The Vaughan Practice » at&t

Apple’s New Tablet Is Called The Canvas

Vince — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:17:19 +0000

Tomorrow’s announcement at the Yerba Buena Center in downtown San Francisco is easily the most anticipated consumer technology event of the new year. Not many know for sure what will be announced tomorrow but the “iTablet,” Jobs cross between a netbook and an iphone, appears to be the odds on favorite. Speculation is that it will be called the iPad, or the iSlate. As speculation has reached a fever pitch, you could easily refer to it as the “iWant” or the “iNeed.” Some are already planning on a 10+ hour campout and offering to sell the video and story to the highest bidder. But it’s just a guessing game what Mr. Jobs will be talking about tomorrow . . . until now.

I can confirm what the Los Angeles Times reported 7 days ago that the Tablet will actually be called the “Canvas.” It will roughly be an eight to ten inch screen. It will run on the iPhone OS (Not the Mac). Bloomberg has speculated that Jobs will also announce that the iPhone and the Canvas will be released to all the other carriers. As I wrote late last year, this will mitigate many of the problems iPhone users face today with bandwidth usage and dropped calls. I can tell you that the iPhone will NOT be released to all carriers. It may be opened to another besides AT&T but don’t expect to be able to go to any store in the big 4(TMobile, Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T) and order up an iPhone to go.

What more have you heard?

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Bad News for AT&T, Good News For Android

Vince — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:52:55 +0000

Yesterday I talked about how the demand for Mobile Technology is growing at a pace that is exceeding supply. The iPhone is a huge seller but the more popular it becomes, the more strain it puts on the infrastructure. AT&T ranked dead last in customer satisfaction. And their customers are complaining about dropped calls and interrupted service.

In 2008, Google announced they were building a mobile operating system, Android. With Android, a user can enjoy many of the same features that exist on the iPhone. It is backed by the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of over 50 companies focusing on open standards in the Mobile space. With October marking the one year anniversary of the Android G1, there has been a steady increase in handset deployment and Android usage.

According to the latest AdMob reports:

Since April, Web requests coming from an Android phone have increased almost six fold. 20% of all smartphone traffic comes from an Android device. 2 Android phones, the G1 and the HTC dream, are in the top 10 of devices purchased.

These numbers are about to increase.

Most recently, the Motorola Droid, another Android phone launched and after only two weeks, it comprised 24% of all Android requests.
According to the New York Times, we should see even more phones launched with Android technology before 2010 becomes a reality.

As the dysfunctional marriage between Apple and AT&T twists and tweaks many of its users into a frustrated frenzy, Google and its Open Handset Alliance, if left unchecked, will soon become the dominant player in the Industry. It’s distributed manufacturer strategy automatically creates a distributed network strategy. The capabilities appear similar to many casual users. And the price of an Android phone, aka Google Phone, is less expensive by comparison.

What can Apple do? You’ll have my recommendations next week.

**Update: Chris Brogan’s lastest post is a real world example of my claim that AT&T’s failings become a boon for Android.

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A World We Are Not Ready For

Vince — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:43:28 +0000

Good Morning! It’s a whole new world out there today. I just thought I would let you know. When there is a paradigm shift, we don’t always see it coming. For instance, when the world shifted from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance period, the people of the world didn’t notice until some 400 years after it happened. Change is imperceptible. It remains that way until the environment we are immersed in begins to think and act with the change. To be more specific, we continue to apply old rules to problems until we are sure that the old rules no longer apply. How do we know they no longer apply?

We begin to suffer.

We live in an increasingly mobile world. According to recent studies, one in four households are cellphone only. Of those that have cell phones, 40 percent of those are what we refer to as “SmartPhones.” What is driving the use of Smartphones? First I claim biology. Our bodies are limited by what we can do without technology. Second, I claim sociology. We see others (friends, family, colleagues) using technology, now readily available and we marvel about how much more convenient and practical they are able to move in the world with one of these devices.

Assuming this all sounds reasonable, how are we suffering? Consumers are noticing and demanding this technology, businesses aren’t readily listening fast enough.

Case in point: The iPhone and AT&T.

According to the latest AdMob report, the iPhone accounts for 50% of all Web traffic coming from a “SmartPhone.”

Ad Mob Metrics - SmartPhone Requests

If we do a search of #attfail from twitter, we see pages of results taken from the last day of people who are experiencing dropped calls or interrupted service. And if Consumer Reports is any indication, AT&T can’t keep up with the complaints fast enough.

Also, the iPhone has capabilities embedded in the device that AT&T can’t allow because of the breakdowns they are experiencing with their network. Only in September did AT&T make available, a seemingly basic ability, picture messaging. Tethering with the iPhone (the ability to use the iPhone as a modem for a laptop) while existing on the iPhone as evidenced through hacks, won’t be available officially until sometime in 2010.

We are living a lifestyle the world isn’t quite ready for. Consumer demand is a pandora’s box that can’t be reversed. What does this mean for our future? Come back tomorrow and I’ll help you notice what I speculate this will mean for our future.

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