Everybody knows that Apple’s iPhone is coming to Canada, eventually. Most people and publications speculate about when this momentous event will happen.
Today, few websites are excited about a blip that showed up on Apple’s site, and are extrapolating all kind of data from this blip.
Personally, I’m not exactly interested in when the iPhone will come to Canada. I know that it will. I would love to get one. But, it all depends on the ‘How Much?’ bit of the big picture.
Those outside of Canada probably have no clue on how ridiculous Canada’s wireless industry is.
For example, I’m with Fido (which was bought out by Rogers more than a year ago). I have their cheapest plan for my phone, which they advertise as “200 anytime minutes for $20 a month”. I have one additional service added - caller ID display - for an additional $3 per month. After fees and taxes and various ‘bend-over-to-stick-it-to-you-some-more’ additions to my bill, I pay $37.05 per month, not including any long distance calls that I may make.
So, the iPhone’s biggest question would be: how much will the data plans cost here in Canada?
Apple has been able to negotiate interesting deals with the carriers for iPhone buyers. I wonder if they can improve the situation here. I’m not too hopeful.
In Canada, the only GSM carrier is Fido and Rogers. But since Rogers bought Fido, effectively, there is only Rogers that can carry the iPhone.
Their only ‘reasonable’ data plan is $100 for up to 200 MB + $5 per additional MB. The cheaper ones are even more ridiculous than their parent company.
Compare the above to ATT’s data plan in the US at $20 for Unlimited data usage.
So while we know the iPhone is coming to Canada, the real question is: When the iPhone comes to Canada, will it be reasonable to buy and use?
After Apple’s announcement and subsequent release of the iPhone and later the iPod Touch, my brother and friends bitched about Apple’s stupidity and Steve Jobs’s control freakiness. They all complained about Apple’s unwillingness to allow or even encourage third party development of native iPhone applications.
Over the last few months, many, many articles have been written about the subject, mostly bemoaning Apple’s stance. Even Apple’s competitors in the cell business (namely Nokia) latched on to this and proclaimed that their phones are ‘Open to anything’, unlike the iPhone.
After few of such discussions with my brother and various other friends, I made a bet with all of them that as soon as Leopard is released, Apple will announce and then make available a native SDK (Software Development Kit) for the iPhone.
I made that bet on a logical rationale that my friends denied.
After the iPhone came out, it became widely known that it was running a version of Leopard. Since the Mac’s version of Leopard was still in Alpha stage at the time, it only made sense that the iPhone was running an Alpha version too.
Since Apple had set a June deadline to release the iPhone that meant they had to make sure that it works reliably. Which means that they chose a fairly stable build of the Leopard Alpha, fixed as many bugs as they could to insure stable and solid operation of the phone, made sure that their own applications on the phone are not stumbling on any bugs and they released that.
When working with an alpha-grade system, an SDK is nearly impossible. If I were Apple, I wouldn’t want to expose the inner working of an alpha-grade system to outside developers either.
Now that Leopard reached release status, that means all the features have been finalized and the code has reached an acceptable stability level. So now a native SDK has become feasible (Finally!).
However, Apple is still cautious. Just like prudent users who don’t install and use a .0 release on a mission critical system, Apple is taking its time to finalize and release the SDK. They’ve set the date of the release to sometime in February. That would give them time to iron out the majority of the big bugs that will crop out as soon as Leopard is released.
The iPhone’s SDK will be based on Leopard version 10.5.2 or 10.5.3. Of course the iPhone’s firmware will be updated to reflect the more mature version of Leopard available.
Now all we need is a firm date for the availability of the iPhone in Canada.
Today, Microsoft released a new version of their music player the Zune
and again, they failed to offer something more than ‘good enough’.
In a market almost completely dominated by Apple’s iPod, their offering look like they could compete with last year’s iPods; that’s not good enough to compete with this year’s iPods.
They have a couple of features that iPods don’t have, like an FM radio tuner and wireless syncing, but nothing really compelling.
If the new Zunes existed in a world of their own, then they could be seen as excellent. However, they don’t and they aren’t. The Zunes are Microsoft’s answer to their own pathological need to enter and try to dominate every market that has any kind of software in it.
