Monthly Archives: February 2011

With a bit of luck, and some spare time, the next Devil’s Advocate poll and debate will be published tomorrow morning. We have a few subjects that we would like to cover over the next week or so and this is your chance to have your say and get involved. Below is a lit of topics and if you want to have your say, just drop me an email to shaun (at)mailstm.co.uk saying if you agree or disagree with a subject or multiple subjects. I will then pair you up with someone else and you can send in 3-400 words explaining your argument. You will not get to see the opposing argument until they are published together on the site so your words will even win or lose the debate. Here are the proposed topics-

• Windows 7 is Nokia’s only hope.

• It is fine for a 10 year old to own a mobile phone.

• Android is more open than iOS.

• BlackBerry’s and similar smartphones contribute to workplace stress.

• Google are the only real winners with Android. They will be making $10 per annum per customer by 2014, yet competition amongst device makers will destroy their margins and customers will have an increasingly fragmented ecosystem.

• Modern mobiles and smartphones are contributing to a degradation of the English language.

Remember, drop me a line if you want to be involved.

“There is little incentive to purchase a premium Android handset if you can get a cheap handset with all the same features.” Peter.

The view above from Peter is not unusual and is a criticism often levied at the Android platform. But is the Android range of handsets that far away from the devices available on the other mobile platforms? Budget handsets bring market share, but more often than not they are budget in terms of quality as well as price. Occasionally some shine from the pack, the Orange San Francisco for one, but on the whole they fully deserve the budget price tag. Does this mean that the incentive is gone to buy a premium handset? No, not really. It is like arguing that you don’t want to buy a £50,000 car because a £10,000 car has all the same features. It does have all the same features, but will be less efficient, slower and not contain all of the luxury you would expect from the more expensive car. Phones are no different from cars in this regard, or any other product. You pay for quality above everything else- that’s why everything from washing machines to furniture have huge price ranges.

Even ignoring all of the above, I see budget in almost every area of the smartphone market now-

Android: too many budget phones and tablets to count. Some are good, some are dreadful.

BlackBerry: The Curve 8520 is the best example of a budget BlackBerry. It is available upwards of only £120 yet is still a very impressive smartphone.

iOS: If the rumours are correct, Apple is entering the mainstream market with a smaller iPhone-like device that could cost less than $200 outside of contract. It would be huge in terms of revenue and may help Apple truly compete with Android in market share. Whether Apple has the capability to build enough is a different matter because it is already struggling to keep up with the demand for the iPad and iPhone 4. UPDATE: Doubts have now been cast on such a device with many reasons quoted such as the inability to build a device priced at this level within cost. Until we know more, we can only guess as to if Apple will enter the budget market.

Symbian: We all know the story of Symbian which has for a very long time offered budget Symbian S60 handsets. Even a couple of years ago, a Symbian S60 smartphone was available for £100 outside contract. And look how well Symbian has done in market share. That wasn’t a joke- for a long time Symbian at the high and low end held a big majority of the smartphone market.

webOS: The Palm Pixi was a budget device and although it failed to set the world alight it showed that Palm felt there was some mileage in budget smartphones. It looks as though HP may decide to do the same thing.

Windows Phone: This is the exception at this time, but don’t rule out this changing at the start of next year once Nokia starts to get involved.

Budget handsets are all different and the expectation is that Apple may still be able to hold on to the iPhone allure with a cheaper handset. It’s actually quite easy for Apple to do this- look at the cost of the iPod Touch and consider how it is viewed compared to the competition.

I understand the view that budget phones will affect sales of high end handsets, but don’t believe the effect is big at all. Someone who buys a £90 budget smartphone was never going to pay £400 for one anyway. They want to dip their toe in the water and see how the experience goes. It is entirely possible that these budget handsets will drive sales of high-end handsets and so the opposite effect will occur.

SHOULD APPLE BLOCK JAILBREAKING?

YES: 26%

NO: 74%

It would be fair to say that yesterday’s first Devil’s Advocate proved to be a roaring success. The debate was spirited and the votes high in number which is great to see.

There will be another Devil’s Advocate tomorrow between myself and Peter and then it is over to you guys. I will let you know the next topic tomorrow and be requesting your help to write views on both sides of the argument.

