Get to know Mi. And companies like Mi. They are the danger. Good devices, good prices, new pronounceable branding tactics. They have the chemistry in place to change the market for good. Get ready. We are entering the next stage of the wireless business cycle. It's here. It's now. Work with it. Look for opportunities in adjacent markets. Content, services, the connection of things.
So, please do check out the new Xiaomi Mi Pad (Gigaom story), a very decently spec'd up tablet from the Chinese vendor. The Mi Pad has a 7.9-inch screen with 2,048-by-1,536 pixels, runs on an Nvidia Tegra K1 2.2 processor, has 2GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 5-megapixel front camera, and a microSD slot. All this for $240 for the 16GB version. The tablet will be available in China this summer and I suspect other markets could follow.
Xiaomi (sort of pronounced “show me”) isn't a company looking to scrape some barnacles off of the side of the market. They are aiming for the top. Xiaomi's CEO, Lei Ju, said they “hope to put pressure on Apple.” Xiaomi is a company talking about bringing quality $50 smartphones to the masses. This is a company that is working its way global by spreading out across Asia.
So Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony, others, please do remember Mi name.
No, you haven't heard the last of Mi.
The $240 quality-spec'd Mi tablet. Device prices are coming down, and a receding tide lowers prices for everyone.
Why it matters? A brain-controlled mobile device could give paralyzed people more ways to interact with the world while also improving functionality for all of us. MIT Technology Review
Samsung is collaborating with the University of Texas in Dallas to develop thought-controlled user interfaces for tablets. The more immediate goal is to help those with with mobility impairments, but long term, brainwaves could be yet another way to interact with devices.
Most smartphone makers have been seriously looking into BCI for mobile devices for years, but I see that the race is on in earnest for some vendor to bring some WOW to the market with this. Nonetheless I expect one of the big-three game console vendors to break in the market to BCI within the next few years with a mainstream accessory. Auto manufacturers could be the Cinderella story however.
A smartphone with a 5.8-inch and 6.3-inch display. Why not? This isn't amazing news per se, as this Samsung device has been widely leaking and it's really just another phablet as we've seeing. And even though these are bigger than Samsung's 5.5-inch Note, Samsung is calling these "smartphones."
Other than the size of the screen, the specs are not amazing: no LTE, 1.4GHz Dual Core, 720p, ...
The big question is: now that 5-inch displays are established as the flagship norm, is it already time to bring out the really big guns? It's in the hands of the consumers now.
SAMSUNG: SEOUL, Korea, April 11, 2013 - Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, today announced the Samsung GALAXY Mega, a device that combines the portability and convenience of a smartphone with the power, multitasking capabilities and extensive viewing experience of a tablet. The newest addition to the GALAXY family balances an optimal viewing experience on a 6.3-inch HD screen, yet is ultra-thin and portable enough to put into a pocket or hold in one hand. The GALAXY Mega offers a mix of popular smartphone and tablet features such as an effortless user experience, a split screen, multitasking between video and other apps and more...
The Samsung Galaxy Mega smartphone with 5.8-inch display. (Needs something to scale it.)
First, I must confess I wasn't aware that Disney had a research lab which develops such things as advanced biometric touch-based technologies. But they do. And then again, it's not difficult to envision some Disney-specific use cases for unique-user interfaces.
The fact that Disney is developing such a technology means that we might see something like this at their theme parks or perhaps in kid-centric tablets for home and for school. But it's not difficult to envision this technique being used as an additional layer of biometric security in smartphones, ATM's, and point-of-sale terminals.
I don't want to sound goofy here, but this Disney project could enhance user interactions and simplify our lives. It could turn out to be a touch of magic.
Tablets for tots, tablets for docs, tablets for teens, now tablets for tweens.
Is the tablet computer the spiral notebook of the 21st century? The new pen and pencil? And even the teacher's planner?
Here is a new tablet teaching solution from Amplify, News Corp's education unit, that is being marketed directly to schools. At $299, the 10-inch, Android-based tablet is priced in-line with similar tablets on the market. Samsung's 10-inch Tab, for example, sells for $330.
