According to the latest Nielsen report, Android and iPhone make up majority of the U.S smartphone market. Both Android phones and iPhone did not exist or were not popular about 5 years ago, and were introduced into a Nokia and Blackberry dominated market. Since then Google and Apple have become fierce competitors and the data proves that they are in fact, at the top of the smartphone market. According to the report, Android’s increase in market share was a whopping 53% from January to October, up from a solid 42%. Apple’s iOS, although trailing behind Android also experienced an increase, from 21% to 29%.

With Android and Apple leading the pack, Blackberry’s RIM has been seeing a steady decline in shares, holding on to only 11.6 percent of the smartphone market, which is substantially less than both Android and Apple. Other smartphone companies, such as Motorola once held over 36% of the smartphone market but have since dropped to below 1%, as of March 2009. This is due in large part to Apple’s massive success with the iPhone’s adoption, selling more of the device each quarter and the widespread adoption of Android OS in a number of smartphones, including Motorola’s Droid line.

Nielsen’s report also mentioned new smartphone purchases, where 48 percent of users surveyed in February said they purchased an Android phone and 43% said they purchased an iPhone. These are staggering numbers, especially since both of these companies have not faltered with their takeover of the U.S smartphone market and have increased their annual revenue with each passing year.

A report from The Financial Times today mentioned that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has surpassed Nokia to claim the spot for world’s top smartphone vendor. Apple Inc. experienced rapid growth with the introduction of it’s iPhone 4 while Nokia experienced a sharp decrease in manufacturing and production.

AAPL had the ability to close out a 5.5 million unit deficit during the first quarter and turn it into a 3.6 million unit lead in the second quarter. Apple’s 3rd quarter also produced sufficient results and suggests that Apple may be holding this spot for a long time.

Shipments of Nokia smartphones declined by 34 per cent to 16.7m units, compared with the 20.3m iPhones shipped by Apple in its second quarter.

Apple was already the biggest smartphone maker by revenue and profits, but the April-June period marked the first time it had surpassed Nokia in volume.

Nokia and Research in Motion used to be two of the biggest cell phone manufacturers in the world, but failed to hold out after Apple topped RIM in Global shipments during the 3rd quarter of 2010. With this news coming at the beginning of the 4th quarter of 2011 and the introduction of Mac OS X Lion, Apple can expect huge growth in sales of shipments.

Apple has faced competition from Android and HTC, although Apple still remains number one due to Android phones being shipped by more than one manufacturer. Both Android and HTC have shipped about half the number of phones globally when compared with Apple. Android has experienced major growth over the last year, but is still behind in terms of shipment volumes. Apple has yet to formally announce this new achievement.

According to IHS iSuppli who published these figures shipments for electronic goods generally slow down after the holiday season but the dip in smartphone industry is atypical. In contrast, Apple’s iPhone shipments jumped nearly 15% as the company shipped 18.6 million of its smartphones in the first quarter.

The market research firm credited the launch of Verizon iPhone 4 for strong sales in the first quarter. Tina Teng, IHS senior analyst for wireless communications, said:

Not only did this allow Apple to expand its target market and boost shipments, it also placed additional pressure on rival smart phone brands–including Motorola, Samsung, LG and HTC–that focus on Verizon Wireless as a major customer,

Apple continues to remain at number two position on the list of top smartphone manufacturers in terms of total shipments however, companies like Nokia, Motorola saw sequential declines of 14.5% and 16.3% respectively.

Nokia’s tie-up with Microsoft is being viewed as one of the sting factors impacting sales as consumers anticipate newer models to feature the new Windows Phone platform. Ting said, “With the announcement of the deal, Nokia eliminated the incentive for consumers to buy its existing smartphone products, which are based on its Symbian and MeeGo operating systems. Meanwhile, the Microsoft deal is unlikely to yield any products for nearly one year,”

Apple’s clever timing for the Verizon iPhone 4 launch and then the White iPhone is certainly causing a positive impact on sales. The research firm also noted that RIM’s shipments were up 4.2% in the first quarter compared with the fourth. However, Research In Motion failed to catch up and was 4 percentage points behind Cupertino, Calif. based company in terms of shipments, compared with 2.1 points in Q4.

