iPad Update With Retina Screen Could Cost More - Probably $100 More

One of the highlight features for the upcoming iPad, iPad 2S or 3, is the Retina Display that it'll certainly sport.  So, word on the Internet now is that it'll cost more than the current iPad 2 baseline.  Some are guessing that Apple will charge an additional $70.  Others think it'll be $80.  Me?  I think it'll be a nice round figure:  $100.

Now, I don't like to traffic in Apple rumors (though I enjoy reading them when they sound plausible, come from reputable sites, and does not come from DigiTimes), in this case, we can speculate about Retina Display pricing.  And I reckon the new high resolution displays are difficult to make, lower yields (meaning more waste), and is not something Apple's competitors are capable of matching at this moment.

So, a premium, $70 to $100 more, isn't out of the question.  Make no mistake.  I'm as disappointed as you if our speculation turns out to be true.  This is it leads me to believe that Apple will continue to offer the iPad 2 similar to the current configuration to take the lower price points, $350 to $400.

Still, something bugs me.  What'll happen to Apple's $500 price?  Will it be occupied by the iPad 2 or the newer iPad?  It would make sense for Apple to have a new iPad take the $500 and lower the prices of the iPad 2.

Obviously, no one, including myself, knows what Apple will do.  If this was the Macbook, I can see Apple offer new laptops with standard screens with an option to upgrade to higher resolutions as they do with the Macbook Pros. Can Apple offer the new iPads with the same iPad 2 screen, 1024x768, and for $100 more, upgrade to the Retina Display, doubling the resolutiont to 2048x1536?

It's possible.  And along with the the doubling of the resolution, Apple could sweeten the deal with a better CPU with beefier graphics processing power.

What I am suggesting does complicate things a lot.  Nevertheless, Apple is well into the post-PC era and the iPads represents the future of mobile computing.

Well, we'll know in a couple of weeks.

iPhone Losing Out To Competitors In Countries With Austerity Measures Or On Verge Of Bankrupcy – NO One Should Be Surprised

Apple is a premium brand.  However, it’s not the same thing as saying that Apple products cost more than competing devices or computers.  Rather, it’s about Apple’s unwillingness to compromise.  The “premiumness” is about Apple’s talented teams of designers, programmers, and engineers making the best products they can.  That is what makes Apple such a sought after brand and why people line up year after year to buy its products.

So, we learn now that Apple’s iPhone is not doing well in countries where carriers do no offer subsidies.  In fact, Android smartphones had take Apple to school when it comes to market-share.  So what?

There are going to be many analysts and tech pundits who will push for Apple to release a cheaper iPhone to address those market.  Screw that.  If Apple could not lower it self to make a PC at the $500 price point that was not a piece of junk, what makes anyone believe that Apple will make a $200 or even a $300 smartphone that not worthy of the name “iPhone”.

The other issue is that Apple wants a certain kind of customer.  Not necessarily affluent ones though that definitely helps the bottom-line.  What Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and others want are the type of customer who recognizes a product that was developed with the meticulous care that Apple has put into.  And it’ll certainly cost money to buy it but it’ll be worth it.

Furthermore, there are other things at play.  One that quickly comes to mind is the economic factor.  Take a look at this chart.  The iPhone isn’t doing too hot in Greece and Portugal.  If you’re not too up and up on the latest financial market news, here it is:  Greece is on the verge of bankruptcy while Portugal has had their bonds rattled by downgrades and austerity measures are in full play.

Android devices in general are good enough for the vast majority of the market.  No, not everyone needs the iPhone or even high-end Android device like the Galaxy S II.  A $200-$300 unsubsidized device is good enough.  I know a few big mobile warriors doing just fine in a $300 Android device on Virgin Mobile but I also know that if not for the $25 prepaid plan they’ve got grandfathered in, they would have long jumped ship to an iPhone.

In conclusion, Apple is never going to make a $200 iPhone that is garbage because it’s not in their DNA.  I wouldn’t want Apple to either.  Apple could conceivably lower the price of the iPhone 3GS to $300 someday for economically troubled markets and even the 3GS is still head and shoulders above competing devices in that price range.

Source:  Cult of Android.

2011 Was Year of the iPad 2, 2012 Will Be Year of the Tablet

Mobile World Congress has started and leaks are already happening.  And guess what, tablets are huge this year and it should not be a surprise to anyone if tablets get more attention than smartphones.  After all, this is the year when Google gives it another shot at the iPad while Microsoft makes a very risky bet, albeit a necessary one, by making Windows 8 its chief competitor to the iPad.

