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It's August, where's the iPhone?
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jsk

Joined: 31 Oct 2008

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:07 pm Post subject:

I doubt the iPhone will be very popular in Korea when it finally launches, for the reasons above. Still, I wonder about Apple's supposed reluctance to enter the Korean market, and one angle that I haven't seen discussed much is Samsung. IIRC, Samsung sources the CPU and the flash memory inside the iPhones and iPod Touches, and the flash memory is by far the most expensive component inside the iPhone. Samsung gives Apple a big discount on flash memory and Apple uses something like 40% of Samsung's flash manufacturing capacity. So it might not be in Apple's best interest to go head-to-head against Samsung in this country.

red_devil

Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Location: Korea

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:51 pm Post subject:

jsk wrote:

I doubt the iPhone will be very popular in Korea when it finally launches, for the reasons above. Still, I wonder about Apple's supposed reluctance to enter the Korean market, and one angle that I haven't seen discussed much is Samsung.

IIRC, Samsung sources the CPU and the flash memory inside the iPhones and iPod Touches, and the flash memory is by far the most expensive component inside the iPhone. Samsung gives Apple a big discount on flash memory and Apple uses something like 40% of Samsung's flash manufacturing capacity. So it might not be in Apple's best interest to go head-to-head against Samsung in this country.

I think the iPhone will be hugely popular as long as they solve the issues with the data rate plans, and WiFi. If they gut all the features that make an iPhone great (WiFi, web surfing, apps) than essentially you have a Haptic. (ROFL) If these issues are solved, and the iPhone comes into Korea relatively unfettered, it WILL be successful.

As far as Samsung is concerned, they're not worried about it. Right now Samsung SDI (memory division) is not in good shape, SanDisk is their biggest competitor, so having an exclusive right to manufacture memory chips for the iPhone might actually be better for them at this stage. Even if the iPhone is considered a revenue "success" it wouldn't even begin to eat at Samsung or LG's market share for at least a few years.

swigs

Joined: 20 Apr 2008

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:59 pm Post subject:

red_devil wrote:

bassexpander wrote:

Imagine the outcry if the USA allowed a similar program touting buy American?

And just what "American" brand cell phones would they buy? They'd have like two choices: Blackberry or iPhone. Hahaha.

And Motorola.

bassexpander

Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:16 pm Post subject:

swigs wrote:

red_devil wrote:

bassexpander wrote:

Imagine the outcry if the USA allowed a similar program touting buy American?

And just what "American" brand cell phones would they buy? They'd have like two choices: Blackberry or iPhone. Hahaha.

And Motorola.

I have heard the original plan was to counter the massive inroads that the original Motorola Razor was making into the Korean market. The popularity of the original Razor sent shockwaves through the Korean phone making community, as well as Chaebol control. It didn't take long to get legislation in place to make the Korean phones, and later the Razor rip-offs, to seem like a whole lot better deal.

quilter

Joined: 11 Feb 2006

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:04 pm Post subject:

"And just what "American" brand cell phones would they buy? They'd have like two choices: Blackberry or iPhone. Hahaha." And Blackberry (RIM) isn't even an American company.

red_devil

Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Location: Korea

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:06 am Post subject:

swigs wrote:

red_devil wrote:

bassexpander wrote:

Imagine the outcry if the USA allowed a similar program touting buy American?

And just what "American" brand cell phones would they buy? They'd have like two choices: Blackberry or iPhone. Hahaha.

And Motorola.

Yeah, why did i think Motorola was Japanese? RIM is Canadian...same diff. Razz

Anyways so then my point stands at Motorola and Apple.

pkang0202

Joined: 09 Mar 2007

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 3:36 am Post subject:

red_devil wrote:

I don't deny that it will be successful. As a consumer, the iPhone is good. For the Korean Companies.... not so much.

Now, what a smart person would do now is start developing a hoard of Apps in Korean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpf0t3uV_4Q

Whoever makes that App for Korea that shows the subway AND the buses will be a VERY RICH PERSON.

