Touch technology: A round-up
Touch technology help non-tech industries improve business, efficiency, and their bottom lines.
The SMART Table brings touch to masses and classes. Photo: SmartTech
We all oohed and aahed when Apple's (AAPL) iPhone came out because of how cool it was, especially its multi-touch capability that let us flick through photos and "pinch" and expand photos and websites.
Now, with Microsoft (MSFT) Windows 7 specially formatted for touch capabilities, and everyone from manufacturers to hotels touting their tough capabilities, we know human contact with computer screens is more than a gimmick — it’s here to stay.
Touch is already a big business — estimates indicate that sales will be more than $3.66 billion for this year and will catapult 145% to almost $10 billion in the next five years.
Only half of that revenue is coming from consumer electronics (i.e. cell phones, digital frames, etc.) — the rest is from retail, hospitality and more. What many people forget is that this 30-year-old technology has been integrated in non-tech industries for years — mainly as a way to improve efficiency, but never as a centerpiece.
So, we decided to take a look at the best of the rest and highlight the most innovative, business-savvy ways other industries are implementing touch technology — and helping improve their bottom line. More
Droid vs. iPhone: The reviews are in
Motorola and Verizon invited comparisons, and that's what they got
Photos: Motorola, Apple
The Droid lands in stores Friday, and on Thursday the heavyweight reviewers — which is to say the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg and the New York Times' David Pogue — weighed in.
Given that Motorola (MOT) and Verizon (VZ) pitched the Droid in its first TV ad as everything Apple's (AAPL) and AT&T's (T) iPhone was not, it was perhaps inevitable that every reviewer so far, including these two, treated its arrival as a grudge match.
Mossberg's review is positive but tepid — especially the video version. He plods through the comparisons item by item like a slightly boring homework assignment. His top-line summary:
The iPhone's first 100,000 apps
Games dominate with nearly 17% of titles. Entertainment, books and travel are close behind.
Click to enlarge. Source: 148Apps.biz
Less than 16 months after it opened for business, the App Store now offers more than 100,000 applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, according to an Apple (AAPL) press release issued early Wednesday.
Two independent sites, AppShopper.com and 148Apps.biz, which track listings in the U.S. App Store, count 97,026 and 96,161, respectively. [UPDATE: A third, apptism.com, lists 100,699.]
Apple's total includes 3,000 or 4,000 apps available only in its 76 overseas stores. Another nearly 9,000 apps have been approved by Apple but for one reason or another are no longer available for download.
The distribution of applications remains roughly the same as it was a year ago. According to 148Apps' count, the U.S. App Store carries, among other offerings, more than 16,000 games, 13,000 books, 2,700 navigation programs, 1,200 medical applications and 442 weather apps.
Below the fold: A bar chart comparing the App Store's 100,000 with the numbers available at the official application markets for Google's (GOOG) Android platform, Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry, Nokia's (NOK) Symbian, Palm's (PALM) Pre and Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Mobile phones.
33% of U.S. touchscreens are iPhones
Touchscreen phones are on fire, comScore reports, and Apple is leading the pack. For now.
Three months ending Aug. 2009. Source: comScore MobiLens
There's a thundering herd of imitators behind it, but Apple's (AAPL) iPhone still dominates that fastest-growing segment of the U.S. smartphone market, according to a comScore report issued Tuesday.
Touchscreen mobile phone adoption in the U.S. grew at a breakneck 159% rate last year, comScore reports, easily outpacing the 63% growth of the broader smartphone market.
By last August, nearly 34 million Americans were carrying smartphones, 23.8 million of them touchscreen devices. And of those touchscreen phones, 32.9% were iPhones.
“The iPhone clearly set the trend in the industry for touchscreen devices, so it’s no surprise that it has the largest share of the market,” said comScore VP Mark Donovan. “But as other players have entered the touchscreen market with compelling devices, competition is clearly heating up.”
Donovan mentioned Google's (GOOG) Android platform in particular, although the closest Android contender in August was the T-Mobile (DT) G1 running a distant seventh after two proprietary LG phones, the BlackBerry (RIMM) Storm, the Palm (PALM) Pre and the Samsung Instinct.
Below the fold, comScore's spreadsheets, including one that shows preference by age group. (The smartphone sweet spot seems to be ages 24 to 34.)
China iPhone launch a 'disappointment'
Analysts adjust their Chinese iPhone estimates following sales that one describes as "soft"
iPhone buyers in Guangzhou. Photo: iPhonAsia
Following press reports that China Unicom (CHU) only managed to sign up 5,000 new iPhone subscribers after four days of sales, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster and Barclays Capital's Ben Reitzes each issued notes to clients Tuesday that tried to put a positive spin on the news.
