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28-Mar-2007

Apple’s three screens opportunity

Filed under: Events, Wireless — Bill Day @ 10:30 am

MarketWatch ran a story out of AT&T’s CTIA keynote yesterday on the wireless industry seeing opportunity in ‘three screens’.

Of course this three screens idea is nothing new. The importance of TV and mobile phone screens joining into the computer screen fun is something that’s been anticipated, discussed, and written about in mobile circles for years. What is interesting to me is that, perhaps for the first time, there is a company in place that has a reasonable chance to simultaneously capitalize on all three screens: Apple.

Mac sales are doing well. Apple TV has launched. And iPhone has already generated more than 1 million customer inquiries to AT&T three months before it even launches.

If done right, the elegant and simple Apple way, these products taken together represent a tremendous “three screens” opportunity. With iTunes as the digital hub, content can be consumed on any of a consumer’s three screens, when and how they want, at work, at home, and on the move.

One could argue that Microsoft has a similar chance with Windows, XBox 360, and Windows Mobile. The interoperability between the three, however, is not as streamlined and therefore not as consumer friendly as the Apple solutions, which are cleanly tied together through iTunes. And according to news reports, Xbox Live has something like 6 million users versus more than 100 million iTunes users, giving Apple a very significant advantage in the number of eyeballs potentially leveragable across all three screens.

The opportunity is tremendous. Heck, even the Chairman of the FCC seems to get it. I sure hope Apple fully realizes it by providing developers with the access they need to all three screens.

iTunes is the glue that enables Apple's three screens play

5 Comments »

  1. [...] and opportunity, two sides of the same coin. If Apple’s right, the world is at their doorstep. If not, NOK may be looking better in a few months… Digg this | | [...]

    Pingback by BillDay.com » Dvorak advises Apple to dump iPhone — 28-Mar-2007 @ 3:14 pm

  2. [...] Day on Apple’s three screens opportunity. Apple has become a content distribution powerhouse with iTunes. Can they leverage that into IPTV [...]

    Pingback by Carnival of the Mobilists #67 at Wap Review — 2-Apr-2007 @ 7:09 am

  3. [...] “Apple’s three screens opportunity” got the nod with Wap Review commenting: Apple has become a content distribution powerhouse [...]

    Pingback by BillDay.com » Of iTunes, EMI, and Carnival 67 — 3-Apr-2007 @ 11:35 am

  4. iPhoneMatters.com linked to my blog noting:

    With Apple already holding a pretty strong foot in the door of the desktop platform and Apple TV securing the T.V side of things, it’s only a matter of time before the third platform is combined when the iPhone is released this June.

    Comment by Bill Day — 4-Apr-2007 @ 11:41 am

  5. InformationWeek linked to my blog post commenting:

    Bill Day at BillDay.com ponders the possibility that the iPhone will allow Apple to capture all three screens — the desktop, the TV, and the mobile phone. Right now Apple looks pretty well-positioned for an integrated multimedia platform: The Mac is strong, iTunes is still dominant, Apple has launched Apple TV, and in June the iPhone will complete the company’s offerings.

    Comment by Bill Day — 4-Apr-2007 @ 11:42 am

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