Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Apple unveils the new iPhone (some 5 something...)

First of all, lets me warn that IF YOU OWN Apple shares and are reading this, stop immediately, call your broker and SELL SELL SELL, then you can return.
Second, if you own an iPhone, stop reading this, enter amazon or ebay and SELL SELL SELL cause no one will be buying it from you in  months time.
Third, if you own an Android, stop laughing... it's not decent to laugh of other people's problems. No, really; It's actually sad that the company that kicked started the smartphone revolution is now going under. It's even worse that the world is about to loose Blackberry and later after Apple...2 less competitors means less competition and the ones that suffer the most from this are the buyers.

Google's September seems to be controversial. 
First the bad news as Microsoft makes the final chess move on Nokia and buys it. It was expected ever since Nokia announced dropping the Symbian for Microsoft Operating Systems. If Microsoft intended to say in battle with Google on the smartphone market, they would need something more that a couple of Apple shares...and here they are.
Second the excellent news as Apple unveils... the iPhone...again.

So what is new about the iPhone... well if you live in the iPhone world, there are a couple of new things that clearly do not justify the shift. If however you managed to evolve out of that fan-boy package, and into the Android world then you can see the iPhone as you've always seen: A good idea back in 2007.

So what is new about the iPhone? 
First, they remembered that for year now, their competitors have been launching better phones, with better hardware and software for half the price. And grabbing the customer that doesn't buy a Guccy bag and as a consequence asks for specs and then compares before buying an expensive gadget. So they created the iPhone5C.

  • The iPhone 5C is the iPhone 5! Same CPU, same display, same cameras, same battery (with software improved usage), only with plastic shell and 5 colors to choose from. Oh and the 16 or 32Gb FOREVER and no SDcard crap remains. 
    • Should you buy an iPhone 5C if you own an iphone5? Why oh why would you sell your iPhone5 to buy the same phone on a worse casing.  
    • Should you buy an iPhone 5C if you don't have an iPhone? Why would you want an iPhone with android available? Still if you think that it sits good on the meeting table, just buy a Chinese iPhone replica...it's as effective in the meeting room and a lot cheaper.

Then comes iPhone 5S... 

  • The iPhone 5S is the iPhone 5 with ONE improvement! CPU is the next gen A7 instead of the A6. Apple announced 2x faster than the A6, but leaked benchmarks show that it's only 30% faster. New colors! You can have it in gold, silver or "space grey"...clearly for the Guccy people. FingerPrint reader! Wow... something pointless really as it will just increase cost while the simple usage of the camera for IRIS reading would be much better...and oldschool to as you can have that on your Motorola Atrix since 2011 or on your Dell laptop since 2007. Same display, same cameras but better tweaked for low light scenes and with dual color flash. The ONLY new thing is actually the M7 co-processor. It's a CPU that computes and interprets motion, allowing a finer, faster and better movement and positioning awareness from the device! Cardio-fitness freaks, this is for you.
    • Should you buy an iPhone 5S if you own an Iphone? Why? are you a cardio-fitness freak? if so, go ahead! Are you a Guccy freak? if so, go ahead! 
    • Should you buy and iPhone 5S if you don't have an iPhone? No! Why? because of the same reasons you should never buy an iphone other than the first one: It costs twice of what it is worth and you have much better HTC, Motorola, LG and Samsung android phones out there that completely eclipse the iPhone. And if the lame excuse of the meeting room table gadget should arise, think on just how much the "senseless fashion over reason" message is interpret by others attending the meeting.

So what did Apple managed to do?

  • Copy the Nokia Lumia 620 at twice the price of the cheapest version (the iPhone5C).
  • Improve the camera on the phone...while you can have incomparably better results with:
    • Panasonic Lumix 101P
    • Casio Exilim
    • Samsung Memoir
    • Sony Ericsson Idou
    • ...and so on


Google is now extremely happy. They are loosing all the main competitors, and the other giant (although able to pick up the pace faster than most can imagine) took too long to wake-up for the smartphone business and as a consequence is still years behind. 

Is there a future for Apple? Don't really know. So far it seems that they have done nothing more than legal suits this last years and apart from changing business into Apple law inc, I don't really see a bright future at the moment.