Carrier: AT&T (formerly Cingular)
Manufacturer: Samsung
Platform/OS: Windows Mobile 5
We can’t help the fact that mobile devices are often presented in retail environments with dummy mockups and fake printed screens. But, we can help the dialogue with a focus on the whole user experience and not merely a features and form factor breakdown.
The Blackjack is a conversation starter. It’s small, it’s capable and it’s good looking in a utilitarian kind of way. When people inevitably ask about it and I’m forced to explain my love/hate relationship with it.
For the good, the bad, the ugly, odd and puzzling keep reading after the bump. Continue Reading »
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iPods sold at a brisk pace over the 2006 holiday season, which would seem to end the recent iPod sales slump. However, Tomi Ahonen aims to blow away any speculation that the iPod is still holding on to the music player throne. The barrage of evidence from Asian, European and UK studies he presents is pretty compelling. In a nutshell, he says that while iPod sales grew 45% that music phone growth has boomed to 243%, which means that though iPod sales are growing, the iPod market share has been long overtaken by music phones and is shrinking by comparison. (SonyEricsson alone shipped 60 million musicphones compared to Apple’s 46 million iPods).
Now, you’re thinking, “but just because people own a music-capable phone, a so called music phone, do people actually use them for listening/buying music?” Well, Ahonen says yes, and backs it up with some interesting European and Asian studies. The UK study he sites says that 80% of musicphone owners are satisfied or very satisfied with them. Thus Ahonen’s argument goes: the iPod is so totally over.
He’s quick to dismiss the iPod and usher in the music phone era, but I don’t think he’s really discussing the US side of the picture…
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There has been a lot of press and commentary on Apple’s iPhone. Deservedly so. From what has been presented thus far the iPhone is a sleek piece of hardware and software engineering as only Apple can produce it. Whether the iPhone is revolutionary, expected or somewhere in between, the discussion has focused primarily on the device’s features and interface. Much less has been said about the implications of Apple’s iPhone business strategy. Since the iPhone was announced on January 9, my thoughts have turned to the decisions that Apple has had to make in order to enter the wireless market and what may come in the wake of the iPhone’s June 2007 launch.
Why iPhone?
Apple’s decision to get into the wireless device business is not surprising. Since the launch of the iPod 5 years ago, Steve Jobs has touted the connected experience where all Apple devices and services work and play seamlessly with one another in one glorious digital ecosystem. Since the mobile phone has become the one device that no one is ever without, despite the fact that nothing about the wireless experience is very good, it was only a matter of time before Apple got into the game. “Everybody hates their phone,” Time magazine quotes Jobs as saying, “and that’s not a good thing. And there’s an opportunity there.”
Uncharted Territory
Having decided to get in the game, Apple’s most significant decision is to be a manufacturer only rather than a manufacturer + MVNO. This is curious since Apple’s brand is largely based on its control of the end-to-end consumer experience. The MVNO route would have allowed Apple to maintain the most control over the end-to-end iPhone experience, clearly important after the ROKR fiasco. However, it would also have taken Apple into uncharted territory as a wireless operator. With iPhone v.1 Steve Jobs has decided to take the path with the fewest risks and stick with what he knows Apple does best.
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Ripped from the headlines, here’s a collection from media sources around the web. Apparently when Apple made its announcement, editors and bloggers around the world sharpened their lucky pencils and exclaimed, “Now here’s a piece just begging for a snappy headline.”
Apple’s iPhone is pretty ordinary at its core
Andrew Kantor, USAToday
Cisco Bites Into Apple Fame (video)
Forbes.com Video Network
Why it’s the Apple of everyone’s eye
Phyllis Furman, New York Daily News
Apple’s new fruit forbidden for now
Jim Rossman, The Dallas Morning News
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“Cool, no hard hard keys!” versus “Are you kidding? No keyboard?”
First, I’m not deluded enough to think the iPhone is the holy grail of devices. They have a lot in their favor in the US, but they don’t have a smooth ride like they did with the iPod.
If you read the US blogs and tech papers, the iPhone is best thing since the personal modem. Glowing headlines like Apple Waves its Wand at the Phone, where David Pogue equates Apple to a fairy godmother, to “It’s Expected, but it’s Stunning” from the SF Chronicle.
