Meebo weds iPhone

Couple of the year, wedding of year…look at it any way you want. It is a match made in heaven.

One of the best applications is now available on the best phones in the market. More specifically, Meebo with iPhone. In my earlier contribution, I talked about Netvibes. Meebo is successful in the same area – aggregation of content.

iPhone is already regarded as the ultimate revolutionary phone. Meebo, on the other hand, is just as revolutionary. It allows you centrally manage all your various messaging applications such as Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc. The takes away the pain of not only keeping track of difference chat windows but also multiple applications loading each time you start your computer. Not only that, you can even post it as a widget on your website. This will allow you to have live chats with people who visit your site. That’s the fantastic Meebo for you

You can read more about Meebo on iPhone on many other sites. You can try :

webware,  ekday.

iPhone, i-you, i-me

(copyright REUTERS/Jeff Zelevansky)

As described in a recent Reuters article, the much hyped and talked about iPhone finally hits the stores. The American stores for now. Hundreds of eager people queued days ahead of the launch, many even paying others to queue for them.

The iPhone is not just a mobile phone but MP3 player, camera and web browser all rolled into a ‘sexy’ looking device. Then again, there are many other similar devices already in the market, all vying to be your ultimate all-in-one gadget.

The question that begs to be answered: Will Apple succeed where many other brands failed?

Let’s look and the iPhone feature by feature and see if we can predict the outcome.

Music Player
The iPhone offers one of the best integrated music player as it rides on the same iPod interface. It behaves like a real iPod and has a seamless synchronization with your computer. However, unlike the iPod, its storage capacity is currently limited to 8GB. We can probably expect Apple to introduce higher capacity iPhones closer to the holiday seasons when the Flash memory capacity storage will increase.

This alone will draw many Apple and iPod fans alike to purchase an iPhone.

Camera
Being in control of its own ecosystem, Apple enable users to transfer pictures from their phone to a computer with relative ease. The built-in iTunes will serve as a multimedia manager not just for songs but digital pictures as well.

Phone
The iPhone has been hailed as revolutionary and rightly so. Though many of its advanced features are currently tailor-made to work between Apple and AT&T, it is only a matter of time before other operators both in US and internationally join in the game!

Internet Browser
Its not only the in-built Safari browser that allows you surf via wireless or GPRS connections which is amazing but its automatic screen rotation. You can even zoom in and out using Minority Report’s gesture control. Unfortunately, websites are becoming more sophisticated and require a lot of resources. A majority of these websites are not designed for surfing through mobile phones yet.

Emails
As with other devices, the iPhone allows you to check emails. We probably need to see how the security system works is compatible with major professional emailing and VPN systems.

As mentioned earlier, the all-in-one concept is not new. PIMs (Personal Information Manager), as it is commonly known, has been around for some time. New technologies continue to be embedded or some would claim invade mobile phones. Does this mean one will stop using dedicated devices? I highly doubt so.

Both the all-in-one and dedicated devices serve specific needs of consumers and will continue to do just that. The market is large enough for it to flourish. Business users, who rely on a WM5 or Blackberry device, may still own the iPhone as a multimedia companion. For the Mac user, the iPhone helps complete the digital hub. For students, it probably will be the ultimate ‘cool’ or in thing to own an iPhone despite costing over US$1500 for a 2-year contract.

The iPhone goes beyond its claimed list of features. After the PSX (PlayStation 1), after the iPod, after the PSP, after the Wii…the iPhone is the new product in the list of ‘must haves’. Forget any rationale on whether you should or should not get the iPhone. .

At the end it does not really It doesn’t really matter. After all, the only difference between men and boys is the price of their ‘toys’

iPhone and iPod success genes

iPhone – Apple’s newest flagship product is set to debut soon. After the phenomenal success with iPod, Apple is prepared to venture into the mobile space.

The iPod and iPhone share not only similar features but ‘genes’ as well. They were designed by people who truly understand consumer needs and placed emphasis on design rather than just technology.

This ‘thinking’ and approach is probably the main factors that fuelled iPod to such greatness and why competition lagged behind. Many others simply went out bought high capacity hard drives or Flash memory, engaged a low cost design firm in China and produced MP3 players. However, though many of these MP3 players had more sophisticated features, it failed to compete with iPod.

iPod succeeded because it provided more than just a player. It integrated hardware, software and content. It essentially had its own eco-system.

The iPhone is likely to embark on a journey. Apple is building strong connections with network operators to build a sustainable ecosystem. However, operators and content providers are independent and thus Apple will not have full control. This is one of the reasons why Apple took such long time before entering the mobile phone market. They needed to ensure that all parties in the eco-system could provide the require backbone to support its phone features.

The iPod story is a key lesson for all current and aspiring Apple competitors. Do not simple launch a fully featured or touch screen phone, it will not be able to compete with iPhone.

The iPod and iPhone are like myths and it will go down in history for good reasons.

iPhone and iPod : review before launch

The Apple iPhone will be available in a couple of days. Most of IT websites, news web sites, analysts, professionals are predicting a immense success.

For sure the iPhone will be a success. It might even be as successfull as the iPod. The iPhone and and the iPod share the same 'success genes ' which are : Brand image, Ease of use, Design, Integration and finally the most important one 'a consumer product designed and taylored for consumer by consumer thinking people'

However,some differences can be identified between the two products :
- Operator locked
In order to purchase the iPhone, you need to take a two year contract with AT&T. Eventhough you would consider to buy it and get it shipped overseas, it will not work.
- Operator backend related
Most of the iPhone unique features require an operator taylored made set up . In order to expend its geographical coverage, Apple need to engage other operators in the rest of the world.
- USA Availability only
Back in 2002, the iPod was released in all region at the same time. The iPhone will be limited at launch to USA and sales figures might be down by 20% because of the lack of sales from Europe or Asia.
- Timing
We should not forget that despite the immense iPod success at launch, it only started to sky rocket later when iTMS service was fully available, when the TV commercial was released and when the marketing actions hit all regions.

The iTunes Music Store customer experience is not similar in all regions. Europe is for example dying to get movie video download while the Asian music stores availability are lacking behind. Despite that, the iPod is still a huge success in those regions, eventhough sales would even be better if the iTunes Music Store features would as advanced in those regions as they are in the USA.

The iPhone success might face a similar situation and its full potential might be totally unlocked in a near future. However, most probably like you, I am dying to get my hands on it....