The BlackBerry PlayBook is RIM’s answer to Apple’s iPad – a 7.6-inch tablet that boasts a 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and two high-resolution cameras. It’s received bucket loads of hype since it was announced, with the tech world dying to get their hands on the device and establish whether it gives the iPad 2 anything to worry about. Well, the initial reviews are now in from some of the biggest names in tech, and it doesn’t look good for RIM’s PlayBook.

In short, most are saying that the PlayBook is a device which feels as though it has been rushed – like RIM were desperate to get it to market, and that as it stands the BlackBerry tablet isn’t worth your hard earned cash.

David Pogue of the New York Times said that the PlayBook’s software is buggy, and that it is missing simple, yet important features, such as the ability to view email attachments, or even open URL links within an email. These are features that have made iOS so useful since the day it launched on the iPhone, and you’d expect one of its rivals to include the same functionality.

Summing up his review, Pogue wrote:

The PlayBook, then, is convenient, fast and coherently designed. But in its current half-baked form, it seems almost silly to try to assess it, let alone buy it.

Remember, the primary competition is an iPad — the same price, but much thinner, much bigger screen and a library of 300,000 apps. In that light, does it make sense to buy a fledgling tablet with no built-in e-mail or calendar, no cellular connection, no videochat, Skype, no Notes app, no GPS app, no videochat, no Pandora radio and no Angry Birds?

Walt Mossberg of the New York Times also got his hands on the device, and – like Pogue – believes the device just isn’t ready for market yet. Though its cameras are better than those in the iPad 2:

The screen is beautiful, even though it has a lower resolution than the iPad’s. And the cameras are better than the iPad’s.

Still, unless you are constantly glued to a BlackBerry phone, or do all your email, contacts and calendar tasks via a browser, I recommend waiting on the PlayBook until more independently usable versions with the promised additions are available.

Wired believes that while the PlayBook’s hardware is solid, it’s the software that lets the device down:

It’s a well-constructed device with great media-viewing capabilities, solid hardware specs and a price on par with the current tablet market. But with serious gaps in key areas like app selection and Flash stability, you may want to think twice before picking one up.

There are plenty of other reviews online, from all of the big tech publications – and all seem to deliver the same message: while the PlayBook looks good, packs some decent hardware, and comes from a reputable manufacturer, its software just doesn’t cut it in today’s market. Until RIM go back to basics and give the PlayBook’s software a complete overhaul, it will never be an iPad killer, let alone compete with the top tablets.

Taiwanese site DigiTimes claims Apple bought up so many touch panels that its Canadian competitor just couldn’t get its tablet built in time. Having originally been slated for a release in the first quarter of 2011 PlayBook is now going on sale on April 19th.

due to a delay in software testing as well as shortage of touch panels because Apple already booked up most of the available capacity.

The 7 inch PlayBook is expected to be one the iPad’s main competitors once launched due to RIM’s strong foothold in Enterprise. With so many IT departments already running BlackBerry systems adding PlayBooks to the infrastructure could make more sense than iPads.

Apple currently holds huge cash reserves which clearly helped the company pay over the odds in order to ensure as many iPad 2’s made their way into stores as possible. The Cupertino outfit used similar tactics in the past, buying up much of the world’s supply of NAND memory for its iPods, iPads and iPhones. When Apple buys parts, they do it in bulk!

Whether RIM’s PlayBook proves to be a real challenger to the iPad 2’s crown remains to be seen, but any competition is good competition in our book so good luck to them!

{via DigiTimes}

Kodaks stock rose by 22% after news that the US International Trade Commission will review a judge’s view that ruled against the company in January.

Kodak claims both Apple and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion violated a patent relating to the previewing of digital photos on a smartphone. Unsurprisingly the two smartphone manufacturers disagree.

Apple and RIM aren’t the first Kodak has gone after – Samsung and LG felt the patent hurt back in 2008, with the pair settling for a combined $964 million. While Apple has more cash on-hand than they know what to do with, RIM won’t want to spend the money if they don’t have to.

Patents are proving a lucrative business for Kodak, with the company raking in $838 million last year alone. With that kind of money coming through the courts, who needs to make cameras!?

