Thursday, September 06, 2007

Lates Keynote Thoughts

When the Motorola RAZR was introduced in 2004, it's unsubsidized price was somewhere between $800 and $600, with subsidized versions -- 2 year contract required -- starting at $300 if you were very lucky. Right now, about 3 years later, you can practically get it as the prize at the bottom of your box of Wheaties (and Motorola has basically run the design into the ground by overexposure). Let this be a lesson to any high-end mobile phone buyer: you pay your money to have it now.

Also, if the latest rumors are true and the iPod Touch has, or will soon have, Bluetooth, the whole Nokia Tablet effort now has a fierce fierce new competitor. One that has effectively disguised itself from a geeky multimedia device into an iPod "that also can do other stuff". Which is probably a better strategy to make a device like this sell bigtime to consumers.

99c is expensive for a ringtone of music you already have -- in effect you end up paying for the convenience to splice out the 30 seconds of ringing exactly like you want, not like some ringtone aggregator thinks you should want, with a minimum of hassle. Customization is a huge seller for these intensely personal devices, and being able to make your exact ringtone like you want is a win here. Apple did manage to irritate both ends of the market, though: 1) the ringtone-maker costs less than buying a ringtone would if you had already bought the song, so aggregators are being undercut 2) people end up paying twice for music they already have, pissing consumers who know what is going technology-wise off, and mildly annoying the consumers already used to paying two bucks fifty for a ringtone of music they already acquired otherwise. I predict a huge success.