But if you read what the Europeans and Asians are saying, this is cool, but not worth all the hype. Russell Buckley even says it’s just a music phone. Then there’s the LA Times story: “In Japan, Barely a Ripple”, which is saying that all these features (plus mobile payments) have been available in Japan for 2+ years already. (But come on, they haven’t thrown out cumbersome soft keys in exchange for full-face, multi-touch screens, have they?)
So, what is it? Is it just a music phone?
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The web is blowing up today with content on the new iPhone. It seems everyone has a perspective, and I’m no different.
Revolutionary or not, Apple did a few things right with this iPhone debut, which I’m convinced will resonate with today’s mobile users.
Portrait-landscape orientation: As media enjoyment and management grows on the mobile platform, mobile users have had to accommodate that awkward moment when you have to physically pivot the handset in your hands in order to view an image or watch mobile TV. In those instances, there is often a sense of disorientation while the user remaps expectations for the D-Pad, and explores how to interact with softkeys, etc. By creating a device that orients itself and keeps tactile interactions consistent, they’ve created a device that feels native to both orientations.
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I’ve tried to separate myself from my Apple fetishism, and slough off Jobs’ reality-distortion effect and really assess this mornings’ announcement from the perspective of it’s impact on mobile user experience. (Certainly, a true UI critique will occur once we can get a device in hand in *sigh* June.
At the end of his keynote this morning, Steve Jobs summed up Apple’s mobile strategy saying, “There’s an old Wayne Gretsky quote I love — ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it’s been.’” Which felt apropos given the product they had just announced. But, is the Apple iPhone announcement truly a “revolution of the first order?”
My take is that this is not a revolution for mobile phones. No, it feels more like catching up in a major way in an industry that has been behind far too long. Features like push email are best practices (read: Blackberry), not revolutionary. Integrating mail, voicemail, sms, contacts, voice calls, photos, music and video is also not revolutionary, but Apple is able to realize it where others have not.
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This question was asked a few days ago on the Adaptive Path blog. The following was my response:
Device manufacturers have been chasing the iPod’s form factor for several years now. How many white phones have entered the market in recent years? How many preemptive iPhone knockoffs have already been blogged? One need only look at Verizon’s Chocolate, Sprint’s Fusiq, or Helio’s KickFlip to see examples that have gained mainstream traction in the last 12 months.
Both the carriers and OEMs are trying to figure out how to create a device that generates the level of allegiance, enthusiasm and evangelism that Apple seems to create with every product release. When was the last time someone loved their phone so much that they insisted you hold it, try it, then get one for yourself?
User experience has only recently been getting lip service from the mobile industry as they recognize that it becomes the differentiator in a crowded marketplace where the competitive choices are so similar. Suddenly we’re hearing mobile executives talking about it openly at the conferences. The rumor of an Apple phone has much of the industry on guard as Apple has proven to be a company who truly “gets�? user experience and have leveraged that knowledge to create unparalleled loyalty.
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The following was my response since I couldn’t let Jared have all the fun. This question was asked a few days ago on the Adaptive Path blog.
It’s a broad question, but I think it’s really about whether Apple can launch a successful music phone. The iPod is the perfect music player and people are cheering Apple in hopes to get the perfect phone.
The current industry model of carriers and OEMs partnering to create a compelling music phone has had pretty limited success — for example, even though the Motorola ROKR partnered with Cingular to bring Apple’s iTunes and was marketed in unprecedented ways it was what basically a flop by Motorola’s standards because it failed on it’s primary promise to be a music phone. (Engadget reported that 1 in 6 ROKRs got returned). That carrier/OEM dynamic is possibly what’s at stake if Apple succeeds.
Consider this: with ringtone sales on the decline (which is a first in the US), carriers are the ones who stand to lose on the R&D spent developing a music phone offering (since they won’t get paid from data and music sales if everybody’s side-loading their music ala the iPod method). It’s the handset manufacturers (OEMs) that serve the carriers, and these OEMs are the ones who stand to gain from a hot handset that could deliver a compelling music experience.
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