But News Corp is looking to make this into a service-based business: the tablets are part of a larger education-focused ecosystem, complete with attendance-taking tools, achievement tracking, and a trinket reward system for students. For this on-going software and services package, Amplify will charge $99 per tablet per year, which would be a nice recurring revenue stream if it takes. News Corp's approach here of developing a service-based model could have some merit if the results justify the RoI.
The goal of getting in the classroom is nothing new. Apple has always done well in school going back to the early '80s, and other big-name hardware and software vendors were making their own tracks.
Other device, service, and platform vendors would be wise to monitor developments of this move and get ready to do a fast-follow or risk losing mindshare of future generations: namely, Google is pushing schools to "Go Google" and could be on its way to successfully establish its platforms as the new work standard. It will be worth following the developments of Amplify's platform: perhaps we can all learn something from this.
It wasn't long ago when we were wondering when someone would come along with the sub-$200 smartphone. Now low-cost tablets are dripping onto the market. And usually when it rains, it pours.
Today ASUS introduced a low-cost tablet called the "MeMO Pad." It has a seven-inch, 1024 x 600 resolution screen and runs Android 4.1 on top of a 1GHz single core processor, and comes with 16GB worth of on-board storage. The hardware isn't the amazing part, it's the price: at $150 this is almost at the impulse-buying level. We've been seeing a number of decent tablets now at the $150 range.
Let's see if Amazon brings the price of its 7" Kindle tablet down a bit now.
Next, get ready for the sub-$100 tablet you can buy at the supermarket checkout. For any new competitors entering the tablet market, please keep devices like the MeMo in mind, and make sure you add a dash of WOW rather than introducing a MeToo.
Tablets as kids toys for $150? Yup. Let's call them kidlets. Tablet commoditization is reaching new heights.
Here is a child's tablet from Polaroid Corporation (which really has nothing to do with the long-bankrupt instant camera company). This tablet runs Android 4, has a seven-inch screen, customized apps for kids including a Nook eReader app, and appears to be a pretty tough device.
The inclusion of an eReading app could lead to some interesting content-based business models.
This isn't the first kids tablet. In fact, Toys R Us has been selling kids tablet computers for several seasons now. So, is this a sign that the tablet market is one to get into? Or perhaps one to get out of?
Samsung introduced a device which is in essence a lower-end Samsung Note. Called the Galaxy Grand, it runs Android on a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, has 5-inch LCD display, and an 8-megapixel camera.
The trend to note here is the availability of the device in a dual-SIM model.
For those who follow the mobile industry, please don't fall for the "six billion mobile subscribers" stories that have been floating around earlier this year. The proper word should be "subscriptions," not subscribers. Some estimates are that there are actually fewer than three billion global subscribers, and some say as few as two billion. Granted that's still an amazing number.
The math indicates that there are possibly more than one billion people, and likely a great deal more, who have more than one mobile account, and thus at least two SIM cards. This is not niche market.
I am still waiting for Microsoft to announce support for dual-SIM hardware in Windows Phone. Unfortunately I suspect a long delay which will cost them share when and where they need it most.
Reports are coming in from both Microsoft execs and suppliers that Surface sales are coming in far below expectations. In fact, some rumors have it that Surface volumes could be almost half of the company's original expectations going into the end of 2012.
So, what are we hearing? The typical industry newspeak platitudes and the classic slow-start excuses: "there are component issues, supplier troubles, sales channel limitations, encouraging levels of early interest, it's really only meant to be an early adopter device, we're creating pent-up demand, steady as she goes..." Oh yes, supplies are limited so order now, max two per household, must be over 18 to order.
And just wait until the next version!
To be fair, Surface has only been on the market for two weeks, but as I speculated after release, Microsoft's Surface tablet was overpriced and under app'd at start. Given the risk to consumers, expect pricing trims and free accessory throw-ins.
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer "We've had a modest start because Surface is only
available on our online retail sites and a few Microsoft stores in the United States."
Yes, you heard it right!
The product is so good that supplies are limited, so order NOW!!
Let's forget about feature creep for just one moment. It's time to talk portfolio creep.
