, buying apps is not high on the list – nor is buying music or watching videos high on Blackberry buyers reasonings?

Will a few thousand buy a Blackberry tablet, sure, of course but who choose among the mass audience will willingly pay $400-$1,000 for a Blackberry OS large version – to read email in a larger format? With a “real” keyboard?

Or some rumors are that it will require being tethered to a Blackberry phone – so will you continue to type on the Blackberry but read it on the tablet? And if after 10 years, RIM can barely create a functioned all-around OS for their smartphone, in the last year, they figured out how to upsize their OS so it’s better than Apple’s iPad?

And create an ecosystem of upsized apps, a music store, a TV store, a movie store and a bookstore? (Ok, the Kindle app would work …) and how many Blackberry tablet apps will there be available if after years, there are less than 10,000 for the regular Blackberry?

Show me the market.

And same but different with the Android.

The biggest fans of the Android OS are Linux fans, Apple haters, contrarians and DIY hackers (in the good programming sense).

What is the one thing that binds them together?

The belief that hardware is just components. Just parts.

Why are there no high end netbooks? Because they believe a laptop should cost around $300 – why don’t netbook sellers cram the fastest processor, SSD drives or other exotic hardware in there? NO SALES.

This will be true of Android tablets fanatics.

First, they believe iPads are overpriced so it can’t be priced anywhere near the iPad.

And with 100 (?) Android competitors coming … we already know that every tablet will look and operate different – from size to screen resolution to the OS version to it UI look & feel … how will they compete?

ON PRICE.

But unlike a cell phone where you pretty have to buy one – no one really needs a tablet.

So, why would you buy an Android one?

If you’re a Linux fan, an Apple hater or a hacker programmer, you might want one but again, NOT a necessity – what is your criteria – specs and price – EXACTLY the same as the netbook or PC – and if they believe a $499 iPad is overpriced, that does not leave much room for Android tablet sellers. So, the high price benchmark is $499 or maybe $399 by next year as the iPad will either get a price drop or much better specs.

And iTunes represents all they hate – EASE OF USE IN BUYING. This is an audience that believes in their own formats (OGG, DIVX, FLAC, PDF Books, etc, etc …) so what they want is the complete opposite of the iPad – they want a tablet they can rip apart and that’s cheap – they will load their formats. But you just have to look at the PC netbook market. Only low end and low margin netbooks sell. Brands don’t matter. The OS doesn’t even matter. WIN or Linux is all the same. This is the Android market buyers. It’s not Lincoln versus BMW, it’s bottled water versus the guy with 45 rain barrels in his backyard.

The mass market on the other hand knows what the iPad is and represents – any other branded OS is a compromise … unlike a phone where you might rationalize saving $200 bucks because you’re not going to “play games,” but you still need to buy a phone.

Buying a tablet is optional. You are a) in in or out and then b) If you have decided you want a tablet, which one is branded as ‘the best?’ while the others choices are “not an iPad” … and what criteria will these buyers choose? PRICE.

Google has admited the Android OS will not scale up at this point. (CNET).

How many more iterations before it becomes stable to upsize and unlike Apple, they have no idea what the specs are for Android sellers – it could anywhere from 4″ to 15″ and could be anything from LED to some exotic choice …

The same time MS releases a working WIN portable OS?

The Tablet market will actually more closely resemble the iPod market.

Apple will hold 70-75% of the market and maybe 85% of the profits.

Android tablets, WIN tablets, Palm-HP, Nokia and RIM will scrape by selling a random series of bargain hunter-low margin choices … just as you can buy a $69 ipod knockoff … there will plenty of low margin-low end choices.

Now things could change in 4 years but for Apple, the next 4 years, it’s clear sailing for Apple.

Of course, the great thing about the iPhone is after your contract is up, you can simply turn on WIFI and AIRPLANE mode and you have a “free” iPod Touch that plays any video, any music and any app but if you decide to pass it on or re-sell it, here’s how to clean and wipe your iPhone.

THE FAMILY PASS ALONG

Passing along to a family member is the easiest. You just have to “surface” wipe out your data since you’re not particularly worried about anyone cracking open the hard drive to unearth secret data.

If this person shares your computer login and everything resides in the same iTunes account – then it’s the simplest.

First question involves your PHOTO ALBUMS. Same photos, different photos? make or modify the Photo Albums you want to load (if you’re going to load them all, then, you’re set).

Now launch iTunes.

RENAME the iPhone under DEVICES in iTunes.

Then just start manually making changes in iTunes with each TAB. Sync which APPS? Calendar sync? Bookmarks?

The only other thing you have to do is go in the MAIL setting on the iPhone, select each mail account, scroll down to the bottom and tap DELETE ACCOUNT.

Or if you have similar accounts (Gmail, ISP email, etc … it might be easier just to modify-update settings to your new user than wiping everything clean since you have to input EVERYTHING in again and if it’s working, might not want to go too far as the email settings are the wonkiest so why do all that work when you are changing a little info in email?).

But if you want to wipe, then if you have multiple mail accounts, repeat with each account.

Then SYNC and manually modify the iPhone until it’s all yours.

Now, if you’re switching to a new login user but in the same family, you can simply reset the iPhone to the “beginning.”

Tap the RESET button at the bottom of GENERAL.

It will ask you if you want to be certain that you want to wipe the phone entirely.

It will ask you TWICE and inform you that it will take 2 hours. Most likely, it will take about 45 minutes but keep that in mind.

This will wipe the phone entirely and resets it to the iPhone as if it were out of the box. Again, this is a scary setting so if you’re passing to a family member, it might be less scary just to manually adjust things. For instance, if you have lots of photos in your camera roll, run iPhoto first, after you drag your camera roll to an album (new or old) it will ask if you want to delete the originals in the iPhone so here’s your chance to clean off the iPhone in one swipe but you’ll have double saved all the photos just in case).

You will spend a little more time futzing with the settings and files but you do not lose the iPhone for an hour while it’s deleting everything AND if the FIRST window that requires your iPhone to “reactivate” frightens you a little.

SELLING PHONE TO FRIEND

If you’re passing the iPhone/selling the phone to a friend and you’re not too worried about them cracking it open to peer at any files you might have erased.

Go to GENERAL and scroll to RESET.

Click YES and YES and in about an hour, you’ll be presented with a “unactivated” iPhone. When they plug into their iTunes, they will start from scratch to restart with a ‘Clean” iPhone.

The iPhone has been wiped clean – no apps, no movies, no email, etc, etc … in theory, a skilled iPhone guy could “unlock” the phone and see remnants of files but again, you should know your friend and if you think they might do this and whether you care …  so if you want the most secure method, read on.

STRANGER RESELLING

If you are re-selling to a stranger or even to a friend but you’d rather they cannot uncover anything – and want the cleanest way – here goes – it will take you about an hour of hands on work.

Plug into iTunes as you normally would.

Starting from the furthest right – start “unsyncing” files and settings.

Now, select MANUALLY SYNC Music & Video. It ask you if you want to sync now – it will uncouple and erase most of the media from your iPhone. Don’t worry, everything is still in your LIBRARY in iTunes, it’s only erased from your iPhone. (well, technically, not erased, just ‘covered up,’ hence all the extra work).

Continue unsyncing through the tabs.

