Apple To Face Challenge At WWDC

Amanda Callahan writes to tell us that Apple's upcoming WWDC could be quite a test for the Cupertino powerhouse. They will most likely be missing Steve Jobs for star-power and have extremely high expectations to meet in order to maintain their edge. Thankfully it looks like Jobs will be rejoining Apple later this month with a good prognosis after facing severe health issues. "The competition is now catching up. Palm, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, are all at varying stages of developing and introducing their own iPhone-like devices and software, along with easily accessible stores for the small programs known as applications, or apps, that run on those devices. In some cases, those companies are releasing a greater variety of phones, on more wireless carriers around the world, than Apple. To maintain its advantage, Apple must preserve the impression that it is far ahead of rivals when it comes to the capabilities and the 'cool' factor of its devices."

PIM tools

[Mr_Silver]

I'm hoping for better PIM tools. I'm currently using an iPhone at work (I can pick any device so I change regularly) and having spent a lot of time with Windows Mobile I'm missing a lot of its basic functionality. For example with the iPhone I cannot:

• Sync notes even though there is a notes application
• Sync tasks, as there is no tasks application (why? it's pretty basic!)
• Label a calendar appointment as private. Everything is visible to people who have read access to my calendar until I set it on the PC.
• Set the location of a meeting as free, out of the office or tentative. Everything is busy.
• Differentiate between tentative meetings and ones that have been confirmed.
• Snooze a reminder. It either nags you or gets dismissed when you unlock the phone and never comes back.
• Get the right mouse button to work on an appointment in Outlook that has been created in the iPhone (not sure if that is my work setup as it's very odd)
• Use something which is lighter than iTunes to manage my contacts and calendar syncing - iTunes is a heavy beast for something which should be running in the background. I never thought I'd wish for ActiveSync.
• Search the whole device for something. There is a wedding coming up in the next couple of months. Only way to find it? Hunt for it manually.

Now to be fair, I'm probably limited by the fact I use Outlook on the desktop and have no desire to use MS Push (who wants work emails arriving on a weekend?) or send all my data to Google's services - but some of this is pretty basic that even Palm had in when they were king of the world and pushing out black and white V series products.

If they put all that in, then I'd never need to go back to Windows Mobile. Fingers crossed.

Re:Jobs Health

[twidarkling]

No you don't. Not in Canada, anyway. They evaluate what treatment has the best success rate vs. the type of cancer you have, yes, which means you won't always be given the bleeding edge treatment, because if one has an 80% remission rate, why go for the treatment with no track record?

Re:Uh-oh, they're catching up! Someone tell Apple!

[DeathMagnetic]

I don't think anyone's predicting the fall of Apple, but rather just stating the obvious. The competition is catching up. Unless Apple unveils some big surprises next week, there's no denying that the competition is positioned much better than they were a year ago. Apple's in no imminent danger here, but they are losing ground, and rumors about the next-gen iPhone suggest that there won't me any major innovations coming from them any time soon (and no, OS updates to include features the competition already has don't count).

As for the Palm Pre, it hasn't achieved anything yet, much less established itself as an iPhone-killer, but it's a little premature to write it off due to lack of apps or lack of actual customers. It hasn't even been released yet! Most reviews have been very favorable and put it at least in the same class as the iPhone, which is a big step from where we've been for the last couple of years.

News reporter reading level

[bkaul]

We recently had a local news crew visit my place of employment, a research laboratory. Those interviewed were told to explain things at a "7th grade reading level." I think that explains a lot of the inane comments made by people in news interviews.

Re:"Catching up" is the key phrase

[ground.zero.612]

I would disagree and say that they stood on the shoulders of others and probably paid hundreds of millions in advertising.

There were other cell phones before the iphone. There were other mp3 players before the ipod. And there were certainly other PDAs with touch screen interface before either.

Re:Uh-oh, they're catching up! Someone tell Apple!

[CuriHP]

How can you possibly misspell QWERTY? It's spelled correctly on the damn keyboard.

Re:What price drops???

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Itunes prices did increase. More songs are using the upper pricing, while very few are using the cheaper pricing -- even on very old music. Also, I think more of that money goes to the label,than Apple. But calling it anything other than a price increase, is the kind of crap I'd expect out of a politician.

Re:Maintain the impression they're ahead?

[Carewolf]

If the competition is designing new iPhone like devices, they are moving backwards. iPhones were outdated when they appeared, and are even more outdated now.

If anything the competition is learning from Apple marketing, and is getting better at branding and promoting their mobile devices.

Re:Cool.

[wealthychef]

I don't agree that it's popular mainly or even largely because of the "cool" factor. Or even if you think it is, how in fact did it become viewed as "cool"? I believe it's because it's easier to use than other phones. So the features that it does have, even if they are fewer compared to other smartphones, are easier to access. So the user's experience is more powerful overall. It's kind of an Ahmdal's law of interface design -- adding more features at a certain point makes no difference to the user. You also need to make those features usable. Hell, my iPhone is easier to use than my Mom's "simple" Nokia.

Re:What price drops???

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, the prices did go up due to the implementation of variable pricing but Apple is merely adding their standard 30% mark-up to the Label's cost.

The lack of the promised tiered pricing lies squarely with the Labels. The labels promised prices in the following tiers, (all prices USD)

$1.29 for New/Hits
$0.99 for Non-Hit/Catalogue/Old Hits
$0.69 for Non-Hit/Old Titles

What we got was a lot in the $1.29 range, few in the $0.99 range and virtually none in the $0.69 range.

Also, the difference in pricing between Amazon and Apple has me thinking that the Labels are charging Apple more for many tracks compared to Amazon. I'm surprised there isn't an FTC investigation in to this yet.

Re:Amazing insight from Mr Genius

[stewbacca]

iPod batteries as profit??? What a stupid, stupid argument. We have five iPods in our house, and we've NEVER replaced a single battery. We have a 2nd generation iPod up to the current Nano. Even IF these batteries ever die, the new iPods are compelling enough over their 3-5 year old counterparts to just buy a new one. There are more battery replacement services out there than Zune owners, so even when your granny's iPod battery dies, she'll have no problem getting a battery swapped.

User freedom? Has it ever occurred to you that we aren't all a bunch of Linux free-tards, and don't really care? You listed good design and UI, which to many of us, are more important than value and freedom. It's my money--deal with it.

Your anecdotal evidence that Apple struggles with quality control is offset by nearly every marketing research agency. Apple has been tops in quality for nearly a decade now.