The wonders of You Tube

I enjoy a glass of wine every now and again, and I enjoy the BBC show "Top Gear".

Combining Oz Clarke and James May seems like an ideal show as far as I'm concerned.

Enjoy

iPhone, Carriers and Media Convergence

Ok, the iPhone.  We get it.  It's the greatest mobile device ever made...

I actually didn't need converting.  I've been drinking the Cupertino-Aid since the early 90s.  I'm an Apple geek, but my day job also makes me look at this stuff slightly differently, and I am fascinated by the approach.

Apple has control of the infrastructure.  From the device hardware(iPhone and Macs) and software (the wonderful OS X), distribution platform (iTunes) and set top box (Apple TV), they control it all.  Compare that to even a single mobile device for a carrier: Manufacturer builds device, someone else builds OS, someone else builds the browser and someone else again writes apps.  In addition to that, the carrier then gets to impose what features and functions are available on their network: bluetooth on/off, sync features etc...  A VERY different proposition fraught with handoff issues and multiple dependencies...

The content for these devices is distributed through a number of different sources too.  Don't get me wrong, all this non-standard, each carrier different spec soup means I get to go to work each day, but how do the carriers get to where they want to be...?

Apple and AT&T in the US has accelerated the "dumb pipe" decision where the operator is merely providing voice and data services.  One of the MOST telling stats on the iPhone is the amount of web activity on the devices (not controlled by the carrier...)  Fifty times more traffic than any other device.  

It won't be long before Apple customers can buy content on their iPhone, and when they get home, there it is on the Apple TV, probably all synced through .Mac. The carriers now have broadband and cable services, land lines and wireless services, but I think they are a long way off from being able to provide that type of seamless user experience.

Sites, such as hulu.com, show that the networks want to get their content to as many channels as possible, but I just really like the way that Apple is making it seamless to buy content from ANY channel and PLAY the content on any channel as well.  It makes for a much better user experience, and one that the carrier cannot really match without some VERY good partnerships, some agreement across a number of different vendors (which is NOT an easy thing to manage) and a LOT of development time and headaches to get there.

Can they compete? and if not, who steps up as a competitor?