You should see at the bottom of iTunes you have much more space on your iPhone.

Once it has finished “syncing,” (or unsyncing as the actual case), then manually look through your phone to make sure the photo albums and photo rolls are empty. If not, you can manually erase your photo roll photos or uncheck the photo albums and SYNC again.

Then begin DELETING your email accounts (see above).

You should find your iPhone looks pretty much like new – only the Apple apps, no photos, no bookmarks, etc …

Now, you want to re-write over the EMPTY SPACE on your iPhone so if someone decides to “recover” files on your iPhone, they cannot find the remnants of your email, photos, etc, etc … if you don’t have large movie files (don’t use movie files you bought from iTunes – it jas your email and account name embedded in there) … just start dragging into your iPhone (now you have set to manually manage music & movies, you can do this) … just rename the movie to keep loading it. If you don’t have large movie files, grab a CD and rip it to AIFF. This is the the largest lossless setting – each minute is about a GB so if you have a 16 GB iPhone, you only need about 16 minutes of music – though you really only need about 14 minutes of music. You probably don’t need to fill your iPhone to the absolute max but you can if you want to.

Now, drag these AIFF music files in and you can try and get it to as close to 16 GB as possible.

Now, when done, (this might take 45 minutes but you can walk away now).

SYNC and then remove iPhone when iTunes says it’s ok to.

Now, on the iPhone, scroll to GENERAL, TAP and select RESET. Tap YES & YES.

It will take 45 minutes to wipe but again, you only have to check it when it’s done.

Now, take the SIM tool and remove your SIM card.

Close and you have a clean iPhone.

Why did you load 8 or 16 GB of movies and/or music and THEN erase it all anyway?

Because now if they hack to view and “restore” files on your iPhone hard drive, all they will find are possible remnants of movies and a giant music file.

It’s NOT overkill if you sell to a stranger. It is a hassle but this is the safest way as of now.

But again, if it’s just to a family member or to a trusted friend, you can either just wipe it manually or wipe it via RESET but don’t have to rewrite over all your files.

Or just fill it with music and movies and use it at work as an iPod Touch

This ad pretty shows and tells you what Android is and isn’t …

It is the new Symbian. No two Android phone looks or operates the same.

There’s nothing wrong with that – Android is a fine replacement for the Symbian OS for telcos and handset makers. It’s free, it’s easy for them to layer an OS-skin on top of it and it comes with free association with Google.

But it is an OS that users have to relearn when they move onto the next Android phone … which is why 30% of Android users will likely move on (or is it 80%) with their next smartphone purchase while only 5% of iPhone users will switch.

But that’s the game plan all along. Google knew that it was sketchy that the Symbian group would include Google search on mobile going forward. They were unsure with Palm hedging their bets with WIN Mobile OS (obviously they knew WIN Mobile was not going to make Google the keeper search). Blackberry was an uncertainty and Apple could drop kick them at any time and with Google learning just how big the market was going to be by sitting in Apple’s board meetings, they figured the best way to assure their Google search bar inclusion was to give away a free OS. So, Google could care less that no two Android has the same UI or that any telco, handset maker could layer on their own skin and/or that any user could do so also – as long as the Google search is a PERMANENT FIXTURE, the rest they could care less about … just as now, they don’t care about net neutrality for wireless since they have all the telcos onboard in the US (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint & T-Mobile). This is why there is a limit on the number of apps and very little security – their ONLY concern is whether the search bar works, the rest – fix it yourself or switch to another Android phone.

That is why Android’s market share is NOT translating in app sales or even profits for the handset makers … as GigaOm notes, Apple & RIM Suck Up ALL THE PROFITS. Because it’s a FREE OS and it serves the one purpose for Google – the search bar works? DONE.

Note that Google calls it ‘activations’ and NOT sales because BUY ONE GET ONE is really not sales, it’s a giveaway and again, all that Google cares about. As long as you use the included GOOGLE APPS, that’s ALL the storage you need. They make nothing from APPS, they don’t even run the stores – can you even transfer purchased APPS from HTC’s Android phone to another brand Android phone?

So, unlike Apple who clears hundreds of dollars per iPhone sold, Google makes a few dollars on search so the could care less about anything else – it makes them no money. So, market share for Android means nothing compared to the iPhone. Market share for the iPhone means quarterly revenue for Apple, visits to the Apple store and iTunes revenue.

Android market share means another phone has the Google search bar and everytime you click on an ad or sponsored link Google makes a few pennies.

This is the difference between tap water market share and Aquafina market share or in this case, pennies to @$400 PER PHONE sold. That is the Pacific Ocean of revenue volume difference.

Buying an iPhone means one OS that stays the same. Sure, you get added features with each new phone but the HOME BUTTON is in the exact same place with each iPhone. Everyone syncs with iTunes and you know the iTunes store with gift cards available everywhere.

This fact is branded with EVERY iPhone product photo, from the first to now, the OS is clearly the same & seen EVERYWHERE and EVERYTIME.

Android promises nothing – the Google search bar isn’t even in the same place from phone to phone, again, nothing really wrong with it but the customers you get are NOT THE SAME. As in the photo above, there are no two Android phone screens the same. It promises the same old, same old – buy a new phone, learn a new OS.

The market has splintered into three groups. Apple will own the high-end revenue smartphone market where every year or two, users upgrade for $299 (with telco subsidies) – probably around 65%. RIM will run a distant second here with 20%. And Android, Symbian, WIN & Palm will share the remainder 15% of the high revenue consumer smartphone market.

RIM will still hold the high water market in the enterprise market – maybe with 45% of the market, Apple will get about 35% of this market and the others splitting the remaining 20% of this market.

Android and Symbian will duke it out in the non-loyal, low-end smartphone market where people are willing to trade price for a new OS everytime. They are used to it when they switch from Moto to Nokia to LG to HTC so it’s nothing new. They will buy by ‘specs’ and price and switch again in 6 months. This is the BOGO at $99 and get one free market and seemingly competitive as the 10 others will tussle it out for people willing to switch for a few dollars. As the GigaOm chart notes, there’s growth and revenue but NO profits compared to Apple and less so to RIM.

So, at the end of the day, while Apple won’t be the market share leader, but as they already are now – they are & will be the REVENUE and PROFIT leader of the smartphone market. They will get 70% of the revenue and profit leaving the other 5 to fight over the remaining 30% of the REVENUE … unlike the MP3-DAP market where market share=profits/revenue, the smartphone market is split in where the profits and revenue is one market and the other market is the one with just market share … you know where Apple is going … but Google is a one-trick pony in search only and can’t see much else … as long as their own search bar & YouTube is protected.

Too often now, the reviews for Android phones tend to be very superficial – they play with a pre-loaded review phone for a few hours, they tap a few screens, an app loads, they cue up a movie already on the phone, they surf a few sites, etc, etc… and call it an “iPhone killer.”

Which is all fine for them – they got an early review phone to play with and most importantly, there are a lot more companies involved with Android so they can sell a lot more ads. There’s very little financial interest for mobile phone review sites to do a more thorough review since a real life comparison would point in favor to the iPhone. Of course, it’s hardly shocking since the web review you just read is free and they have to sell ads and what’s the point of possibly annoying dozens of Android companies they can sell ads to?

