Apple iPhone and Android Top OS Satisfaction Ratings

When it comes to satisfaction levels, the Apple iPhone continues to lead all other major cell phone manufacturers, with 74 percent of owners reporting they're "very satisfied" with their iPhone, according to ChangeWave Research.

But 72 percent of Android users also say they are "very satisfied." There's a big gap to the number-three OS, where 41 percent of Research in Motion users say they are very satisfied with the operating system.

It is worth noting that the "very satisfied" rankings for the Palm OS primarily reflect experience with the older OS, not the new  Web OS (Pre, for example). About 58 percent of Pre users say they are very satisfied, while for smart phones using the older Palm OS it was just 29 percent.

Is Android Finally at an Inflection Point?

The Android seems to have hit a sales inflection point, and is poised to take share in the smartphone market, according to ChangeWave Research.

More buyers now are indicating they will be buying Android devices, and fewer say they will be buying an iPhone. In September 2009 about six percent of respondents to 21 percent of respondents to a recent ChangeWave Research survey.

At the same time, where 32 percent of respondents said they would be buying an iPhone in September, 28 percent said they would be doing so in the December 2009 survey.

The ChangeWave Research data suggests that Android has hit an inflection point, after roughly a year on the market, a time when some observers might have wondered whether Android would emerge as a viable alternative to the iPhone.

The ChangeWave survey also suggests that the Android is taking share from other devices as well, with the possible exception of the BlackBerry. Where 17 percent of respondents said they would be buying a BlackBerry in September, about 18 percent said they would be doing so in December.

But Windows Mobile buying intentions were about nine percent in September and had dropped to six percent by December. Likewise, about six percent of respondents suggested they would be buying a Palm OS device in September; just three percent in December.

Android Becoming a Factor in U.S. Mobile Ad Market

Android smartphones are becoming a bigger factor in the U.S. mobile advertising market, with ad requests growing 97 percent in just two months between October 2009 and December 2009, according to AdMob.

Of those one billion ad requests tracked by AdMob, 90 percent were from U.S.-based devices.AdMob tracks handset and operator data from every ad request in its advertising network of more than 15,000 mobile web sites and applications.

Much of the growth was driven by the release of the Motorola Droid. Before the Droid’s launch, HTC devices accounted for 98 percent of Android requests. In December, that fell to 56 percent, with 39 percent from Motorola (which also offers the CLIQ) and five percent from Samsung.

The Motorola Droid already is the leading Android handset in the AdMob network and generated 30 percent of requests in December.

Google Nexus One Unveiling Jan. 5, 2010?

Google seems to be gearing up for a Jan. 5, 2010 unveiling of its Nexus One smartphone. The somewhat controversial move might be seen as a misguided effort that will undercut Google's effort to support broad adoption of its Android operating system by all the major service providers.

Worse still, in the worst-case scenario, Google is aiming to become a service provider in its own right. That seems highly unlikely. That really would strain relationships with its carrier partners. Nor does Google seem to be angling to become a hardware supplier in the same way that Apple is.

True, it seems to be fostering development of handsets. But even a Google-branded device might be seen as a way of pointing out what it thinks could be done.

One suspects that the unveiling is more of a demonstration project, intended to showcase what might be done with the Android operating system when paired with mobile hardware. One reason for that belief is that unlocked smartphone devices are expensive enough that few actually are sold in the U.S. market.

More seriously, T-Mobile is rumored to be readying a contract-subsidized Nexus One deal, which would put the out-of-pocket cost of the device within typical ranges for some other leading smartphone models. The typical model is a two-year contract in exchange for a device subsidy, and that is what most observers expect to see.

That is a fairly well established business model, giving T-Mobile a period of device exclusivity before it also is made available to other service providers.

The other angle is that if Google were really serious about becoming a player in either the device or service provider business, it likely would have readied deals in multiple countries.

The key thing is whether the user experience winds up being something users clearly can perceive as offering a "delightful" experience. That would seem to be the point. Whether Google can deliver remains to be seen.

E-Book Style Revenue Models Needed for Many Mobile Devices

As Apple plans to introduce a new mobile "tablet" device, and rumors grow that Google is working on a Chrome operating system tablet of its own, it is not hard to predict that much future growth for mobile service providers will be in providing broadband data connections for such devices, whether or not the actual first-generation devices from Apple and Google actually take off.

The reasons are drop-dead simple: most people who want a mobile phone already have one. The new growth frontier is for other devices that also benefit from a broadband connection, such as notebooks, tablets and e-book readers.