{Source: NYDailyNews}

US pricing is in line with the ‘below $500′ price-point tablets seem to be aiming for these days, after the huge popularity of the iPad and iPad 2. The base 16GB WiFi model comes in at $499, with 32GB and 64GB variations coming in at $599 and $699 respectively. Canadian pricing is the same $499 for 16GB while the 32GB is $599. 64GB will set Canadians back $699 – priced obviously in Canadian Dollars. Hopefully the same conversion won’t be true outside the Americas. No Dolla to Pound conversion in the UK please Mr RIM!

No pricing yet for anything other than the WiFi model, with pre-orders starting to go live in the States and Canada through Best Buy and a few more retail partners, all listed in the press release below. The release date? April 19th.

Press release:

RIM Announces Retail Channels for BlackBerry PlayBook

BlackBerry PlayBook to be available in over 20,000 Retail Outlets in the U.S. and Canada

Waterloo, ON – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced plans to make the highly-anticipated BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet available in more than 20,000 retail outlets in the U.S. and Canada.

“The BlackBerry PlayBook is an amazing tablet that is already being widely praised as a multi-tasking powerhouse with an uncompromised web experience and an ultra-portable design,” said Mike Lazaridis, President & Co-CEO, Research In Motion. “Given the high level of customer interest in the BlackBerry PlayBook, we are particularly pleased to be working with such an amazing lineup of retail partners.”

The BlackBerry PlayBook delivers professional-grade, consumer-friendly experiences that redefine the possibilities of mobile computing. This ultra-portable tablet looks and feels great, measuring less than half an inch thick and weighing less than a pound. It features a vivid 7-inch high-resolution display that is highly-responsive with a fluid touch screen experience. It also offers industry leading performance, uncompromised web browsing with support for Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1, true multitasking, HD multimedia, advanced security features, out-of-the-box enterprise support and a robust development environment.

The BlackBerry PlayBook with Wi-Fi will be available in three models and will feature a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) starting at $499 in the United States and Canada. The lineup of retailers and wireless carriers currently expected to carry the BlackBerry PlayBook in the United States and Canada includes the following companies*:

United States

AT&T
Best Buy
Cbeyond
Cellular South
Cincinnati Bell
Office Depot
RadioShack
ShopBlackBerry.com
Staples
Sprint
Verizon
BlackBerry from Wireless Giant

Canada

Bell
Best Buy
Chapters / Indigo
Costco
Future Shop
Mobilicity
MTS Allstream
Rogers
Sasktel
Sears
ShopBlackBerry.com
Staples
Telus
Tbooth Wireless
The Source
Videotron
Walmart
WIND Mobile
WIRELESS etc.
WIRELESSWAVE

BlackBerry PlayBook Specifications

7″ 1024×600 WSVGA capacitive LCD touch screen
Ultra-portable at less than a pound and less than one-half inch thick: 0.9 lbs (425g) and 5.1″ x 7.6″ x 0.4″ (130mm x 194mm x 10mm)
1 GHz dual-core processor
BlackBerry® Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
MP3, AAC and WMA audio playback
Support for high resolution video playback (H.264, MPEG4, WMV)
1080p HDMI output
Dual 1080p HD cameras for video conferencing and video capture (3MP front and 5MP rear)
1 GB RAM memory
Up to 64 GB internal storage (16, 32 and 64 GB models)
GPS, Orientation Sensor (Accelerometer), 6-Axis Motion Sensor (Gyroscope), Digital Compass (Magnetometer)
Stereo speakers and stereo microphones
Wi-Fi® (802.11 a/b/g/n) connectivity
Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR support

{Source: Engadget}

Market research form IHS has been taking a look at the way the mobile software market is shaping up, and Apple is the clear leader with nearly 83% of the market share. What does 83% get you? A whopping $1.78 billion! That’s a lot of apps!

Second in the chart is BlackBerry’s App World, with just 7.7 and of the market with a worth of $165 million. As AppleInsider reports, while RIM’s store is home to a much smaller library of apps the prices are considerably higher, which obviously means less apps need to be sold to make the big bucks.

By contrast, Google’s Android finds itself all the way down in fourth with only 4.7% of the market share. It’s no secret that the Android Market is dominated by free apps, with users of the OS tending to be much less likely to buy apps than their iOS counterparts.

