I have just download the Bing application from the Android Market, in my Motorola Droid. And I have to say that is a great application. The NYT writes Microsoft Enters Google’s Unwalled Garden.  By the way, Bing is also available in the Apple store. At the same time, Microsoft is preparing for the launch of  its new mobile OS, Windows Phone 7 and in a pretty big style, as Gizmodo titles  Microsoft’s $1 Billion Smart Phone Bet? That’s Chump Change.

Google has its applications (Google Earth, Search) on various platforms, iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, Symbian. And at the same time, is pushing the Android OS.

Kindle is the Amazon reader, but the Kindle application is both in Android, iPhone and iPad.

Apple, on the other hand, has its own app store and iTune library, OS, mobile devices.

Nokia has the app store, the OVI store, two main smartphone platforms, Symbian and Meego, that are available to other manufacturers and the OVI services that are only available on Nokia platforms.

Some of these players get the value from selling the device, others monetize through Internet services. And others  try to do both.

There are no doubts that smartphones are experiencing an explosive growth, but somebody is getting the benefits more than others.

Businessinsider.com titles You Can’t Appreciate How Completely Apple Has Humiliated The Cellphone Industry Until You See These Charts
The charts come from a Goldman Sachs report and were published at the FT.
The first chart describes the profits of Apple compared to all the competitos COMBINED (EBIT earnings before interests and taxes).

And the shocking part, as reported by Businessinsider is that Apple will generate 2X as much handset profit as the rest of the industry combined this year DESPITE SELLING ONLY 3% OF THE HANDSETS BY UNIT VOLUME.
Second chart with Apple marketshare:

And apparently, Apple is maintaining its explosive earnings growth. As reported by Fortune in an article titled  How Apple maintains explosive earnings growth, It’s now the second-largest company in the U.S., and it still manages to grow its earnings by more than 50% a year.

A few sentences from the article:

In the four years I’ve followed Apple (AAPL) as it’s grown from a mere mid-sized tech stock to becoming the second largest corporation in the United States in terms of market capitalization, I never imagined that it or any other company of its size would be able to consistently grow its earnings by well over 50% a year.

While Apple is now larger than Microsoft (MSFT), Google (GOOG), Cisco (CSCO), and Intel (INTC), it still enjoys the growth rate of small cap tech stocks.

To get an idea of how deeply Apple continues to penetrate the market, Apple will likely produce 50% more in sales and 71% more in earnings in 2010 than it did last year. If this growth continues into 2011, Apple will surpass Exxon (XOM) to become the largest corporation in America. Not to mention that it already has more cash than any other company in the United States: $41 billion.

And then came the Antennagate with Consumer Reports rating the iPhone 4 as not recommended for the problems with the antenna. Steve Jobs held a press conference to admit the problems and announced the temporary solution, free bumpers from Apple. The stock is slightly affected, so, enjoy the song that opened Jobs’ press conf:

The ecosystem is one of the key selling points of the iPhone.  Thanks to developers, Apple can count on the most vibrant app ecosystem with over 225000 applications. At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 Steve Jobs has told the audience that Apple has made a check to “developers” for a billion.  Apparently a win-win situation. The App store was launched in 2008.

Consistency of the platform is one the success factors because it ensures that the same applications can run across different devices and OS releases. So that means, no binary breaks, APIs  that are backward compatible and consistent screen resolutions.

The screen resolution in Apple mobile devices:

• 480-by-320 for iPhone  2G, 3G, and 3GS   and iPod Touch
• 960-by-640 for the iPhone 4
• 1024-by-768 for the iPad

An application written for the iPhone can run on these different devices, apart for features that depend on a HW feature, this is the case of multi-tasking that is available only with iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, for example.

And older devices can freely upgrade,  free of charge,  to iOS 4, the latest Apple mobile OS. iOS 4 works with iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS (2009), iPhone 3G (2008)  and the third-generation iPod touch (32GB and 64GB models from late 2009).

A good overview of iOS4 is iOS4 walkthrough. Thanks for David Pogue for sharing this link.

From Pogue, two nice videos on the iPhone.
Can the iPhone save your life? (at TEDMED 2009)

and Cool new things you can do with your mobile phone (at TED 2008):

Microsoft has just announced at E3, Kinect. Kinect is the evolution of project Natal. Microsoft Kinect is about interaction without controllers. Forrester James McQuivey has titled I Have Seen The Future, And The Future Is Xbox Kinect. Kinect represents a great example of what it is possible now, and gives a glimpse of future UI interaction paradigms.

In the new Microsoft Xbox, there is video chat and the possibility to watch videos together with the remote person while seeing each other in the screen.

