The news that Google's Android-based smart phones have started to outsell iPhones is the first indication of a fundamental shift in the market. Android based smartphones in the last quarter surged in the States hitting 28% to Apple's 21%. RIM's blackberry is at 36%.

As I've pointed out here before, though, attempts to mimic the iPhone as such have been doomed to certain failure: it is impossible to play Apple at its own game.

What may, however, have saved the competitors and checked the rise and rise of Apple is an Apple phenomenon: apps.

The take-up up of apps on the android software platform essentially followed the iPhone 1billion download experience.  There has clearly been  a greater take-up of non-Apple smart phones than would otherwise have been the case, though. While Android phones may not be able to compete on style, they have been able to compete in software.

And because the Android software has been an open platform, not hugged and controlled in the way Apple does, perhaps it may in the end be the innovation behind the software that wins out over style.

The Smart phone was essentially a device to play music, video and access the internet. The iPhone could not be competed with in this area.

But the addition of Apps and particularly hand-held gaming apps to the smartphone package by Apple has ironically provided a competitive edge for the rivals to work on.

It may be that in a year or so's time the Apple launch apps of the last 18 months which seemed so earth-shatteringly innovative and experientially game-changing, may look and feel a bit primitive in the face of fast-developing and unfettered android software development for Android.

John Clancy
Media Futures Analyst
mediafuturesalert.com
Visiting Lecturer in Media at University of Birmingham Business School, U.K.

        

After all the speculation over the last year or so, it's finally over. Adobe and Apple will not mix. As highlighted in this blog last month,  Apple have maintained their position that flash is lazy and buggy and will never appear on Apple's portable devices.

This, even though the main criticism around the world of the otherwise well-recieved iPad is that it doesn't 'do' flash. Flash animation is a no-show (especially in ad banners)  and, more importantly, Flash Video is met with the apple not-at home lego icon.

Adobe, the maker of Flash, held out by actually including an iPhone App maker in its latest Creative Suite release CS5. It turns Flash applications into native apps for the iPhone and iPad.

Apple stamped on that straight away and Adobe have thrown in the towel. Mike Chambers from Adobe made it clear in his blog that the iPhone packagertool in CS5 proved "there is no technical reason that Flash can't run onthe iPhone," and "well performing" content can be created with Flash for the iPhone and iPad. But he and Adobe have clearly decided the fight (and the investment in the tool) is simply not worth it, and the fight is simply not in them.

It's clearly not good for consumers. 

It would have been good to have at least tested Steve Jobs's theory that Flash is 'a load of crap' (to paraphrase his comments about Google) on the iPhone/iPad. But, as I pointed out in my last blog, what Uncle Steve says, goes. He knows what is best for his consumers. They, of course, do not. They must be protected from the infection of non-Appleness. His consumers ought to object, but fear his writ, having been infantalised by the Apple machine for years.

The customer does not know best, clearly. It's pretty rare in the commercial world to have such patronising nonsense survive. But survive it does, and the Apple consumer trusts Uncle Steve to handle them with the love, care and attention they deserve.

It is also frustrating to businesses and their advertisers that they have to amend their campaigns (and more expensively so) across platforms. Can't the iPhone/iPad consumer be trusted to, say, slide to 'off' a flash 'on' button in a settings menu? Then consumers could decide for themselves whether Flash made their device crashy and sluggish? Clearly not.

I would like to predict that Apple will suffer, but they won't.

Apple's current earnings figures show their best ever non-holiday quarter performance.

John Clancy
Media Futures Analyst
mediafuturesalert.com
Visiting Lecturer in Media, University of Birmingham Business School UK

        

You will have to iWait for the iPad in the UK, I'm afraid.

Apple sold more than 500,000 of the devices in its first week on the USmarket. International sales have been put back to the end of May 2010. You might get international online orders from May 10th.

It would appear that Apple Inc were unable to judge the scale of demand for its iconic product. Because this has never happened before, has it? They misread demand, did they?

Handing down the tablets of...er..oleophobic coated glass from on high and deliberately withholding full capacity infantalises consumers. Apple knows it. They've always known it. That's why they do it.

Consumers should be demanding a more commercially astute performance from Apple, but instead Apple likes to play a game and create consumers who are ever so, ever so grateful that Steve and his mates should even deign to make products available to the consuming public at all.

And, you know, that's just how the Apple and Mac types like it. It sems genuinely to make them feel different. They should be furious and demand that production goes into overdrive simply to deal with consumer satisfaction, it's business 1.0.

Any other company would go to the wall, but like consumer alcoholics enabled by Jobs, Apple consumers seem desperately to want to flagelate themsleves while they wait.

Ridiculous.

Grow up Apple and grow up Apple consumers. The chances of an international consumer revolt are, of course, miniscule.

John Clancy
Media Futures Analyst
mediafuturesalert.com
Visting Lecturer in Media
University of Birmingham Business School, UK

        

You might have friends and relatives who have, or even yourself have, been bitten by the 'Farmville' bug on Facebook or Myspace. You might also have spotted ads for 'Mafia Wars' popping up all over the place and wondered what on earth was going on.

