About Steve Jobs from his Boss

Its been a long time since I wrote anything about Steve Jobs. So here you go, Check out this article, It’s an insight about Steve Jobs from his old Boss.

Apple extends its Video calling to Mac

Today Apple announced the public beta of FaceTime for Mac, a new application using which Mac users can video call iPhone, iPod touch and Mac users. So looks like Apple is pretty serious about its Video calling service “FaceTime”. I guess Facetime has brought in some momentum to the consumer Video calling service. Though video calling was not something new that Apple invented, it existed even before Apple ventured into it. However FaceTime literally gave a facelift to consumer video calling service. If Apple can support Group Video calling, then it’s a perfect vehicle to target enterprise segment. Beware Skype, Cisco, Logitech and slew of other companies operating in enterprise video market.

Here is what Steve Jobs has to say about FaceTime:

“FaceTime makes video calling to or from mobile devices easy for the first time,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve sold more than 19 million FaceTime-ready iPhone 4 and iPod touch devices in the past four months, and now those users can make FaceTime calls with tens of millions of Mac users.”

Though Apple claims that FaceTime uses standard protocols, it is yet to publish any documents supporting the statement. Any inter-op with Facetime will open up huge opportunity for developers and other video service providers. Unless Apple sees a huge potential in inter-op, I doubt they will share all the technical information about Facetime.

Skype Journal compares FaceTime and Skype. Looks like Skype beats Apple with respect to quality and additional features. Dan York has hands on information about FaceTime on Mac.

Teens Prefer SMS, Hate calling

According to Nielsen report Teens prefer Texting than calling. The amount of text message teens send is unbeleivable. They send and receive on average 3,339 SMS texts a month. So looks like the most popular activity with teens are sending/receiving text messages. Infact female teens sends and recive an average of 4,050 texts per month. Compared to SMS texting, Voice usage is very low among teens. So texting activity has taken precedence over voice.


Some highlights of the news:

• 94% of teen mobile subscribers self-identify as advanced data users, turning to their cellphones for messaging, internet, multimedia, gaming, and other activities like downloads.
• While teen usage does not reach levels of activity seen by young adults, it has increased substantially versus Q2 last year, from 14 MB to 62 MB.
• This fourfold increase in data usage is the largest jump among all age groups.
• Much of this boost is led by males, who are more gadget-savvy and consume 75 MB of data, versus 17 MB in Q2 last year. Teen females use about 53 MB of data, compared to 11 MB a year ago.
• Software downloads among teen subscribers who use apps enjoyed a solid 12% increase in activity versus last year, from 26% to 38%. This includes popular apps such as Facebook, Pandora or YouTube. Usage of the mobile web has also surpassed activity on pre-installed games, ringtone downloads and instant messaging, too. Other mobile activities like mail and text alerts have also seen significant growth.

LightSquared LTE plans are gaining momentum

With the recent inflow of $850 million debt, LightSquared announced vendor partners who will provide network, chip and devices for its ambitious wholesale LTE launch . The overall LTE network will be constructed, operated and maintained by Nokia Siemens Networks. This is a huge deal for NSN. The total budget to build, operate and maintain is around $7-8 billion dollars. The overall network will consist of 40,000 base stations and cover 92 percent of the US population by 2015.

The Chipset and devices will be provided by Qualcomm and Nokia Corp respectively. With CDMA almost nearing its death, Qualcomm must be betting big on LTE chipsets. Most of the folks still don’t believe this is gone happen, and feel it’s just hogwash and will never see the light of the day. Iam cautious in my opinion. It’s an ambitious plan. Building a network from scratch is not a trivial task. For now, I will just say Kudos to the team and wish they succeed.

Verizon gearing up for iPhone launch next year

As speculated earlier, According to Wall street journal, Apple is making a CDMA version of iPhone that Verizon Wireless will sell early next year. So this means an end to the exclusivity with AT&T, and a huge blow to AT&T. Too me its no brainer decision. If Apple stays with AT&T, they are going to loose big-time to Android. This should be one of the compelling reasons why Apple should be spreading their wings across multiple operators. Launching with Verizon is going to be a big leap for Apple in terms of volume and revenue. The plan is to begin mass production of new iPhones by end of the year, and release the same in the first quarter of 2011. The new iPhone will resemble the iPhone 4 currently sold by AT&T.

Some interesting tidbits from the article:

At a press conference Wednesday, Verizon Communications Inc. President Lowell McAdam declined to comment on whether his company would soon sell an iPhone. "At some point our business interests are going to align," he said, referring to Apple. "I fully expect it, but I don't have anything to say."

A spokeswoman for Apple declined to comment. The Wall Street Journal in March reported on Apple's plans to build an iPhone that works on code division multiple access, or CDMA, technology used by carriers like Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp.

Toni Sacconaghi, a Sanford Bernstein analyst, estimates Verizon could add more than 10 million U.S. iPhone customers, adding it could help stem the rapid adoption of devices that run Android.

According to ComScore, as of August 2010, AT&T has 38% of the smartphone share while Verizon holds 26.8%. A total of 68.7% of AT&T smartphones users are iPhone. As you can see clearly, a majority of AT&T smartphone market is of iPhone. Launching iPhone on its network will give Verizon a big boost in its smartphone market and also increase the overall market share. It will be a WIN-WIN for both Verizon and Apple.

Verizon launching iPhone has been in the news for quite sometime now. There’s no Smoke without fire. Iam more than positive that this is credible news and would be surprised if Verizon doesn’t launch iPhone next year.

Android a serious threat to iPhone and RIM

This news should come as a shocker to Apple and RIM folks. According to Nielsen , Android is now the most popular operating system among people who bought a Smartphone in the past six months. Blackberry RIM and Apple iOS are fighting each other for the second spot. In the past six months ending August 10, Android accounts for 32 percent of the smart phones while iPhone accounted for 25 percent and Blackberry 26 percent.

Among all smartphone owners, RIM still rules the roost with a total market share of 31%. Apples iPhone comes second with 28% followed by Android with 19%. Surprisingly Nokia is no where in the list.