Why you should refrain from upgrading the iMac's

In a surprise move today, Apple upgraded their line of iMac's. While they did a tremendous job of reducing the price-tag for the 24' iMac to $1499, users should probably wait and not upgrade unless they absolutely must.

Few things that were lacking:

• Anti-Glare screen: So far Apple allows this option only on the expensive 17' Macbook Pro. I am hoping this irritating issue will be resolved soon by asking the anti-glare option available on all iMac's.


• OS X v10.6 upgrade: We are probably a couple of months away from Apple releasing the next version of the OS. Why would you buy the Mac OS X v10.5 Leapord now and pay for an upgrade in a couple of months.


• Blu-ray player: It is just a matter of time before Apple includes this given that HD has finally taken off and the blu-ray licensing issues have finally been resolved.

Competing with Apple's App Store

Now that the App Store has over 15,000 applications, Google (GOOG), Research In Motion (RIMM) and now Microsoft (MSFT) seem to want to jump on the bandwagon as well. Chances of them succeeding is slim given the momentum the App Store has already gained.

Here are my reasons why they will not succeed:

Can I trust this applications ?
Who will ensure that the applications are well behaved, do not introduce problems and are not virus's ? Who will make sure that the applications do not steal the user's personal data from the phone ? Google & Microsoft are not going to be able to do that as they do not have any incentive to do that. While Google gives away the software for free, it does not have any incentive to spend and make sure that people do not download trojans. Microsoft barely gets a few dollars in royalty which does not make it worthwhile either. Apple is the only one who makes roughly $500 per phone and has a huge incentive to sanitize the applications before it allows it in the store.

Non-standard hardware: Except for RIMM's Blackberry, neither Google nor Microsoft have control over the hardware that their software runs on. This is a great disadvantage. Developer's have to write for a platform with different display types and sizes. They will have to deal with phones without an alphanumeric keypad, full ASCII keypad, mouse like pointer, touch screen, single/multi-touch availability,presence/absence of GPS, presence absence of Camera etc.
Either the applications will need to deal with these various hardware combinations after installation or the store is going to have to group applications by device like they do today for the few mobile applications. A total mess! Writing and testing all these combinations on each hardware is going to be a nightmare for a small developer. How many platforms will developers really adopt.

Life is very easy for an iPhone developer. He knows the size of the display and exactly what is available and needs to test on only one platform. Apple has an extensive development platform that is unavailable elsewhere.

Stay with Java if you must: Will Google and Microsoft be able to convince developers to adopt yet another programmatic interface ? Most applications written so far for these platforms have been in Java which run in their own virtual machine and are thus portable., This is OK due to the momentum Java has already attained. Exposing any other API at this time will be a disaster. The problem is that Java applications are still a few years away from competing with the look and feel of native applications besides performance.
In my view, the only way these other vendor's can survive is by focusing on Java applications instead of releasing their own proprietary API.

Yet another store ?
To make an application as easy to install as on an iPhone, user's are going to have to create a user account at Google's and Microsoft's sites with their credit cards etc. This is an iffy considering the response Google Store has already received and failed. Apple on the other hand has its iTunes installed on over a 100 Million Windows machines and has already established a trust with its customers by selling music.

The 3G flaws

While I love the iPhone 3G, I'll not say it is perfect yet.

Cheap Plastic back:
While the original iPhone had a Chrome back, Apple chose to use a cheap looking plastic for the 3G. Apparently the plastic was used to improve the signal quality. But the same could have been achieved by using that only around the border or edges. Most users I know end up having a cover for the phone as the plastic is slippery in sweaty hands. The jacket in most cases makes the phone very bulky.

Poor Battery:
If you really use the Internet or video's, a single charge will not take you through the day.

Crappy Camera:
The 2MP Camera is the worst I've ever encountered. The lack of a flash makes most photograph's appear blurred. Apple needs to upgrade to at least a 3MP camera with Flash. The ability to record video would definitely help.

Limited number of applications installable:
The 9 screens allow one to install only 144 (16 x 9) applications besides the 4 at the bottom. With the Appstore now having 15000+ applications, it is getting harder and harder to reorganize the application layout and locating an application quickly when needed. My guess is Apple is going to have to provide an Application Search feature soon.

Apple's imperfect Job

Here are the top mistakes Apple has made since the release of the iPhone which I will dub "the product of the the decade".

Apple Panicked soon:

Apple got the price and data-contract right the first time. They panicked in a month when they did not see the rush to buy the phones and reduced the price by $200.

The real-reason was that most people had decided based on original reviews that they would have to introduce a faster 3G product soon and opted to wait until its release. Had Apple announced that the 3G was a year away and that it would look crappy compared to the 1st generation EDGE version and that the data-plan would go upto $30, we would not have waited 14 months.

Monopolistic policies: By tying up with selective carriers, they have locked out folks who will not switch carriers. The highest spenders of phone services are often folks who are either locked in to a particular carrier by their employers or are with a particular carrier due to the quality of service or some other reason. Speaking of monopoly, this was the company that was crying that Microsoft was monopolistic and successful.

A phone is only as good as the customer service:
By forcing folks to sign up with AT&T in the US, Apple received a lot of flack due to the unreliable 3G network. Although the network is the issue here, it is Apple that got the brunt of the negative press.

Unusable Camera:
The 2MP camera with no flash is really not something that should have been releases in a classy product like the iPhone. Apple should really consider a minimum of 3MP, Flash and possibly support to record short-videos to really make this feature usable

Forcing an unwanted product:

Forcing a $30 data-plan that is probably needed only on weekends is not very smart. Most folks don't need a data-plan as they already have WiFi at home and work. Why do we need to pay AT&T again. The market for the iPhone would probably be much larger if they had forced AT&T to have a cheaper data-plan or pay-per-use plan. Who needs an unlimited data-plan.

Since there is no Family iPhone data-plan, a family of 4 will be paying $1440 per year extra for a data that they don't need in the first place. Not supporting tethering applications that would allow us to drop our internet services at home and use the iPhone for all internet access is another strategy that is probably going to turn folks away.

The Mobile Computing Platform of the future

When Apple introduced the iPhone in Jan 2007, I knew instantly that this was going to be the mobile platform of the future.

This was a Mac masquerading as a Phone with the capability to do almost anything. Unlike other phones which formatted the web pages for the particular device, this device would eliminate the need to turn on my computer when you go home. In fact it eliminates the need to carry a Laptop for some travellers.

The combination of Music, Video, Computing and Internet (besides the phone) makes this the one and only device we will ever need. Apple seems to have finally learnt from their mistakes (due to which they lost to Microsoft's Operating system) and realized that to make it a success, they need to move all future mobile development to this platform by exposing the programmatic interface (API).

The best incentive Apple has provided the development community to adopt this new platform is the facilitation to develop and sell their applications via the App Store. The App Store will succeed where the shareware model failed. A method to write and sell applications without worrying about such non-geeky stuff like marketing, selling, delivering and billing.