Small Apples

[nfotxn]

David! Here' s my annual post-Macworld Keynote Apple Bashfest! I wrote it for you, miss ya lots!

So Apple is the belle of the ball once again. They're selling iPods hands-over-fists, Mac sales are steadily growing and generally things are rosy.

But here's the thing. They're still kinda not huge. The Apple today relative to the size of the market today isn't as big as the Apple that created the Apple II and the Mac. That's good because it makes them theoretically more agile and more able to avoid great organizational blunders like the Windows Vista Shut Down Menu Crapfest. But bad because they are up against some much larger competitors who are still moving slowly towards the same goals. I wouldn't count out Microsoft and Sony just yet for instance. They could relegate Apple to the Whole Foods of the computer market once again if they bring out their Wal*Mart Pod and it does the same things cheaper and mostly the same.

The reason I say this in light of the new products is because Apple still continues to operate in Canada like a smaller company. The iTunes Music Store didn't arrive here until much much after it did in the USA. Currently they still don't sell movies or TV shows and much of the content that is the same or similar in music stores across the Canada-US boarder is not mirrored in their online store. Now they have released a GSM based phone and I have no doubt they haven't talked to a single wireless provider in the country. The iPhone is nowhere to be seen on Apple.ca, .ie, .co.uk or .jp for that matter.

Now I understand that international media law is probably a tough issue to wrangle. But other companies still do that. It takes tremendous resources to implement but even still Amazon, Sony, HMV and various other companies are selling media in this country and adhering to the tricky stuff like Canadian Content laws. Now the difference is that telecommunication ain't that much different in Canada or around the world. If I'm not mistaken the US was one of the last nations to get good national GSM coverage. We have great GSM networks here and a variety of providers and MVNOs. It's just another bad localized implementation of the iPod's more advanced features. That's cheesy because it doesn't matter to the majority of their customers or stock holders. But it does to a few large minorities, ie. Canadians, British, Japanese, French, whatever.

So as somebody who has meagre cash to throw at the optic white and dark matter black objects from Apple I feel kinda disappointed by their actual business reality. They clearly can't afford to get into the media game internationally. They're crackin' the egg in the USA but really that's about it. Elsewhere they are just selling some really well designed and engineered hardware. Which is great but I think it's about time they serious about being a real player in media around the world. Right now they just keep bigging up their chest, satisfying most of their market and then sorta waiting for the rest to fall into place.

Comments

I think they kinda like...

[fidgetcub.livejournal.com]

being the whole foods, niche market, kinda cool and over priced , they arn't after world domination. Im sure they have talked to phone carriers up there already, or if not Im sure they plan on the Iphone going carrier agnostic with in a year or two.

[(Anonymous)]

here's what you've been waiting for kids, the apple iPhone. you saw it first, here on brodie's blog:

[flintlodger.livejournal.com]

here's a link to the real article, and picture of what it really looks like: http://21talks.net/voip/iphone-apple-real

derrrr..... apple inc.

[flintlodger.livejournal.com]

just had a look at apple.com, and boy do i feel like an idiot! i was all like, "hey man, check out these top secret photos i found of apple's iphone..." and everyone else was thinking, "who the hell is this guy?" oh, the hurt! well, at least i showed mr. anonymous poster (right above me) that his photos are all wrong...

=p

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

I think we need more transparency as a nation in that respect. I mean that's how Canada functions right? We hang on to the US economy and export our natural resources there. We also have a lot of innovation in several industries, we do well for a small nation. In the end I feel like a dork for complaining about downloadable movies and a new cell phone. I can't afford one anyhow.

iPhone

[pxtl.livejournal.com]

Forget the iPhone - I'm never interested in phone developments since anything interesting in that field is inevitably marred by the relationship to phone companies. Raving about the iPhone is like talking about the world's most beautiful jewellery that has to be kept in a pool of human snot.

I just want them to make Nanos with 1st-party movie support.

[keanubear.livejournal.com]

I don't see an issue with apple being a smaller company. They certainly are not in any danger of going out of business in the near future.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

That's all well and fine. My point is they operate in Canada and other nations but really save the big announcements for America because they simply don't have the resources to expand internationally in a seamless way.

[keanubear.livejournal.com]

I don't know how accurate that statement is. I would say it has more to do with where Apple makes the most profits. The U.S. is just a bigger market. Therefore, it gets more attention.

[bleepkeeper.livejournal.com]

Does any company expand everywhere at the same time? I can't think of any -- most introduce stuff in their big markets and let it flow outward from there. What does "seamless" mean?

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

But I want it NOW!

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson and LG are selling the same phones here and in the US. The Playstation 3 and the Nintendo Wii were released here at the same time. Really it's not that hard to sell products in Canada. They just don't want to because it's Apple. They are in it right now for the awesome PR and stock bloat for now. I mean it's not expected to hit until June, much may change. But it's the same story from Apple over and over again. Sell Macs and iPods here but not of the really good stuff like TV or Movies and now the iPhone. That's just lame business.

[bleepkeeper.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen in the last couple days, getting the iPhone to work properly on a cell network requires some non-trivial fussing from the provider. If that's the case, I'm not at all surprised Apple is starting with one provider at a time.

I seriously doubt that Apple sees Canadian sales as some sort of bad PR move. Canada is, what, 10% of the size of the US? Europe is how much? The development follows the potential money. Go fuck women and have a flock of kids; in thirty years Apple will intro the new iToy there too.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

I'm still confused by their Amero-centric approach. Because if it were straight numbers wouldn't they want to go after Europe first? If I'm not mistaken the EU's 27 member states racks up close to half a billion people. They also really like GSM phones there... hmmm. I mean I get it, Canada is tiny. But as far as trade we are essentially an adjunct of the USA. That's how our economy stays as strong as it is, through free trade. Sure it's peanuts compared to larger countries. Why don't they go after China first anyhow? But as far as not marketing products in Canada it's like "Oh we're not selling the iPhone in the greater Los Angeles area because of municipal by-laws about accessibility to the blind and mobile cellular providers."

I think boiling it down to "we're just bigger" is silly.

[bleepkeeper.livejournal.com]

How interoperable are the EU's cell providers? How many are there? (I should go ask Brian this stuff, as it's right up his nerd alley.) Assuming that Cingular only has a quarter of the US cell market (and I'm pretty sure they have more than that at the moment), and that the iPhone requires significant amounts of specialized backend support from its cell provider, and that the EU's cell provider setup is more complex than the US (and I'm pretty sure that's the case), it makes sense to start in the US with Cingular, where they can sell a bunch of the first gen phones while sorting out how to port the phone to the other GSM markets.

According to this, China Mobile has the most subscribers of any cell provider in the world. Is China a trend-setting market? The iPhone would be around 4,683.90 yuan; the average urban income in China was around 6,000-12,000 yuan in 2001. Apparently it's gone up a good bit since then, but still, how many phones is Apple going to sell when it costs 30-90% of the average Chinese salary? Market doesn't mean population.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

The iPhones are ready as a product. The thing that's keeping them from shipping in the U.S. *now* is regulatory approval. They have to be approved by the FCC. I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a similar set of hoops to jump through for Canada.

Most of the U.S. is on "GSM2.5". It's interoperable with GSM2 networks in Canada and much of Europe (on the tri-band phones), but the phones in the U.S. are so feature-locked that most of the time it is a crap shoot.