Take the quad-core tablets powered by Nvidia's Tegra 3 chip that will soon flood the market with many Android tablet makers using specs to help them muscle in to take some marketshare.  It's likely many Taiwanese companies will try to outspec competitors on similiarly pricted tablets.  What's interesting is the response from the top tier tablet makers.

More at Greenjava.

Sun, High Gas Prices, And Mobile

It's that time of the year again. Daylight savings is coming and and heat. At least in Calfornia, we have been having quite a warm winter and I don't see that changing much. To top that off, we are having quite a ride at the gas pumps. So, I've tooled up my bike, make sure everything is working as it should, and take it out today.

So, I'll be looking to start up my recording of how much money I'll be saving by biking insteading of driving around my SUV.

And where does mobile fit into all this?

Our smartphones are yesterday's note pad. I used to use a little note book to record my bike rides in school, both high school and in college. It was neat to see just how much money I've saved over time because of all this.

And since I've been looking for an app to do do just this, maybe I ought to write an app to do this for myself.

Wireless: Spectrum Crunch - No Easy Way To Alleviate It, Cost To Go Up

There is a spectrum crunch that is creating problems for users and the wireless companies.  What’s causing the spectrum crunch in the US?  According to CNN, the following are the main causes:

• Leading off is iPhone, iPad, & other mobile devices like Androids that are using more data than expected. Also the adoption rate of these mobile devices have increased.
• Inept government regulation – what used to work doesn’t anymore and the FCC has not moved fast enough
• Industry protectionism like the TV broadcast industry trying to wall off their spectrum.
• Hoarding – there are spectrums out there that are not being used.  Dish Network, we’re looking at you.

How much of this can be fixed quickly isn’t known.  We can use more Wi-Fi but all of this is giving carriers reasons to ration and cap wireless use – thus driving up costs for end users like us mobile warriors.

The problem isn’t really the users but a combination of carriers, industry players, and the government not working together to solve this.  As the article mentioned, there is not one quick solution.  What will get us through this is going to be a patchwork of new technology, policy reforms, and new innovative thinking.

And it’ll take a while.  A long, long while because there is just too much fear and too much entrenched interests.  And new comers are in no hurry to make things happen.

Translation:  costs could go up for the average mobile user.  Our only long-term hope is that the winners of any spectrum war or realignment will not have too much power to dictate how we use our wireless devices or have the ability to charge us whatever they want.

Source:  CNN Money.

Should Apple Make Available A Special iPad For School For Far Less? It Would Make A Lot of Sense and Doable (and Money For Apple)

First, let me say that what I’m predicting here is way in no way based on anything I’ve read or have been told.  This is just my own musing on how Apple can get iPads into the hands of million of students across the US or any other country that might be interested in giving their students the best opportunities that mobile computing can give today.  At the end of this post, I’ll reveal what I believe Apple can charge for it.

Each iTexbook for Apple is going to cost about $15 a textbook.  And from K-12, we are talking anywhere from 4 to 6 textbooks per pupil.  That’s comes out to about $60 to $90 per student per year.  And let’s suppose that each student will be assigned an iPad that is good for three to four years.  Maybe even five.

Now, let’s do the math.  At three years, that means the textbook revenue per student comes out to $180 to $270 per student.  Apple’s 30% is about $54 to $86.40 per student.  If you extend the iPad lease to 4 and 5 years, Apple’s cut becomes $72 to $115.20 and $90 to $144 respectively depending on the number of textbooks per student.

Apple can easily subsidized a price cut from the low-end $500 and really drive the price down a 9.7” iPad.  And with manufacturing cost going down year after year, there is more room for Apple it wants to go even lower.

At the end of it all, Apple can lease iPads on a 3-5 year basis and cut prices down to about $300 per iPad and make quite a bit of money still with revenue from textbooks helping to subsidize the cost.  Imagine a recurring upgrade of tens of millions (or hundreds of millions) of iPad every year for as long as iPads are needed to educate students.

Apple can will be able to count on its iPad to bankroll the company for decades to come.  Suppose Apple does adopt a plan similar to one that I am proposing, we already believe that Apple will keep the iPad 2 around even after it introduces the next iPad upgrade with a $100.  For schools, Apple can further achieve added cut from the textbook revenue and move the price even lower.

