So Via BoingBoing I found this seriously geeky explanation of how Apple Devices decide what charger they are connected to and what they can do with it quite enlightening.

Basically the charger tells the iPhone/iWhatever device what current it can draw (0.5 Amp or 1 Amp it seems) by putting a voltage on the data line, which the iPhone senses. So when older chargers don’t put this voltage on the line, that’s why you get charging not supported….

For students of the Innovator’s Dilemma you can really see it at work in the reaction to the iPad. Matt’s comment:

If you’re going to put a desktop operating system onto a tablet device, you’re going to immediately alienate the vast majority of your potential customers. Note the word “potential”. Paradoxically, you may temporarily placate most of your existing customers, but you’re not innovating and you’re certainly leaving a lot of money on the table.

The iPad is really interesting, both as a device in its own right and also in how it will change our perception of how people interact with the computing world. I’ll also be interested in how other manufacturers react – I fear it’ll be rather similar to their reaction to the iPhone which is pretty much “Look, we know you think the iPhone is cool but it really isn’t because it is so limited. Here’s our phone which has all the features and complexities of our normal phones, with a few choice bits from the iPhone, and a load more stuff squidged on top”.

And of course, we all keep buying iPhones.

As an aside, the first views of Microsoft’s “Courier” Booklet have appeared. My initial impressions are:

• By the time it gets to market, the iPad will have set our expectations for this category of device.
• Wow, it looks powerful/complex – but in a way that I don’t really care about. If I want that power, I’ll use my Laptop.
• A pen! Wow that feels old fashioned now… (I know there are lots of good uses for a stylus, but…)
• Microsoft and their partners have a history of making a mess of this space.

The next 18 months will be interesting, both from the perspective of the cool tools we’ll all have at the end of it, but also watching the market dynamics play out. I’m sure there’s plenty of MBA case study material that will come out of this phase of the market.

Is there any question what Google is doing here? They’re taking the traditional mobile model in this country, where you first choose your carrier, and then choose your phone, and turning it upside down. It’s what Apple started with the iPhone.

The networks have always been used to being “The Brand” – traditionally you picked your network and then saw what phones you could get. Yet in essence they’re just providing a commodity (the connectivity) and most of the user experience is dictated by the phone the user holds in their hand.

Sadly the carriers seem completely unable to adapt to this changing world, and are still stuck in an old mindset of:

• Long term contracts with punishing penalties even if you want to upgrade your phone but stay with them.
• Completely opaque pricing so you can’t actually compare them properly.
• Bills which seem to bear no relation to what you were expecting to pay looking at their price list (which seems to be a Vodafone speciality in particular, but they’re all bad).
• Usurious roaming rates.
• Very restrictive conditions around data use (although this got better when Apple forced o2 to do the right thing for the iPhone)

Hopefully someone deep inside one of the carriers will realise there’s a competitive advantage to be had by stepping away from the old outdated model, and come up with a plan that:

• Has reasonable lock in period
• Allows you to upgrade as you wish for reasonable rates
• Transparent pricing
• Reasonable roaming rates (e.g. almost the same as normal domestic use)

It has got to happen at some point, surely?

As far as I can see, O2 and Orange are nearly the same except for the lowest pay monthly plan, which is slightly more generous from Orange, for the same price.

Vodafone is less generous in their monthly plans, unless you are seriously addicted to texting.

But then when you get into the additional stuff, it all becomes as clear as mud. For example, the o2 bolt ons mean you can get unlimited texting just as you can from Vodafone, for no extra charge.

And then there’s Tesco’s iPhone plan which is apparently provided by o2.

Of course, it is all so complex that no one really takes advantage of their cellphone plan, do they?

For work, what I really care about is the International Roaming charges, which again are as clear as mud.

I suspect this is one of those decisions where you could spend hours analysing it to save the grand total of 10p in the year. But you’ll never know.

So it’s down to an emotional decision – I’ve always had a bad customer experience with Vodafone (although their network is apparently better), O2′s been ok although they’ve been a bit cynical in their exploitation of iPhone users and their network is apparently not as good as the rest, and then Orange – my first phone was with Orange, and I’ve had no complaints, but that was years ago.

Shouldn’t this be easier?

Apparently there’s an “O2 Priority List” (is this new?) which I’ve never heard of before. Here’s what it means apparently:

• All customers continually spending over a minimum of £80.00 a month, receive a 6 month early upgrade
• All customers continually spending over a minimum of £50.00 a month, receive a 3 month early upgrade
• All customers continually spending a minimum of £35.00 a month, receive a 1 month early upgrade

I travel a lot and my phone bill is regularly over £100/month thanks to roaming charges, so I assume I’m at the higher level. Not that O2 has mentioned anything to me.