It’s not that the Android phones are not fine and functional choices but they are not iPhones no matter how much the first two screens you encounter make it look like an iPhone. NOTHING WRONG with that but just know you get what you pay for. That’s why an iPhone costs $199 with a contract while the Android phone is BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE.

But it all starts with the basic philosophy of why they exist.

Apple built the iPhone to extend their world class hardware, software & OS-UI design to a phone.

There is very little dispute that if you were to name a company that knows user interface design AND for consumer electronics, who does not put Apple at the top of that heap?

So, why is there a Google Android phone?

NOT for the reasons why Apple exists and sells things.

Google built the Android OS and gives it away for FREE because they wanted to be assured of having Google Search in the Search bar on your phone.

That is the vast difference.

Google realized the next generation of web users would be mobile and even though Google is.was the default search engine on the iPhone, Apple could switch them out and or the then current main competing OSes did not have to offer Google as the main search choice (Symbian, RIM & especially WIN Mobile).

And just offering Google just as a mobile search option meant nothing since it would easy to swap out – so what better way to predict the future than by helping make it and of course, since they had no experience with an OS, let alone a mobile OS – what better way to get companies on board than offering it up for free … so what is the one thing you cannot change on the Android OS – your search engine.

The rest, sure, Android will look like what every other phone looks like out there but like most of Google’s features that are a mile wide, it’s about 5″ deep … so the Android lists a lot of features but many features require several more steps or for instance, if your iPhone can upgrade to the latest OS? Just click on day of release like yesterday’s release of iOS4 – Android users? You have to wait until your telco approves – in some phones, that’s been over a year … yes, you can ‘root’ your Android phone but what is easier? One click or learning a programming language to upgrade your phone? And for the handset makers and telco, it is “better” than what they had before AND they get to gloom onto being associated with Google.

Google is still the best search engine but Android is merely functional … and design? Um, not so much … clearly not a strong suit of Google – just look at their ‘more’ page … would it kill them to have the icons that looked like they came from the same family instead of ones in different scale, shading and details?

Or the Android Market on the web (you can access it through your phone also).

I have seen trojan malware sites designed with more effort. But this is the effort Google is giving the Android end user.

Again, it’s just a different philosophy. Google is only interested in making sure Google Search is available on any many devices as possible. That’s why the OS is free and why handset makers like it – every other programming language either costs money or funds their competitor so Android being free is perfect and trading off for a locked-in Google Search bar is a worthwhile trade … but for the end user, you get what you pay for. It’s functional and it has features but when you look more closely at the features, they’re not iPhone-worthy …

The storefront is just not worth Google’s effort nor do they care very much either way. They list apps because Apple does but they have never announced how many have been sold or downloaded because it does NOT affect their Internet Search … in fact, even Android users thought it was puzzling that until the 3rd release of the Android OS, there was no UNIVERSAL SEARCH on the phone – only an Internet Google Search … again, Google is ONLY interested in that you search or click on ad links – the rest are just ‘there’ and it shows from the OS … but even Google is realizing the Android OS is getting shabbier and shabbier as different handset makes make their own layer on top of Android to fix problems or missing features …

As quoted, ”Google is focusing the bulk of its (future) efforts on the user experience … And they want to get the Android experience closer to the iPhone.”

So, Android OS is still a work in progress – and a fine phone OS for mobile phone tinkerers. You can mess around with its programming as you like – which is great for DIYers but for those who simply want to use a mobile phone that is robust, tested and built by a company building OSes for 35 years – the iPhone is a finished product.

You can also view this chart at a larger size by opening it in a new tab window.

To maintain formatting, the above is a JPEG file with its url links as graphics. They are listed in ordering for copying and pasting for detailed reading and info source.

http://bit.ly/6j6MXA

http://bit.ly/auZafs

http://bit.ly/5ZVGxr

http://bit.ly/cq9WJd

http://bit.ly/a83myF

http://bit.ly/9oikul

http://bit.ly/cF7XWW

http://nyti.ms/bcoTzF

http://bit.ly/cbEGlr

http://bit.ly/9V57rI

http://tcrn.ch/aCAm78

So, remember, when they tout market share of the Android versus the iPhone, it’s not much of comparison, because one is a free OS designed to push Google Search on as many discounted devices as possible while the other is a fully functional world class design of hardware, software and user interface … that is the difference. It is like comparing the market share of a water fountain to a 25 year old Bordeaux.

Some aspects of the story seem lost in the haze of what really happened because somewhere along the line we’re all presuming Gizmodo is telling the truth – the whole truth but O RLY?

First, the initial foundation of this is an AUTHORIZED Apple employee takes his test phone with him has a few drinks – and forgets the phone.

Now some people think this is an Apple PR stunt. An Apple PR stunt is sending an email with a photo of Steve Jobs and the time and place. People will get on a 22-hour flight. Apple does not need to manufacturer PR. Apple is one of the FEW companies that an EMAIL can get people speculating on what’s next and have people eager to hear. With previous MacWorld, some people would pay thousands of dollars to have the Keynote invite included with their ticket.

This as a PR stunt makes no sense because what is the logical sequence?

If you find a phone or a wallet in a bar – what do you do? Tuck it in your pocket? No, 95% of the people gives it to the hostess or a bartender. A friend of mine once found a set of Ferrari car keys, was that a PR stunt in hopes a random person woudl take the new 599 for a spin to write a blog post?

OF COURSE NOT.

This PR scenario is only plausible with a tiny company – for instance, the JooJoo tablet, that would be plausible to seed it – but only if you have a pretend drunk shout, “I work for Apple and I have this lousy new iPhone prototype!” and then pass out.

This “PR stunt” would require all of this scenrio to play out to work:

A dishonest person finds the phone.

A dishonest person has the where with all to understand it’s a 4G phone disguised as a 3G phone.

Otherwise, you leave a phone, people ask around – then the employee tosses it into lost & ground with 15 other phones, a netbook and clothing.

It’s not even 1992 where you might sneak in a “free” long distance phone call. 95% would not have given it a second glance.

Supposedly he sat around a while waiting for the guy to come back (according to Gizmodo) … was he hoping to date the Apple engineer? Was he hoping to get a reward? But while playing with the phone, he realizes it’s not like his iPhone.

The gears in his head starts spinning. Again, you find a phone, you don’t turn it into anyone – you hope to get a reward or meet the guy but then you realize it’s a prototype …

His next thought? eBay? Craigslist?

SO HE LEAVES the bar with the phone – by law, this is considered THEFT.

He takes it home and CRACKS IT OPEN.

Was he hoping there was contact info tucked inside the casing?

So, you don’t have a problem with any of this?

He realizes he probably can’t sell it – but maybe he can get one of the gadget blogs to pay him something for it. So he snaps some pics and sends them off. They run them but of course, it could all be a Photoshop job so they want proof.

Now, here’s where Gizmodo’s role becomes murky? Did they say they wanted to see and examine it before paying him for photos and he (iPhone finder guy) name a price? Did Gizmodo say we want an exclusive from here on out – let’s talk, nudge nudge, wink wink? Did they induce him or allude they would pay or did this guy just straight out named a price?

