03 4th, 2008An interesting post on the Google Code blog:
I played with some haptic feedback devices at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month and was really disappointed. The vibration comes from somewhere in the back of the phone — from a specific location where the vibrating buzzer is. In other words, the haptic feedback comes from a location not associated with the area with which you’re interacting. For me, it was a distraction rather than a feedback
I love the concept, but in practice it’s not there yet.
An interesting trend is emerging: the downward percolation (can you say that?) of the stylus/touchscreen to mid-range devices. (I define mid-range as $75-$150.) While the consumer electronics business has always had a steady trickle-down of features from high-end to mid-range to low-end, touchscreen devices never made that migration. The assumption was that touchscreen features were too expensive / bulky / overwhelming to succeed in the basic / fashion-conscious / mass-consumer markets.
The frenzy over the iPhone has changed all that. (How much impact has the iPhone had on industry attitudes to touchscreen interfaces? I attended more than one meeting last Spring in which a participant started a sentence with, “Since January 8th…” — i.e., since the iPhone marketing launch. That was before the product was even released in June.)
Of course, Apple were not the first to realize the power of the touchscreen. They just executed so well that no one could afford to ignore direct input anymore. The market response with “iPhone killers” (many of which were planned for release well before the iPhone was announced, of course) is only the beginning.
Take a look at Palm’s Centro:
The higher Centro sales, though, are another case of good news/bad news. It’s great the the Centro is more popular than even Palm had expected, but its low cost (and thus low margin) must sting a little. [via Treo Central]
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Over the past 18 months, almost every major cell phone manufacturer has come out with a product to address this market. RIM introduced the BlackBerry Pearl, a slimmer version of its BlackBerry device with an abbreviated QWERTY keyboard for typing. Motorola came out with the Q, and Samsung introduced the BlackJack.
But up to this point, price has been a major barrier to truly penetrating the consumer market. Most “consumer”-oriented smart phones have still been initially priced above $300. The iPhone retailed initially for $500 and $600. Prices are starting to come down, but experts say the hefty price tag of these devices has prevented them from reaching the mass market. [via ZDNet]
Mid-range device touchscreen input is not just a fluke, it’s the (overdue) future. I’ll go further, though: I’ve been predicting for over a year now that touchscreens will show up on low-end phones, too, in the next 3 years.
Never mind One Laptop Per Child… the one computer that is entering every single home in the developing world is the cell phone. The cell phone is where illiterate women and children will learn to read (a pet project / dream of mine). The cell phone is where contacts, photos, correspondence, business and banking will not only originate, but be archived. To me, the trickle-down of expanded interaction and handwriting input is blazingly obvious. (Of course, I expect to see those phones enabled by Power2B’s technology, but that’s another story!)
You heard it here first.
If operator hardware sales behavior started to threaten a device manufacturer’s own revenue stream, would the manufacturer continue to be cautious about not offending carrier sensibilities? Or would they throw the first punch by offering service themselves?
It’s not so farfetched, is it?
Related and perhaps illuminating business cases:
- Helio / SK Telecom
- Vertu / Nokia / Ovi / Nokia-Siemens Network
- iPhone / iTouch / iTunes /.Mac
- Google / Android / YouTube / Flickr
The Nintendo Wii launched in 2006. Today, at the gateway to 2008, it is still in short supply.
Consider that consumers get bored with devices really quickly. Consider that people are always looking for the next thing. Now consider a little statistical anecdote:
DVICE is asking readers to vote for “the best gadget of 2007″, as part of a sweepstakes. What appears on that list? Wii — a 2006 product. Which device (at the time of this writing) had the most votes for coolest? Wii — outscoring even the iPhone.
It’s a stunning testament to the resonance of the product.
Via Telecoms.com:
“On Tuesday it emerged that Vodafone Germany had won an injunction against the iPhone’s exclusive German carrier, T-Mobile, forcing the company to sell a version of the device without a lock to the network.”
If that happens (it hasn’t yet), how many travellers do you think are going to rebook their flights for layovers in Frankfurt Airport?
