New phone manufacturers
I was checking out Google moderator the other day ,when I came across this interesting answer from computer science legend/father of UNIX Ken Thompson to a question on Androids future comptetiveness in the mobile space…
Someone asked:
“Android, will it be able to compete with Apple or Symbian.How long it has to go?”
Ken Thompson answered with:
“Eventually all smart phones are going to look similar and the popularity of a phone will be based on other factors such as service contract, price, coverage, support, user interface, etc. Android will probably stay in the mix simply because it is an easy way for new phone manufacturers to get into the game.”
I think Thompson is spot on here. When you consider the companies that are behind the smartphones we see around us everyday, among them are virtually no smaller players. Fifteen guys working on a new smartphone out of a house somewhere in California is a picture that may seem a bit hard to imagine. The major reason for this is probably because the phone OS selection has basically been consolidated among a set of fairly similar devices by the existing big players in the mobile space.
Android is (in my opinion) a seriously disruptive OS, because it distributes the power to port a largely customizable OS on to any number of devices, including ones that a couple guys with a couple of ideas can build themselves. So, just as the 90’s was an era filled with some guys in a garage cooking up the next big website, The 2010’s will have largely the same type of climate, except smartphones will be where most of the action is. Developments in the web will be a direct result of the developments within the smartphone web space. This mostly means that as mobile computing becomes more sophisticated, the web apps that we use (both mobile and desktop) will follow.
No smartphone is perfect and most smartphones are ‘just ok’. Increasingly, we have to settle with a particular phone because of certain reasons. If smaller companies and startups were able to create their own devices, we would probably start being able to find a “perfect” smart phone for us. I don’t think consumers are as loyal to brands as most people think, especially when something clearly better comes out. If it looks better, feels better, and is easier to use, that smartphone will almost surely make that person consider a new phone. If a greater number of companies came out with their own smartphones built on top of their special Android mix, then we would all have more and better choices of smartphones overall. I think Android will play a large role when the mobile space reflects this environment in the 2010’s.
Read it here
Photo by - brianfling
How does the current economy influence smartphone technology?
The economy. It’s a topic on everyones mind these days and very much a primary factor in whats taking place at the consumer level with smartphones. All the news we read about the latest phones dropping are a direct result of this and the degree that we are all affected by the economy heavily influences our choices in mobile communication. If you’re reading this, chances are you either have a smartphone or are around people that use smartphones as their primary means of communication. When discussing a vast abstract concept such as “the economy” and a complex ecosystem like “smartphones” there is quite a bit to take into consideration. In this post, I’ll explain a few of my observations in regards to how the global recession thats currently taking place is influencing smartphone technology.
Form Factors
A popular talking point that has been widely adopted by the media and the blogosphere is the “iPhone vs. every other phone” discussion. The argument here is that the iPhone revolutionized the way consumers view smartphones and the process of developing applications for smartphones. The post iPhone mobile landscape was one of every other mobile phone company trying to release touch screen phones, their own app store, whatever they could to get a product out there that somehow competes with the iPhone. One aspect of Apple and the iPhone that isn’t widely discussed are processes that occurred at Apple in order to create this climate. By establishing touch as the main focal point of the modern smartphone experience, Apple intentionally forced competitors to allocate resources faster than they otherwise would have in order to get their competing phones to market. All Apple had to do at this point was sit back, run commercials, and let the hype machine run with the notches turned all the way up to 11. Today, the form factors that smartphones appear in are a direct result of how that particular company allocates their industrial design resources. With declining revenues and consumers being more careful about what they spend their money on, companies are having to be as efficient as possible with the form factors that they deliver smartphones in. Consumers today have increasing demands with what they expect in mobile devices and pulling a waterworld with a newly released device can be devastating.
Calling Plans
When people everywhere have less disposable income, all monthly bills are assessed. Saving $20 a month on your phone plan by reducing the number of minutes that you use every month is something people everywhere have been doing to reduce expenses. Some people have even ditched smartphones with the accompanying data plan and gone back to standard phones. These specific consumer actions in aggregate have effects all the way up the chain. And by chain, I mean a corporations bottom line. Carriers and manufacturers have greater incentive in today’s economic climate to deliver competitive data plans in order to lure consumers to purchase a smartphone on their network. Lots of people want smartphones, but not everyone can pay $80 a month for that data plan. One of the primary selling points of the G1 was that you could get a decent plan( 600 minutes + 250 text messages + unlimited data) for $60 a month. I would say a plan such as that would be “competitive” by todays data plan standards and a $90 a month plan for an iPhone to be “unreasonable”. When you’ve been looking for a job for months because you’ve been laid off, having the unlimited internet and twitter apps on your phone quickly becomes a luxury. In the current economic climate, families and people everywhere have had to go back and evaluate the value that they place on their mobile devices and their resulting monthly use.
