Friday, November 23, 2007

Now I'm Scared

Apple is in real iPhone trouble in Europe.

Have you heard? The European carriers are going to have to sell unlocked iPhones. This is going to upset Apple's iPhone strategy. Now, Apple will have to sell the iPhone in Europe to anyone willing to pay full price, without regard to the carrier or services offered.

Why is this happening? It's because, just like in the USA, everybody in Europe wants to be able to use their iPhone on any carrier. Unlike the USA, the European courts support unlocking. Why does everybody want an unlocked iPhone? Because all the other phones on the market are either blatantly 20th Century or crappy imitations of the iPhone. (Summary: iPhone looks cool. Everything else looks like hairy, pimply ass.) Consequently, nobody wants to be left in the technological dust by what is obviously the coolest device on the market. Apple is really going to take it in the shorts on this one. Talk about screwing up a strategy.

If you're into games of strategy, you have to hate this from Apple's perspective. It's like playing a game of chess. The other guy changes your strategy by taking all of his pieces off the board except his king. So there is Apple, stuck with all its pieces on the table, ordered by the European courts to establish a Monopoly on decent communication devices.

Later, they'll be sued for the Monopoly they had no choice in creating.

Man, that's going to suck.

In other news, places like Infoworld and PC World are just falling all over themselves talking about how great Leopard is, what a great company Apple is, how cool the iPhone is and just generally acting like a bunch of shameless fanboys. I'm starting to wonder if I should just move on to blogging about football.

Robert Cringely has written that the ten million dollar settlement between Apple and Burst involved the CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, an Air Force Facility in New Mexico, and almost certainly a third shooter on the grassy knoll. Jobs lied, lawsuit died. No, there isn't a link.

The family has gone shopping. Coffee time.