if you want to buy an iphone......

Imagine what it's like to be Karen.

Well now - Apple could absolutely control the user experience with multiple carriers.  Verizen balked at revenue sharing - Apple was being greedy for all the wrong reasons.  If Apple wants to control the customer relationship, I'm sure any carrier would welcome the idea - "Apple gets the customer phone calls?  Where do I sign?!" says the CEO of Anycarrier.  Apple could control user experience and still have 10 or more carriers (sales, provisioning, support, etc.).  The ONLY thing they wouldn't be able to control is plan pricing, which would vary by carrier.

As for cash cow status - in a manner of speaking, yes.  But again, the market outside of at&t is HUGE.  at&t has less than 1/3 of the US market, then you look internationally and its just plain puny.  So being a medium fish in a small pond may make Apple and Jobs happy today, but Nokia is just laughing all the way to the bank.  This doesn't mean Apple isn't making money, I'm just suggesting that they are missing out on a HUGE market with their flawed thinking.  If they worked with other carriers on visual voicemail and provisioning integration in their call centers, they could probably increase their sales 5 fold - no joke.  There is simply no reason to handcuff yourself for 5 years like this over what turned out to be revenue sharing issues.



It will look a lot the same, unfortunately.  ALL carriers are notoriously slow to adopt and roll-out new infrastructure.  They will milk the current investment for 100 times its worth and then some.  On the other side of the coin, most muni-wireless projects are failing - so thats going no where either (it was simply too early for that idea to make it - wifi needs another generation or two before that will work).

you are such a homer.

I was absolutely speaking to consistent.  And, YES - it sure can.



It is pretty good - its a really nice device.  But there is obviously a HUGE untapped market.  Why not sell to it?

Oh - and Nokia sold about 11M in the 3rd quarter without any marketing hoopla - albeit, thats all models, not just smart phones.



1)  Thats fine, but why not?  As an investor I would be raising hades.  2)  They can still change the market - a carrier is just transport, the device and its features are the key.  Chit - visual voicemail is the only thing the carrier had to add, and that was easy (been available for many years in the voicemail world, just never delivered to a mobile phone before).

iPods were the scourge of the blogshere until they allowed MP3 and other formats on it.  Lock it to an apple format and iTunes only and it would have had limited success.  Of course, the pundits would still scream that it was a success - while they ignored a huge market - just like the iPhone.




If they are able to get this 'consistency' while using multiple carriers world-wide - they can certainly do it within a country.  The reason they don't is simple - they want revenue sharing and the carriers won't do that unless they have an exclusivity deal in place.

Now - Jobs isn't stupid all the time - revenue sharing means a steady stream of cash flow, rather than the device one time purchase shot in the arm they are used to.  Perhaps the revenue sharing is more lucrative than I am aware of right now.  But if so, the carriers will tire of this even faster and get cranky about the deal.  Just like I would get cranky if I were Apple and was bound by a limited market for my devices.  Say the Meizu M8 comes stateside (just one example of many coming devices) and really makes an impact - at&t sees Verizen/Sprint/T-Mobile making money on the plans and not having to share with Meizu - are they as delighted with Apple once the luster wears off?  This is new ground - you're right - but that does not mean its good ground.  Apple is already pissing off Sony and others over iTunes, and I foresee at&t getting just as pissy a year from now over revenue sharing in the carrier space.

I just don't see this as being all lollipops and banana spilts down the road - the deals will get contentious - and where will that leave the customers and their 'consistent' experience?  With such issues arising so quickly that Apple must placate at&t after just a few months, does it get better or worse down the road?  I say worse, I'm supposing you say better.  Time will tell.

I guess we're both wishing Apple success - but have different ideas of how to achieve it.  I say break the carrier ties now - its going to happen anyway and you're missing a huge market (including myself) in the mean time.

You said the iPhone was international - oranges to tangerines maybe?


And the apple-only format on the iPod was specs released prior to the actual hardware release as I recall.  They heard the noise and changed before it was released.  Or it was never correct; but they never denied it either.

And I guess thats my point - the iPod was not tied to a service/format, the iPhone is.  That limits the market - whether they needed to, wanted to, or what not.

I'm just a little jaded about revenue sharing for a few reasons - one I've stated, the carriers will tire of it and the relationship will grow contentious.  The other is the fact that the mutual fund industry did the same thing and the SEC started moving the lines arbitrarily, strong-arming the industry into large settlements - not fines mind you, settlements.  It came down to the agreements not being disclosed 'enough' - whatever that means.  The font was too small, we didn't say it three times, forgot to say please, I don't know - but it caught the industry off guard, as revenue sharing wasn't illegal but they threatened us anyway.  Cost me some bonus money, and I'm still bitter 

I'm no lawyer but I believe that if a person wanted to push the issue, they would be able to buy the phone with cash.  In other words, I don't think it is, strictly speaking, "legal" for them to say you cannot buy one with cash. 

Yes, immediately after you are handed the merchandise, you are in debt for it.

Or, if he don't give it to you first (which is where you'll go next)  in theory when you ask to purchase a product, you have entered into an oral contract, where you are then obligated with that "debt". Once settled, you will receive your merchandise.