Shipments of mobile broadband-enabled consumer electronics are forecast to increase 55-fold between 2008 and 2014, say researchers at ABI Research. The market includes e-book readers, mobile digital cameras and camcorders, personal media players, personal navigation devices and mobile gaming devices. Total global shipments reach 58 million in 2014, says ABI Research.

One suspects sales of mobile-connected devices will hit critical mass only when a device is linked intimately with a content service that provides the revenue model. Not many consumers likely will spend much money to Internet-enable their cameras, for example.

Instead, what we probably will need to see are content services (e-book readers provide an excellent example) where payment for content subsidizes the use of mobile broadband access, with no incremental cost to the end user.

One suspects tablet devices likewise will achieve only modest success until video and other content services provide the revenue to support no-incremental-cost use of mobile broadband connectivity.

It isn't immediately clear how this might work for devices supporting multi-player gaming, for example, but e-book style models likely will have to be created for mass adoption of mobile broadband for gaming devices.

Consumers are not going to want to buy subscription plans for many discrete mobile devices at rates anywhere close to what broadband access now costs, either for smartphones or notebooks, for example.

Is Digital Delivery Destroying Other Parts of the Movie Ecosystem?

Reality typically is more complex than any forecast about reality. Consider the movie business and downstream ecosystem. Digital entertainment was supposed to destroy the movie theater business, but evidence is contradictory on that score.

It might be more accurate to say that the digital entertainment business is hitting "physical media" sales more than anything else. In the first half of 2009, ticket sales grew 17.5 percent, according to Media by Numbers, a box-office tracking company. You might argue that is the result of higher ticket prices or a desire to momentarily escape recession woes.

As it turns out, neither of those factors seem to be driving the trend. Attendance jumped by nearly 16 percent in the first half of 2009. If those rates hold for the whole year, it would be the biggest box-office surge in at least two decades.

There likely is some truth to the adage that "people go to movies more frequently in a recession." But the evidence is mixed on that score. The last time Hollywood enjoyed a double-digit jump in attendance was 1989, when the unemployment rate was at a comfortable 5.4 percent. That year, the number of moviegoers shot up 16.4 percent, according to Box Office Mojo.

In 1982, theater attendance jumped 10.1 percent to about 1.18 billion as unemployment rose sharply past 10 percent. Then admissions fell nearly 12 percent, an unusually sharp drop, in 1985, as the economy picked up.

The economy's effect is a bit unclear, in other words. As always is the case, though, movie attendance is higher when film-makers create movies lots of people want to see, and that likely is a part of the story.

The film industry over the last year or two has released movies that are happier, scarier or just less depressing than what came before, some might argue.

Still, the point is that digital delivery has not adversely affected theater attendance of late.

DVD sales are another matter. In 2008, movie ticket sales surpassed DVD revenue, according to Adams Media Research. Where 2009 box office receipts grew 10 percent $9.87 billion, DVD sales fell 13 percent to $8.73 billion.

For whatever reason, consumers are spending less money buying DVDs than they had been for most of the past 10 years, and a reasonable guess would be that video on demand and other streaming services finally are starting to have an impact. The other angle is that Netflix has kept growing as well, despite predictions by many that growth would falter as Internet delivery and VOD became more established behaviors.

Consumers may also have realized that they will not watch most movies more than once. That will shift behavior towards rental services and VOD.

The prevailing wisdom is that the DVD business is in a permanent decline. A few years ago many analysts wrongly predicted that theater sales would drop every year, as well. One should never underestimate the impact business decisions by the movie ecosystem can have.

Making movies people want to see plays a huge role, for example. Pricing and distribution decisions made in the DVD sales and rental channel also can have a huge and unforseen impact. Netflix disrupted the retail rental store business, for example.

Also, Blu-ray HDTV appliance adoption might be playing a role as well. Though the installed base of DVD players still represent the lion's share of device usage, Blu-ray obviously is growing. That could have consumers holding back on purchases of physical media they believe will someday go the way of casette tapes.

North America is Ripe for New Broadband Backhaul Facilities

North America appears to be ripe for new high-capacity backhaul from mobile tower sites to points of presence.

The reason? Mobile broadband is not matched by backhaul broadband. Most tower links use T1 connections running at 1.544 Mbps.

That clearly is not good enough for mass adoption of mobile broadband services. Internet service providers located in rural areas have additional problems, though. Quite often, regional connections between local points of presence and the nearest Internet PoPs also use T1 connections.

If you wonder why "middle mile" projects were so prominent in the first wave of broadband stimulus awards, that's why.