"The China launch is a disappointment," Munster acknowledged. But he added that it reminded him of the launch of the original iPhone in June 2007, when reports that AT&T had activated only 146,000 iPhones in two days caused "unfounded concerns among investors" about the device's long-term potential.
Brit blog names iPhone 'world's worst'
In June, Apple's smartphone was the editors' choice at CNET UK. How times have changed.
Source: CNET UK
"The iPhone may be the greatest handheld surfing device ever to rock the mobile Web, and a fabulous media player to boot," writes CNET UK's Flora Graham in a mock award citation posted Tuesday. "It may be the highest-rated mobile phone on CNET UK, rocking the pockets of half of our crack editorial team. It's certainly the touchscreen face that launched a thousand apps. But as an actual call-making phone, it's rubbish, and we aim to prove it."
What follows is a litany of complaints no iPhone owner hasn't heard — or expressed — before. But to read them in a publication that four months earlier named Apple's (AAPL) device the "world's best touchscreen phone" is unexpected. And in Ms. Graham's voice, sort of fun.
To quote a few of her sharper lines:
PC sales spike with Windows 7 debut
Just three days were enough to push computer sales for the week up 40%
Click to enlarge. Source: Morgan Stanley, NPD
The sharp spike in the chart at right is the Windows 7 effect PC makers have been waiting for.
In a note to clients issued Monday afternoon, Morgan Stanley's Kathryn Huberty reports that NPD data for the week ending Oct. 24 — which included three days of Windows 7 sales — show PC sales jumping 40% year over year.
This was particularly encouraging, she writes, because sales in the early part of the week likely reflected the same pre-Windows 7 declines as the previous two weeks. PC buying for the weeks of Oct. 17 and Oct. 10 was down 29% and 2%, respectively, as consumers waited for Microsoft's (MSFT) new operating system to launch.
The iPhone dons a suit and tie
IT departments are finally starting to buy Apple's smartphone, says a Deutsche Bank report
Click to enlarge. Source: Deutsche Bank
"There is growing evidence that the iPhone is making inroads into the Enterprise," writes Deutsche Bank research analyst Chris Whitmore in a report to clients Monday.
According to his estimates, Apple (AAPL) by the end of the year will have shipped about 2 million iPhones into corporate accounts through various routes, including internal IT department purchases and formal reimbursement policies.
That would give Apple about a 7% share of the enterprise smartphone market this year, up from 2% in 2008.
IT departments were famously resistant to the iPhone when it was launched two years ago. That resistance has begun to melt, writes Whitmore, for several reasons:
Mac share grew after Windows 7 debut
Microsoft has not halted Apple's momentum, according to Net Applications' October report
Source: Net Applications
If Microsoft (MSFT) was hoping that the launch of Windows 7 would halt the erosion of its operating system market share — and curb further inroads by Apple (AAPL) — there is no evidence that it's working yet.
In fact, preliminary data released overnight Sunday by Net Applications show Mac OS X's Internet share growing by 2.73% in October, from 5.12% to 5.26%.
Windows' Internet presence, meanwhile, fell from 92.77% to 92.54% — its ninth loss in 12 months. Windows 7's share, however, was more than 2% even before its Oct. 22 general release, thanks to widespread use of early release versions. By Oct. 30 the Windows 7 portion was 2.85%, largely at the expense of Windows XP, according to a separate Net Applications report.
Net Applications, it must be noted, is not measuring share of market in the sense of sales revenue or unit sales. Rather it tracks the presence of various operating systems on the Internet by sampling browser data from visits to its clients websites — some 160 million hits per month. It's a methodology that tends to favor devices that make it easy to navigate the Web, which explains the relatively high "market share" of the iPhone in the firm's monthly surveys.
You can see Net Applications' October report here. The results are summarized in the chart below.
Apple tablet: For video, not books?
Chatting with a Canadian analyst, Cupertino execs offer hints about Apple's future plans
Rendering: Piper Jaffray
Apple executives (AAPL) have strict rules about not discussing products that the company has not announced. But they'll talk about market opportunities, as three of them did on Thursday at a special event for RBC Capital. And sometimes that's enough to discern what direction the company is heading.
In a report to clients issued Friday, RBC's Mike Abramsky ticks off the key takeaways from his meeting with Eddy Cue (vice president for iTunes and Internet services), David Moody (vice president for worldwide Mac marketing) and CFO Peter Oppenheimer.
What caught my eye was what they had to say about where they did — and didn't — see opportunities in digital content. They were talking about Apple TV, but it was as if they were thinking about future tablet computers.
Here's what Abramsky reports, in analyst shorthand, about that portion of the conversation: More
