Steve Jobs said death is the best thing in life. And yet we seek immortality, or at least life-extending technologies. What are the possibilities and implications of a salubrious app? Is life extension the next killer app1
5by5 | The Critical Path #123: Salubrious.
When the iPhone 4S launched, one million units were pre-ordered and 4 million units were sold during its opening weekend. That made the daily rate during the 4S weekend 1.3 million units/day or one third faster than the pre-order rate of 1 million units/day.
When the iPhone 5 launched, 2 million were pre-ordered and “over” 5 million were sold during during the opening weekend. That made the daily rate during the launch weekend about 1.7 million which was about 15% slower than the pre-order rate. However, a few months later the 5 launched in China setting an opening rate of 2 million in three days or about 666k/day. Adding China’s rate to the Rest of World rate yields about 2.4 million/day or about 20% faster than the pre-order rate.
When the iPhone 6/6Plus launched, 4 million were pre-ordered and 10 million were sold during the opening weekend. That made a daily rate during the launch weekend about 3.3 million, again lower than the 4 million/day in pre-orders. However, just like the 5, the 6 launch excluded China. If we assume that a China launch would have run 30% faster than the 5 launch1 then my estimate of launch performance for the iPhone range is shown in the graph below:
I included in the graph the various other launch volume data we have available.
I also included lines showing how pre-order volumes relate to weekend values for the products where we know both.
It therefore does not seem improbable that had China been available (and at the time when it will be) the iPhone launch weekend rate for the 6/6Plus combo would have been about 4 million/day. A rate consistent with the history for the product.
I was a guest on Moisés Chiullan’s Electric Shadow along with Jason Snell and John Gruber. We talk about how “Cinematic” applies to Apple’s approach to communications.
via 14: Orson Welles of the Genre.
This is a good one.
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How and why does Apple get paid for Apple Pay? Anders and Horace dive into the payments value chain and break it all down for you: whats in it for users, merchants, issuing banks and payment networks. What are the risks and opportunities for Apple? Is there a disruption about to happen?
When the iPhone launched, Steve Jobs introduced it as being three products in one:
When the Apple Watch launched, Tim Cook introduced it as being three things:
In 2011 I wrote:
My hypothesis is that The Primary Cause for the shift of profits from Incumbents to Entrants has been the disruptive impact of a new input method.
It was a description of what I considered to be the “disruptive technology” which caused incumbents which had a “front-row seat” to the future of their industry to be completely displaced and marginalized by an entrant1 with no discernible right to do what they did.
I illustrated what underpinned the sea change in the phone business via the slide that Steve Jobs used in the iPhone launch event:
I added the years when each input method was introduced and the platform/ecosystems created as a result. These new ecosystems were the primary cause for dramatic industry-sized shifts in profits.
Not coincidentally, during the 2014 Apple Watch launch, the presentation began2 with a re-telling of the “mouse, click wheel and Multi-Touch” story.
Seven years later, the difference is that there is a new object added to the story. It answers the question that has been on my mind since that first post on revolutionary user interfaces was written: what will come next.
Now that we have an answer, the next step is to understand the new platform, its ecosystem; which industry will be affected and which incumbents will be displaced and to what degree will value be created beyond that which will be displaced.
Piece of cake.
Farshad Nayeri, Anders Brownworth and I discuss Apple Watch as I drive from the launch venue to the airport.
via 5by5 | The Critical Path #121: There’s A Lot More To Say.
Anders Brownworth and Horace Preview of Apples September 2014 special event. We focus on how Apparel gets disrupted. We also wrap the Creativity, Inc. book review.
The bank robber Willie Sutton did not say, when asked why he robbed banks, “because that’s where the money is.” He did agree with the idea however saying “Go where the money is…and go there often”.
Regardless of it being apocryphal, this idea came to be called Sutton’s Law and is often taught to medical students. It’s similar to the notion of Occam’s Razor: when an obvious or simple answer competes with an obscure or complicated answer, pick the obvious one first.
These are sound analytical rules of thumb. When thinking about what products and services could arise in the immediate future, those most obvious and with fewest assumptions should be put forward first. The what part is relatively easy. The tough question is more about when will they emerge?
We now know that Apple will announce new products on September 9th1. This gives us an idea of when something will happen, answering the tougher question. It leaves the simpler question of what will emerge.
I put forward my predictions as follows:
One more item has surfaced on the potential of payments processing which I want to address now.
Handling payments, to me, is a perfectly plausible activity for Apple mostly because the company has made quite a few comments on the value of their “customers with credit cards” and the effort that went into Touch ID (which seems to be extravagant relative to the value of rapid unlocking).
But one word of caution: if Apple does enable payments it’s important to realize that being a (payment) bit pipe is not a particularly profitable business. It will undoubtedly bind value to the iOS devices which make it possible, but I don’t think there will be a direct capture of profit from the transactions themselves.
Continue reading “Going where the money is”
Asymmetric Competition