Tuesday 4 October 2011

The Cellular War of the Worlds

The Cellular War of the Worlds

Forget the Cold War, conflict between competing ideologies in the Mobile communications world is the one in people's minds. Communism versus Democracy - blackberry versus Apple versus Android, it is the latter holding sway. The world before smartphones seems like the neolithic period awaiting invention of the wheel. Before camera phones, the Dark Ages.

On planet Apple people are anxiously awaiting the release of the latest incarnation of the iPhone on October 4th. Also the Apple iPad, a keyboard-less 'tablet' computer, has caused such fervor that already the third incarnation is on the hyperbole horizon.

Against this background you could almost be forgiven for forgetting the pioneer of mobile email - Blackberry. Blackberry world, it is fair to say, is currently optimistic though probably suffering with acute anxiety. After a long period of dominating corporate communications devices, Apple is making inroads. The latest blackberry devices - the Bold and Torch (in all-touch or touch screen plus slide-out keyboard) especially have touch screens and a revamped, faster Blackberry 7 Operating System. Blackberry's tablet, iPad challenger - the Playbook is currently being heavily discounted amid stagnating sales.

Meanwhile occupying the middle ground between the trendy Apple devotees and wealthy, small 'c' conservative Blackberry users is the Android sphere. Providing George "(c)" Lucas with yet more royalties (as if the record-breaking sales of the Blu-Ray Star Wars Saga were not enough achieving $84m in one week) for use of the word 'Droid'.

Everyone has an application or 'app' store so you can fill your phone with life-saving to life improving to mind-rotting apps. In case you thought 'apps' were uninteresting just look at the download statistics - by summer 2011 Apple's users have clicked to install some 15 billion applications, Android's "App Market" had some 4.5 billion downloads and although raising the largest revenue per app the Blackberry "App World" lagged in third place with 1.0 billion installations. That's not the end though, just think - some apps are paid for, others free, though all draw on monthly data packages supplied by the phone networks where a free wifi connection is unavailable - adding $$$ to their bottom line.

So what about the future ? If the resort to court action for infringement of patents has any correlation with maturity of a market then the smartphone market is definitely mature. Apple's legal battles with Samsung and the billions paid by Google to acquire patents from Motorola against a, wait-for-it, coalition of Microsoft and Apple speaks volumes.

That said, Do you remember a time when a cell phone was just for calls ? a time when a camera was carried in another pocket or purse ? Perhaps the next evolutions for smart phones will be in terms of ease-of-use. For example voice-activation which really works, even in a concert or sports arena. Though of course, what we are really waiting for is the invention of a means to handle the calls you do not want to without the recipient knowing they are getting the brush-off...

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