Also according to Gizmodo, at this point he “tried” to find the guy who lost the phone – does this guy call the bar back? No. He calls AppleCare. That’s like finding a wallet in Macy’s and calling macys.com – if your house is on fire, does he send an email to the fire department? WTF?

So, you don’t have a problem with any of this?

This sounds 100% authentic to you?

$5,000 dollars later, that was the best he could do to find the owner of a cell phone he found in a bar but along the way, told no one at the bar, called tech support and cracked the thing open.

Just another day in this guy’s life.

Going further, the law is pretty broad in your role in receiving stolen goods – if you touch it, you are guilty unless you were completely duped (for instance, you bought it in a store at full retail price and they gave you a receipt) – if you buy a big screen for $200 off the back of a truck in a parking lot, claiming stupidity is not a legal excuse. Gizmodo clearly was happy telling the story above – no ethical or legal issues they could see – after all, the guy called AppleCare and hey, they’re journalists, they are entitled to buy things in the hallway for $5k.

The rest of the story gets murkier and has to play out. Yes, there is a journalist shield law but that’s intended to protect journalists and their sources when it comes to public safety and public interest – clearly not the scenario here where a guy takes property and resells it to a “journalist.”

This is not about a company covering up inherent dangers and the guy was a whistleblower on a  public safety issue. Companies are allowed to protect their trade secrets, otherwise, why not let employees to sell company secrets … (Valleywag, a sister to Gizmodo company offered a $100,000 for early pics of the iPad … clearly the law & ethics to them is more of a situational thing that they can ignore?)

And of course, publicly blaring the engineer’s name who lost the phone in an attempt to draw heat away from themselves?

If the guy merely took some pictures and sold them to tech blogs but returned the phone as quickly as possible (and NOT taking it apart), then Apple might have things to grumble about but they did lose the phone, it was a public location so that would just be an issue of whether journalists should pay for news but Apple wouldn’t have much of a legal leg to stand on.

So, what’s next since this story goes way beyond just taking some photos? Clearly the DA thought there was a case to pursue. Maybe as part of a VERY PUBLIC message – if you find something that does NOT belong to you, do NOT sell it – it is AGAINST THE LAW. Don’t most people learn that when they are 5?

The New Yorker recently ran a piece that proves why in court, you need to the whole truth and not just part of truth.

First, for convenient sake, the music industry likes to blame their current state of their business on iTunes or the iPod. That is like the horse carriage industry blaming road pavers in the early 1900′s. That the sale of individual tracks is death to their business – both creatively and income wise but they ignore some convenient truths. The album was invented in the the 1930′s but didn’t really gain a true place until the late 1940′s and while Broadway cast albums or classical music took advantage of the longer playing availability on both sides, it wasn’t until the 1950′s that artists – most notably Frank Sinatra began using the album format itself thematically … and not really until the 1960′s that artists created specific thematic music to purposely fit the format of 20-30 minutes on each side in order from side A to side B to tell a complete musical tale … but if you look at every album every released in the rock era, how many really do you listen from beginning to end? How many are necessary to listen from beginning to end? You might listen to SGT. PEPPER from beginning to end but ABBEY ROAD? It’s really just a collection of tracks as are 98% of long playing-albums-CD’s EVER released – and really, no artist and no one in the music industry and EVER lifted a needle or hit FF while playing a long playing album? O RLY?

The music industry has itself to blame plus the advent of the broadband and the consumer internet – for better or worse. The CD era of the @1982 to the early 1990′s was the pinnacle of the Music Industry 1.0. In that 10 year period, they were basically able to re-sell most everything they had sold before to the same and a new generation who loved music – there might’ve been a slight downside as it was now on a much more sturdy format (no grooves to wear out) but with the economy flush, they could also sell re-masters and re-packaging over & over again. So while the CD format replaced vinyl, it was good because it was a business model they understood. Major record labels controlled who got signed and as the ones with all the major artists, record stores supported them from their age-old distribution model – physical products were manufactured, COSTS and PROMOTIONS was charged to artists … but the record labels controlled accounting of returns, promotions, distribution, returns and reported sales. Artists really had no way to verify the numbers unless you were a mega superstar like the Rolling Stones or Michael Jackson. And it worked to some artists advantage – you got an advance, if your CD album was a flop, the label might drop you but you didn’t have to repay anything and you had a nice time but conversely, that’s why the labels worked hard to make you a star or a success because maybe you lost them money on the first two CD’s but if the third is a hit, they go back and charge you for everything up to now … especially the little things all lumped under “promotions.”

But before Mp3′s and before Napster, it was clear this gravy train was not forever sustaining. Of course, the music industry couldn’t see past this golden goose era. As sales kept increasing, they kept raising prices, and now that the labels were suddenly valued at hundreds of millions or billions, they were sold off or spun off and of course, the new owners or venture funds were banking on keeping the revenue growth at the same rate so it meant raising prices … so while the prices of VHS and later DVD’s new releases dropped in price from the beginning of the format (from $39 to @$12) and just as importantly, personal computer and PC storage devices were dropping in price, CD prices actually rose from @$12 to close to $20 dollars. And also as importantly, the labels started dropping the single format. Sure, you could argue the CD single format was kind of a waste – 3 to 10 minutes used on a disc that could hold 60-minutes+  but for an industry built on using tracks or a particular track to promote the rest of the album – and certainly true of the rock and roll era for 99.5% of the artists, this was a major changed forced on its users and consumers mostly on greed. If you can no longer buy a $3 or $5 CD single and your only choice is a $20 album CD – you start looking at alternatives.

The Mp3 format was “invented” in the early 1990′s but for the most part it was not really all that useful. Hard drive space was still relatively expensive so there was no real point in converting your CD’s into digital files and in addition to no real gain in value, there were no real portable players (none that were not fragile hard drives you carried around) unless you were really rich.

But as hard drive space started to drop in price and PC based music players started, while you had no real portability, you at least could start playing all your music at your desk without having to look for the CD. And of course, as PC & storage prices continued to drop, at the same, the music industry was deleting singles and raising prices. By the mid 1990′s – Mp3′s (along with WMA) were becoming accepted digital formats – while broadband was still only 10% in most US households – thus making actual swapping or downloading Mp3 files excruciatingly slow – college campuses were opening their research internet networks to students. Then with the advent of Napster – the spark ignition to the music industry pile of oily rags and gasoline situation.

Since 1999, the music industry kept trying to stuff the genie back into the bottle – clearly, not going to happen. There were obviously many DAP/MP3 players before the iPod but it was the first to make it convenient and sensible (I had a DAP that required you to actually create folders called FOLDER_01, FOLDER_02. (of course, with the underscore and NO personalizing – up to FOLDER_99). But again, blaming the iPod or iTunes is like blaming paved roads.

Unlike the previous generations where seller-manufacturer had full control – it’s the internet digital era – loath it, or like it – it is what it is. It’s like living on an island nation and seeing the first trade ships, you might hate the fact the world has changed but you can’t ignore them or hope they ignore you – clearly, not going to happen.

