If you are in the mobile space, technology, payments, etc. then you were likely blown away yesterday. Wow. What a day.
I'm at the 2014 CTIA Super Mobility Week in Las Vegas this week but the biggest news came from Cupertino. Apple doesn't need the world's largest conference on mobile products. It just takes all the air out of the room with its own announcements and, as only Apple can do (for now), everyone is talking about Apple's products.
New Era
We have been hearing about "i-stuff" for many years now. We've come to expect everything to be an "i-something". No more. Apple under Tim Cook has entered a new era and has signaled that in their product naming. We didn't get the iWatch yesterday. Instead we were delivered the Apple Watch. Also announced was Apple Pay. This is a new era as the tremendous lineup of new products showed and it has been signaled even further by the naming conventions used. The iPhone has not seen such a radical change since its initial launch and this in itself is a huge departure from the previous era. The new Apple Era has begun, and it looks pretty healthy so far.
By using the Apple logo in their naming they are tying everything much closer to their ownership and their ecosystem. This works exceptionally well with Apple's move in to accessories. Want that logo? You'll have to pay for it.
So, what did Apple deliver yesterday.
Apple Pay
Payments have been a bit of a mess over the last decade or so as an aging infrastructure struggles to deliver newer, more modern and more secure, payments methods. The average consumer in the U.S. doesn't see anything wrong with swiping a card and therefore isn't pushing for change. Mobile payments has been viewed for many years as the next big thing but hasn't taken off. NFC has been the de-facto standard for mobile pay but also hasn't taken off, partly because Apple refused to embrace it. Has all of that changed now? Maybe.
Here is an article on Apple Pay:
http://www.cnet.com/products/apple-pay-ios/
Apple has signed with a number of the larger banks, the issuers of credit cards, and the major credit card companies including American Express, MasterCard, and VISA. Clearly this is a sustaining move by these companies. They want the gravy train to continue in the new format. This is not a revolutionary move by Apple or these companies. Nor is it disruptive. It is safe and comfortable and focused on luxury brands (though, McDonalds was listed explicitly by Apple). These are all reasons why this might actually work. I for one will by trying out Apple Pay with my new iPhone when it arrives.
Did I mention the Apple Watch will have NFC built in as well? Thus the owners of older iPhones (apparently limited to 5 or 5S phones, nothing older) will also be able to use Apple Pay by getting an Apple Watch.
Apple Watch
Wearable devices is a category that has seen slow growth to-date but the biggest names have been entering this space for the last year or more including Samsung and Android Wear by Google. Now Apple has joined in.
The price starts at $349 and likely will move up quite high for the gold version. Details are sparse at the moment but this article has quite a bit:
http://www.cnet.com/products/apple-watch/
Clearly this will not be a huge seller after the initial wave of Apple fans has picked one up. The price is just too steep for this to be an enormous seller, unless the consumer sees some value they can't already get from their iPhone or iPad. Did I mention the Watch must be tethered to an iPhone? That limits the market to the install base of iPhone owners and limits it further to only the newer phones. Still, that is a large base so sales could be robust initially. Will this have legs?
Finally, is the new set of iPhones.
iPhone 6 and 6 Plus
We get two new phones this year and bother are larger than any iPhone before it. The expected size really has grown quite a bit since the launch of the iPhone in 2007. Remember, back then the iPhone was considered to be HUGE. The paradigm has changed thanks to the competition such as Samsung's devices and Apple has responded with its first Phablet.
The biggest news other than screen size is regarding the new camera and video capability. This is a dramatic improvement. For more information see this article:
http://www.cnet.com/products/apple-iphone-6/
What a day huh? Does Apple have its mojo back? Walking around the CTIA yesterday I overheard someone deriding Apple's announcement. "They announced a watch? So what? We've been hearing about that for years now. Surprise me please." Interesting take.
The sum of the announcements, including U2's announcement releasing their new album for free on iTunes, really was quite big. The new era of Apple has begun. Will it be as meaningful as the last era? Pretty hard to match that but they are off to a good start.
Happy Reading,
J.W. Gant
**UPDATE** CNet has a story that speaks of the shift to a new era of Apple that echos what I wrote about above:
http://www.cnet.com/news/theres-no-i-in-apples-team-cook/
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