DCJames

Joined: 27 Jul 2006

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 3:45 am Post subject:

pkang0202 wrote:

red_devil wrote:

Considering the people who make the apps for itunes have gotten little if anything, I doubt anyone is going to get rich from developing Koren apps.

swigs

Joined: 20 Apr 2008

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 4:04 am Post subject:

red_devil wrote:

swigs wrote:

red_devil wrote:

bassexpander wrote:

Imagine the outcry if the USA allowed a similar program touting buy American?

And just what "American" brand cell phones would they buy? They'd have like two choices: Blackberry or iPhone. Hahaha.

And Motorola.

Yeah, why did i think Motorola was Japanese? RIM is Canadian...same diff. Razz

Anyways so then my point stands at Motorola and Apple.

Yeah, I knew RIM was Canadian...

But how many Korean phone companies are there in reality? Only two domestically dominant ones: LG and Samsung

Motorola and Apple I would imagine have just as big as market share as LG and Samsung.

swigs

Joined: 20 Apr 2008

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 4:05 am Post subject:

bassexpander wrote:

swigs wrote:

red_devil wrote:

bassexpander wrote:

Imagine the outcry if the USA allowed a similar program touting buy American?

And just what "American" brand cell phones would they buy? They'd have like two choices: Blackberry or iPhone. Hahaha.

And Motorola.

Makes sense, most Korean phones either look like the Razor or the iPhone.

Same thing goes with the Car industry here, I see a lot of 'familiar' looking cars on the road.

swigs

Joined: 20 Apr 2008

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 4:13 am Post subject:

DCJames wrote:

pkang0202 wrote:

red_devil wrote:

Considering the people who make the apps for itunes have gotten little if anything, I doubt anyone is going to get rich from developing Koren apps.

to pkang: Yeah, the new wave augumented reality apps is really exciting. I'm looking forward to picking up an iphone and downloading them in the near future.

to DCJames: You underestimate the itunes app store. There are many successful companies whom profit greatly from developing useful apps. It's just that they are of course the minority when compared to all of the other developers. Nintendo has recently labeled the iPhone/iTouch as a real competitor to it's market share, and that's because of the quality of gaming that the iPhone allows. The iPhone continues to have exclusive games developed for it that are a unique and a fun experience. Games like Rolando have been run-away success stories. Here is a 2008 article written by Wired, I would think that there are many more stories like this since then, but of course it would not be 'news' at this point.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/09/indie-developer/

But with great success comes more competition. But the quality will always rise above. Same with any platform. I expect only better and better apps to compliment the app store, while the hardware innovations will also only get better. Apple has stated that they plan to always be about three years ahead of the competition, which I think has been staying true, if not even more than that.

There are over 55,000 apps in the app store, and over 1.5 Billion! downloads, with over 40,000,000 iPhones/iTouches. If you don't think there is money in that, I doubt your reasoning skills. Smile

While most of the apps I buy are free, there are some more advanced apps that i'm more than happy to pay for.

Such as Brushes: which is like a mini Corelle Painter on your iPhone/iTouch. You can do some amazing artwork on it, and professionals use it, because you can export hi-res files of your art work, and print them out for professional use.

Or Beatmaker: Which is another professional quality app that allows you to mix beats into a song using standard tech toos, like sequencers and beat pads. You can then export your electronic songs to either MIDI or WAV files, depending on your needs.

These are only two of the apps that are for the iPhone/iTouch that people are more than happy to pay for. I thought I was getting a bargain with both of those apps, because they are so useful, portable, fun, and have a professional quality to them.

bassexpander

Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 4:01 pm Post subject:

red_devil wrote:

swigs wrote:

red_devil wrote:

bassexpander wrote:

Imagine the outcry if the USA allowed a similar program touting buy American?

And just what "American" brand cell phones would they buy? They'd have like two choices: Blackberry or iPhone. Hahaha.

And Motorola.

Yeah, why did i think Motorola was Japanese? RIM is Canadian...same diff. Razz

Anyways so then my point stands at Motorola and Apple.

And what exactly is your point?

My point was that non-Korean products are not allowed the discount. Your point is of no consequence, because my point was that "buy Korean" is being pushed, at the expense of all other foreign phones.

You may as well count Blackberry and Nokia -- again, non-Korean products.

I used the USA as my example because that's where Hyundai and Kia sell so many cars. So what if they USA said, "Buy only American" with the cash-for-clunkers program?