All the way down to $300.

Of course, it would have to be a packaged deal.  The school would have to be willing to lease the iPad and buy textbooks from the iBookstore in for Apple to drive the price this low.  Should the School choose only to go with the iPad, they can obviously settle for any educational discount or package that Apple offers.  And if the school or the student choose to, they can buy the iPad from the school or Apple for a low cost of say $100-$150 per iPad.  Everyone wins.

Making money from these student iPads aside, Apple will have achieve something that Steve Jobs dreamt of; revolutionize education.  And on top of that, legions of students, generation after generation of them, will grow up using Apple’s products.  iPads, Apple TV, and Apple’s mobile vision.

There simply is no company out there that could make this happen on such a scale in the tablet market except Apple.  And I believe Apple will make a $300 iPad available for schools and still manage to maintain a healthy profit margin.  After all, didn’t Apple jus tell Wall Street their margin was the best ever in the company’s history?

Siri on the Mac? Hope So But Apple Might Not Offer It

I’ve just begun to play with Mountain Lion, OS 10.8, Apple’s next update to the Mac operating system that includes many iOS specific features like Messages and quite frankly, changes to key features with iCloud integration.  One feature that appears to be missing from all this is Siri.  Granted, Siri is still missing from the iPad 2, an oversight that I hope Apple will rectify with the next iPad release.  But would it be stupendous if Apple also makes Siri available to the Macs as well?

I am thinking not just from a fan standpoint but also from a competitive standpoint in the mobile marketplace.  Windows 8 will be out by the third quarter of 2012 and tons of tablets and laptops that run Microsoft’s latest and greatest OS will be flooding the market.

Right now, I think most analysts and bloggers are just concentrating on the meaning of Apple’s surprising and cryptic preview of Mountain Lion and pour over what’s there, and not what isn’t there like Siri.  See, typically, Apple likes to schedule big media events for things like these previews.  They’ve done it numerous times with OS X and just about every single time with iOS.  This time, it was different.

Sandwiched between an educational media event in January for the iBooks and digital textbook publishing and a likely iPad event in March, I can understand why Apple doesn’t want a huge OS X update to overshadow what they are going to do next.

However, some believe that Apple saw a lot of what they like in Windows 8.  Let me correct myself.  As users, they might have seen a lot of improvements in Windows 8 that can have a major impact on iOS and OS X – meaning sales of iPads and Macs.  So, some have speculated that Apple is simply trying to upstage Microsoft’s own launch.

Others, who are less kind, believed Tim Cook and company blinked and panicked.

Whatever the reasons are, it is good to see that Apple is demonstrating to the market its more concerted effort to update the OS for the Mac.  In fact, Apple has indicated that like the iOS, the OS X will now be getting annual updates.

Back to Siri.  We all saw what Siri, still in beta, did for the iPhone 4S sales.  Now consider what it will do for the iPad sales if Apple enables Siri with the next update.  So far, Google has nothing that can even come close.  And Microsoft was caught flatfooted when Siri was announced and its speech in Windows Phone or Windows, while they exist just like they do for Android, is nowhere near what Siri can do along with the accompanying personality.

Now, consider what Siri can do to the Mac sales just against Windows.

Not just for padding Apple’s cash reserve but Apple stands a good chance of bring a whole new computing dynamics to the Mac as well.  Along with Apple’s growing and evolving multi-touch interface and voice command, mobile warriors can really take computing into a whole new direction with the more powerful Macbooks.

What I want and what Apple will do are two vastly different things.  Quite under the reality distortion field of Steve Jobs for years if not decades to come, Apple will do things that only makes sense, not because it’s there and they’ll put it in.  While it might be a no-brainer for us to want Siri on the Mac, Apple might have its own reason that are completely different from ours to include it or leave it out completely.

It’s likely that Apple sees the Mac computers, while growing compared to the rest of the PC market for years now, obviously does not hold the huge potential that exists in the smartphone and tablet market.  By not including Siri in OS X, Apple will have a better success of stirring people towards iOS products.

That makes sense.  Nevertheless, the PC market is not going to go away any time soon and there is still a lot of battles to be fought on the mobile PC front.

So, while I love to have Siri on my 11” Macbook Air come this summer, it’s Steve Jobs’ vision that will make that final determination.