AT&T, the sole U.S. service provider for Apple’s first phone, said it activated 146,000 iPhone subscribers in the first two days after launch on June 29. Apparently, this was well below analysts expectations for the device, resulting in over a 6% drop for Apple’ stock price in one day.

The much hyped iPhone is supposed to revolutionize the cellular market, providing easy access to online video through YouTube and the iTunes video store. I am surprised that the iPhone did not meet analysts expectations in light of the intense marketing campaign and non-stop press coverage.

By all accounts, iPhones were selling out throughout the U.S. on the weekend of its release. I wonder how many of those sales were by people looking to make a quick buck on Ebay, similar to the release of the Sony Playstation 3. A quick look on Ebay shows iPhones being sold for over $1,000. Ouch!

One interesting side note to the Apple story is that the stock price for AT&T, Apple’s partner with the iPhone, was up for the day.

The Apple iPhone was released last Friday and has already reportedly sold over 500,000 copies. We also heard last week that the device will even play YouTube videos! Wowee!

But there are already two major problems:

1. iPhone users being forced to use itunes
2. At&T possibly stopping YouTube videos due to copyright policy

Looking at the Joost interface it will be obvious to many that this is something that you could imagine on your TV screen. In fact, the first moment I saw Joost I thought that’s exactly where the company wants to take it.

Mike Volpi, the new CEO of Joost arriving from Cisco. told The New York Times that:

Joost is a piece of software and it can reside on a variety of platforms… It could be on a television set-top box. Or potentially it could be imbedded in a TV set with an Ethernet connection, or on a mobile phone, or in some alternative device that might come out in the future. The flexibility is really high.”

Possible Set Top Box Partners

But who will this STB partner be? Joost could theoretically just go out there and strike a deal with any STB manufacturer to create a Joost IPTV box that will bring Joost to the TV set.

However, I’ll put my money on the fact that they are also waiting for a deal with a popular brand with a large consumer base.

Let's look at the options:

According to Om Malik, Akimbo will now be sending their hardware line to the undertakers which will see the end to the Akimbo RCA VOD box.

The company will now be switching its focus to licensing to the AT&T Homezone package, attracting new content partners and its new XP/Vista VOD software client.

New AT&T chairman and CEO, Randall Stephenson, who has moved up from the company’s position as Chief Operating Officer (COO), has announced that "TV will be the next multibillion-dollar business for our company".

Like many other traditionally telco companies AT&T is moving into the triple play field and offering TV, internet and phone services together. Here is a brief run-down on what AT&T does with a focus on broadband video:

MobiTV has announced it is working with AT&T to bring the AT&T U-Verse IPTV service to cell phone screens. MobiTV will be contributing its own licensed video content and eventually be adding video from the U-Verse package.

AT&T Homezone is a mish-mash IPTV/satellite TV service which features live TV from the DISH network, movie downloads from MovieLink and TV shows from Akimbo. The Homezone box does support DVR functionality but is not High Definition (HD) ready.