Sorry, you fail.

swigs

Joined: 20 Apr 2008

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 8:49 pm Post subject:

bassexpander wrote:

red_devil wrote:

swigs wrote:

red_devil wrote:

bassexpander wrote:

Imagine the outcry if the USA allowed a similar program touting buy American?

And just what "American" brand cell phones would they buy? They'd have like two choices: Blackberry or iPhone. Hahaha.

And Motorola.

Yeah, why did i think Motorola was Japanese? RIM is Canadian...same diff. Razz

Anyways so then my point stands at Motorola and Apple.

Yeah, I think alot of people overestimate how healthy America is right now. America currently has the "Swine Flu" both politically and economically. If you compared Korea's economy to America's with the data adjusted, I imagine you would see that Korea is probably much sounder than America, as is Japan and China. America is in a downward spiral that is going to be hard to get out of. Just think about comparing Korea to another state in America like Georgia? Just because America is so large does that mean it's economy is doing good.

America's current and previous administration have taken steps to really hurt America's economy. The Bush administration encouraged people who could not afford houses to take out risky loans, which helped start the financial crises. All while in a time of war, which is extremely costly.

Also the current administration is making the problem even worse. They are making America into MORE and MORE debt to the Chinese government. Also they are doing STUPID programs like "Cars for Clunkers" that don't help anyone except Japan and Korea. Because our government is paying for the program with a LOAN from China, because we DON'T have the money to pay for it. Also they are destroying used cars, which means that poor people will have a harder time finding a practical low cost car. A seriously STUPID idea of a plan, that the administration calls 'helpful'. And I won't even start on their health care reform or other pointless 'stimulus' (aka debt)... Rolling Eyes

Watch this video, famed economist Peter Schiff talks about the current state of the Economy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_govgcdkuU

My point is though, is that America needs every sell that they can get. We allow Korea, Japan, and China to prosper in America, it's only just to allow America to have an equal chance.

So I say no more Korean BS with it comes to blocking American products to be able to compete fairly. I think it's pretty lame of Korea to copy US products, but not let them compete on their turf, when they make many of their sales on US soil.

Edit: While I was looking for a clip from Idocracy I found this clip. Some may find it offensive, and for that I apologize. They took the dialoge from a 2006 movie Idocracy, (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/) and put it to Obama's speech. It would NOT be funny IF the speech did not somewhat echo the problems we are facing today, as I am aware some might take it the wrong way. To me the speech is about content, and not how it's being delivered, which is probably the most offensive part about this clip. Warning, Foul language, and possibly offensive: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=50011587 (disclaimer: I did not make this video, just thought it was thought provoking and interesting.)
I recommend watching the original movie. It's a well made Mike Judge film (the create of Office Space), all while being a modern commentary on contemporary American culture, and what it might be like in another 500 years.

Watch the original trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0yQunhOaU0

red_devil

Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Location: Korea

Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 4:07 am Post subject:

pkang0202 wrote:

red_devil wrote:

I'm in the middle of doing this, since SKT, LG, and KTF are producing their "app store" rip offs the demand for mobile content will sky rocket assuming that the pricing model for data/internet will change (hopefully) offering a flat data rate plan. However my plan is to first create apps not for the iPhone but for the Haptic OS, and then start once the iPhone is on the market and we know what capabilities it will have or not have.

A subway/bus app is on the list, except i would be offering it free to the public (probably get a gov't grant to pay for it).

red_devil

Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Location: Korea

Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 4:12 am Post subject:

bassexpander wrote:

red_devil wrote:

swigs wrote:

red_devil wrote:

bassexpander wrote:

Imagine the outcry if the USA allowed a similar program touting buy American?

And just what "American" brand cell phones would they buy? They'd have like two choices: Blackberry or iPhone. Hahaha.

And Motorola.

Yeah, why did i think Motorola was Japanese? RIM is Canadian...same diff. Razz

Anyways so then my point stands at Motorola and Apple.

Woah, whoa, who jizzed in your corn flakes this morning bud. It was a tongue-in-cheek comment because the post posed the hypothetical question of forcing Americans to buy American handsets. My point was that even if they did that, there would be no "American" handsets to actually buy, because the US imports all of it. It was more sarcasm than anything, chill dude.

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