Marketing
Marketing is one aspect of a company’s plan when bringing a smartphone to market. I don’t think its a primary aspect on the ground level with consumers, because no matter how slick a campaign is, if you can’t afford a $200 phone then you simply can’t afford it. Despite this, companies are having to be more savvy in their advertising delivery in effort to (again) allocate resources efficiently. Advertising is a investment and if the returns (consumer purchases) aren’t optimal, then companies have to evaluate how they are trying to sell their phones to consumers.
R & D
This is probably one of the single most important factors that can deliver benefits to both companies and consumers. How companies engage in research and development is directly related to the type of devices they release. With declining marketshare, revenues, and employee reductions, companies are having to be very smart in what they choose to develop. A R & D cycle that leads to vaporware is unacceptable today. Companies want innovations that they develop to hit the streets as soon as possible because the quicker these technologies are released the faster a company could move ahead of competitors in the marketplace. Currently, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Palm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson (to a degree), RIM, and HTC are in a race to deliver the most cutting edge smartphones to consumers. Companies like IBM and Intel are acting as secondary market participants that are helping develop some of the underlying technologies that power these phones. How does a company know exactly what consumers want? To answer this look no further than the phone you have in your pocket and how satisfied you are with it.
Intel x Nokia
Didn’t see this one coming. But then again, Intel the world’s biggest chipslinger was always looking to make a major push into the mobile arena. In a press release titled “Intel and Nokia Announce Strategic Relationship to Shape the Next Era of Mobile Computing Innovation” (read it here), Intel outlines their plans to move forward with Nokia to work on the future of mobile computing and translate the two corporations joint research into action. Intel also announces that they will license Nokia’s HSPA/3G modem technologies. This was an excellent scoop on Intels part and will also allow Nokia to leverage their existing technologies in more strategic ways.
Kai Öistämö (Executive Vice President of Devices at Nokia) says…
“We will explore new ideas in designs, materials and displays that will go far beyond devices and services on the market today. This collaboration will be compelling not only for our companies, but also for our industries, our partners and, of course, for consumers.”
This isn’t a partnership that we will see immediate products and technolgies from, but in the long term this collaboration will pay dividends. Another major aspect of this teamup is the collaboration on open source software and coordinating their open source investments. This includes moblin and maemo. Although symbian wasn’t explicitly mentioned, I’m personally hoping to see Intel contribute to that project as well.
So what does this mean for the future devices that will be hitting the streets? I would definitely expect to see a wider array of chips in Nokia phones. Possibly even faster and more specialized processors in their smartphone lines and most definitely a Nokia tablet with an Intel processor in it.
Read the press release at Nokia here.
Photos in photo by stefan, james nash, and somewhat frank.
Mobile social media / Augmented reality
I normally try to avoid the phrase “social media” but since thats what is used to describe the current crop of popular web apps, I’ll make an exception and use it in the title of this post. This article @computerworld describes the concept of “SoMo” or rather “Social Mobile Media”. Social mobile media encompasses funtionality that web apps such as brightkite and radar offer. The main theme of SoMo is being able to do the things you do with web applications on your laptop or desktop on mobile devices. With the ability to create social networks on the go and connect to your friends in the same area as you, serendipity(one of the more pleasant surprises in life) will occur more often in our lives. In the article the author mentions that…
“How we experience the real world will increasingly be augmented and enhanced through the screen of a mobile phone.”
then links to a service I had never heard of before called ‘Layar’. The theme here is ‘augmented reality’. If you are wondering what that is, this Nokia research video shows whats up with it…
Widespread adoption of this technology will be very dependent on how its marketed and how current and future smartphones utilize it. Speaking of which, heres what it looks like on a G1…
I think its safe to say that much of this is still in the R & D phase, but if you live in the Netherlands and you have a G1 or G2, you can check this out now. According their website, Layar should be dropping in the states sometime this year. In the meantime, G1 owners should check out Wikitude for a glimpse of what augmented reality is all about.
Photo by - epredator
IBM stepping in the mobile game
IBM recently announced a $100 million investment pool devoted to mobile phone research. With this large investment sum, IBM hopes to become more involved in the future of smartphone technology. I wouldn’t expect to see IBM phones or anything, but a lot of the innovations that IBM will develop will definitely be folded into future smartphones. In particular, IBM is aiming to improve user interface functionalities, mobile phone security, and the enterprise use of mobile devices.
More than anything, this signals IBM’s vision as being a major player in the mobile space. IBM has the capacity and capabilities to bring many innovations to mobile devices and could possibly develop the processors that power our phones just like they have developed the processors that power our video game consoles.
Looking at the telecom section of IBM’s smarter planet initiative, IBM lays out their vision for what they hope to accomplish and this $100 million investment is one of the first steps toward getting them and by extension us there.
This research will be taking place across IBM’s eight global research facilities.
Photo by - Alice Bartlett
