apple's new iPhone 4 and iPad - a second chance to market leadership for globe telecoms

we read in an internet posting globe telecoms has slid to 3rd in total number of subscribers recently and have been overtaken by sun cellular. we will not discuss that now here as we still need to verify the numbers but that is a very sad state of affairs for globe.

sun is a crappy service. the only thing going for it is its unlimited calls and text but the service is pretty bad - texts take a long time to reach the other party if it reaches it at all and voice calls are very often choppy and garbled, not to mention frequent dropped calls and "service is unavailable" error messages. we can't even call the sun cell service as good value, nothing much is good about it and its value questionable. "cheap" is the only appropriate word to use for it.

with that profile, you can understand why it is a sad state of affairs that sun is able to overtake globe in number of subscribers. in many ways, it hurts less if the brand that overtakes your brand is superior than yours but for an inferior brand to achieve it, that hurts pretty bad.

BUT apple's latest - the iPhone 4 and iPad is here. globe is the exclusive partner of apple in the philippine market for the iPhone. we assume it will continue to be so for apples newest toys.

the iPhone 4 by all measures, that means the tech reviewers are going crazy over the latest version. it will have a new OS (iOS4) and has new and really great features. to name a few - a great display, longer battery life, a gyroscope and 2 cameras (back and front facing). almost all the tech reviewers this new iPhone is apple's best and a sure winner for consumers.

the other is the iPad which has taken the market by storm. before launch, it was a product nobody could place. people were excited about it. almost any new apple product excited people but this one was hard to place where it can be in the tech market. apple launched it and it was an instant success. it has sold 2 million units in just 2 months and it continue to escalate. by all accounts, the only barrier for further growth in unit sales for the iPad is the speed by which apple's factories can manufacture the gadget.

what this means is that apple has 2 excellent products that globe can use to spring it's subscriber base up. but the question is- has globe learned it's lesson the first time it launched the iPhone in the market?

the launch of the original iPhone was also an instant hit in the US market and in most markets it was sold. it was first sold in the US and apple stores had long lines of consumers waiting outside apple stores to get their hands on it. almost all of these consumers who lined up were there from the previous night, all of them camping out during the night just so they are able to get their hands on the iphone.

no such crazy adulation occurred in the philippines when globe launched it here. we have previously written about it before here and we said the reason for the absence of excitement for the iphone was the pricing strategy that globe adapted for the iphone. globe bevame greedy - they over-priced it so much so that very few could afford the iphone,

we also wrote that globe could have used the iphone as key marketing tool to get leadership away from smart. globe then was second to smart.

with the iphone 4 and the ipad appearing to be a real winner technologically and by techies acclaim, perhaps globe will be smart enough to bring back the sun into their subscriber base by doing the right thing the second time around. (pun intended)

creating a string of successes through timing - the iPhone and the iPad

in this week's news, steve jobs said they started to developed the iPad ahead of the iPhone but they decided to launch the iPhone first and shelved the iPad work in the meantime.

it is hindsight but we think it was a brilliant move.

the iPad competes in the tablet sub segment of the computer market and during that time many tablet brands have failed. apple may very well have failed too if they launched the iPad then.

launching the iPhone ahead of the iPad was a good move as the iPhone was unique in the market it was getting launched into, its success in the market place was easier and more assured. there were no other cellphones during that time that had the features that the iPhone had. uniqueness is one of the key success factors in the launch of any new product.

the iPhone also prepared and in many ways built a lot of anticipation and excitement on the iPad. by the time the iPad launched, consumers have become familiar with the new touch technology that the iPhone had. apple also was already hugely successful with the iTunes and the app store. these were critical partners to the success of the iPhone. with consumers already knowing the success of the iPhone iTunes and the app store, the iPad became a very easu sell to consumers.

the sales numbers on the iPad are impressive - it has sold its 1 million unit much faster than the iPhone did and many analysts are now revising their sales projections on the iPad, more units than previous estimates.

launch timing in this one helped the success of a new product launch.

apple ipad's intro tv ad - the magic is in simplicity

one of the reasons we love apple products is its simplicity in almost everything in physical design, application and getting the most out of what we buy from them like i-tunes and the app store.

apple's tablet the ipad is no different. i do not think you can be more simpler than it is a large ipod touch. it is a disappointment that it is just a large ipod touch, we were hoping it was going to be a smaller or at least lighter and thinner macbook. we were saving mega bucks to get one of those just in case it will be a small, lighter and thinner macbook but it did not happen that way.

so we now have some cash saved up that we don't plan to allow apple to get at them for now. we bought apple stocks instead, which by the way has reached an all time high price of $219.08 as of yesterday's closing.

the ad like the product is a simple tv ad. it simply shows what you can do with it, mostly staying on the gestures you need to do to make it work just like you would in an ipod touch or iphone but in what at certain times felt like an awkward size - way to big. (if i hear a clink, it's my ipod touch falling on the floor but on this own it will be "thud"  or a breaking glass.)

that's it? yes, that's it.

steve jobs describes the product as "magic". the ad did not show it. look, magic is something you have not seen before or something amazing. both was not shown the ipad has. so i guess, we will need to wait for the magic to appear in the future. sooner than later, i hope.

before we end this piece, we did see magic - it was on the nasdaq when AAPL reached it's all time high price last night. that is truly magical! we are looking forward to something like $300 within the year.