Author
Cody Sharp
Apple would like nothing better to have the dominant phone and operating system in the Smartphone market place. After all, the reason the company became so financially dominant in the last 10 years is because of the ubiquitous iPod which dominated the MP3 player market. Dominating the Smartphone market is getting less plausible and what is becoming more plausible is that Apple and their iOS will become the minority (just as they are in the PC marketplace) to Android. If Android’s OS is truly selling like hotcakes as Google insists then Apple needs to expand their potential market. That means dropping exclusivity with AT&T and joining the biggest cell phone network in the US, Verizon.
For specifics we have Steve Jobs’ recent statement that Apple is activating 200,000 iOS devices per day including iPhones, iPod Touch and iPad devices. However, Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt said that they are activating 230,000 mobile phones per day. In anyone’s terms, that a route for Google. How much higher will Google’s activation numbers become when they start adding Google Android operated iPad-type devices to their numbers? One would assume quite a bit higher. Therefore, only one thing can be done, Apple must maneuver their devices to another network.
Verizon works because it has 92 million users – many of which would surely be interested in an iPhone/iPad. How many more future iPhone users are left at AT&T? Probably millions. But definitely not 92 million. In order to compete with Google’s Android phones, Apple must make the switch to a larger network.
There is one other thing that Apple could do in the meantime that would help bring new users onboard at AT&T; lower their prices. That is unlikely to happen on the iPhone 4 anytime soon but stranger things have happened. A lower price would likely bring people to Apple that are on the edge of purchasing their first iPhone but won’t take the plunge due to the initial hardware price. But again, there are only so many of those people. The rumored iPad 2 along with the new iPod Touches will be the dominant iOS sellers until Apple makes the move to another cell phone provider. In my estimate, that provider has to be Verizon. What are your thoughts?