[DM-MUG] TechRepublic Blogs: Podcast: Will the $99 smartphone trigger a price war?

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:19 PM, Alan Maupin <alan.maupin at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=3022

Hi, yes, I think it will start a price war. I also think that the
iphone's share of the smart phone market will diminish (as a %) even
if their sales grow.

I'm also pretty firmly convinced that creating native iphone apps is a
bad idea for most apps since apple uses a technology (objective C)
which is pretty useless for the broader smart phone market.

Instead, using HTML5 to create offline web apps ( cf
www.apple.com/webapps ) means you can easily create apps that will
work on all the major devices as they emerge since Safari seems to be,
for the time being at least, the dominant platform for these devices.

What I'm more interested in seeing is the price war for the data
plans. I really think AT&T is ridiculously priced. Compare the cost of
a family plan for Sprint, t-mobile and AT&T and then multiply the
numbers by 24 months. You end up paying a lot more over the life of a
contract if you choose blindly.

I am a little concerned about the phones getting too cheap. You really
need a device that's going to last you 2 years. Hinges, battery
covers, glass screens... all bad ideas considering how much it will
cost to replace the phone.

IMHO :-)
-- 
Matthew Nuzum
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