Tuesday, April 8, 2008 -- 12:45 p.m. -- bus stop @ Canal & Monroe

Today, Nokia says it's working on an iPhone killer ... A touchscreen device codenamed "Tube."

Of all of these iPhone "killers," I worry most about Nokia. No other handset manufacturer -- not Samsung, not Blackberry -- has it in them to see what they need to compete.

That said, Nokia won't just waltz in and take marketshare. Chances are they add all the stuff Apple didn't, from MMS to GPS and everything in between.

Remember: Nokia manufactures to its own tune. Folks pay full price -- in many cases -- for Nokia's souled up phones but I can almost guarantee you ... If Nokia makes it, competing iPhone carriers will line up to get it and bring it to their customers at steep discounts. A $249 iPhone-like device with more features? Makes sound business sense.

But its actually all too little too late.

It took manufacturers too long to jump on the touchscreen bus. And Apple, as we have discussed is far ahead on future iPhone versions. By the time any other company can make a dent, Apple will be light years ahead.

I think of it like this. Everyone except Apple is running very fast on a top of the line treadmill. Apple is doing a 3 minute mile with top of the line Nike plus sneakers.

Catch em if you can.

Of course, your thoughts are welcome. Would you buy a competitor knowing how fast apple is running?

Thanks for calling.

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You sum it up quite well.

True or False? Readers.

Prior to release of iPhone how many skeptics ???? oh in a nutshell..

SKEPTICS SKEPTICS SKEPTICS!!!!!

iPhone will FAIL!
iPhone is a FAD!
iPhone's TOUCH SCREEN will smudge!
non remove battery.
bat life.
no 3G.. WHA WHA WHA!!!!
JUST A GLAMOR iPOD BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!

& ON & ON & ON!!!!!

NOW LOOK @ EM'

COPY COPY COPY!!!!! JUST LIKE iPOD!!!!

Except this time it is MUCH different..

iPhone 2007 = iPod 2001 x 10... maybe even 100

Get a grip SKEPTICS!!! and learn from Steve ....

THINK DIFFERENT.

iJah420 is done here.

SCOTT'S REPLY: iJah is right. The skeptic alarms were blaring and it's ridiculous to look back at that now -- iPhone and iPod.

Nokia THINKS they will waltz in & take market share. Their CEO is obnoxious. It will take more than a touchscreen, GPS, & MMS to do so. First of all, I think the processor on the iPhone currently is miles ahead of any other mobile phone. Then of course, is the way everything just WORKS!. And as you said, Apple is probably already working on third generation. I had no reason to get a phone with internet, etc., except I was very impressed by what Apple put together. The iPhone was the ONLY reason I switched to ATT. I was quite happy on Verizon. Nokia(or anybody) would have to do something really spectacular to get me to switch even from the current iPhone. I'm happy with the current version and it can only get better.

The only reason I could forsee switching would be for me to go back on our Verizon family plan & then only as a last resort if we needed to cut our bills.

As Moses said "you would have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands". :-)

SCOTT'S REPLY: LOL. And I agree ... they can't just assume that. If Nokia thinks the U.S. market is so in love with what they are doing up until now, they are mistaken. Proof is in the crowds at the Nokia store here on Michigan Avenue. Usually, there's employees standing outside the door hoping to attract a single person inside. Contrast that with security having to limit the number of people inside the Apple store because there's too many.

Having cut and paste on a competitor would be rather nice, for starters. Let's face it - if people needed a power phone, they wouldn't be looking at the iPhone. Having said that, I have one (jailbroken and unlocked, natch) that I use when I don't need my Blackberry.

The jesus phone is the market standard for now. They probably won't move from there since they have a nice little integrated system with iTunes, etc. Competitors will catch up in terms of technology and even surpass the iPhone, but they'd have to make a parallel ecosystem, as it were, to dethrone Apple.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I don't think competitors, though, will surpass Apple. I think that just when it seems they are close, Apple will turn the screws again.

Two things Nokia can't give me.
1. Seamless iTunes integration.
2. Unlimited data for $20(though this one is possible but highly unlikely).

SCOTT'S REPLY: Very true, Kevin.

All the iFillintheBlank killers operate under the assumption that Apple is standing still. Yet Apple innovates faster than they can copy.

Look at how long it took anyone to come close to the iPod interface (and of course the iPod/iTunes ecosystem is yet to be matched). Now consider how complex the iPhone is in comparison to the classic iPod. I seriously doubt that there will be an iPhone rival that can match mobile Safari in 2008. By the time someone puts together something that kinda, sorta matches iPhone 1.0 (late 2009??), Apple will have released iPhone 3.0... The one thing that makes this tougher than the iPod situation is that the competition realizes the importance of the cell phone market far more than they realized the importance of the MP3 player market and they are prepared to poor vast sums of money into it to compete.

The only chink Apple has at this point is the low end market. If they release a cheep iPhone Nano sooner rather than later, nails will be driven into the competition's coffins.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Excellent points, Ted. Very true.

The thing I love about these 'iPhone killers' is that they inevitably remind me just how killer the iPhone really is!

SCOTT'S REPLY: Well stated, Michael. Well stated.

I don't own a Nokia, but I am curious: do you or your readers know how Nokia upgrades their phone, if they do it at all? I think this part of the iPhone is the key to its sucess:daily syncs and periodic upgrades that are effortless.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I had a Nokia phone once -- it was a while ago -- but back them there were firmware upgrades that required a PC to upgrade. Even now, PCs are required in a lot of situations to upgrade firmware. T-Mobile's MDA - the phone that iWife has -- she can't upgrade because we have a Mac. Whether or not it works via Parallels or not, I don't know, but I don't care because we don't have it and because no phone company should ever make updating anything as hard as this -- not saying Nokia doesn't do a better job now, but I can tell you it's not with the ease of Apple, that's for sure.

As long as 2.0 version makes the improvements we all think it will, Apple will stay well ahead of its competition.

SCOTT'S REPLY: The thing I always remember is that Apple may not respond to everything we suggest right away, but you know they read. They read blogs -- this one included, I'm sure. They read the discussion boards. They know.

I'm back......just a quick thought.-Everybody's playing catch up and trying to produce the next iPhone (even though they've trashed it all this time) and they think they're going to do that in the span of a few months. I forget how long Steve Jobs said that this took to bring to market, but it was a whole lot longer than 6 months.

What all these companies don't realize is - they don't think like Apple! & that's the difference.

Goodnight.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Even when they think they are thinking like Apple, they aren't thinking like Apple.

A large part of the cellphone market is for corporate, "phone-calls", and cheap giveaway phones. Although the iPhone is growing the market for smartphones, the "smartphone" market is limited.

By the time that all the cellphone manufacturers, Garmin, and Android phones arrive, Apple will have already penetrated (and perhaps dominated?) with market share...and even more important...mindshare.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I agree, but I think the whole model of cheap giveaway phones is really on the way out. I think people are less interested in instant communication and a crappy phone and more interested in a great way to keep in touch with everything around them. I think the days of free phones being appealing went out a few years ago after the novelty of the smaller pocket phone wore off.

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