Update (Nov. 22, 2007):
“T-Mobile Germany has been in touch and informed us that in order to purchase an iPhone at the Eur399 price, the buyer must sign a contract for a two year subscription to T-Mobile’s service. This and the Eur999 price tag for an unlocked model may just put the kibosh on a grey market for the iPhone developing in Germany”
Update (Dec. 6, 2007):
Earlier this week, a German court confirmed T-Mobile’s right to sell the iPhone locked to its own network. 03 France, however, is selling an unlocked version of the iPhone.
The French iPhone is selling for Eur399 with a two year service agreement and rate plans ranging between Eur49 per month and Eur119 per month. The device can be acquired for used on any non iPhone specific Orange plan for Eur549 and for an additional Eur100, Orange said it will sell the device unlocked and without a contract.
Alternatively, Orange subscribers can get the device unlocked after six months, without charge.
Unlocked devices on eBay France seem to be selling for just under the Eur600 mark, suggesting that there’s not much of a grey market.
Wow, free unlocking after six months… that’s really appealing. I wish my phones offered that, if only so that I could use them in other countries with more economical SIM cards.
You couldn’t miss Amazon.com’s new Kindle device if you visited their site today. It was the main attraction. Kindle, Amazon’s own e-book (a mobile computer specifically designed for reading digitized books) is being set up in direct competition to Sony’s e-book “Portable Reader System”. Both utilize the new e-ink display technology, which draws virtually no power when on, except when the screen refreshes.
Sony has been working on their product for years and years now. It’s only recently that the newest version (2.0) has gotten good enough to really garner the interest of the greater consumer electronics world. Even with the fabulous industrial design that Sony brings to their e-book, and even with years of testing the waters of the market, estimates on product sales are in the thousands of units.
Why hasn’t the market been more welcoming? Perhaps it’s a simple matter of solving a problem that doesn’t exist. Americans don’t read on the go much; if it’s digital, it’s on a PDA. Japanese read manga and novelettes on their cell phones. Why own another device to carry around (after all, you could just bring a book)?
Or maybe it’s the price. At close to USD$300, a Sony e-book is a substantial investment. You can buy a good stack of books for that money.
Or maybe it’s a straightforward case of user experience: reading is (mostly) pleasure and relaxation. Otherwise, you’d be online researching something. A computer just doesn’t have the feel of a book in the hand, just doesn’t feel the same to the eye, just doesn’t feel… like a book.
Why does Amazon think they can do better in this market-that-might-not-be-a-market?
Let’s be blunt: they’re not going to succeed on product design. Kindle is the most incredibly awful looking product I’ve seen in years. It looks like a cross between a Motorola Q and a pack of dental floss. It doesn’t hold a kindle candle to the Sony’s elegance.
Telecoms.com offers a reasonable answer: it’s about the business model. Whereas Sony makes their money on hardware (yes, I know that the hardware manufacturers are moving into online content sales), Amazon makes their money selling content. Take a look at the Telecoms.com link. It’s an interesting premise.
What should strike you most is the offer of free data. The cost of the cellular connection is included in the cost of the device. What a concept! Most countries are still struggling to bring flat-rate data to the masses; Amazon is upping the ante to no-rate data.
Might this be more than just another e-book? Might this herald the future of the always-on, always open network?
Update [Nov. 26, 2007]: In follow-up to the points made by Telecoms.com, it’s worth noting a comment left on Robert Scoble’s blog:
56. One thing about the Kindle introduction that sticks out to me-Bezos saying this isn’t a device, its a “Service”.
I’m guessing the 1.0 hardware is just something they had to do to get things started-but they must have a bigger strategy here. I’m wondering if Apple is going to release:
a) an update to the iPhone that can access the Kindle “Service”
b) a Tablet Mac that can access the Kindle “Service”
(Steven Levy even dropped a hint about something in his Newsweek column-”(I’ve been reading Boswell’s “Life of Johnson” on my iPhone, a device that is expected to be a major outlet for e-books in the coming months.)” )
Comment by Totoro — November 25, 2007 @ 8:13pm
