iPhone is Already Nearly 40% of Apple's Business - Page 2

Jobs' surprise appearance

Steve Jobs isn't known for appearing on the conference calls, it's usually Oppenheimer and Tim Cook, chief operating officer, who handle the analyst questions. So his presence on the call was a bit of a surprise.

"Some remarkable things are happening at Apple, but everything is set against the backdrop of this global economic slowdown, so this seemed like a good time to go back and answer some questions," he said.

Among the news from Apple's head honcho: tomorrow, the App Store will cross the 200 million mark in downloads. Currently, the App Store, which serves iPhone and iPod Touch customers, has been up for just 102 days but has 5,500 apps and is in 62 countries.

As to the economy, Jobs prefaced his comments with "let me say we are not economists." He then said that Apple has "the best customers in the world" who are more likely to delay a purchase than switch to something cheaper. He also said Apple has a minority share of its markets (except the iPod) and it only takes a few percentage points of customers to increase its position substantially.

"This downturn may also present some extra opportunities for companies that have the cash to take advantage of them like Apple does," he said, but would not say what those opportunities were.

Don't expect an iPhone family of phones anytime soon

He shot down creating a "price umbrella" for iPhone, meaning there would not be multiple models as is standard in the cell phone industry.

"The traditional game in the phone market has been to produce a voice phone in a hundred varieties. As software becomes the differentiating factor in this market… I think developers will find that creating a hundred variations of a product isn't very appealing. We're comfortable with a strategy of being a software platform company," he said.

There will also be no low-end Macs. "We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk. Our DNA will not let us ship that. We've seen success focusing on certain segments of the market. Will stick to it and add more value to those products in those customer bases we choose to serve," said Jobs.