What they got right:
The new Zunes look sleeker than their predecessors
However, this is just a visual assessment. Last year’s Zunes looked good in pictures. But, about a month ago, I had the chance to hold one in my hand and my reaction ‘Wow, what a piece of crap’. It feels extremely clunky, especially when you compare it to the same year’s iPods. So, I’ll withhold further judgement on that one until I can hold one of these new ones in my hand.
Wireless syncing
It is nice to be able to sync your music player to your computer’s music library without having to connect it with a cable. Although, since you have to charge it usually, connecting it isn’t a big hassle. So this is nice to have, but not a big seller feature.
FM Tuner
Nice to have sometime. Again, not the most compelling feature for a ‘Personal Music Player’. The biggest draw of all digital music players is that they allow you to listen to whatever you want, whenever you want. Having somebody else make a playlist for you and interrupt it with talking and commercials is not exactly what most people want. But, it’s nice to have if you like talk radio from time to time.
What they got wrong:
Nothing compelling
While this not exactly something wrong, it’s still a drawback. There is nothing about the new Zunes that makes you go ‘Ooh, I must have that’.
Still no Mac support
If Microsoft wants to be taken seriously and give the impression that they’re not just trying to extend their Windows monopoly, then they need to start supporting other platforms. Like it or not, Mac users tend to be influencers. If Microsoft can’t seem to get itself to appeal to those who have a greater influence in the consumer electronics market, then they show that they don’t understand the market they’re trying to dominate.
Lame marketing
They announced this new version of their music player. But, it’s not available immediately (big mistake when they’re competing against Apple).
Their website is completely lame (I mean really, how hard is it to make a picture clickable? a tiny ‘learn more’ link is not enough).
The Zune’s site is a joke. For a company as big as Microsoft, you would think they could have hired an advertising company to design their promotional pages on the site. If you want to have a big share of a consumer electronics market, you have to get people excited about your products. Microsoft doesn’t give the impression that even they are excited about their own stuff. That impression carries to their audience.
The impression that I got from their site and from what I’ve read today in the media goes something like ‘Yeah, here is our new version of the Zune, we know it’s not as good as the new iPods, but we have to release something’.
Colors
The black one and the red one are OK, but the green and pink! ugh! those look like ugly toys. Got to have attractive colors.
That’s all I can think of without being able to see and hold one in person.
I’m a Mac user, and an iPod owner. I’m only disappointed in Microsoft because I believe that Apple is getting complacent. Currently, Apple doesn’t have any serious competition in the digital music players field. They’re not as innovative as they can be. Actually, that’s not the correct word. They are innovative, look at the iPod Touch. The more appropriate word is not ‘aggressive’ enough.
The iPod classic is basically the same as last year’s with bigger drives. No real innovation beyond a new metallic outer shell. Why there is no Touch with a big hard drive? If anybody is serious about watching video on an iPod, then the Touch has the largest screen, and consequently would need larger storage for the big video files. And why is there no Mail application on the Touch?
Only with healthy competition, can a healthy market exist. So far, nobody has put up any serious competition to Apple in the music player business.
To paraphrase Paul Giamatti’s character in ‘Shoot’em Up’, “Either Apple is really that good, or its competition really, really sucks”. From Microsoft’s recent offerings, it’s a bit of both.
AÂ new era of computer, and I’m sure other electronics, design is starting. Apple’s design influence is clearly showing in the new Gateway ‘One’.
Here is the new Gateway One, and below it you’ll find the new Aluminum iMac released back in August. A blind man could possibly see the similarities.
By the way, I’m using one of those iMacs with a 24″ screen. It’s sweet. I can’t believe how much quieter it is compared to my four-year-old G5 Tower. The quality of my office’s atmosphere is immeasurably better because of the lack of noise.
While the G5 was much quieter than the ‘Wind Tunnel’ G4 tower it replaced 4 years ago, it’s still a noisy beast, especially in the days of summer when the 9 fans it has would kick up because of the ambient temperature.