And actually ironic, iTunes has delivered about $10 BILLION dollars in revenue to the music industry where all others had failed to create a digital store used by more than a small percentage of users – even when the music industry tried to dent the market share of the iTunes store for digital music by granting Amazon and others DRM-Free Mp3 tracks for a year, the iTunes store market share dropped by just a few % points from something like 71% to 69% while most other music stores dropped equally but they were all in 6-8% market share. (Amazon has about 13% of the market share now). What does this really say? iPod and later iPhone users decided the iTunes stores was their online digital store of choice. After nearly 10 years, it’s clear that given ALL the easy choices of switching, consumers prefer the iPod and the iTunes Store over all others – even when there were other features not available on the iPod-iTunes during that same time period.

So, for the music industry to try and blame Apple or iTunes is frankly ludicrous. It is like blaming the road pavers for the auto industry usurping their horse carriage industry. Clearly, there are other forces at work including many aspects that be traced to their decisions.

So, now, the book industry faces a similiar crossroad but again, do not believe that history repeats itself just because it involves media and iTunes. Sure, there are aspects that are the same but unlike the music industry where consumers want singles and the indstry wants the 10 year period where they sold BILLIONS of full length CD’s.

What is similiar is that books are distributed by a few major publishers who control the process. THEY approve the authors who should get published, they pay for the actual printing of the books, pay the advances, and sell to retailers/bookstore – and accept returns if necessary. They control the promotions and ultimately the accounting. Again, it’s a known process and they have a vested industry in the status quo because they are familiar with this process. But like CD’s – physical books are controlled by them with their accounting. How many are actually published? Returned? In transit? Being shipped? Re-routed – there’s no RFID chip to say exactly what the status is unlike a digital book.

The iTunes store and the Kindle store can tell you EXACTLY to the second right now how many have been sold. There’s not much to hide – does that scare book publishers as much as the music labels who desperately hang onto the CD because it’s physical and easy to nudge numbers?

After all, digital books means NO INVENTORY. In publishing, you pretty have to guess how many to print and if it’s a massive hit, you have to go back and buy paper, ink and printing time. You have to create artwork for the dust jacket and pay for shipping. If you guess incorrectly, you have to accept returns – sometimes hundreds of thousands of copies. With digital, whether you sell 5,000 copies of 2 million, once you upload the file, you are DONE with production costs. Sure, you have to spend money on promotions but that’s true of anything.

And as digital is an interactive format – the world is open to selling and re-selling different editions. Or take full advantage of the fact that unlike print where each additional page costs you money and ultimately you have to upgrade the binding and pay for shipping this newer heavier thing – adding another thousand pages to a digital file just means a slightly larger file size.

SOME OPTIONS

For instance, take something like CATCHER IN THE RYE – a beloved classic – why not offer a version where you get a typeset version like it’s first release? Or you can switch between every release in its type look & design to today? Choose the cover you prefer best? Or something like the JOY OF COOKING which has been revised for 80 years – you could sell each version separately or sell the older editions as an add-on – for instance, the receipe could have a year edition at the bottom and tapping on 1956 would show you the changes from 1956 or of course, receipes for things such as racoon which are no longer included. Same with the James Bond books or the nancy drew-Hardy Boys books – to be able to see the revisions from the original would be interesting and fun.

Or for fiction or certain non-fiction titles, why not offer a soundtrack option if you are interested in purchasing or maybe it’s included. Or even sound effects. Of course, it’s gimmicky but for most pop fiction? In the case of history books, you can even offer alternative views with just a tap. Of course, educational books with specific examples with just a tap … instead of trying to explain A MINOR – how about an example?

Obviously one of the problems with the monochrome Kindle is art-photography-travel, etc books are of limited value just in monochrome – clearly that limitation is lifted.

Publishers have to think out of their business model now … where are they were limited by page count or distribution, there is none of that – and of course, they have the advantage in that books are not like CD’s where you can just split off a chunk – unless of course that’s an advantage where someone might just want to buy the WESTERN edition so offer that option.

Publishers have to not just think of books as PDF’s as eBooks – that serves some purposes but to treat the published version as one and the interactive version as a DIFFERENT thing – much like a pop up book or an art book.

But instead of fearing change, they need to simply realized their island has been visited by this new trade ship and they better get with the program. Now, unlike the CD business who had their last fort breached before they realized maybe trading with these strangers was better than trying to fight them with sticks, book publishers are in better shape in that it’s just the early stages of trading with these new strangers but if they don’t get with the program, in this digital internet age, USERS and or PIRATES will fill the vacuum. If all you are just going to offer “static” PDF versions of eBooks, then people will just start digitizing their own books or just downloading pirate PDF versions.

Publishers do not need to fear iTunes because there is literally nothing to fear unless you have something to hide … and for music, movies, tv shows – it’s clearly consumers #1 choice – whether it will be for books is another matter but it’s an opportunity to re-sell and sell to the new generation. Just as movie studios sell a disc DVD with a digital copy – why not for books? Embrace the new world – don’t fear change or transparency.

Of course, Adobe can sue Apple – if you can file a $54 million dollar lawsuit for some lost pants, certainly, Adobe can sue Apple … but Adobe will lose.

The most obvious precedent is that if you sell a device, you have EVERY LEGAL right to decide what ‘software’ runs on it – the most obvious example are video game consoles. You must get a right a license for the right to put it on their format disc. Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo has to APPROVE your game before its available for sale. In the cartridge days, you actually had to submit the code for them to convert it onto a chip – further controlling distribution. Even your DVD player does NOT play every 5″ format available and is usually REGION-LOCKED. But all of this is plainly announced and shown so YOU decide whether you agree or NOT agree to buy this device.

Drilling down deeper, Apple might have many motives to not wanting Flash or Flash-based programming on its devices – some of it is technical, some of it security, some of it logistical and perhaps even personal but that does NOT matter because it is NOT illegal.

It would be anti-competitive and possibly illegal if Apple owned the C (or more specifically Objective C) programming language or HTML5 and insisted you use their proprietary language but that is NOT the case here. Both Objective C and its variants and HTML are not owned by one company AND Apple does not sell any programming applications – you are free to use any software to encode your iPhone app as long as it’s in Objective C or HTML. Any argument about being anti-competitive simply doesn’t even pass the basic test.

If anything, Adobe is testing the boundaries of irony here – they are insisting that Apple include their PROPRIETARY programming language on an Apple device – and they are the only company selling programming applications for Flash (or anyone selling Flash programming kits has to license Flash from them). Apple does not insist you buy any programming language they own nor do they even sell a programming application specific to Objective C or HTML.

To put it more plainly, Abobe is saying – don’t use an open language, use ours which we own the programming shell, application and language.

So, good luck getting any headway on a lawsuit – unless they are planning on suing Apple because Apple is being mean to them.

It should also be mentioned that consumers do not really care. They care that they get to see videos or play mini games at work but do they really care that Flash is the shell? No. Maybe Adobe should have done a better job of branding so people would insist on it but now, too late.

Bottom line – to the consuming end of the internet, Flash pretty much means nothing. If a video doesn’t come up, people just presume their company blocked it or it’s not loading correctly. And if it’s not available to play on YouTube, all you have to do is search for another video site. Flash games were once much more important as most people cannot load apps at work and certainly not games so Flash served its purpose in allowing people to play casual games but now, smartphones are taking that over – especially the iPhone.

Or the worst case scenario – a Flash site requires an OPT OUT or SKIP INTRO on the front page? Like spam email? Nice association. Think about that, it’s so annoying it requires a SKIP THIS CRAP button – kind of like those grifters standing in front of a retail store blocking the sign that reads NO SOLICITING ON OUR PROPERTY. Flash is ‘that guy.’

