Aug 27
iPhone 3G Domination
When the original iPhone was released, I was simply stunned. As I saw things back then, it wasn't exactly light years ahead of its competition, and that's what I feel now about the iPhone and the iPhone 3G, too. What made fall in my chair and stare at the monitor in front of me for about 30 minutes, without any idea on what to write about Apple's new phone was the fact they managed to come up with a really revolutionary design for its time. Unfortunately, the iPhone 3G didn't change much, and fell way below some people's expectations, including myself, but Apple's marketing division managed to push it above its predecessor. How?
While the iPhone was a big step forward for all the smartphones manufacturers, giving a lot of them new ideas and the role model to follow, the iPhone 3G came as a small step forward for everyone, and - unfortunately - a lot of problems, when compared to the "2.5G" iPhone. If I say "iPhone 3G problems," I am sure a lot of people would come and scream, cursing Apple, their mobile carrier, the day of birth, and so on, but things aren't that dark, after all.
According to a recent report, the number of iPhone 3Gs on the market is almost (or maybe already above) the same as that of the old generation iPhones. So, it took about a year to sell 6 million iPhones, and less than two months to sell as many iPhone 3Gs?? Awesome!
Just two more things - some early estimations say that the Russian market will engulf over 3.5 million iPhone 3Gs, but I guess we should wait and see. What I can tell you is that the Romanian market is already chewing them faster than the local carrier was expecting, but it remains to be seen how far will the iPhone 3G go here in the long run.
Oh, I was just about to go, but here's one more - the French carrier for the iPhone, Orange, just admitted capping 3G speeds! This only happened following an uproar on the part of its iPhone customers, but it's good to notice - before blaming Apple, look at your carrier, and check the user manual a few times...
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September 19th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
iPhone domination? Really? That’s the kind of hype that was fed by advertising to nurture your imagination. My trading business based in Hongkong servicing nine countries in the Far East tells me that the celebrated iPhone 3G is a big joke here compared to more than a dozen other models. If you are not familiar with WCDMA which is used in Japan and Korea, then you will never understand why your iPhone 3G is primitive.
I have previously written here about what we all do with our cellular phones on a daily basis. Aside from all that the iPhone can do, we watch television or movies; bet on the Super Lotto; transfer funds in various banks; shop in the malls, send money to our sons and daughters; pay for the metrorail transit at the turnstile; talk to clients on video and show/capture the dialogue on our products with our 8/10megapixel camera phones; track the location of our children, even in 3D maps !! … and more. But I’m not sure if you are getting the hang of what this is all about?
Even in so-called “third-world” countries like the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand, mobile phone use is very sophisticated in the banking and retail industries, and the iPhone is acquired by rich kids and fashionistas who do not care how their mobile phone works. These guys belong to the crowd who gobble-up the remarkable Vertu mobile phone which has an entry-level price of US$5,000, and up to US$310,000.
FYi, AT&T in the USA has four bands but more than 80% of the traffic on voice and data passes through only two bands - the 1900MHz band used mostly in the cities where there is congestion, then it switches to the lower bandwidth 850MHz in rural areas. The iPhone 3G sends to and gets signal from AT%T through the 6-band Infineon PMB6952 UMTS/HSPDA transceiver, now coupled with the Skyworks 77427/77414 chips for 1900MHz/210MHz and the Skyworks 77413 chips for the 850MHz. These chips are used by Apple for the first time, coupled with the reliable ARM 1176JFZ-S CPU used in the old iPhone. My friends who write the 3rd party apps say that the specs are not complete on these, and surely, whenever the iPhone hangs, there is incompatibility that lies here, nowhere else. All other parts like the Murata LMRX3JCA-479 amplifier for 3G, Sony SP9T antenna/switch groups, and other peripherals cannot affect the iPhone performance unless the parts are defective.
They joke around citing this chopsuey as similar to the 8/16-bit chip confusion of Apple twenty years ago. LOL.
I can heave a deep sigh of relief because my three smartphones using three different networks in Singapore, Hongkong and Japan, never hang nor drop any calls.
Oh, BTW, recent surveys now available in the internet show that it is still Blackberry that domibates the US market on business and smartphones by huge margins.
September 20th, 2008 at 2:46 am
JuLius, I am glad you talked about the difference between Asia and the rest of the world, since this is a fact known to many, but only acknowledged by few. When I say “iPhone domination,” I think about America, first of all. When talking about mobile networks and optic fiber ones, Asia is playing in a completely different league than the rest of the world.
The Blackberry may still dominate, but the iPhone sells like crazy and will probably take over pretty soon. DOn’t get me wrong - I am not crazy about it, I just try to see the facts the way they are. If I had to buy such a phone, I would rather wait for the Google Dream, or get a Blackberry, rather than the iPhone 3G!