Apple faces the combined ire of 24 of the worlds telecom companies who want to start their own application store
so that people that download applications to their phones and make more
money off the applications that they are currently trying to support.
Apple should buy T-Mobile or some other telecom, much like Google is doing with their limited ISP rollout that Seattle and
others are so very interested in joining up with to have better service
than they are getting now from their current providers.
What has been the Achilles heel of offering advanced bandwidth
consuming applications on the Mobile side is that the user experience
has been poor. The current state of Apple and AT&T with the Iphone
is only going to be exacerbated by the Ipad and other upcoming mobile
devices. The mobilpocolypse that Cisco warned us of a while back is only going to continue.
So what does this have to do with a mobile application store from the Telecoms?
If the telecoms are smart, they can start doing quality control at
the source, and legitimately refuse to approve applications that
consume too much bandwidth. Something that Apple has been reluctant to
do by approving radio, mp3, TV, and movie streaming off mobile devices.
If the telecoms are smart, they will continue to kill off programs
that use alternative forms of voice communications. This is something
that Apple has only recently approved, side channels for communication
like Skype will never be allowed because telecoms will lose voice
business that they need.
If the telecoms are smart, this will help them enforce a lock on
systems and software that will go well beyond what Apple is doing now.
The biggest reason for rejection for a new application that will come
down the road is that “this application will cause instability in the
telecom system, and cannot be approved”, this will drive developers
deeper into Apple’s system becaue Apple does not care about instability
in the phone system, they care how the application works on the mobile
platform.
If Apple is smart they will cut down the amount of time it takes
for an application to be approved and continue to provide an excellent
experience for IPod/Iphone users (soon to be Ipad users) with their
applications.
If Apple is smart, they will deny all applications that are
purchased separately off the Apple Store from being installed on
Iphones, Ipads and Ipods. We have seen this kind of behavior with Apple
and the Palm mobile systems just synching music to an alternative
device, there is no reason to expect Apple to approve software that was
made somewhere else and did not meet quality control standards that
apple has set up.
If consumers are smart they will not wait for the telecom companies
to do anything and continue to support all the great applications out
there for all the mobile platforms. This is regardless of where you
purchase them.
If malware authors are smart, they will take advantage of this as well.
There is a lot more here than just meets the eye, and telecom
systems might not behave in ways that consumers will expect.
Realistically this is a turf war that is on its way to going hot. That
is where the issues for consumers are going to come in, regardless of
the already fragmented mobile application market, consumers in this
case stand to both win and lose.
(Cross-posted @ IT Toolbox )