Again, since Adobe never really bothered to do any branding – that’s the price you pay for not bothering with a basic tenement of business. On the consumer end, Flash means a guy in red tights who runs, really, really fast.

Part of it is Adobe posturing in hopes that Apple comes to the negotiating table … anyone really thinks saying or actually suing Apple is going to make Apple change its mind? Anyone?

Programmers have a vested interest – they have spent thousands of hours learning a proprietary language only to learn that going forward, it is incompatible with a leading edge device – of course, they are going to complain so good luck with that. But 100 million using ipads/iphones & touch do not really care and when the VP of Marketing wonders why their website has a big whole, as a third party vendor or product manager, you really going to explain that Apple is being mean to Adobe or are you actually going to make sure YOU don’t look like an idiot to that VP by making sure it looks correct on their iPhone?

The recent iTunes App “banning” of salacious-sexual content apps makes sense on one level. It is understandable as these titles would randomly appear throughout the store in games & entertainment and it’s understandable you don’t want clients, or your kids stumbling across it …  or even if you’re showing off the iTunes store, it might not be the best showcase.

But as an adult, I don’t mind an extra door to more mature themed materials but I do not want an outright ban. First, because what are ‘community standards?’ There are people up in arms over the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue … or even the ‘drinking beer’ apps … so why not place them into a MA section that requires an extra step?

It could be as simple as incorporating it into the next iTunes upgrade. These are the signin accounts to the iTunes Store on this computer – which ones should have access to the “MA-Theme App Store?”

Or perhaps a one-time extra signup process.

“The iTunes MA-Rated Store requires a credit card link access and cannot be used with an iTunes pre-paid card.”

So the first time you access it – you are required to re-input a credit card number. Then the account is setup with a credit card (as many people do now) – meaning only those 18 and above have access to the MA-Theme Store. After that, the responsibility rests with the parent or adult of anyone under 18 – just like the rest of everything.

Just as some communities allow anyone over 18 to attend a strip club (since alcohol is not allowed) or that SAFARI lets you surf the web freely on an iPhone or iTouch (and not to mention it’s your iPhoto, you can load any photos or photos or videos you choose), this is a simple and straightforward mini barrier – if you willingly choose to look at or purchase MA-Themed material, you know what you’re doing.

I can understand Apple wanting to draw the line at nudity but sensuality or anything that might be deemed sexual? That’s too far of a line to draw … let’s let adults be adults. This way, it’s there in its own separate section. WE take full responsibility. Plus, I think the app developers would be happy to know that the people who want to peer in the MA-Theme section are happy to do so freely.

Of course, the obvious is that there are many MA-rated TV Series from the premium channels and lots of albums with language that fall under the MA rating … so why not apps and in their own section with one extra signup step?

Many people seem to be confused about why netbooks exist and because they are selling well, they think it’s because of just random pent up consumer demand for “fully-featured” functionality at an “extreme” portability form factor.

This is not true because there is ONLY ONE factor that sells netbooks.

PRICE.

Of the dozens-hundreds of PC Windows manufacturers selling netbooks, one if not the ONLY profitable company (Acer) admits their margins are 2%.

That means they make 2 cents for every $1 they bring in.

Apple’s margins are around 35-40% and I cannot imagine the iPad margins will be much different in the long run (it might slightly lower in the short term).

Is Acer selling a netbook at $299 to make about $6 because they want to be your pal and give away their product because they love you so much?

Or is it priced at the ONLY point they can sell them at and squeak out a profit?

YES. They are selling at the HIGHEST possible they can and still make a profit.

The end result facts are very simple. If a company has higher margins but their market is STILL GROWING, clearly the price is acceptable to consumers.

Many if not most PC buyers don’t grasp the simple concept why Apple product buyers are willing to pay more. It is very simple. Apple product buyers believe they are worth more so they will pay more.

You can attribute some of it to marketing, sure but that is always a short term gain. Clearly, that is NOT the case as Apple has been growing exponentially continually over the past 8 years. There is NO marketing that is that good. Spending money means nothing. Microsoft has spent about $200 million dollars advertising the Zune or Verizon & Motorola spent over $100 million just in the last quarter alone selling the ‘Droid phone yet have not announced any sales figures … marketing only works when the product and its message is consistent and speaks to consumers correctly.

But back to netbooks, why are netbooks the ONLY high growth segment of the PC market?

Are netbooks faster that regular laptops or desktops?

No.

Do netbooks have special new technology screens or multi-touch?

No. (some have better screens and touchscreens but it’s not consistent)

Do netbooks have some bleeding-cutting edge technology not available in any other PC form factor.

No.

Well, what could explain their growth?

Are they cheaper than laptops?

YES.

For the most part and certainly the under $400 netbooks, they have older processors, smaller screens than laptops, and smaller storage capacity.

Does that sound like a STEP FORWARD or a STEP BACK?

Why don’t netbook manufacturers put a Core7 chip in their netbooks with OLED touchscreens and a 320 GB SSD hard drive in it?

Because no one wants a $2,500 netbook?

EXACTLY.

People do not want a netbook for portability AT ANY PRICE.

They ONLY want a netbook because it’s cheap.

Because the WINDOWS OS has so devalued the personal computer experience for them – it’s like an alarm clock OS – yea, whatev – as long as I can get online to surf the web and send emails, maybe type out a note, who cares what the screen size is or if it’s slow. I am NOT willing to spend more than the absolute minimum.

Because if they were interested in the netbook for its portability, the great growth would be in the $700 or $1,000 dollar netbook, right?

Why are you willing to go backwards?

What other consumer electronics product’s ONLY growth trend is one where the product has FEWER FEATURES and SLOWER functions?

NONE except for WINDOWS PC’s.

Because again, people are so fed up with their experience on a $700 laptop, they are now only willing to spend $399 or even $299 just to get in and be done. They are even willing to trade SPEED, STORAGE & SCREEN SIZE for PRICE because bottom line – “Paying more more for the WIN PC experience is NOT WORTH IT.”

That’s why PC buyers cannot understand why Mac buyers will pay 3-5 times what they are willing to pay … because Mac personal computers buyers do NOT LOATH their personal computing experience. It’s as simple as that.

And clearly in the past 16 months, any delusion that Apple purchasers are only purchasing because the economy is going great so why not pay “extra” for ‘marketing and world class look,’ – that theory is out the window – as Apple continues to grow at a 20% rate while even companies that sell necessities like food are hurting – again, why? Apple products offer VALUE above & beyond just PRICE.

It’s not exactly an unknown concept – you’d pay $50 to eat in a nice restaurant, would you do so at your corner McDonald’s? It’s not the same experience but in many ways, similar, right?

But because Windows PC experience is only within the PC realm where, yes, it is ONLY about component costs because really, how different is a Dell than the Best Buy PC other than the 15 stickers on the front? They simply cannot believe there is anything really different (or “better” out there) and of course, clearly, they’re not dumb so I guess they presume everyone else is dumb? It’s like someone who only buys 5-day old bread at the bread outlet store and thinks we’re suckers to pay 3 times the amount for fresh bread.

