Sling, Skype, now Qik – no mojo on iPhone
Posted on August 14th, 2009 by mj
Qik for iPhone has arrived. (iTunes link)
Why is Apple doing this?
It’s very simple. It’s because of this graph from Flickr.
Now, that’s for Flickr. For still images. The Carriers are TERRIFIED that people like you and I will start to do the same with our videos. Our videos which can be many, many megabytes in size, heading up to Qik for immediate streaming down again to dozens or even hundreds of users.
This is exactly why Sling was also ‘disabled’ and limited to WiFi and it’s why Skype has had it’s mojo removed as well – it’s the carriers. They’re as afraid of losing revenue (for voice minutes) as they are about their networks falling over as their hollow promises are realised.
This is why we need rree, muni WiFi everywhere.
I think Apple also wants to play up the “publish to MobileMe capability”.
I don’t think they’re playing it up the way they could. Apple are very pragmatic – despite how the developer community would like to castigate them.
Apple doesn’t break contracts. To get the iPhone accepted on favourable terms (for Apple) they’ll have made concessions to AT&T. And until the exclusivity changes this will affect all of us.
Remember – three years ago the iPhone was not a sure thing.