Similarly omnipresent online gaming links you will have sees are to: Cafe World, Dragon Wars, FarmVille, Fashion Wars, FishVille, Mafia Wars, PetVille, Pirates, Poker Blitz, Roller Coaster, Scramble, Special Forces, Street Racing,Treasure Isle, Vampires, Word Twist, YoVille!, and Zynga Poker.

You might have thought it was a rather off-the-wall, low grade, somewhat dated-in-style road.

Think again.

According to Second Shares, Zynga (the leading business in this social media gaming lark) are 'printing money'. They make and market all of the above-mentioned games. The point is that Zynga has over 235 million monthly active users playing its games.

Second Shares estimate that if were public today, Zynga would trade at a $5 billion market cap ($15.75/share), 75% above where it currently trades at in the illiquid private market.

Zynga  was founded in July 2007 with 'the vision of connecting the world through games'. Zynga's business is in 'fun and social games for people to play with their friends'. They claim that they have become the largest developer of social games on the web in the process.

What's the nature of the gamimg experience that makes it different from regular gaming, then? Well, Zynga says that their games 'provide a platform for players to express themselves and form deep social connections with their friends'. Perhaps that's the real point here: it becomes part of the social media experience.

Zynga continues to see strong growth in both the U.S. and international markets. More than 67 million users play Zynga’s social games every day on sites like Facebook and MySpace. In February the company opened its first international office in Bangalore, India, to focus on game and large-scale infrastructure development.

It also has prepay cards available at most major US retail outlets for youngsters in particular to feed their addiction.

It prides itself on a strong charitable base, with virtual trading of  various assets inside its games generating $3million for charitable causes.

So watch this when its goes public and watch this as a real growth market in the next 4 years.

John Clancy
Media Futures Analyst
mediafuturesalert.com
Visiting Lecturer in Media at University of Birmingham Business School, UK




<< MORE >>

As has been pointed out several times here, the real future of 3D is not Movie Theatres & Cinema, but home gaming.

Nintendo is taking on 3D as part of a gaming revolution and is starting with handheld gaming. This also has the useful side-product of establishing a challenge to Apple as well. It is set for release before March 2011 in Japan. It will also not be niche, but the standard replacement for and will be backwards compatible with the DS and DSi software.

The Nintendo mark out of handheld 3D territory is an imprtant step, especially as it promises to eliminate the need for 3D glasses.

It enables Nintendo also to test out the technology at handheld level (which is good initself anyway) in order to work on the wider holy grail - large screen non-glasses 3D for Films and gaming.

Sony are non-plussed and question the viability of the proposal, whilst still confirming they are working for on 3D PSP, full size.

I think it's a very shrewd move from Nintendo. Watch the stock. Nintendo (7974.OS) leapt 9% already on the announcement.

John Clancy
Media Futures Analyst
mediafuturesalert.com
Vistiting Lecturer in Media University of Birmingham Business School << MORE >>

As predicted many times here Netflix has laid waste to the bricks and mortar video business. It would appear that Blockbuster is about to file for bankruptcy in  the US according to Forbes.

Even though Netflix will come under pressure from Walmart's entry into the download video market, Netflix has usually been ahead of the game and has played its part in Blockbuster's downfall.

Blockbuster share were down another 31.7% to just 27 cents, Wednesday. Netflix's has a market valuation of $4billion and its shares have risen 82% over the last year, 50% over the last 6 months, and 9% over the last month; which tells it sown story.

With Amazon, Apple, Amazon, Time-Warner, Tivo and Wal-Mart now all in the video download market, there's no doubt that physical DVD sales and rental are becoming history.

The models of straight-to-TV wifi download and (increasingly) streaming will fast now be establishing themselves as the industry norm.

John Clancy
Media Futures Analyst
mediafuturesalert.com
Visting Lecturer in New Media, University of Birmingham Business School




<< MORE >>

So Apple is suing HTC for copyright infringement. And that's a cloak for Apple suing Google, really. So this is a suit between the big boys now. As Apple makes clear on its website, "Apple actively and aggressively enforces its intellectual property rights to the fullest extent of the law."

Aggressive. It  certainly is.

Apple alleges that HTC "knowingly induce(s) users of accused HTC Android products" to infringe on a number of Apple's patents, some dating back to the mid-1990s. They cover user interface processes and other software and hardware components.

As I have repeatedly said here, every time a rival tries to come up with an iPhone killer, it fails miserably anyway. Competitors should play their own game, and not try to take Apple on directly. Don't try to play Apple at its own game: create a new game in town instead.

Competitors want desperately, in particular, to reproduce the iPhone experience.

The problem is that the iPhone experience is a pretty much unique one and its uniqueness is based on the touch screen experience itself.

Apple, quite rightly, will protect that touch screen experience (and the patent rings surrounding it) like a lioness protecting its cubs.

While HTC have done a great job of producing competing cheaper full screen, touch-screen-control phones, the mistake was to try to re-create the iPhone experience - that was bound to end up in the courts.

The pinch-and-stretch facility, in particular, is simply banged-to-rights Apple's intellectual property and at the heart of the iPhone/iPod touch offer. To try to reproduce this and get away with it is just naive.

