toddfearn.com

Mary Meeker made some interesting points at the Web 2.0 Summit yesterday in San Francisco.  One to note is outlined in the graph below.

Take a look at the acceleration of the iPad versus the iPhone and iPod, shown in shipments per quarter.  Apple currently controls 74% of all tablets sold in the United States, said Tim Cook at a recent Apple Keynote.

I find this hard to believe, but facts are facts.  I like my iPad, but it doesn’t seem as useful as a smartphone.  My iPhone is always with me, my iPad isn’t.  And I can’t replace my desktop with an iPad, I’ve tried. But maybe that’s because of what I do for a living.

Now, checkout this slide on Android acceleration.

When you compare Android and iPhone shipments, the acceleration of the Android platform dwarfs the iPhone.

Here’s her complete presentation.

Apple finally realized that the masses of newbie iOS programmers out there, most coming from the Java world, really don’t get it. 

iOS memory management is just too difficult for most of these developers that have never coded in C, C++ or Objective-C, beyond maybe a college introductory course.

According to Apple:

Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) for Objective-C makes memory management the job of the compiler. By enabling ARC with the new Apple compiler, you will never need to type retain or release again, dramatically simplifying the development process, while reducing crashes and memory leaks.

They chose not to call it a garbage collector for good reason. It’s not a garbage collector.  It’s a compile time, not a run-time, driven memory management model.  Meaning the memory management is built into the binary code.

Apple was really forced to implement this feature.  Apple must compete with Java on Android and this is a critical feature. 

I wrote an article a few weeks ago entitled “Message to HP CEO: Give Away the TouchPad or Lose”. 

I’m not sure why anyone would buy one, even at $99, now that HP has declared they are basically getting out of the business.  I suppose people are assuming that someone will buy the beleaguered division and all will be fine.

If they continue at $99 or less, maybe it will.

Let’s analyze the space for a moment.  Apple has sold over 25 million iPads, has over 90,000 iPad apps and another 300,000 iPhone apps that will run on the iPad.  They invented this market and totally dominate it at this time.

HP today introduced its competitor, the TouchPad, at the same price as the iPad ($499) with roughly 300 apps in the store. 

So I’m a consumer walking into Best Buy, which also sells iPads.  Why would I buy a TouchPad? 

So what should HP do?  I say HP needs to do something radical, like give it away for free.

HP spent $1.2 billion just to acquire WebOS.  They probably spent another billion or more on product development and marketing so far.  So why not give away the hardware to gain significant market share?  Let’s say up to $4 billion worth of hardware.

If you think $4 billion is a lot of money for HP, think again.   HP has over $12 billion in cash on hand.  And over the last year, HP has lost over $50 billion in market capitalization.  During that same period, the iPad has added nearly $100 billion in market capitalization to Apple.

If we do the math, and I’m guessing on the high side of what it costs HP to produce a TouchPad, they can give away 10 million TouchPads for $4 billion.   Let’s say the cost is significant at $400 per device.  $400 x 10 million = $4 billion.

And if HP can give away 10 million TouchPads by the end of the year, and it is predicted that Apple will sell another 20 million by the end of year giving them a total of 45 million iPads, this gives HP a 22% market share (10 million TouchPads/ 45 million iPads).  I’m ignoring other competitors at the moment because they are essentially insignificant at this time.

So within 6 months, HP becomes a major player in the space.  Developers have no choice but to take a hard look at producing apps for the platform and HP in turn gains more market share.

The tablet market is key for HP according to analysts.  “The TouchPad has to succeed for HP to get its mojo back,” said Peter Goldmacher, an analyst at Cowen & Co.  “If they can’t do it in on e of the potentially highest growth markets, it will cast doubt on their ability to do it at all”.

And what if they don’t give it away?  Let’s say they get lucky and sell 1 million units by the end of the year. 1 million TouchPads divided by 45 million iPads (1,000,000 / 45,000,000) = 2% market share.  With 2%, no one really cares that much and I think this 2% happens if they’re lucky.

HP needs a radical strategy to fight this battle.

Wall Street firms must be getting mighty desparate to release iPad and iPhone apps.  Tuesday, State Street issued a press release about it’s up and coming iPad app, not to be released until fall.

Knowing what it takes to get an iOS app built, approved and released by a Wall Street firm (legal approvals, compliance approvals, IT security blessings, etc), I hope they can live up to the promise.

Here’s the press release.

This is disruption at it’s finest.  Square introduced their Register product on Monday, rendering the cash register obsolete, or at least unnecessary for many merchants.

Square has already shipped over 500,000 Square credit card readers consumers.  Why would a small retailer buy a new cash register when a $500 iPad will do the same, and much more?

The full article on Wired.com.

I know this is “spot on” in my case.  Since I bought my iPad last year, I find myself using my desktop and laptop less and many times not a all.

Neilson Report - When asked whether they used other connected devices more often or less often since purchasing a tablet, 35 percent of tablet owners who also owned a desktop computer reported using their desktop less often or not at all, while 32 percent of those who also owned laptops, said they used their laptop less often or never since acquiring a tablet.

I’m leaving my laptop at home more often than not.   The primary reason - it’s just too damn heavy! 

Besides, with the iPad I can do about everything that needs to get done. There’s one thing I’m missing though, I still can’t write iOS apps on an iPad.  I’m sure this will change.

I couldn’t find a formal press release on this product, but last week I received an email from IB announcing a version of their mobileTWS product for the iPhone.

I think IB is one of the best online brokers out there.

You can check out the app details in the iTunes store.