Apple’s September event & how other markets will shake

Apple is on a roll. There is no doubt about it. What’s amazing is how quickly Apple has started to attack other monopolies. I’d be very afraid if I were fighting against them. Let me explain:

As of the writing of this article, Apple’s laptops are the third highest selling, the iPhone was the best selling smartphone in July (or was it August), and Apple already has a monopoly on music players and media distribution via iTunes. Whatever Apple enters, they slowly start to dominate as they provide their unique touch which has not only caught the customer’s eye, but also the media’s.

With the introduction of the items below, I believe Apple is poised to chip away even more at telecom providers and hardware manufacturers.

1) The wi-fi store

2) Make your own ringtone via iTunes

3) The iPod Touch

Take the ringtone maker, for example. Ringtone downloads are a lucrative product for telecom WAP portals all over the world. Now, Apple will own that. How fast and for how many people? Not sure, but seeing that they just dropped the price of the iPhone and that worldwide rollout is slowly starting.. it may be only a matter of time.

If you are a telecom provider and just invested in a music download service, well.. Apple just put a big target on that market with the whole wi-fi store and free Starbucks access to iTunes service. Sure, it may be at least a year a way before it’s fully rolled out, but when it is.. another chip away from telecom providers.

On the hardware side, Nokia has been trying desperately to create this new type of product called an internet tablet. I was seriously contemplating getting one at one point (the N800).. no more. Not when the iPod touch can do ‘almost’ everything it was trying to do, but better + music & videos. I say ‘almost’ because it’s not clear to me yet whether the iPod touch will have a microphone so that you can install a Gizmo Project / Skype client on it to make VoIP calls over the wifi.. and further chip away at telecom provider’s airtime minutes and internet tablet sales (if the microphone isn’t built in the iPod Touch, perhaps they’ll make a dock-port accesory that allows it).

In conclusion, Apple is the new media darling with the Midas touch. Their September event released the wifi store, ringtone maker, a new Nano, a new iPod Classic, and the iPod Touch.. all significant upgrades, and all respectable. The iPod Touch will truly be the indicator of where gadget will be headed over the next few years, and who will truly own media distribution on the mobile device. These are interesting times.