Consumer segmentation is a delicate process requiring a steady hand and a sturdy heart.
Sure, it might be tempting to micro-manage by creating mini segments to maximize margins. But significant overlaps usually result in under-impressing and end up being a mega mistake. In the end you might go beyond market cannibalization and you end up eating your own young.
Don't think too big, don't think too small, for in the end you please nobody at all.
(Thanks to those Facebook acquaintances who shared this video.)
At $500, too many competing products are well below the Surface.
Sure, hindsight is always 20-20, but it's still entertaining to look back and be judgmental about past judgments. Shortly after the original iPhone was unveiled back in 2007, Steve Ballmer said a $500 device without a keyboard wouldn't appeal to enterprise users, if anybody. So, last week when Microsoft announced that their Surface tablet would cost $500 without a keyboard and would appeal to enterprise users, I have to wonder if humble pie wasn't being served at the Microsoft cafeteria in Redmond that day.
Early rumors about Surface pricing had the device pegged as low as $200. That would have made it a loss leader for a company which is losing big time in the laptop 2.0 world. Low cost is the strategy Amazon is using in its tablet business and Google is using in its Chromebook push, so cost as a wow factor would not have been an unprecedented market maneuver for Microsoft. Instead, now the Surface device has to go head-to-head with Apple on brand, UI, features and app availability.
Surface is available via pre-order. I haven't seen any sales numbers as of this writing: some reports have it that demand is very strong. It's likely that Microsoft expects a cross-platform halo effect will begin to kick in soon, with the same Metro UI being used on top of Windows 8, Windows RT, and Windows Phone.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, there doesn't appear to be nearly enough Metro interest to create any real halo effect out of the gate. And I'm convinced that Microsoft's tablet is too expensive to create any mass appeal to spill over to other device families.
For Surface pricing, I was expecting Microsoft to go for sub "Spousal Approval Level" pricing in an attempt to build volume to give some backbone to their tablet ecosystem. (Consumer electronics priced below the psychological Spousal Approval Level number tend not to be considered a major household purchase). Spousal Approval Level pricing was often considered to be sub $300, so when the new generation of gaming consoles were introduced a decade ago, it was no coincidence they were all priced at $299.99.
Microsoft's tablet pricing strategy is surprising if the company is looking to gain significant market share in short order. $500 might be a fair price for that solid piece of hardware. But unfortunately for Microsoft the equation doesn't end there. The company needs to allow for the fact that it is the RC Cola of the business. If Microsoft really wants to establish a solid third ecosystem, margins have to take a hit. Why should consumers take the risk when they can get a sure thing with Apple? The higher the risk for consumers, the greater the discount has to be. Lower prices certainly haven't been driving Windows Phone sales.
When your market share is zero, and you're long behind your competitors, and your retail stores appear empty, and your CEO tends to get most things wrong, and you're considered the old, boring man in a young man's game, and you're staring down the barrel of a loaded rifle, and your stock has been stuck in the same range for more than a decade, it's time for a strategy of shock and awe, not pause and bore.
Microsoft is behind the Windows eight ball now. Premium pricing won't SAL the deal.
Note to Microsoft: esoteric doesn't make up for lack of wow.
For Microsoft's sake, I really hope that there's more below the surface. At least I was hoping for something a bit more special. More amazing. More appealing. More, more, more.
But instead, this is what one would expect. A big Windows Phone with a splash of Apple inspiration. Where's the built-in Kinect? Where's the leap-frog effect?
In a world that has brought us “stagflagation,” “brunch” and “Brangelina,” comes the latest portmanteau. It’s the “phablet.” It’s too big to be a phone, too small to be a tablet. And now we have to wonder if phablets are a real phabnomenon?
Suddenly I've been coming across the hybrid word “phablet” very often. I suppose it’s an obvious combo addition to the lexicon. But what the heck is a phablet? One definition I’ve found is it’s a touch device with a screen size between 4.6 and 5.5 inches. Any smaller, it’s a phone. Any larger, it’s a tablet.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note is the device that probably started the species. The Note has a 5.3-inch touch display and even comes with a stylus (so it’s a “stouch” device... or a “stablet”). And Samsung’s new Galaxy SIII could very well become the best-selling phablet in history. With a 4.8-inch display, please don’t confuse it with being a smartphone.
