Update: Confirmed – the new iPhone has a front facing camera!
Updated: Wrote this post last year before the iPhone 3GS launch, obviously that version didn’t have video calling or mobile tv as its core features but could that change this year? I was a thinking a bit too far ahead last year but now it seems other blogs are mentioning the same thing.
Rumours (and screenshots) are flying round featuring a front facing iPhone camera…9to5Mac has a post with all the theories. Remember the iPhone can’t save video calling on its own, operators will need to create unlimited bundles with standard tariffs otherwise it’s not going to be able to sustain the initial uplift. Maybe this is the kick start video calling needs to begin lowering prices?
Check out the new image and original post below:
The new iPhone is due to be announced soon and I have the feeling that it’s about to change the way people use (and perceive) Video Calling and mobile TV. The two services desperately need a jump start and have been poorly received by consumers for years.
As a consumer I know that Mobile TV is very appealing, I can’t tell you the amount of times I have been out and wanted to catch the football or a episode of Californication. Even at my desk, I can’t be bothered to keep turning my head to watch the plasma and would gladly have a phone in front of me with the TV on. The proposition isn’t hard for the consumer to understand, it’s TV that you love and know…on your phone. Simple.
However the price has always been far too high , I’ve found that most people don’t know that their operator offers TV and the ones that do think it’s too expensive to take up. Currently the price sits at around £3 per month on Vodafone to £8.99 per month on Orange…That’s 35% of my line rental!
Video Calling is just as expensive, on Orange it costs 50p per minute to call someone on another network. Video Calling is a service I would dip in and out of but why would I ever bother at those prices? I know many things have been listed on why video calling isn’t popular, everything from unflattering camera angles to human nature but lets face it, cost is usually king and if it was free people would use it more. Plus video calling is aching for a sprinkling of decent Apple-style user experience.
Nokia recently revealed the absolute ass-whooping the Ovi Store is receiving in comparison to the iPhone App Store.
The announcement at Nokia World confirmed that since May 26th, users have downloaded 10 million pieces of content from the Ovi Store. Compare this to iPhone App Store which surpassed 100 million downloads in the first two months and 1.5 billion after a year. The Ovi Store supports 100 Nokia devices and the iPhone App Store supports, wait for it…2.
Now remember ‘pieces of content’ doesn’t just mean apps but also lame things like ringtones, wallpapers, etc count too. I wonder how much of that 10 million is actual apps?
The Ovi Store had huge technical problems on the first day, Nokia underestimated the demand and consequently suffered outages meaning that for many people, it was over before it started.
The technical issues weren’t the only problems with the Ovi Store user experience. The Ovi Store requires the CRAZY backwards step of having to find, download and install the Ovi Store client before you can use it.
If I wasn’t a mobile phone enthusiast I would have given up on the Ovi Store the very first day it was launched. Apart from the Nokia server problems it took around 3 tries and 40 minutes to set up on my phone. The end result was a clunky and slow store with some poor quality applications that neither provided a good service or enhanced the handset. Read More