Considering the number of Android devices out in the wild these days it’s no surprise Google is unhappy about the low number of paid apps users are downloading.

]]> https://touchreviews.net/ios-dominates-mobile-software-market-sales/feed/ 2 https://touchreviews.net/rim-playbook-capable-pim-features/ https://touchreviews.net/rim-playbook-capable-pim-features/#comments Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:56:35 +0000 https://touchreviews.net/?p=13885 Read More]]> The BlackBerry PlayBook is universally acclaimed as one of the most promising tablets to be announced in the last few months, and with its impending launch it’s sure to turn a few heads with its impressive performance and fancy UI. One problem many critics (including my good self) have thrown at it though is the reliance on being tethered to a BlackBerry smartphone.

As a standalone tablet machine, the PlayBook won’t have access to PIM functions such as email, calendaring and contacts. All these features requite a smartphone in order to function – a limitation sure to put some potential purchasers off.

But fear not PlayBook fans, for BlackBerry’s Senior Product Manager Ryan Bidan says the device is still a capable machine ‘in its own right’ while going on to say, “This is not a device that is reliant on a BlackBerry.”

Interestingly however, Bidan did stop short of addressing the issue of the missing apps directly but he did say that PIM functions “will come as the platform evolves’.

That’s no good now though is it, Ryan?!

RIM (NASDAQ:RIMM) saw its share price rise on the back of some promising news about the expected retail price of its upcoming iPad competitor, the BlackBerry PlayBook. CEO Jim Balsillie claims the 7″ tablet will sell for ‘under $500′, Bloomberg’s Businessweek reported yesterday.

Expected to be released in the first quarter of 2011, PlayBook is being touted as the first business class tablet, and many believe it may be the first real competitor to Apple’s iPad, which currently dominates with a staggering 95% of market share. Samsung recently entered the fray with its Galaxy Tab, but sales are said to be lacklustre, with the device’s high purchase price and 2 year contracts potentially putting people off. A sub $500 price point for the PlayBook could see BlackBerry’s entry gain more traction, especially given its superior hardware specification.

Balsillie is also quotes as saying that the iPad’s dominance will ‘change when we’re in the market’. Strong words indeed, and ones that only hard sales numbers will back up.

With just Nokia, Samsung and LG further up the rankings, Apple has now ousted RIM from fourth place, with the Canadian business phone specialist slipping to fifth. Another loser in all this is Sony Ericsson who fell out of the top 5 for the first time since IDC started the Mobile Phone Tracker report in 2004.

Smartphones are the current business drivers according to Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst at IDC – “The entrance of Apple to the top 5 vendor ranking underscores the increased importance of smartphones to the overall market. Moreover, the mobile phone makers that are delivering popular smartphone models are among the fastest growing firms,”

All this shows Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs wasn’t lying during his rant on the company’s recent quarterly conference call. Jobs was quotes as saying “we’ve passed RIM’ – something these results from IDC confirm.

With Apple’s recent push to bolster the iPhone’s business credentials it may not be easy for RIM to bounce back and with Apple shipping a record 14.1m iPhones in the 3rd quarter against RIM’s 12.4m Blackberrys Research In Motion will need to up its game.

Interesting times ahead in the smartphone market.

This is the first time Apple (AAPL) have ever outdone the BlackBerry on a quarterly basis, and it only adds insult to injury for RIM following Steve Jobs’ recent boast during last week’s conference call when he announced that his company was on top.

We’ve now passed RIM. And I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future. They must move beyond their area of strength and comfort, into the unfamiliar territory of trying to become a software platform company. I think it’s going to be a challenge for them to create a competitive platform and to convince developers to create apps for yet a third software platform after iOS and Android. With 300,000 apps on Apple’s App Store, RIM has a high mountain ahead of them to climb

The top spot when it comes to shipments was stolen by Nokia, however, who shipped an outstanding 26.5 million smartphones in the quarter.

Despite this news, RIM are still very much a contender in the smartphone market, and with their new Bold 9780 and Style 9670 devices coming soon, they may soon receive a much needed boost in popularity.

Earlier this week, Steve announced that Apple had overtaken the Canadian based BlackBerry creator: “We’ve now passed RIM and I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future.” And Canadian analyst Michael Walkley of Canacord Genuity agrees with him.