Today’s comment of the day comes from Donald- “I don’t think BB users are in the same playground as iOS, Android or Windows Phone 7 users. I don’t see BB users as so enamored of touchscreens and loads of apps. They are primarily communicators and are are hooked on email, texting, Twitter, Facebook and BBM. The BB owners I know could care less about the gee-gaws of more modern devices. They want to communicate and honestly the BB platform devices allow them to do this just fine. Or I could be off my rocker. “

I have been having a ‘discussion’ with Vodafone over the past few weeks concerning network coverage and some other problems I have been having with my contract. After we came to an agreement on the way forward, I asked for an unlock code for my iPhone 4. They ordered the code and then advised me that they could not produce a code because it was already unlocked. I bought my iPhone 4 with a new contract from Vodafone yet it is indeed completely unlocked. May be worth checking yours no matter what network you are on. Feel free to let us know how you get on.

Today’s motion is that Jailbreaking is wrong

This is the first in PDA-247’s Devil’s Advocate series which will take opposing views on hot topics and let you decide who is right. You can have you say by voting in the poll below or, even better, joining in with the debates. The results of this poll will be announced tomorrow and you will then be invited to submit your thoughts on the next Devil’s Advocate topic.

Shaun says Jailbreaking is right

The news that Apple has crippled iBooks for Jailbroken phones is disturbing to me. Jailbreaking has been ruled to be perfectly legal yet Apple continues to fight against the ‘legal’ system. I have little doubt that this kind of crippling will follow to the App Store for games and apps and that jailbroken phones could soon be crippled completely and a distance away from how an iPhone should perform.

I own my iPhone, Apple doesn’t. I paid good money for it and if I choose to add some new features to it I believe that I should be able to. We know the rules- Apple does not advise jailbreaking an iPhone and that is fine with me. We know that it could brick the device and that is fine with me. But why should Apple be able to stop me using certain features just because I have ‘legally’ jailbroken my iPhone? As it happens I don’t use iBooks because it is slow and some of the books are uncompetitively priced, but  the principle remains. I should be able to jailbreak my iPhone and use all of the standard Apple features.

Maybe there is a concern that jailbreaking increases faults and support calls which I understand, but the rule can then be used to not help the customer with a jailbroken phone. Blocking features at the base is just not right in my mind- as I said, I own my iPhone.

The argument surrounding piracy is of course valid, but Apple needs to be careful not to lock down the access too much because all this does is give yet more ammunition to those who already see Apple as too controlling. To sum up, I have no issue with jailbreaking, I don’t use illegal software or media, but I do not like Apple’s current stance on jailbreaking at all…

Peter says Jailbreaking is wrong

I’m an iPhone user first and developer second.  The news that iBooks tests for Jailbroken phones is just the first tentative step in proactively confronting Jailbreakers.

I don’t want to Jailbreak my iPhone 4 because Jailbroken applications have full reign to run amok on my phone.  I’ve come to iPhone via PalmOS and Windows Mobile, both of which suffered from frequent stability problems due to badly written applications. Even Palm’s Hotsync desktop synchronisation could be freely augmented by developers, leading to a situation where it ceased to work permanently.  The iPhone’s fluid operation and impressive, undeniable stability has impressed me, though it comes at the cost of some freedom.  It’s a price worth paying – I value reliability over the lure of dubiously written Apps on Cydia, the Jailbreaker’s App Store.

At this point, you’re saying “Fine, don’t Jailbreak it, then – but let those who accept the risks do it anyway” and if I was just approaching this from a user’s perspective, I’d agree with you.

As a developer, however, I see Jailbreaking as a real threat that Apple must address.  Jailbroken iPhones are rife with pirated applications.  Memorably, the developer of a game called “The Little Tank that Could” spoke up about iOS piracy in 2009.  His metrics showed that a whopping 96% of players had installed the game illegally.  That’s truly scary.  Developing for the App Store is tough enough; the costs are quite high, even for the hobbyist and the returns are fairly low, except for superstar casual games such as Flight Control, Doodle Jump or Angry Birds.  With App prices at unprecedented low levels and Apple taking 30% of revenue cut, most developers simply cannot afford to lose most of their sales to piracy.

Some of you might argue that you’ve never pirated software in your lives and wouldn’t now, just because you can, but unfortunately your Saintly ways place you in a minority. If Marks and Spencers could do away with cashiers, clothing tags, security guards and CCTV, they would.  But they can’t, because trusting people to pay when they’re not compelled to simply doesn’t work.   So, even the honest amongst us who wouldn’t consider shoplifting have to pass through magnetic sensors, and so it is with the iPhone – Apple need to lock it down to ensure that people who won’t pay a fair amount for their software don’t spoil it for the rest of us.  If developers desert iOS, the much vaunted ‘ecosystem’ would quickly stagnate.

So I applaud Apple’s move. If new users are discouraged from Jailbreaking their phone, software sales will grow, ensuring that the platform will have a bright future.

What’s wrong with that?

Please take a moment to vote in the poll below- the result will be published tomorrow.