Who is looking for the iPhone?
June 27, 2007
According to Hitwise the volume of US searches for the term “iphone” increased 583 percent in the past four weeks (from the week ending May 26, 2007 to the week ending June 23) leading up to the June 29 launch date. The market share of US visits to the Apple iPhone website increased 185 percent in the same time period.
Search Analysis
In the four weeks leading up the release date, the most popular queries that contained the term “iphone” were focused on price, recent news, reviews and the release date. The search term “iphone price” received the largest percentage of searches outside of “iphone” and “apple iphone,” at 4.23 percent of all US searches containing the word “iphone.”
The top website to receive traffic from searches on the term “iphone” for the four weeks ending June 23, 2007 was the Apple iPhone website, receiving 54.44 percent of all US traffic from the term. Following Apple was its wireless partner, AT&T Wireless, which received 6.52 percent of search volume, Wikipedia, at 2.95 percent, Engadget at 2.80 percent and MySpace with 2.48 percent of search term traffic.
Analysis
All I can say is, “Way to go Engadget!” Grabbing 2.8% of the search traffic for the iPhone is very impressive for a tech blog/site. What happened to at&t? Apple gets 54.44% of the search traffic and at&t (the reseller/service providor) only gets 6.52%?
Why was MySpace getting traffic from the iPhone searches? The only thing I can think of there is that people are writing about the iPhone on their Myspace pages.
Apple iPhone Market Share Analysis
Some folks are thinking that the iPhone will attain a 10% market share by years end.
Neil Mawston, Associate Director at Strategy Analytics said, “We forecast 20 million smartphones to be sold in the USA during 2007. We expect Apple and its iPhone portfolio to account for 2 million of that total, giving it a 10 percent share by the end of the year.”
Chris Ambrosio, Director of Wireless Device Strategies at Strategy Analytics, commented, “Apple has a strong brand and good retail presence; now it needs to deliver on the product. Competitive pricing, of course, will be critical, as will the device’s usability and reliability.”
David Kerr, Vice President at Strategy Analytics, added, “A critical question will be what percentage of iPhone buyers will be churning from other operators? A second key issue is whether the iPhone will draw users who would otherwise have bought Nokia N series music and multimedia devices, eroding their premium tier share, or will iPhone most dramatically impact the SEMC Walkman series fortunes? The pressure is on Apple to deliver a great mobile media experience with the iPhone when it is launched on June 29, 2007. Its previous entry, with the Motorola Rokr music phone, in 2005, was a flop, and the industry will be watching carefully to see how much Apple has learned from that failure.”
My thoughts on iPhone
I still see the iPhone as a flop. Yes, I know it looks cool and sexy. Yes I know it’s an Apple product. I also know that you can get most of the same functionality in a less expensive product.
I have a cell phone for one reason, to make phone calls. I don’t want all the extra crud Apple is putting into this thing. I already have an iPod (that I hate) so I will be staying clear of the iPhone.
New Apple Products Will Change Everything
June 16, 2007
Hi Folks,
How does one follow up with such a grandiose title? I mean, really, Apple users have always felt superior to Windows users. Apple products are stable, while Microsoft products tend to crash. Apple invents technology, while Windows imitates it five years later. Apple sees the future and makes it available in the present. Microsoft….doesn’t.
Recently, I watched the latest Apple Keynote Address, which discusses the newest upcoming Apple Operating System (code named “Leopard), the now CROSS PLATFORM Safari internet browser, and third- party support of the stunning iPhone. I was completely taken off balance by this incredible presentation to the point where I am now seriously considering employment with Apple.I don’t want to gush too much over this because if I come off as a rabid Apple fan, you would lose interest in what I am saying. What I WILL do is discuss a few of the great things I saw.
1) OS X Leopard is made for ANY and EVERY kind of computer user. Whether you are an expect or a novice, this OS looks great and is nearly perfect. Three hundred improvements have been made to Leopard over Tiger. Here are several of them:
a) No need to wonder where you misplaced that precious file, because you find it AND SEE IT without opening a single application; you’ll see that file the same way you would see it if you opened it up in an app AND you’ll be able to use it too.
b) You can back up your entire hard drive(s) with the push of ONE BUTTON.
c) You can open several apps at the same time and then switch to a completely separate set of apps with the push of a button. This is major relief for those of us who work on big projects that require several apps to be open.
d) iChat is better than any IM service. You can still text chat, as well as video chat, but video chats are vastly improved. You can actually change the background of your setting, so people won’t have to look at the boring wall behind you. France, waterfalls, outer spaces are just a few of the setting you can use, but THAT’S NOTHING when compared to the IMPROVED FILE SHARING. Sure, you can share files as always, but the look is amazing because A THEATER OPENS UP SO YOU CAN SEE THE ACTUAL FILES PLAYING OUT IN FRONT OF YOU & IN REAL TIME. Let’s say you want to share a movie with an online friend. Through the new iChat, you can both watch it AT THE SAME TIME, IN REAL TIME in a special ‘room’ that you share with fellow chatters.
e) Boot Camp, the program that allows Mac users the choice to use Windows, is built into Leopard and it completely compatible with Intel Mac hardware and Windows software.
2) Safari, the fastest web browser around, is now available for Windows. In the first forty-eight hours of its release, one million Windows users downloaded it. It’s twice as fast as Internet Explorer and has more functionality than IE could ever have, including tabbed browsing, RSS feed, built in Google and Yahoo search engines, an elegant interface, snap-back browsing, in-line text searching, private browsing, and much more.
3) The iPhone will support third-party applications. This means that the iPhone, with its already impressive set of features, can be expanded to do far more. It will still act as a phone, a email agent, a REAL web browser, and the best video iPod ever.
I could go on and on about these things and more, but you’d be better off just watching the Keynote Address yourself by clicking HERE.
Cheers,
Paul S.
PSP Review: Brooktown High
June 10, 2007
Do you remember your senior year in high school? I know I do.
Brooktown High (Konami for PSP) is a dating simulation game, or date-sim for short. These games are very popular in Japan but have never been able to break into the American market. Will Brooktown High be the one? That is up to you to decide. Hopefully this review will give you enough information to decide if the game is a good fit for you.
Description
Brooktown High is a game that puts you back in your senior year at high school. You can play as either a boy or a girl and you will be interacting with 20 unique individuals. Well, unique might be a stretch as they appear to be the cast of a stereotypical Hollywood teen movie.
This is Rage. He is your typical “fight the power” rebel who plays in a band and rides a skateboard.
That is not all there is to Rage. Once you get to know him you also find out that he writes poetry and is super smart. He only gets bad grades because he wants to “fight the man” and turn society around.
He is a little bit misguided in that he believes that the student government should be burned down and replaced with bread lines, but weren’t we all a little bit naive in high school?
You will also meet up with Biscuit the volleyball player, Meena the super smart (and super hot) foreign exchange student, Elektra the goth girl and numerous others. Each one fills a particular stereotypical niche. Like Rage, each one does have an inner core to them that is not always obvious based on their exterior.