According to Forbes, HTC were making ground an taking some of Apple's market share in the last quarter of 2009, so they can hardly noty have seen this coming. The iPhone held a 14.4 percent smartphone market share in 2009, according to research group Gartner. Phones running Android comprised only 3.9 percent of the market, but were growing fast. Apple lost some share to Android phones in the fourth quarter.

HTC shares yesterday lost 1.4 percent in Taipei in a broader market up 0.4 percent. The stock had fallen as much as 3 percent in early trade.

HTC are on to a loser here and their stock should be avoided in the short term at least.

John Clancy
Media Futures Analyst
mediafuturesalert.com
Visiting Lecturer in Media, University of Birmingham Business School
<< MORE >>

Walmart has just gone back into digital with the acquisistion of Vudu, the digital movie download business.

While it's been here before, in a failed attempt to compete with physical DVD rental provider Netflix, it's back again in competition with Netflix, who are already the market leader in digital movie downloads (Blockbuster, Time-Warner Cable and Amazon being the other big players) .

What make foray significant is that Wal-Mart are obviously now going to tie this to hardware sales of Internet-Ready TVs in its stores. Vertigal integration here would seem to make sense and providing the full package of TV sale with Download subscription/service will attempt to make the download process seamless. No computer needed, just your WiFi Broadband/Cable.

This is what I call the STS (Straight to Screen) process. The fewer steps in the chain to make the download seem as straioghtforward as changing channel, the more likely the techo-reluctant consumer will buy into it.

If Wal-Mart is in the business of marketing its TVs as 'Internet TVs' then (as predicted here again and again) that's what consumers will start asking for everywhere.

"Is it HD Ready?", "Is it Plasma, LED or LCD?" will become history as prime question. What consumers will start enquiring is, "Is it an Internet TV?"

Essentially the Internet TV will be  WiFi enabled to talk directly with the router. That's all: the 'TV' will do the rest, and connect directly to Wal-Mart's digital download site.

Netflix has real competition competition this time and its price ($64.35, -$0.92,-1.41%, today) may well come under pressure.

John Clancy
Visting Lecturer in Media, University of Birmingham Business School
Media Futures Analyst
mediafuturesalert.com
<< MORE >>

It would appear that claims for OLED TV screens as the future may be wide of the mark. While some manufacturers (e.g. LG) are sticking with and buying into the technology, others are dumping it (e.g Kodak). At least for TV-size units.

It could be that handheld phones an gaming devices may be its saviour, though. The HTC Desire Nexus 1-based phone, which has caused a big stir, is an 'AM' OLED device.

Here comes the science: that's an active matrix organic light emitting diode. In this process OLED pixels are deposited or integrated onto a thin film transistor (TFT) array to form a matrix of pixels that generate light upon electrical activation. This provides a higher refresh rate than their passive-matrix OLED counterparts, and they consume significantly less power.

The thinness of the 'Organic Light Emitting Diode'  TV screen was the big selling point and, indeed, the low energy usage. According to Reuters, Sony has pulled the plug on OLED TV sales in Japan due to poor sales. And costs are not yet coming down as expected.

The initial investment at manufacture stage is still massive.

My judgement, though,  is that it will still win out in the end, but some way into post-recovery, not in the immediate future. The low energy-use will, I believe, become the significant issue.

Consequently LG's confidence should be welcomed and a good sign of LG's judgement.


<< MORE >>

We called this here 8 months ago and were pretty much up to the mark here: Is it an iPhone? Is it a Netbook? Is it an iPad? It's an iTab.

But the most immediate impact is the price. The basic model (wifi model, 16gig and no 3g) is only $500 (£310) - which is pretty much in the zone of new contract iPhones in the UK. Now that is a surprise.

It's entry level and, as effectively a gadget (not a computing replacement), that is a real steal. It's worth buying it as an extra, I'd say, and consequently I'd call this as becoming an affordable buy. No contract 3g (in the States) is also very attractive.

I think they're not expecting this as a new big investment for the consumer - it's definitely an add-on, not a replacement. I think that works.

Wi-Fionly:
16GB $500
32GB $600
64GB $700

Wi-Fi +3G:
16GB $630
32GB $740
64GB $830

It’ll be shipping in 60 days; 90 days for 3G models.

Not yet seen a bit of flash working on it, though! This is a worry.

It's really much thinner than I expected (half inch) and is wider, it weighs a pound and a half.

Many mockups anticipated the shape of a big iPod touch/iPhone it's wider - perhaps to accomodate the shape of a newspaper or book?

There's a physical keyboard attachment - as predicted here. This could allow the flexibility of those wanting simple app-based computing, not needing the big mainframe or laptop if they don't want. Haven't seen a stand yet, though? It'll come!  New Apps specifically for the iPad - a new goldrush there then? Will you be able to work more than one app at a time? That will be crucial? No sign of that yet.

We might start to see the App as the basic working utility unit of our future computing?

Best to leave judgement for 48 hours, but initial thoughts are guided by the price, for me - it's genuinely entry level and the real clincher.  I think it'll make it a winner.

John Clancy
Media Futures Analyst
mediafuturesalert.com