Walkley told the National Post daily that, in his view, Apple’s iOS – which runs on both the iPhone and iPad – would continue to gather smartphone and tablet market share. Walkley also compared the 10,000 apps currently available for BlackBerry devices with the 300,000 now available through Apple’s App Store. Furthermore, the analyst noted that Android’s disjoined open app market was also no match for the App Store in quantity.

According to Sameet Kanade, a financial analyst with Northern Securities, a real threat for RIM is its lack of profile in consumer markets. “Although RIM is attempting to make gains in this area as highlighted by the recent acquisition of California-based Cellmania, we believe the gap between RIM and the two leading competitors (Apple and Google) in the consumer market is increasing every quarter,” Kanade said.

He continued about enterprise with, “We believe the potential adoption of the iPhone by key RIM enterprise users may have a domino effect, creating further market disruption for RIM.”

A Facebook thread from SaudiMac has noted that all references to Facetime have been removed from Apple’s regional sites.

This is a rumor at the moment but, sounds pretty plausible based on what has happened recently with RIMs Blackberry in Qatar and Yemen, as well as India. In the Blackberry’s case the governments of some countries objected to data being sent by those devices in an encrypted form that they were unable to intercept and decipher “if the need arose for security reasons”.

The complaint is not that unreasonable when one considers that countries like the US and UK already unofficially have access to Blackberry’s data in a not-so-secret, but oft denied agreement with RIM.

Underlying the possible “security” reasons for wanting to monitor mobile communications, there was actually in many cases a far more simple social issue at play. Blackberry’s were being used by the young, most irritatingly to some, young women, to send messages of a personal nature to their partners! Something that doesn’t play well in some cultures, where the freedom of the youth of today seem to be accelerating beyond that which the older generation deem acceptable.

Imagine those same people’s horror when they discovered that Apple’s latest mobile phone will allow unfettered, network free video calling! Of course that reason for the objection to Facetime is just one possibility.

Many of these countries also have much stricter restrictions on the flavor of traffic that is allowed to be used over public networks. The communication protocols behind Facetime are one of those that are explicitly banned by certain governments and their mobile network providers.

Is this a government conspiracy, Telcos protecting their profits, or a culture clash with Apple’s new Facetime technology?

Time will tell…

What do you think? Have your say in the comments…

[TUAW] ]]> https://touchreviews.net/iphone-4-facetime-middle-eastern-users/feed/ 0 https://touchreviews.net/iphone-4-antennagate-conference-samsung-responds/ https://touchreviews.net/iphone-4-antennagate-conference-samsung-responds/#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:06:28 +0000 https://touchreviews.net/?p=7918 Read More]]> During the iPhone 4 “Antennagate Conference” Apple CEO showed videos of HTC Droid Eris, Samsung Omnia II and BlackBerry Bold 9700 dropping singal bars when held in a way which attenuates its signal. Apple didn’t just stop there, after the conference was over they posted a new page on their website which explains the antenna design and issue of weak spots in smartphones.

We recently reported that Nokia, RIM & HTC were quick to respond to the “Antennagate” conference and today Samsung in its defense said that:

The antenna is located at the bottom of the Omnia 2 phone, while iPhone’s antenna is on the lower left side of the device. Our design keeps the distance between a hand and an antenna. We have fully conducted field tests before the rollout of smartphones. Reception problems have not happened so far, and there is no room for such problems to happen in the future.

Hwan Kim, vice-president of mobile communications recently issued a new statement to Reuters saying:

we have not received significant customer feedback on any signal reduction issue for the Omnia II. Based on years of experience of designing high quality phones, Samsung mobile phones employ an internal antenna design technology that optimizes reception quality for any type of hand-grip use.

The aim of Apple’s conference was to explain to its customers that the “weak spot” issue in not unique to iPhone 4 and continues to be a challenge for the entire industry and by showing the existence of similar issues in its competitors products Apple has been successful in conveying this message.