So let’s review.

• I wasn’t a valued customer until there was competition. O2 were happy to hold me captive and screw me for as much as they could.
• Now I have choices for my iPhone carrier, apparently I am a valued customer. Although they haven’t bothered to tell me.
• My contract ends in 3 months – so the “6 month early upgrade” would have been useful when I first tried to get an upgrade but now it’s just insulting.

Thanks O2, I think I’ll wait until January. I already know you don’t value my business and whilst I know the other carriers are probably as bad, at least I’ll have some choices about plans and probably cheaper International Roaming charges.

There’s a real market opportunity here for a carrier that treats customers as customers, not prisoners.

There’s some interesting economics here, as well as social effects. Apple have clearly done an excellent job enabling developers to write and sell applications, and iPhone customers have clearly taken to it. However, this makes for a very competitive market which is almost entirely sculpted by Apple’s design choices in the App Store and iTunes.

Watch this space…

• Most people buy an app, use it for 3 days or so, then abandon it.
• Apps are as much about entertainment as anything else. At 99 cents that’s pretty cheap entertainment.
• But the iPhone isn’t designed for that kind of app usage.

Apple designed Springboard – the iPhone equivalent of the Finder with an eye to Apps being, well, apps. You buy them, you use them, you keep most of them. But if we treat them as sources of entertainment too, then we want something which helps us categorise them just like we might do songs etc. because we’ve got a lot of them.

I’ve found myself having two classes of apps – core, serious apps, and fun stuff which I might play with for a bit and then forget about because I’ve had my fun. I now search for apps more than using Springboard. I tried the new iTunes App organiser but it doesn’t really help – no labelling, and apps still organise themselves when you add new ones.

So it’s a bit of a UI mess, ironically routed in the (probably) unexpected emergence of iPhone apps being more than just iPhone addons, but entertainment just like movies or music.

And that’s the interesting thing. We all thought iPhone Apps would be like Desktop apps and in fact they’ve turned out to be a mix – some are Apps in the Desktop sense and some are entertainment in the Music/Movie sense. I wonder if Apple are taken a little by surprise by this.

Ironically as I wrote this, Alex (6 years old) got bored of “Johnny Test” cartoon and asked to play with my iPhone. He’s happily playing some little game I downloaded a while ago. Interestingly his Nintendo DS is on the table, untouched…

Interestingly when I’m with an iPhone user, it’s not uncommon to play the “What iPhone apps do you have” game, and to discover a whole bunch of new and interesting ones.

I tried to upgrade my iPhone to the new 3GS model when they first came out. I would have happily paid and been locked into another contract with you, but I was told I’d have to wait until my contract expired – or pay the equivalent lump sum up front.

Now Vodafone and Orange will both be selling the iPhone by the time I can upgrade. At the very least your ability to premium-price has been diluted, and you can bet I’ll be looking at those two providers before O2 (because let’s face it, your network is nothing to write home about).

Kind of makes that policy of refusing upgrades a little bit silly, doesn’t it?

Here’s the deal – I’m an iPhone customer. The network I use is just a means to an end. When a new model comes out, I’m likely to want to upgrade. So within the bounds of economic reasonableness, let me get the phone I want and stay out of my way , and I’ll remain a customer. Keep me captive and I’ll leave as soon as I can.

Clearly with the App store they’ve got themselves a potential minefield as they act as Judge, Jury, and Executioner when deciding what iPhone Applications to list. That’s unavoidable given they want to act in a “Quality Guardian” but to some extent manageable if there’s transparency and predictability.

However, Apple are running things in a manner which is anything but transparent and predictable. Which gets people upset, and then they start talking to each other, and then at some point the dissatisfaction will get more widespread, Grandma will get Mad and then you’ve trashed a brand image that took years to develop.

Sadly Apple have never been all that good at treating Developers well – but with the iPhone, there are more of them, and they are more connected. Which spells trouble.

Someone in Apple must have set this conversation up. I wonder if they considered the fact that it would become public, and what kind of reaction would be forthcoming.

Fortunately the FCC want to know what’s going on, I suspect the European Commission will find it interesting to.

Such a pity – this is corporate self-harm, so easily avoidable – makes you wonder what the communication paths are inside Apple/AT&T/Google, and what the various players are pushing for.