Why will iPhone 4S be a success?

I tend to be critical and try to look at things from different viewpoints. It's always good to think "out of the box" and not get influenced by what you are reading in the news, in websites or listening on TV. That is the reason why while there are many people feeling let down by yesterday's Apple presentation, I think they have made a good move.

The last thing I saw yesterday before having dinner and being "disconnected" from the world was that Apple's stock was down 3,3% in NASDAQ. Articles had started to appear here and there talking about the disappointment of fans. However, my image of the day was this one (we'll get back to it later):

(with 2 year contracts)

Lets make a quick revision of the main features of the new iPhone:

Feature 1: A5 Processor
The iPhone 4S features a A5 dual-core 1GHz processor designed by Apple. The same processor you can find in the iPad 2. According to Apple it will be twice as fast as the current iPhone 4 and seven times faster when gaming. However, this won't affect battery as it, in theory, will be able to provide 8hours of talk time over 3G.

Feature 2: Antennas + Connectivity
After all the problems the antenna gave in the iPhone 4, the famous "Antennagate", Apple has revised the antenna setup in the iPhone 4S. It now switches between two antennas, to transmit and receive, and this gives better call quality and faster data, reaching 5.8 and 14.4 mbps upload and download. It's not LTE but sounds pretty good.
The iPhone is now also a "world phone", unifying CDMA and GSM in a single device, allowing you to travel anywhere with the same handset.

Feature 3: Camera (8mp + HD)
The camera system has been revised, introducing a state-of-the-art 8 megapixel camera for phones, higher sharpness, better color accuracy, better illumination and faster, much faster to setup and take pictures.
This same camera is also capable of 1080p HD video recording with video image stabilization and temporal noise reduction. Quite a nice camera.

Feature 4: iOS5
Of course, iPhone 4S will run iOS5, the new operating system by Apple. It's not something new and it's not groundbreaking, but will add some nice features like a RSS reader in Safari, being PC Free, iMessage (similar to BB Messenger), improvements to Mail, etc...

Feature 5: Siri
But the most innovative feature the iPhone 4S adds is Siri. Siri is your voice assistant. It is designed to give information and follow commands. You can check the weather, ask for a contact address, get directions... all buy just asking Siri. It has a female voice (that can't be changed) and will launch in English, French and German, with more languages to follow. We will have to see how well it responds and how it evolves, but it sounds as a good addition.

Seen as a whole it is a good upgrade for the iPhone, but its not the iPhone 5 many people were expecting, and that is why we had all the disappointment floating around yesterday.

Killer-feature: Pricing
But lets get back to the pricing. The features we have been talking about may not be impressive, it may put the iPhone on-par or slightly ahead of several other high-end devices in the market, but the most important move Apple made yesterday was setting up very competitive prices.

You don't need a low-end and a high-end device when you have iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S in stock, what you need is to set the prices straight. the iPhone 4 is still one of the best handsets in the market and the iPhone 3GS also beats most smartphones. With the pricing Apple is setting there is no reason for many people to get onto the iPhone train as the main barrier before, the price, has disappeared.

Why get a low-end nokia or LG or whatever when you can have an iPhone 3GS for free? It is a powerful phone with a nice hardware and gives you access to the whole AppStore. You may not be able to record videos in HD, but you would definitely have a better handset than 90% of those available in your carrier.

Amazon presented the Kindle Fire ten days ago. It isn't the best piece of hardware of the market but the pricing is competitive and the experience it delivers is better than any other tablet (leaving aside iPad). They are getting 50.000 pre-orders per day and it seems they have crushed all android-tablet competitors.

Apple seems to be attacking now a segment of the market it hadn't bother with before: mid and low end. They are the leaders in high-end smartphones even though, as a whole, Android seems to be passing them, but now they are putting their phones in the hands of kids, teenagers and more price-concerned users. In a single item you have a gaming platform with thousands of games (some free, many cheap), an iPod and a mobile phone.... what else do you need?

Telefónica's CDN, good or bad move?

Yesterday a couple of spanish newspapers decided to "attack" Telefónica:

• El País (In spanish, inside the article: Monetisation of this service puts in question network neutrality) 
• Público (In spanish, the header: Telefónica finds a way to make Facebook and Google pay [...for network usage]) 

  Both articles described a new "VIP" service telefónica had launched: a CDN. Yes, you read right, a CDN. Supposedly this breaks network neutrality...

  Hours later Enrique Dans made a good post on his blog, I hope the journalists read it.

  First of all, it is a pity that on two of Spain's main newspapers there are journalists writing on something they have no clue about, and what's worse, not consulting an expert before writing nonsense.

  But leaving aside journalists and editors incompetence in this matter, lets focus on the real deal and what has been bothering me for some time now: What will the role of the carrier be in the market, considering the path it is taking?

Too many mistakes: Managers and Directors don't seem to understand the market and their role in it

  I won't make friends with this but this is the true situation, and denying the truth doesn't make it disappear.

  We have transitioned from the walled gardens to the total openness of iPhones and Androids where the carrier has no control on what's happening in the handset. From a total control on the carrier side to becoming a mere spectator.

  During Summer 2008 Apple launched the App Store. It took Nokia 1 year to react. Telefonica will launch soon its own App store... 3 years after Apple... and this brings me back to my last post: Business thoughts: Competition vs Market Fragmentation

  Telefónica launched Keteke, its own social network, in November 2008. They spent about 10 million Euros. In august 2010 it was closed, a few weeks after Telefonica bought 85% of Tuenti, main spanish social network, for 72 million Euros. (We'll see what happens with Tuenti, got my own thoughts on that...)

  We know what happened with Lycos and Terra...

  And so on and so forth...

  We've been mentioning Telefónica but similar things are happening on other carriers.

The future: Back To Basics

  From time to time managers need to take two steps back, get out of the forest and see the real picture. We are in a moment in time where carriers need to get back to their true role (even if they don't like it or believe it is too unglamorous for them... I'd also like to be John Carmack, Tim Sweeney or Steve Jobs, but you can't always get what you want)

  These are the basics of a carrier:

•   Network Infrastructure
•   Voice + Data income 
•   Customer information and access

  ... and they have to focus on them and forget the rest because experience tells us they don't know how to do it.

  They have to use their network and put it in value. Doing things like launching the CDN Telefónica is launching is a smart move and it should be the first of many.

  Voice income is going down, data income is going up... work with that, analyse behavior, usage, look for deeply hidden patterns that will let you innovate with pricing, with service packaging... drive revenues up through more attractive pricing plans.

  Monetise all the knowledge you have on your costumers through targetted advertising, to establish JV with companies such as Groupon, etc.

  Take advantage of the trust your users have in your billing system, use your processing power, the ability to provide real-time information to your users and provide them with a state-of-the-art experience for mobile payments. Forget about controlling it, you are not a bank, you are not VISA, you're not even Paypal... join them, work with them... accept a smaller share of the pie but make that pie grow through synergies.

  And, finally, do 3 more things (that will make you win, in 5-10 years, a lot of money in many ways):

1.  Create a early-stage venture fund with 25 million euros every year that will allow you to invest 250K€ in 100 companies every year. 25 million euros is less than 0,25% of Telefónica's net profit in 2010... peanuts for them)
2.   Create a growth venture fund with 25 million euros every year that will allow you to invest 2.5 Million€ in 10 startups every year.
3.   Get a good team for those funds.  

  I only wish Alierta, Fdez-Valbuena, Pallete... read this...

Apple's "Give us back our iPhone" Ad

Couldn't help but to link this video. Apple taking seriously getting their iPhone prototype back:

:)