Nokia would choose to hold the iPhone launch conference on the first day of 2002, which shows that they have enough confidence in this product and have the confidence to challenge the status of Mphone in the high-end field.
It’s not that there are no mobile phone companies that want to make mobile phones priced above US$500. Giants such as Motorola, Nokia, Sony, and Samsung have all tried, but the problem is that consumers don’t buy it.
Everyone knows the benefits of being a high-end brand, especially a global brand like Nokia. They had previously thought about adopting a sub-brand model, imitating the relationship between Volkswagen and Audi, and launched a sub-brand like Rittal in 1998 that focused on the high-end market.
When Nokia's definition of Rittal was to use luxurious gems and luxury leather to create high-end mobile phones, Zhou Xin launched the Mphone.
From a pure price point of view, Rittal's price of tens of thousands of dollars is obviously a few steps ahead of Mphone, but in terms of overall revenue and future mobile phone development direction, Mphone is obviously far ahead.
No one can guarantee which direction mobile phones will develop in the future. Zhou Xin's fame and the success of Mphone have proved to peers that Internet-based mobile phone applications may be the right way to go.
Therefore, Nokia has invested a lot of effort in the iPhone, hoping to create a good enough Internet phone, which will also help Nokia capture the market of more than 500 US dollars.
At present, among the global mobile phone brands, only Matrix can be said to have established a firm foothold with prices above US$500. Even if there are other mobile phone brands selling such expensive phones, their sales are very impressive.
Finnish time is five hours behind Yanjing time, so when Zhou Xin woke up, Nokia's press conference was over. He found the summary email about iPhone sent to him by the Matrix market analysis department from his mailbox.
For the first time, iPhone is equipped with NFC function, providing users with new options. Users can bind their credit cards to their phones through NFC function.
In this way, users can complete payments through their iPhones. This is because electronic payments in the European region have only been opened up. NewPay just obtained the electronic payment license in the European region last month. Electronic payments in the European region are far less mature than Amerikan.
It just so happened that the NFC chip designed by STMicroelectronics came into use. Nokia and STMicroelectronics created the NFC function. Nokia hopes to use this function that Mphone does not have to achieve overtaking in the Europa region.
After Zhou Xin saw it, he thought it was a bit funny. Nowadays, the NFC function is somewhat whimsical, because for the NFC chip to work, the POS machine that needs to swipe the card also has an NFC chip.
What's the use of having an NFC chip on your end now? Of course, it can also be promoted, but for supermarkets, it also costs money to replace it.
When NewPay promotes QR codes, it takes a lot of effort to replace the manufacturer's scanning equipment with cameras that support QR code scanning. This is based on NewPay's tens of millions of users in Amerikan.
Of course, iPhone is also preloaded with NewPay, and like Mphone, it supports all NewPay functions.
At the same time, iPhone is equipped with Chat similar to Weibo and Internet, and Weibo is called Nokia Show.
They understand Weibo as a kind of show, a display of your life.
Although Weibo now plays more of this role, fans of key politics are still in the minority, and the power of key politics only gradually grew after September.
When Nokia designed this feature, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were still alive, and their understanding of Weibo was display.
Finally, there is the app store. Nokia has launched a store similar to Mphone, which allows you to change mobile applications on your computer. It also asked EA, Ubisoft and Nintendo to help them create several high-quality mobile games.
A lot of space at the press conference was devoted to games. It can be seen that Nokia has quickly grasped the focus of Internet mobile phones. At least just for games, many users will pay for it.
The early promotion of personal computers was mainly for business offices and electronic games.
After reading it, Zhou Xin felt threatened, but not too strong.
Because the iPhone's native application design is far less perfect than the Mphone, what's more important is the chip. The Mphone's chip is at least three years ahead of the entire era in the field of commercial mobile chips.
About a month before the iPhone launch, Zhou Xin knew the specific parameters of Nokia’s mobile phone chip, Intel’s XScale chip designed based on the ARM v5 architecture.
This chip is to fill Intel's gap in low-power processors. Nokia uses the first generation product in the XScale series: PXA25x
PXA25x has three frequency versions: 200MHz, 300MHz, and 400MHz. According to Zhou Xin's speculation, there is a high probability that it is the 200MHz version, a small probability that it is the 300MHz version, and it is almost impossible to be the 400MHz version.
Because of power consumption, the higher the frequency, the higher the power consumption.
Zhou Xin was very familiar with Intel's XScale series of chips. Later, when he chatted with Intel engineers, Intel internally regretted this series of chips, thinking that it was because of missing XScale that it had missed out on the dividends of the mobile Internet for more than ten years. Expect.
PXA25x is Intel's first product to enter mobile chips. Intel was originally built for handheld computers, so it will pay attention to power consumption, but not so much.
Mobile phones and handheld computers have completely different battery life requirements. The Mphone's battery life of 6 hours with high-frequency use and 10 hours with low-frequency use has been criticized by users. It is also the main reason why Mphone opponents on online forums attack Mphone.
