Apple products all have a built-in accessibility function in them, so this allows people with disabilities to use technology. The accessibility features are free, with no cost involved when you purchase an Apple product. These features can include, VoiceOver, a screen-access technology, for the blind and visually impaired, computer voice to assist the disabled users.

As a community, we are not being use to its accessibility being a part of the development of product, we are use to it being a after thought, side bar or an add-on. Apple products are the only and first device to come up with such ideas to allow disable users to gain access to these technologies.

From this, I believe Apple is not only the dominating firm in its market but also building its brand image and reputation by acting more ethically. By investing in features to allow their technology accessible to everyone, or at least most people as possible. I believe, this would allow Apple to gain an extra market segment which other competitors don’t have and Apple will have a slight advantage over others as it continues to develop with such attitude.

Smartphones nowadays have,”become a centre of all our lives” said Freed-Finnegan. With such advancement in technology, Google is trying to take advantage of its usage by developing a product called Google Wallet. Googley future vision said by Finnegan is, “we definitely hope one day you can walk out of the house with your phone in your hand — and nothing else.” The plan is to have the Smartphone to be fully functional of using it as a credit card, transit pass, house key, corporate ID and many more daily necessities. 

The purpose of this is to avoid the action of pulling out a credit card to make a purchase, instead you get your Smartphone. The purchase happens by taping on an NFC reader (these are becoming more common in stores and are usually labelled “PayPass” along with a little radio-wave icon) to allow the transaction. 

In my opinion, Google has a great opportunity ahead of them and to be one of the first to have this technology to be completely functional. I think Google, sees a market gap and the potential in Smartphones to perform at such high performances. Whatever the investment may involve in developing this product, I believe it would be beneficial for Google to make that investment because Smartphone users are increasing significantly.

At the moment Amazon’s target of this new Kindle Fire is to compete with Apple’s market, as Amazon wants to be where Apple is at. By doing so, Amazon’s Fire tablet now has similar features to Apple like the ability to sell books, electronics, DVDs and video games.

Rim’s playbook doesn’thave the cool factors of Apple’s, therefore having BlackBerry to embarrassingly drop their prices of their tablet as they clearly weren’t able to compete with Apple at such high standards. It runs on Google’s Android, with only a seven-inch screen, no camera or 3G, and at $199 which is the cheapest iPad available. 

From this, we can clearly see the difference in the two products already and as BlackBerry’s vision for RIM PlayBook didn’t not go the exact route it wanted to, BlackBerry is trying their best to differentiate themselves from their competitors and finding market gaps to fill up.

As Kindle Fire is trying to compete with iPads, Amazon is providing free cloud storage for content such as e-books, as well as a free month of Amazon Prime,a membership-based program that provides access to the company’s movie- and TV-streaming service and discount shipping for $79 a year.

All in all, it is clear to state that the 3 companies are in the same market but their marketing strategies are all different as they all have their own unique flares to their tablets. RIM PlayBook goes for cheap tablets, Kindle Fire goes for a basic standard tablets, Apple goes for high quality and innovative tablets.

The new iPhone 4s was announced by Apple yesterday.

The iPhone has a duel core A5 chip which is up to twice as fast, then they completed redesigned the camera, which not only has 8 mega pixels but new optics. The main difference between iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s is “Siri”. Siri, is a whole new way of interacting with the iPhone using just your voice which acts like an amazing assistance that can answer your questions, listens to you, understands you, and it even complete tasks for you.

Apple has launched this new iPhone 4s with the same appearance of the old iPhone 4 but adding up to 200+ new features. This marketing strategy, is what I believe would attract most customers into lining up and buying the new iPhone 4s. Even though, people with iPhone 4, I believe what Apple is doing right now, will still  attract a large proportion of the current iPhone 4 users to change and buy the iPhone 4s, as the old iPhone isn’t capable of doing so.

The pricing strategy is unique. Apple has stopped selling the iPhone 3gs and limited the iPhone 4 to 8GB starting at a price of $99 which is a lot cheaper than when it was first launched. Then selling the iPhone 4s starting at $199 with 16GB which has more memory then the old iPhone 4. With such technique, I believe Apple will once again dominate the Smartphone market.