Ever since I was a young individual, we have been fortunate to have a major “new” economy almost every decade. If we think about it, in the 80’s we had the PC revolution with almost every company in the world making a personal computer. Heck, I even had a Timex Sinclair 1000 with a massive 2 k of RAM and 2 k of ROM! This was also a golden age of the 2nd generation gaming systems like the Atari 2600, Coleco Vision, and Intellevision.
As these markets faltered and diminished, the 3rd generation of gaming systems started to be introduced with Nintendo, Sega, and Sony releasing new consoles to invigorate the industry in the early to mid-90’s and by then the next big wave had hit called the Internet. Who can forget the heady-times around the internet; no more brick and mortar, everything will be one web. Who can forget the Super Bowl Ads that were almost 100% internet startup companies? Heck, in my neck of the woods, at that time if you had the ability to spell the word “CPU” you could get a good paying programming job. Couple that excitement with the year 2000 scare and it was a good time to be in the computer industry. However, year 2000 came and went without much excitement, but I may add that there was an extreme amount of investment to ensure it worked that way… if companies would not have invested like they did, most likely the year 2000 and beyond would have had serious repercussions. Then the Internet bubble popped and once again the industry was made to re-review the entire process.
In the U.S. after the Internet bubble popped, we moved toward housing, and we had an enormous bubble that also popped and we are in the throws of a massive reset. However, like history before, there is usually something that will rise out of the ashes and start anew. In the U.S. in the middle-to-late 70’s it was also a very bad time in the U.S., we had higher unemployment than today, inflation was at 13.5% annually, and interest rates were almost 20%. Many things happened, but new industries were born and we moved to a time of relative calmness and growing prosperous markets.
So looking around the landscape today, are there any new technologies that are getting people, companies, and the world excited? Could we be at the start of an entirely new market? Could the Apple iPhone be the phone that finally brings the “mobile market” that I’ve been reading about and hearing about for the last 10 years? Could one device really create an Economy? Will the 3.0 SDK enable this micro-economy and could it be big enough to get us out of the market situations we are experiencing now?
As of this writing, Apple has shipped a little over 17,000,000 units and in over 80 countries. If you add the iTouch to the mix, which ironically runs the same OS, the combined number of units is over 30,000,000. This is since the middle of 2007. It has single-handedly created a new game console, communication device, entertainment device, and business tool in a very short time, all in one device. The iPhone has had over 800,000 downloads of its free developer SDK and had over 50,000 developers pay to join the development community. Plus, the AppStore has over 25,000 applications that can be added to the hardware and has already shipped or downloaded over 500,000,000 applications as of Jan 2009 and is increasing. Oh, and one other thing, the iPhone is still not released in the largest market in the world… China! It has spawned an industry of accessories, add-ins, and add-ons, but that is not all. This device has in-my-opinion, brought smart phones to the forefront, not just for the iPhone but for all of the phones on the market today.
If you look at the phone market today, what are we reading about? Of course the iPhone is most-likely at the top of the list, but we are also hearing about the Palm Pre, Blackberry Storm, and the Android based units. Each of these companies is following in the footsteps of Apple, trying to tap in to the excitement that Apple has created. The great news is that Apple is also updating the way business is done; they take a percentage of the selling application and handle the transaction for you. If you already have a way to handle the transaction you can use your own, but for the small company, the 1 man shop, having a company that will be the credit-card provider, tracking, hosting, and management of the software for you is incredibly useful. This has opened a whole new world to a market that 2 years ago was not there. The new 3.0 API is also enabling a few features that will allow applications to be unlocked or enabled during the running of the application, thus, opening a new realm around the micro-transactions and the ability to enable pay as you go or as you need.
All of this leads me to believe that “YES” Apple has created a new economy, and it is that big; they have opened the doors on the mobile market promise, and they have revolutionized the way applications will be delivered in the future. The only question that remains is will this new economy grow fast enough or become big enough to bring the entire world out of a market downturn? Well, as Apple was part of the original PC revolution that spawned a new economy, they revolutionized the music industry, they solidified the vision of a mobile entertainment device, and now are on the edge of a new market in communications… Whew… as my friend likes to say “it is all good” and you know what, that is either light at the end of the tunnel or it’s a train just about to run me over! It’s all good!
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