Some pundits went into the event secure in their own personal mind bubble that Steve knew about the issue with the iPhone 4, it wasn’t fixable, and he was a liar. Others went in equally sure that he didn’t know about it, and it could perhaps be fixed by software, but Apple were struggling with that task. Overall though, a very large percentage of all of them went in assuming that Apple would have to grovel their way out of this situation, offer some kind of mea culpa, recall the iPhone 4 (at least with some kind of voluntary return scheme) and then crawl away licking their wounds.
Unfortunately what a lot of the pundits, who themselves contributed to creating this 22 day circus forgot was that “Pride always comes before a fall”. They also forgot that Apple has said all along that if you don’t like the iPhone 4 you can return it within 30 days for a full refund.

Apple’s senior management wasn’t even on the same planet as most industry pundits when they entered the Press Conference. By that I mean that their perception of the issue was one based in reality, 22 days of hard work and investigation and several years of hard work prior to that. What it was certainly not based on was self-aggrandisation, a grubby search for page-views, or a self inflicted forced feedback loop of rumor and speculation feeding on itself in a piranha pool like frenzy.

The first bullet that Apple dodged was the amount of mileage that other manufacturers were planning to make out of “Antennagate”.

“Every Magic Trick consists of three parts, or acts.”

“The First part is called The Pledge. The Magician shows you something ordinary.”

So Steve started with the iPhone 4. He also softened us up with the now famous iPhone 4 Antenna song, and an admission that Apple makes mistakes.

Steve carefully orchestrated the way his monologue ran so that it led smoothly through a winding tail reenforcing just how good the iPhone 4 is at handling radio signals, and then arrived at a tantalising moment where he flirted with his own “pet theory” about why a minuscule number more calls have been recorded as dropped by AT&T on the iPhone 4 than on the iPhone 3GS.

With the dropped calls figure he gave us something which sounded like a negative, just briefly, before hinting at something a lot of people were salivating for – something free! And then he changed tack. That fleeting proposition seemed to be gone. So we listened all the more intently to what he had to say next…

In my own view the sampling for the iPhone 4 is so small by comparison to the 3GS it seems that comparing the two is irrelevant at this stage, whichever way you lean. But what it did do was put things in perspective and give Apple a really minor piece of bad “hard data” to take responsibility for, which it would later use as a reason to offer an appeasement to its customers.

As Steve continued to lecture us he dragged some of the iPhone 4’s main competitors into the room by the scruff of their necks, metaphorically; in the form of their handsets, and showed us their flaws also.

Now, in the UK it is illegal to produce adverts which criticise your competitors. At least it was the last time I checked. And I am pretty sure that although it used to go on in the US, it is now at least frowned upon, if not illegal in some states.

However, under the guise of a kind of public service announcement, or technical lecture, Steve Jobs spent about a third of his Press Conference showing us some of Apple’s leading competitors mobile devices dropping signals right in-front of our eyes. Just like the iPhone 4 has been reported as doing.

“The second act is called the turn. The Magician takes the ordinary something and makes it into something extraordinary.”

In one fell swoop he had created a global advert, sure to be replayed on news networks around the world, and streamed to people’s computers shortly after the Press Conference concluded. Levelling the playing field in Apple’s most important industry. Undoing harm, and putting previously falsely smug competitors on notice.

It is interesting to note that Apple got the video of the press conference up on its website in record time. And that there were clips from it playing on global news networks even before the Q&A immediately after the press conference had finished on the Apple campus.

This morning, instead of crowing about Apple’s troubles, as they were earlier in the week, Nokia and RIM are on the back foot and rushing to distribute their own Press Releases criticising Apple’s methods at the press conference. They’re in the offices emailing and faxing over the weekend! Apple is not. Apple’s competitors are now finding themselves doing their best to dispute the videos of their devices that Steve Jobs managed to get a global community looking at. But no-one, apart from tech. sites are picking any of this up. Because it’s not Apple, and it’s not interesting, and it’s the weekend now.

But back to the conference…

The second bullet that Apple dodged was the outcry that would come from third party iPhone 4 case manufacturers when they realised that Apple had just killed their business by giving away free Bumpers to a lot of their potential customers.

At the point where we all expected the “free Bumper” announcement I have already mentioned that Steve skilfully wheeled away and took us on another brief joy ride ride through how good the iPhone 4 is, just like that final twist on a roller coaster. And then he threw the free Bumper line out almost casually, as we were all looking the other way.

“But you wouldn’t clap yet because making something disappear isn’t enough. You have to bring it back.”