"Only a weak-minded person would spend $599 to buy a phone that only lasts for 6 hours."
This is like attacking ideal users and focusing on them buying electric cars just to buy sofas, refrigerators and color TVs. Attacking NIO users, focusing on buying JAC cars.
As for Xiaopeng, the name alone does not require any more words from opponents.
The battery life of handheld computers is generally about 3 hours, so the PXA25x does not strike a good balance between battery life and performance.
Therefore, Zhou Xin estimates that the power consumption of iPhone is most likely 200MHz, which also determines that when it is first launched, there will be bugs due to insufficient performance and support for loading too many apps.
But Zhou Xin knew that he could not let down his guard at all, because giants like Nokia reacted very quickly.
From a historical perspective, Nokia's collapse in the mobile phone field seems to have happened in just a moment. In the face of this era, Zhou Xin still felt strong pressure.
Because of the hurricane effect he brought, it is very likely that Nokia will pay more attention to the mobile Internet than later generations, so that it will not have much first-mover advantage.
Of course, Zhou Xin knows that with Samsung's chip technology, he will definitely be able to occupy a place in the mobile Internet era. What he worries about is that he will not be able to occupy Apple's position in future generations.
Judging from the product design of the Nokia version of iPhone, Zhou Xin did not read Nokia's arrogance at all. They drew heavily on Mphone's successful experience in apps.
Zhou Xin put down his Mphone and frowned. He was thinking about whether to launch a touch-screen Mphone this year.
It is better to wait until the technology becomes more mature next year before launching it.
Because Mphone's sales are very good, it is also struggling against its competitors, and Matrix's patent accumulation in the field of touch screens is not enough. This year, it can achieve the results he expected, but it is still not that interesting.
Therefore, Mphone can definitely last for another year. When the second-generation Mphone is launched next year, it will definitely beat other mobile phone brands.
In addition, Americen will not launch 3G until 2003, so Zhou Xin believes that next year is a good time.
However, the update frequency is too slow, and there are such big changes from the first generation to the second generation. This will cause users to have higher and higher expectations for Mphone, which is not a good thing.
Seeing Zhou Xin's sad face, Li Jingyi asked, "What's wrong? Nokia's new product is so effective that it puts too much pressure on you?"
Zhou Xin returned to China this time and brought Li Jingyi with him. Originally, Zhou Xin wanted to go to Shenhai to meet and chat with Hu Zhengming and Lin Benjian, the core backbones of Xinxin Technology.
As a result, they all went back to America for Christmas and New Year's Day.
This is the good thing about Americen's executives in China. They can take both Christmas and Spring Festival off, which is equivalent to two long vacations.
Zhou Xin said: “No, Nokia doesn’t put much pressure, at least not now.
I was thinking about something else. "
Li Jingyi: “Well, I took a history of technology class at Berkeley last semester. The professor in this class spoke very highly of Mphone and believed that Mphone represented the future development direction.
Then I asked everyone in class, which one do you think is the best application for Mphone?
There are various answers, including "Prince of Persia", "Doodle Jump" and so on. "
Doodle Jump is a mobile game independently developed by Flamingo. It is entirely their own idea and Zhou Xin did not interfere.
But after seeing this game, although the game art was different, the gameplay was very similar. Zhou Xin quickly associated it with Doodle Jump, and then decided to call it Doodle Jump.
This small game priced at US$2.99 sold 500,000 copies within half a year of its launch, making it the highest-selling APP on the Mphone.
Li Jingyi asked: "Do you know which application the professor thinks is the best?"
Zhou Xin said: "Obviously it is the Mphone store. Only with the Mphone store can there be subsequent applications.
I could even tell what he was trying to say. "
Li Jingyi opened her eyes wide with an incredulous look on her face: "What do you want to say?"
Zhou Xin said: “He definitely wants to compare Intel’s 4004 chip with Mphone.
It is believed that Intel's 4004 chip opened the era of personal PCs, and the Mphone store opened the era of mobile Internet. "
Li Jingyi was completely shocked because Zhou Xinquan got it right, "Have you ever taken this course?"
Zhou Xin thought to himself, it’s hard to get me, “No, but this is a logic.
As a professor at Berkeley, he is obviously well-informed. He believes that Mphone represents the future development direction. If it wants to reach such a high level, wouldn't it have to be compared with the wintel alliance that dominated the PC era like Intel and Microsoft?
Then he asked which application is the best. Only with the Mphone store can there be other applications. If there is no Mphone store, then there is no essential difference between the Mphone and other mobile phones.
The Mphone store is similar to Intel's 4004 chip. Before the 4004 chip, the functions of the chip were well defined. If you want to change the functions, you can only change the hardware first. After the birth of the 4004 chip, users only need to change the instructions to enable the chip to achieve different functions.
The software industry was born. Mphone store has done something similar. "
(End of chapter)