You can see the presentation in the video below, skip to 01:04:29: Microsoft live press conference E3 2010. See the the official website of Microsoft Kinect.

You can follow E3 on youtube, www.youtube.com/E3

John Battelle, organizes one of the most interesting conferences about marketing and digital media, the CM Summit. Online, there are the presentations, and one of the most tweeted is the  Internet Trends 2010 by Morgan Stanley Research.

Satoru Iwata, the Nintendo president, is understood to have told his senior executives recently to regard the battle with Sony as a victory already won and to treat Apple, and its iPhone and iPad devices, as the “enemy of the future”.  This is just another example of the digital convergence in the industry.

Now Apple vs Google:

• Apple has just launched the iPad, Google is developing a tablet
• Apple has the iPhone, Google Android
• Apple has the app store, Google the Android Marketplace
• Apple has just launched the iBooks and Google will launch Google Editions
• Apple has just launched iAd , Google has AdWords and AdSense (Apple acquired Quattro Wireless after being denied Admob, acquired by Google)

What it is interesting is that the two companies approach the digital convergence in a complete different way, in terms of strategy and vertical integration.

The two companies are somewhat at the extremes. Apple vertically integrated, Google placed in the software and services domains.

Apple designs its own chips, the A4 powers the iPad and is the fruit of Apple acquisition P.A. Semi in 2008. It develops its own OS and controls the distribution channel for the content with iTunes. Google develops the Android OS and Internet services such as Google Maps and Google Search. The HW for Nexus One was done by HTC, and while Google tried to bypass the operators for the distribution, now it is stepping back. Apple approves every single application that goes into the App Store, the Android marketplace allows anybody to publish applications. Apple has total control of the platform, their system is closed and the latest rules forbid the use of other languages other than C, C++, and Objective-C.

Apple strategy is paying back, and with only a small percentage of the world handsets market share (2.5%), it leads in operating profits. And here comes Android, according to NPD, Android phones managed to pass the iPhone in market share in the U.S. for the first time last quarter. NPD says that in the first three months of 2010, Android captured 28% of the smartphone market, while Apple’s iPhone grabbed only 21%.

What we are seeing are companies with very different  philosophies, business models and approaches but still competing in the same domain, the digital convergence.  Open vs. closed systems, vertically integrated vs. not vertically integrated. The dynamics are interesting and worth to follow.

Google powermeter is a free energy monitoring tool that allows you to view your home’s energy consumption from anywhere online. Smart meters are the enablers for the smart grid. The concept of smart grid, nicely described by Thomas L. Friedman in the book Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0, is becoming a reality.

Below one screenshot of Google powermeter, taked from the blog post Energized about our first Google PowerMeter partners.

Google introduced the powermeter concept 1 year ago. San Diego Gas & Electric is one of the first utility companies to partner with Google. This month my area will be covered and I will know more about it.

From Wikipedia, a smart grid delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using two-way digital technology to control appliances at consumers’ homes to save energy, reduce cost and increase reliability and transparency. It overlays the electricity distribution grid with an information and net metering system.

Companies are working on creating the Database of Intentions. They want to know us, our interests and in a way they are succeeding.

Google has been the leading the group. By using Search it knows what we want in a particular moment. Twitter and Facebook added the social part, they know who we know. Twitter at Chirp announced that they target the real-time interest graph. Everybody wants to own people’s interests.

As described by John Battelle this is the Database of Intention. And the latest announcement of Facebook demonstrates what’s next, by connecting (some of ) the dots in the Database of Intentions.

From the blog post of Mark Zuckerberg, Building the Social Web Together:

Facebook has focused mostly on mapping out the part of the graph around people and their relationships.

At the same time, other sites and services have been mapping out other parts of the graph so you can get relevant information about different types of things. For example, Yelp maps out the best local businesses and Pandora maps out which songs are related to each other.

…

This next version of Facebook Platform puts people at the center of the web. It lets you shape your experiences online and make them more social. For example, if you like a band on Pandora, that information can become part of the graph so that later if you visit a concert site, the site can tell you when the band you like is coming to your area. The power of the open graph is that it helps to create a smarter, personalized web that gets better with every action taken.

An interesting evolution to follow.

What would be the ingredients for an interesting application or service?
My first thoughts:

• It must address a need or solve a problem
• adopt the fremium business model (e.g. free app/service but making money with something else like advertising, or a free base app /service but if you want extra please pay additional money)
• It must be local mobile real-time social
• It is relevant and contextual
• It is easy to use
• It contains a gaming aspect
• It plugs in the Database of Intentions connecting the dots
• It must be co-created with customers and go through iterations (The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value with Customers)
• What else?