Marketing 2.0

Ten great free iOS apps

Were you one of the lucky kids who got a new iPad or iPhone for Christmas? There are hundreds of thousands of apps for your shiny new toy, but where to start? Here's a list of 10 free apps compiled by the people over at Macworld. It's a good place to start.

Ten great free iOS apps | Macworld.

iPad - What's it good for?

So I've been playing with the iPad for the past few months and offer these random observations about what I find good and bad about this innovative new device.

Good:

Portability. Much better than a laptop although it's heavier than I thought it would be.

Touchscreen. This navigational interface is really cool. Works especially way for selecting apps, turning pages, scrolling, etc. Going back to a traditional keyboard on my laptop seems a little primitive by comparison.

Battery life. Much better than my laptop. If anyone could come up with something like a lifetime charge for these devices, or even a one-year charge that would be truly revolutionary.

Display. Content that's optimized for the iPad platform is easy to read, especially for people with less than perfect vision.

Applications. These are a mixed bag but my favorite apps include Real Solitaire, Star Walk, New York Post, New York Times (buggy though), Netflix (watching movies is more fun than you might think), and Amazon Windowshop.

Not so good:

Applications. I was attracted by the thousands of applications offered for iPad. I have found that most are not that great. Many seemed slapped together and not really optimized for the tablet user experience. Some have very limited capabilities. Searching through the app store is also overwhelming and very time consuming. Over time, I'm sure that the content will improve. For the moment though, my killer app is Solitaire. 

Touch Typing. If you're going to do any serious amount of typing you'll need the optional keyboard. I find it difficult to respond to e-mail or type notes. It's slow going with one finger on the virtual keyboard.

The verdict:

iPad is a truly unique platform that offers some key advantages over traditional laptops. I'm reminded of the early days of personal computers when the devices were really cool but there weren't many software applications available. That's not the case here with the thousands of apps but I still think the hardware is ahead of the content. When the two come together in a truly complementary way (Star Walk or Solitaire), I really love the platform.

 

How my iPad Arrived

Here is the route my iPad took to reach my home. Talk about supply-chain management! Other than a FedEx driver, it never touched human hands along the way or sat in a warehouse. It's a good example of just-in-time order processing and shipment. What strikes me is how little U.S. content we have here. Other than Apple and FedEx, have any other companies and their workers benefited from this sale?

Sep 20, 2010 4:24 PM - Delivered ITHACA, NY

Left at garage. Package delivered to recipient address - release authorized

Sep 20, 2010 8:40 AM - On FedEx vehicle for delivery ITHACA, NY

Sep 20, 2010 8:36 AM - At local FedEx facility ITHACA, NY

Sep 18, 2010 12:00 AM - At dest sort facility SYRACUSE, NY

Sep 17, 2010 6:50 PM - Departed FedEx location NEWARK, NJ

Sep 17, 2010 2:28 AM - Arrived at FedEx location NEWARK, NJ

Sep 16, 2010 4:10 PM - Departed FedEx location ANCHORAGE, AK

Sep 16, 2010 11:43 AM - Int'l shipment releaseANCHORAGE, AK

Sep 15, 2010 3:45 PM - In transit ANCHORAGE, AK

Sep 15, 2010 1:15 PM - Arrived at FedEx location ANCHORAGE, AK

Sep 15, 2010 11:56 AM - In transit LANTAU ISLAND HK

Sep 14, 2010 11:51 PM - At local FedEx facility LANTAU ISLAND HK

Sep 14, 2010 11:49 PM - In transit LANTAU ISLAND HK

Sep 14, 2010 9:40 PM - Left FedEx origin facility SHENZHEN CN

Sep 14, 2010 9:18 PM - Picked up SHENZHEN CN

Sep 14, 2010 5:08 AM - Shipment information sent to FedEx

Leaving aside the matter of international trade and its impact on U.S. jobs, is the iPad a good purchase? I'll be testing it out for a variety of applications over the next few weeks and reporting my observations here.

Do You Know Who Makes Your iPhone?

I recently read an article in BusinessWeek on Foxconn, the Chinese electronics manufacturer. It got me thinking about what’s wrong with our economy. As everyone knows, we are struggling with slow growth and stubbornly high unemployment. What’s frightening is that an estimated 15% of American workers are either not working, have given up looking for work, or are underemployed — working part time or in positions beneath their qualifications.

If you look for a bright spot in the consumer sector of our economy what do you find? Sales of electronic products, especially those cool iPhones, iPods and iPads from Apple are one of the few bright spots. Looking beyond Apple, there are millions of other smart phones, tablets, e-readers, and laptops being sold. Unfortunately, none of these millions  of devices are manufactured in the USA. Where are they made? Mostly in China and many by a company called Foxconn.

There’s much to admire about this company and its hard-working CEO, Terry Gou. Reading the article, I was flabbergasted by some of the numbers. Foxconn employs over 900,000 people. Let that number roll around for a moment. By contrast, after HP acquired EDS, the combined companies had a total workforce of 300,000. IBM has 400,000 worldwide. Dell has about 90,000 and Apple’s total is 35,000. This gives you some idea of how economic power has shifted in the 21st century. Foxconn has more workers than all of these mega-companies combined.

I wondered what the impact would be if these jobs were in our country and not China. While Foxconn builds some products for their domestic market, most of their production goes to U.S. companies like Apple and Dell. If their manufacturing plants were located here, the additional 900,000 jobs would lower our unemployment rate by more than a half percentage point. We would drop from the current rate of 9.6 to 9%. Keep in mind this represents just one large company in one industry.

I’ll admit that I know absolutely nothing about electronics manufacturing. I’m sure that Foxconn has a lot of expertise and that companies appreciate the flexible supply-chain model rather than operating their own manufacturing plants. What I’m wondering is how large an impact do the lower wages in China really make? Let’s say it takes 15 minutes for a trained worker to assemble an iPhone. I can’t imagine it would take longer than that. If a Chinese worker makes $1.00 per hour, the labor cost for assembly would be about 35 cents. If an American worker earning $12.00 per hour assembled the phone, the labor cost would be $3.00. Would an additional $2.65 of cost on a product that sells for $200 really kill Apple? Would consumers be willing to pay an extra $5 for the iPhone if they knew they were supporting U.S. workers? I would. I love my Apple products but I wish that buying them contributed more to our economy.

President Obama and his advisors are spending billions on public projects to stimulate job growth. So far, it hasn’t worked. Unemployment remains high. The new strategy is to give companies tax breaks to invest in technology. What’s needed in my opinion is a targeted approach to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. This might include a combination of tax incentives or possibly even tariffs on imports. I realize that everyone has bought into the mantra of free global trade but now that we’ve experienced 20 years of open markets, it’s time to reassess. The outcome of global free trade has been the shift of jobs, wealth, and economic growth from the USA to other countries, notably China.

Let me wrap up by pointing out the irony of our current situation. We import many of our consumer products from China and then we borrow billions of dollars from the Chinese to pay for the social programs and government operating costs that we can no longer afford in our own country. We’re borrowing money from foreign nations to pay for stimulus programs to replace the jobs we’ve allowed to get away. As of 2009, we owe Chinese lenders close to $800 billion. Terry Gou must be shaking his head and thanking American politicians for his good fortune.

Meanwhile, the millions of iPhones and iPads that we import represent a lost opportunity to provide good jobs for Americans and serve as a reminder that we are fast becoming a second-rate economic power.

The Man Who Makes Your iPhone - BusinessWeek.