The Zen of Web

Apple just released the latest quarterly results and the numbers looked good. They recorded a revenue of $7.9 billion and their profit jumped 26%. People in Cupertino are surely happy. They even sold more iPhones than BlackBerries in the quarter, 6.9 million units to 6.1 million.

I’m not a big iPhone fan and I admit that. But objectively speaking, I don’t know how Apple can really expect to grow its handset business if they don’t quickly expand their iPhone lineups. To start with, they should roll out something like a iPhone Nano, which people have talked about. It should be cheaper and smaller, even if less feature-rich. Then perhaps iPhones that include a keyboard or have the flip form-factor… Well, I’m not a product designer so I’ll leave it to Apple to figure how to expand the iPhone portfolio.

But seriously… It’s more than essential to Apple to do this. They need to keep people excited about iPhone and reach a wider range of customers than those tech enthusiasts and early adopters!

written by Allen \\ tags: Apple, iPhone

This is really something! Good for HTC, which is quite a Taiwanese success story these days!!! Folks at Apple must be keeping an eye on this!

Updated: the accuracy of this figure is not being seriously doubted…

written by Allen \\ tags: G1, Google, HTC

I want a camera that can make phone calls. Hehehe……..

Back at the end of 2006 I was making a new phone purchase. I was choosing between Nokia’s N73 and SonyEricsson’s K800i. I ended up with getting the N73… and hating it. I sold it half a year later.

Obviously it works fine as a phone. But as a camera, it was horrible. Never mind that it used the famous Zeiss lense. It simply didn’t get the job done. First of all, being an urban young professional, I take a lot of pictures indoor. N73’s pictures quality just isn’t very good indoor. When it’s a little dark, it becomes simply bad. It’s not much better with the built-in flash light…

Then there’s the worst problem — a problem other camera phones have, too (just to a lesser degree). When you flip open N73’s camera, it’s probably 20 seconds later before you can take the picture. You know what, the moment’s gone by then or the people you’re taking the picture of are annoyed already. This is just not acceptable!!! Not acceptable!

So there, I don’t want a phone that takes pictures. I want a camera that works as a phone. I’ve never had a SonyEricsson phone before. I should really give it a shot. In fact, I’m kinda waiting for the new C905, due out in Q4 this year. See picture below:

All I really want is to flip open my camera phone and then take the picture right away. Is that really that much to ask? It shouldn’t be….

written by Allen \\ tags: SonyEricsson

I like my cell phone to be small and slim, so Apple’s iPhone doesn’t really get any style points from me as it would from most people. Quite frankly I’m simply just not a fan and introduction of the 3G iPhone hasn’t changed that one bit.

When the original iPhone was launched, I was working on a consulting project for a certain American cell phone maker (you know who that is). So I think it’s fair to suggest that I know the “mobile device” industry more than the average Joe. Anyway, the point I’m getting at is that I thought that the original iPhone did not really introduce anything out of the ordinary. Nothing that you couldn’t already find on other phones. You could argue that Apple put together a nice package of these functionality and features. But “nice” really couldn’t justify all the hype and excitement around it.

You know what? That’s still the case with the new 3G iPhone. 3G speed? Yeah, other companies started making 3G phones years ago. Embedded GPS? Yawn… Support for MS Exchange? That’s why people have their BlackBerry. And even the open platform for 3rd party software developers is not really a new idea. Palm’s smartphones always had that going for them, even if today Palm has become an after-thought.

I think Steve Jobs and Apple are incredible in getting people excited about their products. Indeed the Mac/iPod/iPhone users are very much like a cult. They are simply fascinated and obsessed with every move Apple makes now. But iPhone thus far is nothing special to me. I won’t be getting one.

To be fair, I own an iPod Nano and like it a lot. Some people complain about having to using iTunes to put songs on the iPod but I don’t mind it so much. And still some others think iPod devices are overpriced. That I agreed with and that’s why I waited so long before getting the 3rd Generation Nano. And the latest piece of news I read about Apple is on how the next version of the Mac operation system will have “parallel computing” capabilities to truly take advantage of the multiple-CUP chips that chip makers have introduced over the recent years. That sounds pretty cool if it could really take computing power to a new level. But still… I never like any cult – the Apple cult included.

PS. The phone I currently use now is the Samsung U600. It’s a slider that’s rather thin and slim. Just the way I like my phone!

written by Allen \\ tags: Apple, iPhone