Eknath Kadam > Apple

Now that Nexus one will be available on all 4 major US carriers. AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon. Its scary for Apple and iPhone. Its been almost 3 years and iPhone is still stuck with AT&T while its hardly 3 months and Nexus One will be available on all 4 carriers. Android is spreading like wild-fire. It will be no longer from now when we can see what happened to Mac in 80s may happen to iPhone again.

Apple’s got a lot of philosophical problems. You will never-ever see a keyboard on iPhone. iPhone OS will never be licensed to third party handset manufacturers. Carrier exclusivity still continues throughout the world. India and China has proven it long ago what can happen to mobile industry if handsets are not locked to a carrier. Watch out for the speed Nexus One can move now.

If Apple is to follow their regular  schedule, we can expect iPhone 4.0 in June/July timeframe. Unless 4.0 has some amazing new features, both in terms of software and hardware, it will be really hard for iPhone to compete with Android phones in general.

While Apple is smart enough to see whats happening in industry and for sure they have some secret plans to destroy the competition. Here are my two cents what Apple can do to destroy the competition completely.

1. Make iPhone available on all 4 carriers in US. (This is so obvious!)

2. Alternatively, sell the GSM version unlocked thru out the world. (Like Nokia does and now Google is doing.)

3. Exceed all the basic hardware specs and stay ahead of competition by at least an year. It may mean bigger screen with higher resolution, a front facing camera, faster processor, more memory, longer battery life.

4. Reduce the revision cycle for the hardware from 12 months to at least 9 months. Rest of the industry is moving very fast since they only concentrate on hardware part. Google takes care of the OS. Apple is making the whole banana themselves.

5. Allow multi-tasking for 3rd party apps. I know it doesn’t make much sense, but its something people are asking all the time and competitors are advertising against.

6. Lower the price. Its a hard pill to swallow for Apple as they like to enjoy the premium status. While this strategy is working for Macs, it will be difficult going forward to work for iPhone too.

Update 1: March 23rd 10. HTC introduces HTC EVO 4G. The best hardware specs on the market. iPhone 4G now have great competition. Apple faithfuls will wait and watch until iPhone 4G is introduced. If the 4G iPhone H/W & S/W specs are disappointing  a lot people will leave the iPhone.

Update 2: iPhone 4 has been launched and its hardware specs are super exciting. Retina display is just beautiful. Front facing camera with Facetime gonna rule. Apple’s A4 chip is fast enough to beat the competition. Multitasking is in, new hardware form factor is in. iPhone 4 will continue to rule another year.

Windows is the Bug #1 in Ubuntu bug database. It might be same case in Apple bug database as well, but since its not public database we will never know it. After bashing windows for last 3 years, I seriously started to think if its a Bug or a Fix?

Windows 7 is officially out. I have been using its pre-release version for a quite a long time. Its better than Vista. But its still windows. After using Mac for last 3 years, every moment on windows PC is full of annoyance. But this post is not about telling how bad windows is, but about what this world would have been, if there was no windows. And how Windows-ecosytem is great in some ways.

Apple made the personal computing revolution with Apple II and then the Mac. Mac OS was always tied to its Apple hardware. It was for a good reason. Later when Steve Jobs left Apple, they seriously thought of licensing Mac OS to third party hardware manufacturers. But it never became a reality. Macs are great computers but they are too expensive. The cheapest Mac Mini is priced at $599. Add another $100 for a cheap monitor and $50 for Mouse and Keyboard. So the cheapest mac computer costs you $750. In same amount of money one can buy two Windows PCs.

Apple enjoys huge profit margins on its hardware where as PC manufacturers have tough times maintaining their profit margins because of the competition. The end result is that PCs see huge price decline every year. Apple faces no such competition, they maintain their monopolistic position in pricing their hardware.

So, If there was no Windows, I doubt if countries like India and China could have seen the same amount of computer literacy as they have it today. Its very easy to criticize the shortcomings of windows, but hard to appreciate what the Windows-ecosystem have made it possible for third world countries. Apple computers are way too expensive for these countries. Today, in India every middle class household has a PC or thinking of getting one. If there was no Windows, I doubt if India could have ever emerged as an IT-Superpower.

So far windows has worked a Fix. The world (90% it) runs on Windows. So its enough proof that windows works, and it works to fix a lot of world’s problems.

There has been a lot of fuss about Apple being evil lately. Media highlights such events in bold, cause everyone loves Apple and when Apple goes wrong they want to make it a big news.

1. Apple rejects Google Voice app.

2. Eric Schmidt  leaves Apple.

3. iPod battery explosion.

And many such events make it big news on several blogs and crazy readers fill those blogs with endless comments and debates.

Where is it all going? Apple, a corporation, is soulless entity. People are crazy about Apple and Apple products. If Apple sneezes all fanboys catch cold. And there are Apple haters. Anything goes wrong with Apple, they rejoice. Lovers or haters, they take everything personally. On the other hand, Apple Inc. show extreme professionalism in everything they do. They don’t care about who loves them or hates them. For them its all business.

Bottom-line, its high time if you are still in love-hate relationship with a corporation. Corporations are not persons. They are like robots and their only aim is to make money!

Click on the picture above to visit iTunes pages where this ad is shown.

Couldn’t wait to pre-order iPhone 3G S. And they delivered it on launch day. Yes, June 19th, and i have been using it extensively for last two days. And I m impressed. It certainly speedier than iPhone 3G. Here is my detailed review.

1. I immediately fall in love with digital compass. It makes iPhone very powerful and particularly the maps app. I went to a shopping center and wanted to find a new store that I had never been too. Maps with compass helped me to perfectly locate it.
2. I got my new Nike+ shoes with Nike sensor. 3G S now has Nike+ support. The Nike+ app is awesome. Its a great aid and boost for my long walks and runs. Now I can track how much time I am spending on my workouts, how longs am walking and how much calories I am burning. iTunes automatically updates the workout data to nikeplus.com and I plan to make that widget available on this blog.
3. Video feature is awesome. But I dont know how much I will use it.
4. I tried the Voice Over and accessibility features. And I think they are really great and make iPhone a perfect phone.
5. 3.0 OS has great new features. Mainly, now youtube supports accounts, so I can record a video and immediately upload it to youtube and within minutes its available to watch.
6. The mic with remote is another awesome update to 3G S. Great to use while workouts.