Happy birthday iPhone
120 months ago on the 29th June at 09.41am (California time) the world changed forever. Six months after being introduced at the Macworld Convention by Steve Jobs, the $499, 4GB storage iPhone was finally in stores.
Since then, over a billion iPhones have been sold globally. In 2007 Apple had $6bn in cash. Today the company’s accounts are reportedly in the final stretch to being valued at $1trillion.
But things could have turned out very differently. Back when the iPhone wasn’t even a glint in Steve Jobs’ eyes, telecoms giants like Verizon held a tight grip over the specification of handsets. Weighty manuals read like a bible of ‘thou shall nots’. Such restrictions went against everything Jobs believed in. It certainly wasn’t a sector that he wanted to get into.
Some three years before the iPhone said ‘hello’. A team of Apple engineers were fiddling…
Chart of the Day: Smartphones aren't killing TV
Those of us accustomed to reading marketing reports are used to the idea that mobile is killing TV, and that TV is an ageing dinosaur destined to limp along for a while till it's finally declared dead.
But the data reveals a more interesting picture. Time spent on mobile devices is growing fast, but it's not having a negative impact on TV viewing. TV viewing is shifting very slightly to video on demand and away from live TV, but TV viewing as a whole has held up solidly over the past 3 years.
Time spent on smartphones has more than doubled, but this seems to complement rather than compete with TV viewing. The lesson is simple - rapid mobile growth is happening, but it doesn't mean old mediums are dying.
Source: Nielsen Total Audience Report for the 4th quarter…
