Uncarved

At least, that’s what Richard Wray and Bobbie Johnson of the Guardian conclude:

… while Apple caused a revolution [with the iPhone], it is unlikely to become dominant in the market. It has sold just over 20m iPhones since the first device appeared in 2007; in that time more than 1.5bn phones have been shipped by everyone else. A similar thing happened with the personal computer market. The concept was championed by Apple when it launched Apple II, the worlds first personal computer, in 1977, and the first Macintosh in 1984, but other players now lead the market.

This argument — whose conclusion, for some reason, hinges strictly on unit sales of the iPhone units sold vs. the rest of the phones in the market as a metric for performance — overlooks several critical points:

1. Looking at sales numbers for all phones worldwide is meaningless; rather an examination of the so-called “smart phone” sales numbers would make for more meaningful insights.
2. The iPhone isn’t available in every market — in order to make a meaningful point about its sales performance, they ought to (at least also) isolate its relative performance in the markets the product is actually available in.
3. The rest of their competitors have been selling devices for a decade or more.

I guess it makes for a headline that gets the click-throughs, but since their conclusion is antithetical to the understanding everyone else looking at the iPhone’s market performance has, I would suggest merely that I’d like to see them support their assertion with something slightly more compelling and meaningful than comparing iPhone sales versus the rest of mobile phones on the planet.

Responses business, iPhone, wtf

There has recently been quite a bit of controversy over Macheist, arguing that it’s unfair to the participating developers, largely due to the “steep discount” at which these (largely great) apps are being sold. Some other arguments are simply in the sensationalist vein.

Agreed Benefits

Even the critics of Macheist will concede to a number of upsides to participation, including:

1. Macheist is clearly a great marketing opportunity for each developer’s product,
2. any opportunity at growing their product’s user base builds upon its chances of retaining customers (and thereby capitalizing on upgrade fees for major versions later), and
3. participation with one product stands to produce sales gains on other products made by that developer

Naturally, these potential upsides are by no means guaranteed; if a product doesn’t compete well on its own merits, then its developer(s) will likely not capitalize on upgrade sales. But then Macheist can’t offer to make anyone’s products automagically good; this remains the responsibility of the developers, themselves.

Argued Problems

The basic arguments the critics have boil down to:

1. Macheist sells their apps at a [very] steep discount to their normal sale price,
2. this stands to undermine their perceived market value, and
3. general participation in Macheist may work to undermine the generally perceived value of shareware apps

As such, the critics argue that the developers may well be sacrificing more than they stand to gain in return for their participation.

These arguments, however, are missing a critically important point. Read more…

Responses business, Macheist, response, shareware