Voice?

Over the past number of years in wireless there has been a steady decline in Voice ARPU in relation to overall revenue.  This has many wireless operators in North America concerned.  There are many pundits who have various points of view on the subject and I will leave it up to them to sound off and claim superiority.

Today while watching ‘teh twitter’ Jevon was asking about 3G Data only devices. There were the replies and comments for devices such as Nokia 800/810, Peek Mail, Sony Mylo and a few others but none of them seemed to cover the whole need of what consumers are using or want in a mobile communications device.  Doesn’t anybody talk anymore?

I’m not too sure about the defined need for a dedicated data only device outside of a vertical market application such as something used by UPS or Purolator for mobile package tracking.  Certainly for the comsumer market there is a defined and proven need for a communications device that includes voice service.

As we move further away from the analogue age and further into the digital abyss, operators need to understand that voice services of yesterday are not the voice services of tomorrow.  VOIP anyone?

Perhaps it’s just us getting older and not having a need to actually ’speak’ to anyone.  I know for sure that the 18-28 demographic has no issue with actually speaking to someone and do so whenever they have the opportunity.

Now if you’ll excuse me I should call home.

Apple Who?

So I’m not a ‘MAC-head’ like some of my friends but I am very open minded about technology and I do actually use a Macbook Pro at work (running XP Pro in VMware mind you) and I was looking forward to the Macworld keynote today for all the usual reasons and one historical one.  According to Apple, this is the last Macworld Expo they will be present at,  and with that announcement they basically extinguished the relevance to Apple that Macworld is/was.

So it was with great disappointment that I repeatedly clicked refresh on the Gizmodo Liveblog for 90 minutes only to have Phil Schiller roll out on this historic last keynote a groundbreaking, world changing, earth shattering, software update!?

Really,  iLife 09, iWork 09, iWork.com, iTunes Pro and one hardware announcement a new Macbook Pro with a long lasting non-removable battery.  Talk about letting the wind out of the sails.

All the buildup from the multitude of “reliable sources” would indicate that Apple was going to make their last showing at Macworld an event to remember.  A new Mac Mini, an iPhone Nano, a new iMac, the solution to world discourse and all the stuff that makes Apple “Really Really Great” but there was none of that.  Those “reliable sources” really paid off.

These products will come, eventually, when we are not expecting them.  Apple is sneaky that way.

So Apple moves into the next phase with not a BANG but with a whimper and the Mac faithful keep trudging along in the cattle line looking for the next really great thing.

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to sync my iPhone.