Find my Phone! (For a Price) - 24 Sep 2010 - by gins

In the tug-of-war between the mobile operator and the handset vendor for the hearts and minds of the subscriber, the two are now battling it out on a new front... in-cloud mobile services for consumers such as backup, remote data wipe, and the ability to locate a lost phone.

The recent rash of announcements in this space are in fact only the latest campaign in a field pioneered by Apple with its MobileMe, Microsoft with in-cloud services tied to Windows Mobile 6.5, MOTOBLUR, and some early (and not too intuitive) offerings by the mobile operators. But the stakes are higher now, with the newest bunch of Android phones, tablets, and the potential for the operator to lose and never to regain subscriber mindshare.

This last summer, RIM announced BlackBerry Protect and Samsung announced their 'Dive' service for Bada OS phones. Neither are yet available. More recently, screenshots were leaked all but confirming the same functionality on Microsoft's soon to be released Windows Phone 7 platform. And earlier this month, HTC, as part of its Android Sense relaunch, announced a website where users will be able to locate, lock/wipe, and manage data on their phone.

Not to be left by the wayside, last week Verizon jumped back into the fray with 'Mobile Recovery', an OS-agnostic solution for remote lock-and-wipe as well as an Apple-like locator function. On this surface, this is smart, but the question is how many subscribers actually subscribe to the operator's Total Equipment Coverage program at $8/month and a $89 deductible per claim. Still, it is a noble effort, and if marketed correctly (i.e., free to premium subscribers, as opposed to the graphic above inferring that this program is cost-free), VZW could gain some mindshare for their other services such as app stores. The question is how effectively it will compete against vendor offerings, some of which are free.

The Ties that Bind: 37.11667 north, 121.96528 west - 21 Sep 2010 - by gins

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to ride a bit through the Santa Cruz mountains, my loop taking me past one of the tunnel entrances from the old San Jose to Santa Cruz railway. With each passing year, the very existence of this engineering marvel passes further into memory. But a century ago, the line was at its peak, connecting mountain resorts to families from throughout the Bay Area, and connecting orchards to their customers.

These tunnels and viaducts were the ties that bound us to each other, compressing distance and time. As I pulled out my Blackberry for the photo above, I was taken back to that time of steam engines and sawmills, while thinking about the same role cellphones play today. And, to my surprise, I did actually have a usable 3G signal deep in the mountain ravine.

Till Death Do Us Part: Smartphones and the Afterlife - 16 Sep 2010 - by gins

Throughout history, certain cultures have believed that an individual's journey into the afterlife would be aided by burying, alongside the body, necessities of daily life. This included food, clothing, and even a concubine or two, reflective of society at the time. The ancient Egyptians of course took this to the extreme.

So, I chuckled when the print edition of Fortune magazine this week (September 27, 2010) reported on a growing trend in Asia. Paper facsimiles of cellphones, available in stores, are burned with the dead so that relatives may communicate in the afterlife. This leaves me wondering if it also includes texting, and I'm sure that if this hits our shores, the Goth could be a captive audience for Apple's Facetime.

Caveat Emptor.... Android Fragmentation Redux and the Tablet Experience - 14 Sep 2010 - by gins

Last fall, an ex-colleague of mine wrote about Android OS fragmentation, discussing the variations due to smartphone form factors, OS versions, operator requirements, and Google Experience vs non-Google experience devices. Good reading. With the impending release of Android tablets, the problem, and its potential impact on the user experience, has only grown.

The user experience depends upon a complex interplay of the device, skilled application developers, and wireless access (WiFi, 3G, or 4G) if required by the application. Even on the iPad, though Apple controls some of these variables, there is a vast difference between those applications crafted for the iPad's form factor, and those that only rely on pixel doubling.

Android developers are in fact faced with a moving target - multiple OS versions, a diversity of form factors and price-points that impact display quality and resolution, CPU performance, and memory, and OEM customizations such as UI overlays. This is coupled with statements by none other than Google's Android team concerning Froyo's (2.2) lack of optimization of use on tablets.

What exactly does this mean when considering whether to purchase that shiny Samsung Galaxy Tab in the window. And what user experience would one expect from a tablet rumored to be $35 or even $100? How does an application developer optimize for both the high-end and the low-end, for both tablets and smartphones? OEMs developing the tablets, Google and the Android OS community, mobile operators potentially carrying the tablets under subsidy, and the application developer community have one opportunity to get this right to avoid confusion and unmet expectations. At least in the near term, part of the burden will lie with the user. Trust, but verify, and heed the watchwords, Caveat Emptor. And to the OEMs... Caveat Venditor.

If an Apple falls in the forest.... - Friday, 10 Sep 2010 - by gins

This morning, Gartner published its latest predictions on Smartphone OS penetration, showing Symbian and Android each with about 30% of the market by 2014, followed by Apple (14.9%) and RIM (11.7%). The Windows Phone is relegated to an also-ran and webOS and MeeGo are nowhere to be found. The bloggers are in a frenzy, pointing out Apple's compromised position. These numbers confirm what I wrote earlier in the week, and I think it is RIM (and Microsoft) that are in trouble.

However, the analyst community is doing itself a dis-service by highlighting absolute percentages in a growing market without deeper analysis on market impact. And what seems to be missing in translation by cnet, the Boy Genius Report, and others is that Apple's 15% translates to 130 million smartphones, not counting other iOS devices. Here, Apple has an advantage over Symbian and RIM. I bet that they also maintain profitability leadership, and when running a company, that is worth more than absolute marketshare. Apple will have also avoided the fragmentation that impacts both the user experience and the developer community. That last comment is addressed to both Android and going forward, I suspect Symbian as well. More on this topic next week, but overall, not a bad position for Apple to be in.

The current approach by most analysts - a failure to synergize the various facts and market drivers - calls into question their continued relevancy. Just last week I was speaking with someone influential at a large software company, and he described how their customers are moving away from 'classical' analyst engagements and turning more to vendors, the financial community, and university-driven research groups.

The Numbers Game - 9 Sep 2010 - by gins

Ten years ago, we were all caught up in the swirl of analyst reports covering how many billions would be spent on optical networking, how many eyeballs were destined to the latest new media website, or how many sock puppets a business model made. Thus, whenever I see the 'B' world floated around, it catches my interest.

Yesterday, Asymco reported that the total number of iapps downloaded would equal iTunes music downloads sometime this year. Today, the iTunes count is approx. 12 billion while the appstore count is closer to 7. Sure, that is an important observation, but the less informed may leave thinking that the iThing's day for music is over. The reality is quite the opposite.

I've got 7700 songs on my iTunes server (all legal, with the CDs collecting dust in the basement). This is 39GB. At any time, I've transferred between 3-5GB to my iPad or those of my kids. Only about 20 in total have been purchased from the iTunes store. While gaming, the kids play music (though my multitasking ability isn't quite there). With true multitasking in a few months enabling the likes of Pandora and Spotify, this will become the norm for many surfing the web or composing an email.

What the numbers do show, however, is the increasing stickiness of the icosystem... the power of recommendation in driving impulse downloads, and disposable applications - those that you download once, kick around a bit, and then push off to the side. You know what would be fun? A tracker much like that which exists for Windows that groups application by last use and time... how many are opened on a daily or weekly basis, and how usage falls off over time (irrespective of how many new levels the Angry Birds folks crank out... I see this firsthand at home). Now that info I'd share. We could make a game of the numbers.

Gaga for Telephony - 7 Sep 2010 - by gins

Though not that relevant to mobility, the following does relate to telephony... sort of....

If you were to Google 'telephone', the first entry, as expected, is for the wiki entry. However, the next two are not related to AT&T, Alexander Graham Bell, or anything else having to do with the latest cordless phone. They are links for Lady Gaga's Telephone video. You know... the one with Beyonce that has generated an entire sub-culture of parodies.

It really says something about the temporal nature of our culture and of what some consider to be factual information... search results on Google. What the search results do highlight is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta's masterful understanding and use of new media, covered by a friend of mine over at Cisco. As an exercise, put yourself in the place of some alien trying to understand our culture based on these queries. Scary.

Maybe its time for a dual-approach to search results, what I'll call G'base and G'now. G'base is time and impact weighted, while G'now reflects current memes. G'base is more of the research tool, while G'now provides water cooler fodder. You get the idea.

The Runaround: Smartphone Support - 3 Sep 2010 - by gins

While at my previous employer, InnoPath, I occasionally wrote about difficulties customers had with support.... the inability of the mobile operators to resolve customer smartphone usability issues on the first call, and the finger-pointing between the operator, the handset vendor, and the OS platform provider such as Microsoft or Google (Android). Well, it seems as if the problem has not gone away, and in fact may be getting worse as a new, less clueful generation of smartphone users encounter Android, Blackberry, or even the iPhone for the first time.

This morning, Maggie over at CNET reported on an issue at Sprint, with some functionality lost or no longer operating as stated after upgrading an HTC Android phone. The response by Sprint was unsympathetic and probably not in the interest of future customer loyalty. I'm sure these issues are not limited to Sprint or HTC, but there has got to be room for at least one mobile operator (T-Mobile?) that champions the customer... that engenders a loyalty experience more along the lines of Nordstrom (known to take returns, no questions asked) than the airlines.

In fact, mobile operators should hope that history doesn't repeat itself leading to a 'smartphone customer bill of rights' echoing that which has been enforced for the airlines and the credit card issuers. It would be ironic if their hands were tied in the same way that they currently tie the hands of their most loyal customers.

Soul Brothers: Samsung and Android - 2 Sep 2010 - by gins

At the end of August I wrote about the ascendancy of Android, focusing on handset vendors, mobile operators, and application developers. Samsung's recent successes confirm this trend. Today, Samsung announced the Galaxy Tab, possibly the most competitive tablet to the iPad. Looking at the hardware specs alone, it surpasses the iPad in many ways and is quite compelling for those not locked into the icosystem. At least for the moment, Samsung and Android truly are soul brothers.

And recently, Bloomberg took a comprehensive look at Samsung's goals, including topping $400B in revenue by 2020. Yes, that's 400 with a 'B'. Intelligently, they pin their future to the likes of Apple, Google, and Facebook, riding the crest of the smartphone wave and the digitization of the home. And I'll admit, that after Apple, I've probably got more Samsung gear around the house than that by any other vendor. Here in the Valley that says a lot.