“I am not a fan of conspiracy theories, but a few months ago the pieces of a mobile industry puzzle started to fall into place,” James Holland writes for Electricpig. “They’re subtle, but if I’m right Apple is poised to deliver a hammer blow that the mobile industry never saw coming.”
“The first hint of a change in the air came with Apple’s unveiling of iOS5. Along with it came iMessage, and the networks were dumbfounded,” Holland writes. “Without warning, Apple had diverted iPhone owners’ messages away from the networks’ SMS systems, and routed them through its own servers.”
Holland writes, “iMessage would, assuming both the sender and recipient were online, handle text, photo and even video messages. Coupled with the earlier addition of FaceTime video calling, it’s clear Apple wants complete end-to-end control of iPhone owners’ communications. And why not? The result for customers is fantastic.”
Read more in the full article here.
TKO!
The Tiiiiiiiiimes They Are A Change ING!
Market tracker NPD Group shocked the public when its channel checks showed that there were just 1.2 million non-iPad tablets sold in this country through the first 10 months of the year. It would have been substantially less if Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ ) hadn’t marked down its webOS TouchPad tablet to as little as $99 in a seemingly going-out-of-business clearance sale.
In short, despite all of its success as a mobile operating system for smartphones, Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG ) Android has been a dud for any manufacturer actually trying to sell gadgetry at a profit.
That is the most serious problem with Android – how long are manufacturers going to pursue it when it makes no money. Phones do make some money, but tablets have all been failures. They may try to go back to the old days – hoping the next WinMo would be great or rolling their own OS (using Android as a base, MeeGo, etc).
My advice: Make iPhone accessories; at least be a part of the winning team. 🙂
Electricpig: where 6 months is not too long to report on the obvious.
I am not sure if you read the entire article but I think they have a well thought out insight to Apple’s potential strategy and I like it. I like it a lot. ( :-p) Uncle Fester
I did read the article. It’s based on wild speculation that has its only factual foundation in Apple’s decision to offer iMessage.
The distance between that move and offering itself as a wireless provider is about as massive as the distance between Electroswine’s premise and the evidence to support it.
So how is this a Master Plan or Domination? I am as big a fan as anyone, but the iPhone as a texting device has only 5% market share. Most of my family, friends etc don’t have iPhones… So I text etc to a Phone or Text number. Plus, I have been using Text+ on my iPhone for years now and I have a [local] number assigned to that [free] that people can text to… All for free. iMessage doesn’t have that, at this point. As a result, I text only 2 people on iMessage. I’ve been bypassing the carrier and it’s outrageous fees to texting ever since Text+ gave me a local number assigned to my account in their APP – All free
Is this what your are talking about?
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/textplus-free-texting-group/id314487667?mt=8
your => you’re
You were about to receive the wrath of the MDN grammar police. Your lucky, qka, your lucky.
😉
you (and “the mac advocate”) should read the whole article.
” it’s clear Apple wants complete end-to-end control of iPhone owners’ communications. And why not? The result for customers is fantastic.””
A true end to end control would be APple controlling the data pipes too. Carrier throttling is contrary to what Apple wants their customers to do.
The news that Steve was investigating using non-standard communication methods to develop their own iPhone network just leads me to believe more strongly that Apple will attempt their own network at some point.
Bandwidth, however, is no small thing and that’s what AAPL lacks. Ultimately, companies that control the pipes are going to wield a lot of power. AAPL doesn’t do that yet and may never be able to.
Viewing the big U.S. telcos on a GRVY chart, with historical build-out on LEMN curves, and then dividing internet components on a PIE chart that distinguish between AAPL’s areas vs. AT&T and VZN, it’s hard to imagine the feds would let one company yield that kind of control. It’s bad enough that CMCSK is making a grab for content AND delivery. AAPL can sneakily get in the back door with services like iMessage, but it’s going to need the telcos just as MSFT needed AAPL for its own antitrust interests.
The author theorizes that Apple will solve the bandwidth issue by buying and reselling airtime from multiple carriers globally, effectively making Apple a global Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), allowing for transparent/automatic selection of networks regardless of location.
Separately… you should post links to your charts, they sound interesting.
Yes. Finally. All they need to do now is route calling through their system.
And then iPhone owners would just pay for # of GB of data and could use their iPhones however they want! 🙂
Apple… buy T-Mobile, update spectrum, offer unlimited minutes and data, tethering, Facetime, iMessage… Every ATT, Verizon and Sprint iPhone owner will bolt to a USA provider that offered those services at a reasonable price, just like you did with the iPod. The music store and .99¢ songs weren’t the money maker, it was the hardware, wasn’t it? Have 100% turnover rate for new yearly updated or upgraded iPhone hardware.
Okay, just a dream. Start ripping me a new one!
it is not CONTROL of the communications, they are merely enabling free communications. There will still be Skype and other systems available, but the user has access to free communications outside of the plan area. The telcoms will suffer however since they make big bucks on those services (SMS, etc)