And the proof is in the sales growth of the Mac and the iPhone. Because if ALL buyers of personal computers and smartphones were only after the cheapest possible price, then Mac & iPhone sales would be flatline or show minimal growth OR the best selling Apple products would be the cheapest one in the product line but again, NOT the case.

All of this is important to how they see the iPad.

It’s NOT for you if you’re merely searching for the lowest price for an @10″ screen device. If you’re solely going through a feature list and price (and of course, believe that all “features on a list” are equal), then the iPad is NOT for you – that’s fine. If you’re happy to turn a 10″ $299 netbook on its side to use it as an ereader – GREAT. That is your free choice to make.

If the tradeoff is running WINDOWS, that’s fine for you. You are free to make your purchasing choices as you see fit in regards to bread, laptops or cars but do not presume that having used a netbook, you can be dismissive of other choices or that they MUST BE EQUAL to your experience.

Clearly, the netbook is a huge compromise and ONLY successful when it’s priced below $300 and that its users are willing to give up speed, functionality and screen size.

Netbook buyers do not really care about the brand – how much would it entice them to buy one with the Walgreen’s brand with the EXACTLY the same specs as an Acer one? $5 less than Acer?

Netbooks are sold on PRICE alone.

The iPad is NOT a direct competitor to netbooks.

It’s a different choice to consider when price is NOT your ONLY factor.

As a consumer, you are free to go by PRICE as your ONLY basis for choosing a product but it’s NOT how everyone likes to shop. By that measure, it’s like eating a school cafeteria pizza as a 7-year old and saying there’s no point in spending more on a pizza slice since it’s all just a wheat based crust thing with tomato sauce and shredded cheese …

A billion people would beg to differ and that is the comparison of a netbook to the iPad.

Yes, we do not need a tablet.

Yes, some people need a tablet and their needs are mostly being served – whether it’s a niche market or for artists who want to draw with a stylus – they need a tablet but NOT the one Apple is presumably delivering in 2010.

Yes, a flat personal computer with a stylus input is nice but so NOT NECESSARY and that’s why there has been no market for it so far. Prior, the problem was the LED screen was either weak, washed out, heavy in weight and or expensive … also missing was an interface that made sense for a computing experience that is “flat.”

Without mocking the obvious shortcomings of the OS developer from the Pacific Northwest or Scandinavia – the iPhone was clearly the FIRST TOUCHSCREEN interface that was not only appropriately responsive but more importantly – made sense. Now, I’m NOT saying the iPhone OS interface is perfect – just a quantum leap from before.

And only Apple would be gutsy enough to create an interface that essentially had FOUR settings. SWIPE. TAP. SCROLL. HOME-BACK BUTTON.

Unlike other attempts at designing a touch interface, you were not required to decipher a bunch of icons to use the interface or hope you did not lose your stylus. Again, not saying the iPhone is perfect as it would be nice if the double or triple tap were consistent across all apps but comparing it it previous touchscreens? It was amazing. And also importantly, it worked. Previously, many touchscreens would just stop accepting input randomly or more importantly, was simply a front end that was weakly designed that if you went further in, eventually you’d run across its GUI interfaced stacked on top of line commands. In other words, ugh.

Clearly, not a problem with the iPhone OS. But that is also a quandary – clearly on a tablet form, you want additional options. Or do you?

So, is there a need for a giant iPhone-iPod?

For some things, the answer is obviously yes. Presumably storage will start at 32GB to 320 GB? That means renting or buying HD movies makes much more sense on a larger screen.

Of course, most people would also prefer to surf on a larger screen and presumably, tabs are also back.

Certain applications (besides the obvious games) would also make sense on a larger screen such as TRAFFIC MAPS-GPS – especially if you could break off part of the screen and zoom in while keeping the larger view on another side of the screen. And of course, it would be nice to keep multiple apps running in their own window simultaneously – be nice to be able to resize and move them around the screen so you can watch a MLB live game while double checking your flight info in a smaller corner view.

As someone who has over 160 apps, it is time to bring over the FOLDER feature.

The current iPhone screen holds 16 APP ICONS, does this new screen hold 64? Isn’t that a bit too much? Do we want resizeable APP ICONS? So, we can get anywhere from 16 honking HUGE icons to 100?

I think the key here is that the tablet iPhone must delivery an appropriate user experience for a giant iPhone – that it must delivery MORE just as the iPhone delivered more than the iPod scroll wheel experience – that clearly Apple did not just add features to the iPod user experience in making the iPhone but reinvented everything appropriate to an iPhone – same with a “GIANT IPHONE.” That the OS that worked fine as a music player OS was NOT an acceptable one for a phone and Apple took the next step forward on the iPhone and again, must take another step forward.

For instance, on the iPhone, you accept you cannot look at many screens at once, it would be pointless on a 3″ screen but if the screen is 9″-10″, we will expect more. It’s even more than just multiple apps running – it will have to be closer to a the next step forward – that I can “tear” off pages to put in a folder. Or perhaps, travel itinerary info. Yes, I can bookmark multiple locations in MAPS but it has to redraw it everytime, the GIANT IPHONE will have to allow me to either ‘tear off’ that page and store in a folder or something along the use of tabs. Or for instance, one of the real estate apps, I want a personal database that I can access instantly and “offline.”

in other words, I want all the extras that come with a larger footprint and larger screen.

One aspect wanted on this new device will be an e-reader that people actually want. Yes, there are quite a few e-readers already out but much like the Mp3 market or the smartphone market, clearly the devices out there only fulfill a small portion of the real market needs. Monochrome screen is too 20th century and every review of the Kindle, the Nook and the others point out some deadly flaws – slow and/or poor user interface (UI). Two flaws that just beg for the Apple touch.

In one sense, it’s pretty obvious, a magazine or a newspaper page is much like a web browser page but the problem is simply replicating a magazine or newspaper so far has been unsatisfying and until that problem is resolved, a dedicated e-reader is POINTLESS. My magazine and daily newspaper are portable and cheap so unless you deliver me a QUANTUM leap in user experience, then why bother?

Let’s look back slightly – what was portable music like prior to the iPod. Before ANY mp3 player, you were restricted to audio cassettes or a portable CD-R player – nice but you had to expend time to create your own or of course, listen to a few tracks and then switch AND if you did not carry that disc or cassette, you couldn’t switch to another kind of music.

Same with the cell phone – we wanted GPS directions, to look up info on the web, to jot notes or to store info … and of course, play games … but with a 1″ screen as one option or to buy some super expensive phone with a larger screen BUT with a some super expensive data plan and a crappy UI interface – what was the point UNTIL the iPhone delivered exactly what we wanted.

The e-reader needs are much more vague. Yes, we want portable & complete information an there is an appeal to have access to that info without having to guess what issue it’s in or remember having to carry it with us BUT since I can buy the paper equivalent for a dollar to $5 dollar for mags & newspapers, it’s not exactly like not having my 100 CD’s with me … OR even a book. Most books costs $10-$25 dollars and after reading it, if I do not like it, I can still shelve it to look smart if I buy a book like THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF ROMAN ART or give it away or better yet, re-sell it. Printed matter is fairly portable and mostly disposable. I have read novels and left them on planes – not caring to carry them back with me if I deem it unworthy to sell or giveaway. I lose that option with an e-reader and you can argue that in many public transportation choices, you do not want to be waving around a $1,000 tablet – versus a $10 book that is most likely not going to warrant anyone’s attention.

