More 3G iPhone observations
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Forgive me for the barrage of posts, but I feel it would be better to put my thoughts down here before they either become obsolete or irrelevant (or both.) So here are a few more points to think about.
Firstly, AT&T is subsidizing the iPhone for us. This means that AT&T is paying Apple for the iPhone. Some estimates run up to an extra $200. Apple, in turn, has given up its cut from AT&T service contracts (contrary to my earlier speculation here). AT&T has increased the data plan by $10. So, the total cost of the new 8GB iPhone will still be $199+$240 = $439 for a 2-year contract. But most consumers will look at this increase as a premium that they will pay for 3G. For them, the bottomline will be that they are getting a very cheap iPhone at $199. VentureBeat has a nice post on this topic here.
The second point I wanted to make was on the 3G comparision demo. Apple showed that the iPhone was 36% faster than two competing 3G phones. I posted that this may reflect the capabilities of the modem design. As it turns out, that theory is not bullet-proof. In response to Om Malik's question on AT&T's 3G network capabilities, the company's mobility chief, Ralph de la Vega said that he is confident of being able to deal with the demand. Further, he said " We have a maximum throughput of 3.6 Mbps and soon it will be 20 Mbps. The core of the network is going to run faster as well." This piece escaped my earlier analysis. If the AT&T network currently runs at a maximum of 3.6 Mbps, then an advanced receiver in the iPhone (that supports up to 7.2 Mbps) should have minimal impact on the results. So, now I am left wondering where, if outside of the
I will post more thoughts as I think through this further. Perhaps, I will consolidate these observations into a single post in the future. Until then, I hope you find these tidbits and commentary useful.
iPhone 3G - $199 wins my support (UPDATED)
Monday, June 9, 2008
The 3G iPhone is here. Well, almost here! Steve Jobs announced the latest avatar of the iPhone in his WWDC keynote today. Unfortunately for the users and technology enthusiasts, the phone is not out until July 11th. In any case, let us quickly look at the tidbits thrown at us during Steve's talk.
The 8GB 3G iPhone will indeed come with the $199 price tag. Other models are also lower cost than before. This is perhaps an industry changing move by Apple which has sought to bring smartphones to the mass market. It has, in the process, also shed the exclusivity tag that accompanies most of its products. The $199 tag is likely below the phone's manufacturing cost. So, it looks like AT&T is subsidizing it for us. Besides, I am sure that Apple will make money through the plethora of applications that are lined up for the iPhone apart from the AT&T service contract itself. Essentially, there seems to be a change in its iPhone business model. Apple, while choosing volume over margin with this move, will have to be cautious not to repeat Motorola's mistakes with the highly successful yet unprofitable Razr line of phones.
The 3G iPhone will be GPS-enabled. This clearly puts gadgets like Garmin's Nuvifone at a disadvantage. The phone also boasts good battery life. It has 5 hours of 3G talk-time, 5 to 6 hours of data browsing, 7 hours of video, 24 hours of audio. Not to mention the highly anticipated enterprise support that will have RIMM gritting its teeth.
OLD: This is the old version of the paragraph. I have updated this with more accurate information and have it below. Please read that......[The 3G data speed demo gave clues about the iPhone's modem capabilities. Steve showed that the iPhone was about 36% faster than the Treo 750 and the Nokia N95. The caveat is that these popular phones are based on slower WCDMA and are not HSDPA-enabled. For the uninitiated, WCDMA stands for Wideband Code Division Multiple Access and is the 3G migratory path for GSM carriers. HSDPA stands for High Speed Data Packet Access (HSDPA) and is a higher speed data optimized evolution of WCDMA. So, while not being a fair comparison, it demo showed that the iPhone supports HSDPA. I would personally have wanted to see how the iPhone performed against other HSDPA phones. That would have given me a better metric to evaluate the modem and also obtain clues about the baseband supplier.]
UPDATED: The 3G data speed demo gave clues about the iPhone's modem capabilities. Steve showed that the iPhone was about 36% faster than the Treo 750 and the Nokia N95. Nokia's N95 is HSDPA-capable. Palm also unlocked the Treo 750 to support HSDPA. (I am still a little hazy about the Treo specs. and would welcome additional information that you can provide me on this.) For the uninitiated, HSDPA stands for High Speed Data Packet Access (HSDPA) and is a higher speed data optimized evolution of 3G. So, Discounting any improvements provided by the OS and the browser, the demo suggests that the iPhone has a higher capability HSDPA receiver. A friend suggests that the difference in performance may be because the N95 uses a category 6 HSDPA receiver capable of download speeds upto 3.6 Mbps. The iPhone looks to be having a Category 8 receiver capable of 7.2 Mbps. This does give me clues about the baseband supplier. While multiple vendors including Qualcomm and InterDigital have Category 8 receivers, this comparison gives me more confidence that Infineon's X-GOLD-608 is central to the 3G iPhone.
The $199 tag is great news to me. I was looking to get the iPod Touch and a GPS device anyways. I will wait for my Sprint contract to expire and quickly grab one of these from an Apple store. I am not alone. All colleagues and friends I talked to today are quite bouyant. People who don't have the 2G iPhone are waiting for July 11th. Those who paid a high premium for the previous iPhone are still willing to trade theirs for a newer, sleeker and faster big brother. The 10 million iPhone target will now be a rather conservative estimate.
QCom - A loss... and a win
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Few points to note -
- Though absent from the beneficiaries list, Sprint will be able to sell phones from any of the manufacturers who won the stay today.
- QualComm chips cannot be imported directly into the US. Not a major issue, but highlights the fact that this stay merely seeks to limit the damage caused to the others.
- QualComm does not have to settle with BroadCom and will perhaps let the law take its course.
In other QualComm news, their case against Nokia went to courts yesterday as well. So, there will be more interesting legal outcomes this year. One thing that I want to re-iterate is that this ruling will not hamper the ruthless efforts to break the company's business model. Even the phone-manufacturers who won the stay will want more competitors in the chip-vendor space. Note that Motorola, one of the beneficiaries is already moving away from QualComm.
More analysis to come soon.
Read the full article>>Labels: ATT, freescale, Kyocera, LG, Motorola, QualComm, Samsung, Sanyo, Sprint, T-Mobile, TI
Posts