It was almost as if Jobs had watched “The Prestige” recently, and recalled perfectly how Michael Caine explained exactly the perfect steps a magicians trick should follow. (The quotes I am using are from that great movie, by the way.)
Now, something that had occurred to me a few days before the Press Conference, and one of the reasons I had my doubts about Apple giving out free Bumpers was that it could potentially alienate the entire third party product industry built up around the iPhone ecosystem.

Another reason that giving out Bumpers might be a bad idea is that I think it potentially opens a crack in Apple’s legal defence against the class action lawsuits that some initiated against Apple in the first few days that the iPhone 4 was on the market. But that is a subject for another article.

In any case Apple is giving out free Bumpers to all customers, and they have managed to make sure that there will be plenty on hand, and at the same time they won’t get more bad PR by gutting the relative cottage industry that iPhone third party accessories make up when compared to Apple’s corporate juggernaut.

Apple did that by “admitting”, or seeming to admit, that they couldn’t possibly manufacture enough Bumpers to satisfy all their customers themselves. And that they would get around that “problem” by enlisting the help of selected third party manufacturers, so that they could not only offer their customers a more diverse range of iPhone 4 Bumpers and covers to choose from. But also get them to them sooner rather than later. Whilst there may be some truth in the explanation that they could not produce enough Bumpers, it is certain that the thinking that went into that strategy ran deeper than simple supply issues.

To round the event out Steve confirmed that the white iPhone 4 would be available at the end of July. He assured us that Apple exists only to make its customers happy, and that they take all this very personally.

Finally in the Q&A he called both the New York Times and The Wall Street Journals liars.

“Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be… fooled.”

To be clear though, that last line I am quoting from “The Prestige” is not really where I am at personally. I never really saw there being a serious problem with the iPhone 4.

But that’s because I actually have one, and have been using it since a few days after launch, and have not had a single – not one – dropped call. And I use mine without a case in areas where both Nokia phones and previous iPhones had problems getting and keeping signals. So I don’t need to be convinced that the iPhone 4 is a great product.

Unfortunately Apple wasn’t trying to convince me. It was trying to convince an industry that exists on rumors and smoke and mirrors itself. Ironic when you consider that most rumor sites are the ones who feel they are drawing the curtain back on Apple’s “evil” PR machine. When in actual fact they are at best victims of their own forced feedback loop they create by stealing content from one another on the internet, and at worst vultures trolling for page views.

Overall I give Apple, and Steve Jobs 10 out of 10 for their handling of “antennagate”. So far…

I say so far, because it is not over yet. Those same sites, currently in some disarray as they work out their next move, already have their sights set on September the 30th. A deadline that Apple set for the end of free Bumpers. And one they are already assuming is the date that Apple will produce a hardware fix for the iPhone 4 that will change the laws of physics.

Woe betide Apple if they don’t come up with it. We might all be back at Cupertino in the first week of October otherwise.

Do let us know in the comments how you feel Apple has dealt with “Antennagate” so far…

Included for completeness below are the Press Releases from Nokia and RIM in response to Apple..

Nokia

Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.

Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.
In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.

RIM

Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple. – Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie

A recent survey from ChangeWave Research completed at the end of June, prior to the iPhone 4 launch, shows that RIM is holding onto its market lead by its fingernails.

In terms of current share, Apple (34%) is up 1-pt since our March survey to an all-time high while RIM (34%) has taken another hit – dropping 4-pts in the past 90 days.

When questioned, 52% of the people surveyed by ChangeWave confirmed that if they were going to buy a new mobile phone in the next 90 days it would be an Apple iPhone.

Largely forgotten now, Palm holds onto barely 1% of the mobile marketplace, which makes it sadly irrelevant.

It bears repeating that this survey was completed prior to the iPhone 4 going on sale, but at that point Apple led in customer satisfaction over other manufacturers. 73% of Apple customers stated that they were happy with their device. It will be interesting to revisit this particular figure in a couple of months when the current iPhone 4 issues have been clarified.

What chance does Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 have in this marketplace we have to wonder.

Do you think Apple and Google will crush RIM, as they appear to have done to Palm? And do you think that Microsofts latest mobile phone, after their Kin disaster, will fair any better? Let us know your thoughts in the comments…