iPhone Coming To More Chinese Carriers;

You might think that the iPhone proliferation in China isn't a big deal to those of us in the US.  Or that it should not matter to my friends in EU, India, other parts of Asia or my new friends on Google+ from South America but it does.  China will soon have one billion mobile phone users.  And it's anyone's guess that many more phones are in actual use.  You have to assume some folks carry more than one mobile device.

According to Phone Arena, China Telecom and China Mobile will join China Unicom, the only authorized iPhone carrier right now, in offering the next iPhone as soon as this fall.  If true, it underscores just how important a market that China is to Apple.  Obviously, not all one billion users will buy a smartphone but a major of them will.

Even if only 50% of the Chinese market embraces the smartphones, that is 500 million users.  And if Apple capture just 25% of the smartphone market, that is 125 million iPhones.  And there is no reason to believe that a higher percentage of the Chinese market won't adopt the smartphone or that Apple won't be able to take a bigger piece of the pie.  

No matter how you slice it, Apple is going to be selling iOS devices in the hundreds of millions – just in China alone. 

And trying to move up the iPhone launches in Greater China makes a lot of sense for Apple.  In its most recent quarter, Apple saw its revenue from this market jumped six times (PC World). To put this another way, Apple surpassed Chinese tech firm Lenovo (Taipei Times, Bloomberg) in revenue and, likely, profit as well. For Lenovo, having home field advantage is not help.  But then, can Lenovo or anyone else claim brand and image conscious China its home market but Apple?

Going forward, I expect Apple's mobile strategy to have a more profound impact from Chinese influence and that in turn will shape mobile experiences else where.

Kycera Phone For The Elderly With Emergency, Notification, And Pedometer; Is There An App For This?

This mobile phone comes from the maker of my first MP3 player, Kyocera. It's elegant in its simplicity. And from TechCrunch's post, it seems to be marketed at elderly. I'm not so sure, I think children can use this as well.

It has a pedometer, simple buttons and UI, and it has a feature that in the event of an emergency, it would trigger an e-mail to a caretaker. Again, children can really benefit from this kind of mobile tech. If I had kids and was to give them phones, I would want this latter feature.

Having said all that, this could easily be duplicated within an app for most mobile platforms. There are plenty of pedometer out there that just need a few tweaks that can do what this phone can do. Apple already has Nike+ built into its mobile devices and I am sure other devices makers can do the same with similar features.

Did Apple Start The Patent War?

Did Apple start the patent war?  Yes, and they're going after anyone that they receive to be a threat.  And while this is a point that I agree with Acer head, Wang, I disagree with his assessment on this matter.

Essentially, everyone is accusing Apple of not allowing business to go on as usual.  Companies copy each other.  That is the nature of business.  So compete in the marketplace.  Let the customer choose.  Heck, Apple has been known to copy from others.  

There is now a very popular term in Appledom called "being sherlocked". 

But with a preliminary ITC ruling alleging that HTC infringed on two of Apple's patents, this could spill over to other Android device makers.  

And Acer does have a lot of sour grapes to eat.  By betting on the netbook strategy, it worked out very well in the couple of years as these cheap computers, cost as low as $200,  But when Apple released the iPad as well as the timing of a global economy that was still trying to work its way out of a recession, the whole Acer network strategy collapsed.

As for Apple starting the patent war and these public war of words, none of "he said, she said" sideshows should have no bearing on what's going on the courts.  Every company has the rights to profit from their intellectual properties and defend them.  

On the surface, it seems that Apple is doing just that.  It's why HTC has to pay Microsoft $5 for every Android device they sell.  It's why Google is looking to settle with Oracle over the Java patent infringement suit.

What's important here is what will Acer and others do if the ITC ruling is upheld.  For the Android camp to simply say that they will prevail at the end of the day does not bring me any comfort.

Also, this is largely Google's fault.  It has not given its partners the type of support that I would have expected.  Perhaps this is why Google received no support from Android makers during the Nortel bidding and eventually lost the 6K+ patents to Apple's camp.

As for Apple using patents to wage war, that is really their prerogative.  Now, is the time for the Android camp to band together, help each other out, and for Google to find a way out of this mess.

iBikes From Apple

Apple is giving employees bikes to use so they can ride between campuses.  It's a brilliant idea. I'm sure they're not the first to do this but they're probably going to get a lot of attention for this because, well, they're Apple.

And no, these are not for sale for the public though I reckon they can sell more than a few of these if they wanted to.  Some people will buy anything that has an "i" in front of it.

Source: 9to5mac.

T-Mobile To Offer Micro-Sims For The iPhone

9to5Mac is reporting that T-Mobile is offering micro SIM cards for the iPhone.  Could be that the iPhone is coming to T-Mobile just as I am quitting the service?

The possibilities on this is incredible.  I wonder if they can be used in the iPad.  This is important because there are currently no iPad plan with unlimited data where as T-Mobile, despite, throttling, does still give us EDGE even after the 3G allotment has been reached.

I had previously cut up my SIM card and used it with my iPad 2 and it worked well.  

Oh, the possibilities this presents.  

Microsoft Earnings Showed It Relied On Enterprise Sales And Windows Down; iPad and Mac the Reason?

Today, Microsoft, by most standards, hit it out of the part with its most recent quarterly earnings just as competitors Apple and Google did.  But there is some gray clouds on the horizon.  Dispite great Windows 7 adoption, Windows revenue is down.  This would mark the third quarter of decline, pretty much in line with increases in iPad sales.  And I reckon that Apple's sales of Macs and particular the 9+ million iPads that Apple sold (not shipped) and put into the hands of consumers will increase and we can expect Windows sales to further decline.

Another analysis of the Business Insider figure I brought to your attention was fault because it did not figure the iPad numbers.  With the new figure, MacObserver pointed out that iPad accounts for almost 10% of PC sales.

And whether analytics firms want to categorize the iPad as a media tablet and not a true tablet, they cannot ignore much longer the fact that these "media tablets", particularly the iPad, is taking a piece of the PC pie. This is why Microsoft, 12 to 18 months (possibly more given how they chronically miss deadlines), is talking up a tablet version of Windows 8 tablets.  

Redmond recognizes the fact that the iPad is a threat.  And that threat was realized in its shrinking Windows revenue.

Mac OS Lion: Reverse Scrolling - People, Learn To Live With It!

I'm seeing more than a few posts about the so-call reserve scrolls that come with OS X Lion that some people have issues with.  I call these people "homo sapien extinctus".  Seriously, people, get with the program.  What you've been doing in since 1984, when the Mac first came out was with the mouse.  Now, its about touching, no more clicking and dragging with a mouse.

Now, you've got touchpads on the laptops and touch screens that require you to scroll differently.  This is how true mobile warriors "scroll" if you will.  That is also the order of things are with you buy an Apple product.  And it is not as if Apple is trying to screw with up.  Apple is training you for the future.  And soon, this will be how things are done on Windows as well once Windows 8 tablets are released.

This is how it's done on Android devices as well - smartphones and tablets.

The main different now is that Apple has brought reverse scrolling onto the Mac.  There is a way for you to disable that in the Preference panel but I really encourage that you don't.  Soon, you'll be the only one and everyone around you are gonna look at you different.  Okay, they won't but I will.  

I wager this.  Apple will soon get rid of the mouse for the desktop and replace it with the Magic Pad.  

Give it a couple of days.  It'll start to feel second nature and you won't think about it again after that.  And if you do, you'll be thinking "wow, why did we scroll this way before?".