As I watch New York City attempt to recover from Hurricane Sandy and think about business change, I’m more aware than ever about perception and reality. The most difficult challenge I’ve had to overcome this week is the lack of fresh bread in my neighborhood. I’m grateful, and walking around the Upper East Side of Manhattan I’ve run into quite a few people who “get it” better than I might have guessed. I’m grateful for that, too.
Just when I was feeling all warm and fuzzy about Apple . . .
So by now you’ve heard all the opinions on Apple’s iPhone 5. Maybe you’re one of the several million people who’s already bought one. Maybe you don’t care about the fact that the iPhone 5 isn’t really all that much of a jump from the iPhone 4S, and excitedly bought one anyway (tools, toys . . . ).
Maybe you live in the UK, and so you’re relieved that Apple is making a Lightning-to-USB converter available for the iPhone 5, despite its ridiculous price.
Sometimes, this stuff all changes too fast, even for me, your friendly neighborhood business change guy.
But the intersection between technology, business, and people’s behavior is one that we pay attention to, because there’s no other choice. And that change just keeps coming. How fast? Take a look at this:
This is a sign-up form to become a publisher at Atavist. Atavist is—or will be—a book publisher. Atavist is starting as a pure eBook play, with “plans” to one day print the real thing. Oh: and Atavist is backed by a $20 million investment from Barry Diller and Scott Rudin, two top-of-the-foodchain media guys.
You know those drunk posts you left all over Twitter and Facebook last night? What if that never happened?
A new iPhone App is based on exactly that idea. Last Night Never Happened claims to be essentially a “morning after pill” for social networking mistakes you wish you could take back.
It isn’t.
I have this little device in my bag of tricks. It’s called a Square, both because that’s its shape and because Square is the name of the company that manufactures The Square.
Oddly, although there’s no web site to be found at square.com, Square the company is at squareup.com.
The Square lets me accept credit cards. In and of itself that isn’t such a big deal; the days when you needed a special merchant account to take credit cards are long passed, with anyone being able get get paid via credit card just by directing people who owe you money to PayPal. What’s great about the Square, though, is that it plugs into the headphone jack on your SmartPhone (Android or iPhone), and with the help of a simple app lets you scan a credit card, anywhere.
As you know, I have plenty to say about Patents. Software Patents in particular bother me, and this week Apple was issued a patent that scares me for an almost-new reason.
Apple has a history of uneven actions on nudity, pornography and censorship. Steve Jobs has gone so far as to state that he know what iTunes Store customers want, and that it’s to be protected from those things. I’m dismayed that Steve thinks he should be the world’s censor, but it’s his party. So if you buy an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch and want naughty apps you’ll just have to find another way to get them. And hope Apple doesn’t scrub them from your device without your permission.
So the new iPhone is now official. And I have to hand it to Steve and Company: it looks magnificent.
No small compliment, that. I’ve never been an iPhone fan, and I have to admit that between the design improvements, some neat new features, and the addition of a good enough facsimile of multitasking to make it far more usable, iPhone version 4 is a winner. Never mind that most of what’s happening there is more for Apple’s benefit than yours (I can only video chat with other iPhone 4 users? Seriously?)
A couple of weeks ago, Apple bought Siri, a company that has developed “virtual assistant” software for the iPhone. Being familiar with both Siri and the virtual assistant market, when I heard about this I . . . shrugged.
A virtual assistant helps you get things done. Most frequently that means you hand off the tasks you don’t have time or expertise for to another person, or in the case of us here at Virtual VIP, another company.
Forget the iPad.
Apple’s hold on the SmartPhone market is finally slipping, as in March more traffic ran over the airwaves through SmartPhones based on the Google Android operating system than to iPhone devices.
I’ve made it pretty clear how I feel about the iPhone, and I’ve been a loud supporter of Android since I started using a Droid last November. But there’s only the slightest tinge of “I told you so” in me telling you about this.
Apple is so afraid of Android, just mentioning it will get your app banned from the iTunes store. Yes, Seriously.
I understand not wanting to promote your competition, so not wanting iPhone apps to mention Android (it’s the software running the Droid, the Nexus One, etc.) “makes sense”. But telling a vendor / partner that mentioning an award their Android App has won is grounds for being banned from the iTunes Store?
OK, here’s the deal: The Answer Guy Central iTunes App mentions Android liberally. If you’re an iPhone user, click here to go and download it now.
Are they kidding?
OK, no, they aren’t. Apple’s new iPad has the potential to be at the center of the biggest business change ever, anywhere. And the way Apple announced the device yesterday is all the proof you need of that. So the question is: will it work?
Let me start as I sometimes do by tipping my hat to David Pogue of the New York Times. As usual (I’m so bummed that the phrase “as always” no longer applies), David spoke as the voice of reason: we really haven’t seen the Apple iPad in action or put it through its paces, and in some regard should withhold judgment. Fair enough. But it’s exactly that point on which the iPad needs to be judged.
Yesterday, someone in my Facebook stream asked about SmartPhones. And it occurred to me that even with all the press coverage and expert opinions being tossed around in the aftermath of Google ‘s Nexus One release just last week, real people are tied in knots over their choice of SmartPhone.
I’m not talking about bleeding-edge, geeky gadget types, by the way; when real people decide to take the jump they agonize over the decision. It’s like business change; sooner or later you have to jump, but getting there . . . painful!
Using an iPhone, but prefer the Microsoft Bing search engine? There’s an app for that.
In the latest proof that Business Change is about coopetition, Apple has allowed Microsoft to put a search application in the iTunes store. What’s next, a Bing application for Google Android?
Since unlike Apple, Google and Microsoft both have search engines they want you to use, that seems unlikely. On the other hand, Google doesn’t have the kind of rules for their app repository that Apple does, so if Microsoft wants in they can get there.
Did you hear the one about the company that sued its competitor for telling the truth?
AT&T has sued Verizon. No big deal; these guys slug it out in court on a regular basis. This time, it’s about the advertising Verizon is doing for their 3G network, which is the faster set of connections that make doing things like surfing the internet on your smartphone a tolerable experience. Verizon’s 3G network is quite a bit larger than AT&T’s 3G network. The ads are actually pretty clever, playing off how much fun using an iPhone isn’t when you’re in the wrong location.
In a word, No.
The USA’s larget mobile phone carrier and the world’s largest . . . whatever Google is have announced that two new phones featuring Google’s Android operating system are about to go on sale at Verizon. It’s exciting news. It goes a long way to explain recent information suggesting that Verizon has given up on its efforts to get a version of the iPhone for their network.
But It DOESN’T mean, as is being suggested, that Apple’s dominance of the smart phone market is in trouble. At all. Sadly, the analysis is flawed.
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