iPhone 3G: Thundering News from WWDC 2008

iPhone 2 announced, 11 July in 22 countries - thundering news from WWDC 2008.
Better yet, 3G, GPS, enterprise support, iWork/Office documents, mobile me AND guess what, $199 price tag.

With all the great features built-in (both hardware and software), $199 is really a jaw-dropping price not a normal mind could imagine. I wonder how many phone manufacturer can survive this wave of attack from Apple.

I did quite a bit of thinking on why Apple could build a such a phone with 199 dollars. The answer is they might, but they didn't have to.
First of all, with 6 millions iPhone sets sold within the first year of release, the product lines have matured. The cost of building the phone has dropped significantly.
Also, don't forget the fact that the price announced is a price heavily subsidized by tel-cos world wide.
The last but not least, is a public yet not-so-obvious secret -- App Store. Apple makes profit by selling the phone for sure, but the even better idea is to make on-going profits with software. Even better yet, Apple doesn't have to make the software themselves.

1. iPhone developer program, at $199 dollar per year for solo developers, and $299 for enterprise, which every individual or company has to pay if they wish to release their application to the public. iPhone SDK has been downloaded 250,000 times, BETA! Assuming those developers will join the program, that's $200 * 250,000 = $50,000,000 / year.
   
2. 30% cut from total revenu made through App Store. Considering the 6 million iPhone sold in the first year and iPhone 3G is even better and much cheaper, it's not so radical to guess a total of 20 million given it another year. Assuming each of those users will make 3 purchases per year from App Store at $9.99, that's 20,000,000 * 3 * $10 = $600,000,000 per year. Apple get 30%, or $180,000,000.

So that's $230,000,000 every year, and the figure should increase every year because of the increasing number of applications and increasing number of phone owners. And THAT is behind the amazing hardware, the $199 price tag, free iPhone SDK and free iPhone OS upgrade.

What can I say, well, God bless the "iPhone killers".

Reasons to Buy an iPhone

Critics of the iPhone has been focusing on Apple's super tight control over iPhone native apps, the exclusive binding with specific tel-cos and also some missing common features like video recording. Those are all true and fair, though I believe we would see some change when the most anticipated iPhone 2 is released.
With that said, there are some unique reasons why we should buy an iPhone.

1. The far most compelling reason for me to buy an iPhone is App Store. Just like iPods, it would be as popular (or popular at all) if there is no iTunes and iTunes Store. For consumers, they now don't need any PC/Mac sitting at home in order to installl apps. For developers, they don't have to set up a server and talk to credict card companies in order to sell their applications. It will be a App Store to me is a revolutionary way of distribution applications, and not just application on mobile devices. I believe the same idea would be ported over to the PC market some day.
2. Number two comes the iPhone SDK, or rather the powerful platform that iPhone has presented. Looking at the iPhone OS Programming Guide, no mobile platform has ever been so rich in such powerful APIs: Core Animination, OpenGL, Multi-Touch, 3-Dimensional Motion Sensors and more. I see not only the document, but also thousands of innovative applications and played-in-a-way-never-seen-before games.
   
3. Number three, it's APPLE. The the past decade, seldom have apple failed the consumers. Apple has a very narrow product range, but when they build a product, it's most likely the best in the market. With Nokia and other phone manufacturor holding machine guns and shooting in 360 different directions, Apple just shoot that one bullet, which will do all kinds of magical tricks and then hit that center spot.
   
4. My Mac needs a mate. :-)