Bottom line, an e-reader has to deliver MORE than what I’m getting now.

Another point to newspapers and magazines is that I can tear out the pages I want to scan them … are the publishers willing to give that to us in electronic form?

There are many mags being offered on the iPhone that look nice if you are going in a page-by-page chronological order but in 99.9% of the cases, they offer me no more interactive elements than a printed version – can I save the article? can I save it as printable-PDF version and store it elsewhere – can I drag off a quote and/or more importantly, can I drag off or copy a photo? If they are scared to offer me that feature, why not just go to web version or even scan my printed version?

But that is only the beginning. They need to take advantage that the e-reader should offer us virtually unlimited space – that articles do not need to be edited to fit the costs of printing but also, maybe some people do not want to read 40,000 words on the topic so every feature should be offered in summary, print & expanded versions. We need more photos and more illustrations and perhaps even video … and or access to more indepth information. And it has to be SMART linkages and not the current web version where random words like PERSONAL COMPUTER are underlined with rollover definitions of what a personal computer is and CLICK on the BING link to learn more about this ‘personal computer’ thing – how stupid do you presume we are?

Yes, I know some publishers are offering this online but it is so poorly designed and basically just an excuse to shoehorn in more ads.

And speaking of which, we do not mind ads but it’s going to scary from here on in because we really only want ads for things we are interested in. One of the brilliance with Google is their AdSense links are much more precise – if I type in Greece, I do not get ads for cooking grease as prior to Google … but these new e-reader ads have to take another step forward. We understand that print ads have to be vague to capture a broad swath of the audience as it’s impossible to target specific interests within the broader male 18-49 high income audience and you don’t want to be so exclusionary that we never see ads for things we “say” we’re not interested in because as with most new technology, people cannot conceptually grasp it, they say no. (surveys in the late 1990′s had ‘most’ people saying that talking on a cell phone was stupid and pointless and that would never be something they want to do EVER).

But basically advertising has to take a giant step forward to maintain it relevance. The last thing I want to do is flip through STATIC ads on an e-magazine/newspaper. As noted, print advertisers have done or have attempted to create a web link but so far, it’s NOT ENOUGH. Interactive ads that just point to the front page of the advertiser is STUPID. I can do that.

Advertisers have to be flexible to deliver that ad to the way people want to absorb the ad online and on an e-reader. Whether that’s a boring coupon link, a local link, a detailed & specific link or more multimedia features or better implementation of that ‘augmented reality,” that’s what makes advertising interesting and useful. Yes, on the surface, people will say they want no ads but they understand the need for ads AND really, like ads – such as the Super Bowl ads, people don’t mind ads if THEY ARE ENTERTAINING and USEFUL … such as shopping apps or ordering pizza apps, etc, etc … but print advertising must step forward to the 21st century … it’s NOT EASY and there’s no obvious answers but repeating and copying a technology from 300-400 years when the first newspaper ads rolled off the press is NOT AN ANSWER … just as the first ads were chieseled on a wall somewhere … times change, let’s look around and make that leap forward instead of just repeating the past.

For publishers, it is scary because elements are out of their immediate control and require MORE WORK – do they open up the archives, does my subscription entitle me to read EVERY article that publication has ever posted and is that scary? Or should it be? How much control do they have now?

And that applies to publishers of books – scared that Amazon has priced e-books at $9.99 but like the music industry, they don’t think of their savings – there’s no guessing how many to “print.” And of course, any that are not sold have to either be marked down (if it’s a disaster) or returned if it just sell not as well as hoped – ALL monies that comes out of their pocket AND there is no used book market to affect new sales … and that’s a consideration also but of course, it’s easier just to claim that every ebook sold is X dollars difference from a copy sold via the traditional method but no printing costs, no shipping costs and no returns. And of course, the current situation is that every additional page costs money to print but additional pages for an eBook? Negligible. It’s difficult to insert photos or illustrations into a typical printing plates but electronically, no problem or as I read a lot of historical books, I would GLADLY pay extra for interactive features. For instance, maybe after reading a book on Columbus voyage, I can simply click on an interactive map of his voyage and by tapping on the line showing his ships progress, a page pops up leading me back to that page so I can re-read that or something … but again, that requires more work but the opportunity is there.

And to apply the social network opportunities, why not online book clubs? I’m sure it will have a built in microphone and maybe even a webcam?

As is with the graphic novel-anime-comic book industry. It has in some senses been marginalized because you require specialty knowledge to sell it or your retailers are unable or unwilling to carry the entire spectrum of releases … and adding to that, it’s intimidating for a newbie to step into one of these stores or even a Barnes & Noble to know here to begin. The audience is out there and now is an opportunity. DON’T BLOW IT! Now, instead of trying to decide which ones are worth “publishing,” – as long as you can create an “eBook” version of it, why not? And as with other offerings, why not add sound effects (as some versions already have) and again, NO paper printing costs, no distribution and no returns. Face it – comic books, anime & graphic novels are spendy at $3+ per volume/issue – part of that is its limited printing & associated costs but there are many I am interested in reading but not necessarily interested in owning so this is the perfect opportunity. Right now, this portion of publishing is marginalized because it’s intimidating for newbies to try out but this is the perfect opportunity – why not read Volume 1 for $.99 and decide whether to continue without leaving the house.

And to continue while we have heard from major magazine publishers, there are dozens of minor magazine publishers with specialized content that is limited by distribution or a reluctance to subscribe because you don’t know how long they will keep publishing. Or international publications?

In the beginning, beyond the gadget freaks (like me) who will want one – the next part is really up to the publishing industry to finally realize that they have to stop marginalizing THEMSELVES because of printing costs, postage costs, distribution issues and the LAST CENTURY of looking at the marketplace. Just as the first guy who put color in a magazine or the first guy who created regional issues … the world is changing … hurry up and change with us!

And back to the hardware. I have no worries it will be interesting and cool from Apple. It will be nice if 3G was available at a reasonable price … and speaking of which, my feeling is there will be a really low end model that sells for $799 and the one you want for $999.   , with a subsidized internet access (presumably), it’ll be like $649 and $849 … this will be priced far enough from the monochrome Kindle (@$489) – why price it any less when you’ll have all these extra features for “only” a hundred dollars + some?

But of course, the $649/$799 version might only have like 32 GB of storage but the $849/$999 will have like 128GB so you will easily justify the higher cost as the better value but for the first 6 months, Apple gets to say – as little as $649   (before discontinuing it).

And of course, the pricing will be that it won’t affect sales of the MacBook or the low end MacBook Pro – sure, the “Tablet iPhone” will be a few hundred less but no full size keyboard and no DVD, etc, etc … um, Apple knows what they are doing when it comes to pricing.

As with the iPod, the iPhone & the Mac – yes, you can buy an ultracheap “thing” in its-this category but then it’s not from Apple and it’s not an iPod™, not an iPhone™ and not a Mac™.

But of course, expectations are at an ultra high level. It will have to be QUANTUM leap as the iPod, the iPhone and the original Mac from its predecessor …  so we shall see but see you on the 27th.