ON THE APPLE "CELLPHONE'S DEAD" STRATEGY

JUST THE BEGINNING

Back in June, after the release of the iPhone, I asked the following question:

"Wonder how long Apple will wait before unveiling new video iPod models with the screen and touch features of the iPhone sans the phone features. 

I'll start the pool with a guess of three months, with a new line-up in time for the holiday season.  Any other takers?"

Apple didn't disappoint, despite some doubts in July, judging from their total refresh of the iPod line today, including the iPod Touch, which is an iPhone without the phone.  If you missed all the hub-bub, you can read all about it on Techmeme, and see Steve Jobs' keynote here.

The most striking moment in the keynote for me, was this slide from Steve's presentation, captured at the right moment by Gizmodo. 

While demonstrating the new iPod Touch, Steve chose to play a music video by Beck, titled "Cellphone's Dead" (click for larger image...You can watch the full music video here on YouTube).

Given that nothing in a Steve Jobs happens by accident, the choice of this video is telling. 

It subtly reminds everyone that the days of thinking of phones, be they wired or wireless, are almost over. 

Sure, Apple is committed to the iPhone and it's multi-year partnership with AT&T in the U.S., and the carriers they partner with in Europe on the iPhone next month, and Asia next year.

But in the long-term, Steve is reminding us that the iPhone is the transitional device.  He keeps reminding us that the iPhone at it's core is "the best iPod ever".

And if you think long and hard about the rich internet capabilities of the iPod Touch with it's Wifi, built-in Safari browser, and cool internet applications like the iTunes Wifi Music store, YouTube, and the Starbucks music download application, the iPod itself is transitioning into the true usable computer in a hand-held device, that's been attempted for so long over the last few decades.

As Fake Steve jobs (aka FSJ) put it eloquently earlier today, what's really going on here is,

"Multitouch coupled to disk drive coupled to WiFi coupled to Safari coupled to OS X."

Never mind that the first iPod Touch doesn't have a disk drive, but 8 to 16 GB of flash memory.  It will soon have hard disk versions of 160 GB and more, like the iPod Classic announced today.

And it's really a mini-Mac.  With mini-versions of all the favorite, core applications from the Mac like iPhoto, iTunes, Safari, etc.

It's one end-t0-end distribution channel for all types of digital content.  And it'll fuse and integrate with all types of physical environments, like thousands of Starbucks stores over the next few years.

Despite all the criticism by many of this being a closed system, companies large and small need to start to think about having a version of their application that works on the mobile Safari browser.  Just like they've been focused for the past few months on having a version of their application and/or service for the "Facebook Platform", another relatively closed system. 

Apple has an installed base of 110 million iPods around the world, which will transition into internet-enabled devices over the next few years.  Compare that to 30 million Facebook members who will also presumably transition into using a host of third-party applications (mostly widgets today), over the next few years.  And both installed bases will presumably grow from today's levels.

The iPod, and the iPhone, are both trojan horses.  It's really about a pretty unique, long-term computing platform with a number of tough to execute links.

No one else is assembling all the hardware, software and online pieces in quite the same way.  Including Google.  Even with it's rumored and anticipated GPhone.

Much of the promise of the GPhone is already here, at your nearby Apple store.  For now it's called the iPod Touch and the iPhone.

Comments

[howard lindzon]

exactly

[howard lindzon]

exactly