Other vendors such as HTC, LG, and Huawei either have or will soon be shipping phablets as well.
Is it time for all device vendors to get their phabet acts together? Phobviously it is, so make a note of it and don’t phall behind.
Apologies for the misleading tabloid-style header. But there are no lies here. Only facts and memories.
I’ve touched upon this Nokia concept device a number of times only because I find that it tells an interesting story about vision, innovation, and credit. Rarely do new products pop up out of the blue. All inspiration has a history attached.
Before the turn of the century (August 1999 at the IFA exhibition to be exact), Nokia introduced a working tablet prototype that drove tech journalists and open-source fans wild: a large, connected touch-screen device based on Linux. Users could surf the web, write e-mails and chat, and even catch the game via its built-in digital terrestrial receiver. All content was equal. The word "convergence" was all the rage at the time, and Nokia just redefined the term.
The device, known as “MediaScreen,” ran a UI layer Nokia called “Navibars,” which was in essence, an advanced and flexible menu system. Users could create bookmarks to television stations just as easily as they could to a website. Users could create folders which could hold broadcast links, web info, photos, and applications. A sports folder, for example, could contain videos of little Johnny’s football match, an icon for Eurosport TV, and the latest scores from the web.
And then what happened grandpa? Well, the dot.com bust didn’t help. Things became tight here and there and companies began to concentrate making-money ventures. Nobody knew how bad things could get. And the component costs must have been quite brutal at the time. But if I understand the evolutionary line correctly, MediaScreen did act as innovation for other Nokia projects and programs -- sort of a grandparent to a future generation of tablet-like devices such as the 770.
Timing can be a cruel dealer of the deck. Woody Allen once said 80% of success is showing up. But it’s really showing up at the right time. And showing off. When Apple’s iPad was first introduced, I called it Laptop2.0. Now, if I am reading this news correctly, Nokia has confirmed that the company will be entering the tablet market, although few details are provided. Will this be Nokia’s own 2.0.
Is it a smartphone? YES! Is it a tablet? YES! Is it a laptop... Yes, Asus' new PadFone goes for the trinity.
Will modular finally click? Will the smartphone be the center of our computing experiences? The brains behind so many accessories?
I've been following the modular trend for years, and most of the concepts I've seen have bitten off more than they could chew. The general idea is sweet: the mother is a smartphone, the accessories are the offspring. It's an approach that just hasn't worked, and has left many victims in its wake.
Israeli-based modu, for example, had a great idea. A small mobile phone -- the world's smallest by some metrics -- would be the heart of a series of other devices. Users could personalize the features and style of the phone using what modu called "jackets" or enclosures. It was an enticing thought, but the company went bankrupt and sold most of patents to Google, which is an interesting signal as well.
Motorola's ATRIX Laptop Dock docking station turned a Motorola Android smartphone into a laptop. Again, a nice product idea, and one that reached market and has gotten good reviews. I haven't tried it myself, but have spoken to some who have. I'm told it works, but the original $500 price tag of the docking station approached that of a new full-fledged laptop. The economics didn't quite work. (The price of Moto's Laptop Dock has dropped significantly since launch.)
Now enter the Asus PadFone. An Android smartphone that fits sweetly into the back of a rather bulky looking screen, turning it into a tablet. Add in the keyboard accessory and it becomes by definition a laptop. Check the MobileBurn video below for a clarity.
Asus didn't provide pricing information, and this is no small detail. The added complexities of the engineering and the connectors usually mean that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts: in other words, it might make little economic sense to the user.
Asus is to be commended for its attempt to differentiate in a market full of look-alike products. At the same time I have to wonder if this isn't a solution searching for a problem which has already found a solution. The annoyances of multi-device ownership are being well addressed by cloud-based services such as Dropbox and robustly well-synced inboxes.
This isn't to say there aren't synergies with this Asus approach. Connectivity comes to mind. But unless the price is right, in this age of smoother multi-device ownership and multi-tasking mentality, I don't see the pieces coming together.
