All Your Pockets are Belong To Us: An Apple Cell Phone Service?

If you’ve ever spent time in a Las Vegas Casino chances are that you noticed the garish colors. Honestly the average casino is to the eyes what a mouthful of Altoids, 

Mega Warheads and Dave’s Insanity Sauce is to taste buds so it is difficult focus on any one thing for more than the briefest of moments. Still, if you manage to watch someone at a slot machine you’ll witness some interesting behavior. Most of the would be quarter Barons sit in front of the slot machine with glassy eyed look halfway between total boredom and abject apathy. The players pull the handle again and again with all the enthusiasm of someone getting paid minimum wage for flipping burgers.  Seemingly it is as if they are reacting reflexively to a unignorable stimulus instead of enjoying the experience in the slightest. The sight leaves one perplexed as to why the gamers are spending their money for such a thoroughly unpleasant looking experience. Many psychologists would say these people have gambling issues and are, in essence, compelled to gamble. They will further tell you that the condition is often brought on by initial success. If the current rumors about Apple starting a cellular phone service are to be believed the company has a newly found bad jones for pocket sized consumer gadgetry and the precursor was the success of the iPod.

So, if Apple starts a cell phone service, we can be certain of one thing: Apple loves being in your pocket. Sure the iPod shuffle comes with a lanyard to wear around your neck but it is really the back pocket Apple is eyeing, the pocket that houses your wallet. One taste of music player success will have, if the prognostication is accurate, compelled Apple to recast the corporation into a company that wants to be with you all the time. Which is completely understandable, every company wants to make a buck. They may be filled with individuals with good intentions but at the end of the day good intentions pay for jack and his good brother while a cash flow pays for everything else. In any event an Apple branded cell phone end around represents both an attempt to become all-pervasive (iPods may be popular but cell phones are seen as a necessity) and a serious attempt to ride the wave of hipness Apple enjoyed with the iPod.

Apple’s fervent hope at recreating the success of the iPod aside, there are a plethora of reasons to immediately dismiss the rumor. The high cost for entry into an oversaturated unloved hypercompetitive market is reason enough to chalk the rumor up the wild imaginings of ether huffing Apple fanatics. It would be the zenith of foolhardiness to imagine Apple erecting cell phone towers across the nation in a bid to capture a Mac sized chunk of the mobile phone market. Another idea that was bandied about ever so briefly centered on the plan that Apple would use their existing stores as locales for the cellular hardware. Which seems logical for a moment but when one reflects on the relative paucity of Apple stores throughout the United states it becomes clear that unless the fine engineers at Apple have divined a method for a cell phone signal to travel from, say, Kansas City to Grand Island, Nebraska the idea is half witted at best.

Yet the concept is not completely unworkable, there are viable options. Apple could, with their massive cash reserves, purchase an existing cell phone carrier. The downside in that scenario is that Apple wouldn’t only be buying the cell phone carrier they would be buying all the headaches that accompany jumping in to a completely unfamiliar market. The more likely option is that Apple, assuming for the sake of argument that Apple is getting into cell phones, will become a value added reseller. That means that Apple would contract with an established carrier and offer Apple branded cell service. The challenge with this scenario is the “value added” part, what might Apple bring to the table that say, Verizon, doesn’t? (Perhaps a semblance of customer service would be enough in the case of Verizon)

So what is it Apple can offer that others can’t? The one button cell phone of course. Wait, that was just a joke. What Apple can bring is great hardware design and easy to use cell phones that work with with existing OS X iLife applications. At this point people will surely point out that there are already phones that you can sync with your computer. That observation is true enough but there is a huge difference between a phone that can be synced and a seamless (or even pleasant) experience. Couple this with the ever expanding services offered by wireless companies (fast internet, music etc.) and it becomes evident that there will be ample opportunity for Apple to take something overly complicated, onerous and, via excellent design and engineering, produce something that is truly best of breed.

While there are opportunities for streamlining and increasing ease of use there are no guarantees that Apple can actually take advantage of them. If Apple can make a cell phone as easy to use as an iPod and as good looking as an iMac they certainly have reasons to investigate the market. Couple that with an opportunity to expand the market of the iTunes store and give people more reasons to use all of the iApps and it almost makes sense. The big worry is that blatant foray into the wireless market is that it would mark a significant change at Apple. The more things a company does the fewer exemplary products emerge. I, for one, would prefer an Apple squarely focused on computers.