Samsung's Galaxy Note suffers from an identity crisis. Is it a big smartphone? YES! Is it a small tablet? YES! I suppose in the end, it depends on the size of the user's hands.
With a 5.3-inch Super Amoled HD display, the Note is a big device compared to the average, everyday smartphone. The iPhone 4S, for example, has a 3.5-inch display. Otherwise, Note has the type of hardware specs one would expect of a high-end Android-based smartphone these days: 8 megapix camera with 1080 HD video support, 3G+ (no LTE in this version), and memory expansion.
But it's the inclusion of a stylus with the device that I would like to touch upon here. Samsung calls the included stylus the "S Pen." It should be noted that HTC recently introduced a tablet, the HTC Flyer, that also shipped with a stylus.
For Note, Samsung has optimized the Ice Cream Sandwich Android build to support S Pen input and included a number of exclusive S Pen apps.
Stylus input is of course nothing new. Palm popularized pen input back in the mid-1990s with their "Graffiti" language on the Palm Pilot. But as capacitive touchscreen became the industry standard support finger-put, the stylus got lost.
Will it soon be time again to stick with the stylus? Let's remember the guideline: three makes a trend.
Recommendation to device vendors: Follow consumer acceptance of stylus in top of smart devices. Track especially how the Nintendo DS generation reacts to this potential trend. Platform vendors could need to adjust deep OS support for more input methods than finger touch.
As a follow up to my last post on the death of printed newspapers...
So, who invented the tablet? I still give a hat tip to “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and his script writers.
But check out this vision from the mid-'90s from Knight Ridder's “Information Design Lab” talking about digital paper and tablets. (Knight Ridder was once a major American publisher of newspapers before being acquired.)
Knight Ridder exec, 1994: “Tablets will be a whole new class of computer...” Did Knight Ridder get their IPR issues in order?
Knight Ridder's Roger Fidler, Director of New Media & Information Design Lab from 1992 to 1995: “...our role is to ... develop long-range vision of where the newspaper industry is headed over the next five, 10, 20 years...” Note that this video was made in 1994.
Back in late 2010, the chairman and publisher of The New York Times, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., said that the writing was on the wall: printed newspapers won't be around much longer. “We will stop printing The New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD,” said Mr. Sulzberger.
So, what's the TBD part? According to a study done by the University of Southern California, TBD = 5. In five years, it is claimed, most printed newspapers in the U.S. will be gone, replaced by tablets and smartphones and laptops and internet-connected big-screen TVs.
If not in five years, certainly within 10. And then we will explain to our children and grandchildren how the newspaper used to be delivered at our doorsteps just like our parents and grandparents told us how the milkman came each day to drop off a bottle or two.
Will print be missed? As the telephone became ubiquitous, there was grumblings of how that device would take away the charm of the personal messenger. And now this message is clear: it's time to move on. It's written in black and white.
Jeffrey I. Cole, director of USC's Center for the Digital Future: “Circulation of print newspapers continues to plummet, and we believe that the only print newspapers that will survive will be at the extremes of the medium – the largest and the smallest,” said Cole. It’s likely that only four major daily newspapers will continue in print form: The New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. At the other extreme, local weekly newspapers may still survive.”
Tablets are on a roll. Is it soon the end of newsprint?
Show a ten-year-old child of today an old rotary-dial telephone, and they might not quite know how to work it. Heck, they might not even recognize it as a phone.
Let’s look where things are heading for print media. How many music CD's do your children buy? None would probably be the most correct answer. Physical media is facing a floundering future.
How many more generations are left that will buy physical magazines and newspapers? It’s sad to say this, but it’s soon time to move on. This won’t be a painless disruption: lots of jobs are on the line. Think of all the magazine kiosks around the world. And the delivery people. And the production departments. And, well, lots of change.
But of course this mean opportunity for someone. Tablet and handset makers: this is your market now. Get it right and ride the wave.
Here’s a cute little home video that’s probably going to go viral if it hasn’t already. What’s wrong with this picture? Well, it must be broken:
