http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh Powerful Smartphones with fast mobile connections to great web services http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh/7277
The first is from Sky TV and is for the FIFA 2010 World Cup. It has results, standings, team lists & profiles, photo galleries and supposedly 'extensive daily video coverage'. I say supposedly because there are 3 very negative reviews in iTunes and 1 good, and I haven't used it myself. 

The second is a Fieldays application from Vodafone. It has a full list of 1,000 exhibitors by location on-stie and a list of events on at key locations. and layout of the site and you can get directions around the site. Looks very useful.

What is interesting about both of these is that the companies who sponsored them have a wide customer base that certainly extends well beyond iPhone. My very rough estimate of active Smartphone numbers in NZ today across all networks would be:

Symbian: 200 - 250K (shrinking slowly) (Nokia N/E series and high-end Sony Ericsson - so not a consistent development  environment)

iPhone: 120 - 150K (growing quickly)

BlackBerry: 80 - 100K (growing slowly)

Windows Mobile: 50-80K (shrinking quickly)

Android: 10-20K (growing slowly).

Given that both Sky and Vodafone have large customer bases then the penetration of Smartphones across that base would be expected to be similar to the above with Vodafone skewed towards the iPhone. However they have chosen to develop a key branded application only on the iPhone. They may have very good customer intelligence to justify this but for the Fieldays app specifically my gut feeling is that the rural sector has a much higher penetration of Symbian and BlackBerry given the history of both those devices working well in regional areas vs. the iPhone. Of course iPhone 4 is about to change that with its support for Vodafone's 900 MHz 3G.

I suspect the truth of it is simpler - profile and impact. iPhone has all the hype and buzz going for it and big brands are simply putting their effort where they get the best return. The Fieldays app is not only aimed at attendees to the event - it is to raise Vodafone's profile as an innovator to a wider market and cement its position with the iPhone.

The message to other Smartphone vendors is clear - at the moment you don't have the profile to justify us investing in application development. 

Are there any other examples of branded applications in NZ only on the iPhone?
]]>Mon, 14 Jun 2010 01:11 +1200 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh/7275
Like many of you I kept an eye on the tech bloggers live from Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Fran on Tuesday morning NZ time. They listed the features of the new iPhone and then began to generally say that while the iPhone 4 was pretty nice it was nothing revolutionary with a number even claiming it was a bit disappointing. The support for 900 MHz 3G (which wasn’t in the presentation) was a big deal for us in NZ and I guess that wasn’t picked-up on by U.S. bloggers but even so I felt something was missing in the coverage – they weren’t conveying any excitement. Had everything been leaked already?

So a couple of days later I downloaded the keynote address as I have with every iPhone keynote since January 2007 when Apple changed the mobile world. Yep, there was quite a bit more than I had seen covered and it is a pure delight to watch Steve Jobs on stage. These keynotes really are a highlight of the tech calendar.

He comes onto the stage to a rapturous standing ovation from Apple's development community and he is clearly stoked. One guy even yells out “We love you Steve” to which Steve shoots back “Thank you - I think”. Brilliant!

As usual Steve starts with a bit of a summary of how recent products are going. First up the iPad and he puts up an email that was sent to him – “I was sitting in a café with my iPad, and it got a girl interested in me. Now that’s what I call a magical device.” In a geek audience, magic. And then a list of apps on the iPad that all looked fantastic finishing with a great quote from a developer about earning more from one day’s sale of an iPad app of the periodic table than 5 years of Google ad revenue for a website with the same information.

He then outlines the fact that Apple’s products support two platforms – the open web and the curated app store. They get 15,000 apps submitted each week in 30 languages with 95% of them approved within 7 days! And he goes on to explain the main reasons for rejections. All sounded very fair to me the implication being if you don’t like it go develop for another platform, or the web.

After several developers are up on stage Steve announces that US$1 billion has been paid out by Apple to developers.

Then it was onto the iPhone – the main topic for the day. U.S. Smartphone market share (total base, not current sales) from Nielsen for Q1 2010 confirms the iPhone has 28% of total market share, second only behind RIM with 35%. Android has 9% despite the range of devices across all carriers!

Finally time for the ‘iPhone 4’ and Steve says he will focus on 8 main points.

1. Design – he opens with ‘Stop me if you’ve heard this one before’. Ba da bing! He lovingly describes how it looks, its form factor, and each button and connector. It is the ‘thinnest Smartphone on the planet.’ And coolest of all he shows how the edge stainless steel band is the main structural element of the device AND it is the antenna system for all the 5 antennas (Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, GSM, UMTS). Genius engineering of the king most closely matched by ‘early Leica cameras’.

2. The very high quality retina display with 326 pixels per inch, and that 300 ppi is apparently the ‘limit of the human retina to differentiate between pixels, so all text is like a fine printed book.’ He shows how this is very important for Asian character languages. He showed a 3GS and a 4 side by side to demo it and said that they had to get new projectors to be able to display the high res. Funnily the compression on the Podcast video renders the difference negligible. A live demo didn’t work due to WiFi congestion but Steve didn’t miss a beat and went on to show pre-loaded photos instead. He takes a parting shot at Samsung by saying that OLED displays cannot be as high res.

3. Like the iPad the A4 chip is now in the iPhone – and he shows us a blow-up of the internals of the phone, great technical detail including the larger battery. Dual mics are used for noise suppression like on the Nexus One – this is huge for using the phone in noisy environments. Oh and the phone is very Green!

4. The iPhone 4 introduces a Gyroscope – didn’t see that coming! He goes on to do a live demonstration of a game app that shows the feature, making a joke about not needing the network. He pulls up his glasses onto his forehead which looks kind of cool, and jokes that he has ‘practiced this a little bit.’ Nice.

5. Steve explains that the new camera system will take better pictures due to more than just the megapixels because such a tiny camera needs to be able to capture more photons per pixel. It can also do HD video at 720p & 30 frames per second – woah! There’s even more – they have written iMovie for the iPhone. Steve brings out the chief architect for video apps to do a live demo – and he is a cool dude, an earring in each ear and very slick for quite a tricky demo - good on Apple for getting the real people out on stage. Then Steve finishes with ‘you’ll be able to buy this app from the app store – if we approve it!” Ha.

Steve now explains why the WiFi crashed - there are 570 basestations in the room, not just users but networks, MiFi hotspots. He gets everyone to turn them off and to ‘police each other’. The laughs.

6. iPhone OS4 becomes iOS4. Had to happen. We also knew most of this except perhaps for the Enterprise features. Even though he only touches on it, the Enterprise story for iPhone is really gaining momentum. Oh and Bing is an option for search.

The 100 millionth iOS device will sell this month! Huge development base.

7. iBooks on iPhone, OK looks nice.

8. iAds. Steve says they are doing it for one simple reason “To help our developers earn money so they continue to create free and low-cost apps.” It all stays in the app meaning users will be comfortable to click on the ads. Apple sells and hosts the ads with 60% of revenue going to the developers. Steve does another great demo of an ad for a new Nissan electric car – compares how $1 of electricity gets you 38 miles compared to 5mi in a Hummer! He also shows how you can win a car and he enters the competition and shows his email address in full view. Is that an invitation to email him?

Amazingly Apple as a new entrant in this whole ad space has in only 8 weeks of ad sales been able to get US$60m of commitments, which is half of the total US mobile display advertising sales for the second half of 2010!

One more thing – of course there is – Facetime video chat. Steve says “In 2007 when we launched the iPhone it was my great privilege to make the first public call on stage to one of my best friends in the whole world, Jonny Ive, the head of our design team, and I’d like to do the same on this occasion.’ Touching And just like that the video chat which has been available on 3G handsets for over 5 years is re-invented again by Apple. It just works out of the box to another iPhone 4 user as long as both ends are on WiFi. You can use the front or back camera, portrait or landscape.

Then they show a beautiful advert for Facetime from Sam Mendes (American Beauty/Road To Perdition).

And Apple will make the Facetime protocols an open industry standard – there you go, a helping hand to other lesser mobile device makers. Mind you, they have been pretty slow to adopt Visual Voice Mail which really is an amazing voicemail experience.

They even manage to make accessories look good with the Apple bump cases that go around the edge of the phone.

Steve wraps up by saying how proud he is of the teams that work on the iPhone and he thanks them and introduces them to the audience asking them to stand-up. Very nice ending.

So, this was a very funny presentation lasting nearly 2 hours with the WiFi jokes going all the way through the second half, and a number of difficult live demos, most of which Steve does himself. He is a master presenter who loves the detail of his products for both their technology and the social transformations he knows they are driving. Like every good salesperson he plays to his strengths and nullify’s those of his competitors. A sense of laid back West Coast politics filters through and he was warm, even emotional. His gaunt frame wanders across the stage but he is completely in control and able to respond with ease to glitches and the audience.

Tell me what other CEO in any industry anywhere in the world is able to be the number 1 sales man, product evangelist, helps with product design, builds great teams, and has transformed his and other industries? That is the CEO of the second largest company in the U.S. up on stage in a pair of jeans.

And taken all together these features do make the iPhone 4 a really big jump up on the 3GS – much more than many pundits are giving Apple credit for. I'll certainly be trading in my Android unless it miraculously gets an upgrade to 2.1 or later.

Rockstar performance: Led Zeppelin circa 1972.]]>Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:35 +1200 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh/7247
Meanwhile overseas a raft of devices (HTC, Samsung, Motorola) running 2.1 are already available. If you aren't sure what we are missing out on in NZ here's a list of some important user features that came in 2.0 or 2.1:

- Refreshed UI
- MS Exchange support built-in
- Combined in-box
- Quick Contact lets you tap on a contact's photo to immediately get a list of ways you can reach them
- SMS & MMS search
- Camera: digital zoom, white balance, macro focus
- Improved virtual keyboard (the 1.6 keyboard is pretty bad)
- Browser double tap zoom
- Improved graphics acceleration
- Bluetooth 2.1
- Live wallpapers
- 5 home screens
- revised App launcher
- Voice recognition for all text fields
- 3D photo gallery with 2-way sync to Picasa

- Turn by turn spoken navigation for US and UK
- Twitter's own Android client.

And next week at Google's I/O conference we should hear about the 2.2 features...]]>Fri, 14 May 2010 01:15 +1200 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh/7230last few posts I have been arguing that Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android are breaking away from the other Smartphone vendors due to their combination of mobile devices + cloud services  & apps + advertising + search eco-system. And from what we’ve seen so far it looks like Microsoft with Windows Phone 7 will be able to match this later in the year depending on their execution.

The clear trend across these platforms is that value added services are tightly integrated into the platform ecosystem from each vendor with mobile operators’ entertainment, games and content services virtually non-existent. Attempts by mobile operators to provide these services to date (e.g. Vodafone Live! or Telecom T-World in NZ) have been outside their core competency and so very expensive for very little return, especially once the myriad of content partners are paid out their revenue share. Such services were targeted at lowest common denominator handsets to attempt to encourage mass market adoption but Smartphones are showing that anyone who really wants these types of services expects a great experience and is prepared to purchase a much more capable device.

Which brings us to the question that mobile operators should be asking themselves:

“How do we add real value to our customers’ Smartphone experience that they will genuinely appreciate, that differentiates us from our competitors, and that keeps these customers using our network?”

Well here are some suggestions - but it will require operators sticking to their core business and not trying to be the centre of everything that users want to do on their mobiles – that battle is well and truly lost.

1. Device ranging – customers’ appetite for the latest and greatest mobile devices is clearly growing. It is essential to really understand specific customer segments and what they want. There isn’t too much room to differentiate on devices which is why you must get it absolutely spot on.

Telecom’s recent Android launch is an example of not quite getting it right. Having not been able to officially sell the iPhone they have finally announced two Android devices, both of which miss their mark in terms of target market.

Firstly, the LG GW620 is now three generations of OS behind (Android 1.5) so won’t attract enthusiast Android users, it’s poor Exchange support limits suitability for business customers, and at $699 it is still too expensive to attract a large new group of consumer customers willing to take a risk on an unproven (in NZ) proposition.

Secondly, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is a high-end Android device with a great set of hardware features but for the very hefty cost of NZ$1399 and its version of Android (1.6) is still two generations old. Sony Ericsson doesn’t have a great reputation with Windows Mobile and is unproven with Android. The type of buyers who want a high end Android over the top iPhone 3GS 32GB (and soon the new iPhone 4th gen) will demand only the latest Android 2.1 on devices from proven vendors.

[Edit May5th: The official Twitter application has just been released and it requires 2.1. SE have just announced that the X10 upgrades to 2.1 will be available in 'Q4 2010'.]

I suspect that Telecom’s objective was just to get any Android devices into market ASAP to try and restore some XT credibility and to finally be able to say they are offering genuine consumer Smartphones. But the better approach would have been to establish the category with the latest Android 2.1 devices from HTC or Motorola (who are proven and leading the US market) with great business (Exchange) support for sub-$1000. Then look to make a big Consumer play with a cheaper device for $399 or lower aimed at messaging and youth social networks after real research shows what services they are using. This would have to be supported by real investment in a campaign involving both the OEM and ideally Google.

Smartphones themselves are only part of a growing category of ‘mobile connected devices’ which also includes Netbooks and tablets. It will be even more challenging to pick the right devices in these categories for resale through mobile operator stores.


2. Network services - the standard set of services is common across all operators and leaves no room to differentiate;

- voice minutes
- fax calls and circuit switched data (rarely used)
- SMS/TXT messages
- MMS/PXT messages
- packet-data
- video-calling minutes
- basic voice mail storage and retrieval service.

So when the opportunity comes along to actually launch a new basic service that customers will love, it should be grabbed with both hands. The best example of that recently is “Visual Voice Mail (VVM)”. To be able to see a list on your phone of who has left a voicemail and to listen to them in any order you want to is great. And if it is from someone you don’t know, their number is listed which you can easily add to your contacts with a few taps. Even recording a new or temporary voicemail message is done on the device and then uploaded to the VVM platform, you never ever have to dial the IVR again! VVM is the biggest change to voicemail since, well, voicemail started and it genuinely blows away anyone who uses it. It is currently supported by the iPhone and has now been ratified as a standard so many more devices are coming soon which will support it.

 
3. Pricing plans have now become the most important part of what mobile operators provide - bundles of network services with rules around how you use them, and varying ability to monitor your usage. And this is the area where the most opportunity exists to innovate.

Some key areas to differentiate for Smartphone users would be:

- Flexibility in the plan to purchase extra services as you need them – especially data.

- A mobile operator branded handset application that lets you easily see your real-time usage for voice minutes, SMS, MMS and data. Allows you to purchase additional services right from your handset.

- Versions of On Account pricing plans with no subsidy built in so cheaper cost per month and no contract, letting you purchase your handset outright or bring an existing handset with you.

- First couple of months data usage with no out of bundle charges for data until you understand how much you need. Once users understand this then they can either modify their behavior or increase the size of their data bundle.

- Data bundles that operate across multiple devices, e.g. I could have a Smartphone and a laptop data card or netbook and be able to use one data bundle across them.

- [Added May11th: And data roaming bundles/pricing. Special bundles for usage when roaming which would need accurate visibility for the user so they can tell when they have exceeded it.]

 
4. Sales, set-up & support – my trusted mobile internet advisor.

Another big space to differentiate and to build customer loyalty is to offer quality advice regarding the mobile internet. The pace at which mobile internet services are developing is staggering and they are becoming increasingly powerful in assisting our everyday lives. Customers have a range of needs and there is a huge difference in the quality of experience they might have depending on what device + platform they select. There is a great opportunity for mobile operators to become their customers’ trusted advisor for using all the new mobile internet services. The following would be steps in the right direction:

- Instore sales expertise and demonstration capability – Apple is having massive retail success overseas simply from having staff who are knowledgeable and don’t treat customers like idiots. Be able to understand what customers actually want to do, give them live demonstrations of things they might want, and then help them make the best choice.

-  Instore set-up – make sure customers walk out of the store with their Smartphone working for the core services that they want. A personal bugbear of mine is SMTP configuration given many people now send from multiple email addresses via multiple access networks with different SMTP servers.

- Be able to capture customer specific information (phone type, main services being used) in the operator CRM system as both Marketing intelligence but also for support staff.

- Also use the above information to continue to communicate to users about latest features or trends for their particular Smartphone platform.

- Skilled support staff who can resolve most issues over the phone and who own the end-to-end experience of customers. Manage escalations to 3rd parties on behalf of customers right to resolution.

- Training classes held in-store of an evening based on specific platforms where users can register to be notified about the next one and then come along for expert help and advice.

- Visit schools, community groups, old peoples homes etc. and give them demonstrations of the incredible services that are now possible. Let them touch and play with powerful devices.

 
Now a lot of what I have outlined above might not be very glamorous and isn’t about the ‘next big thing’ but does add real value to mainstream customers’ mobile internet experience. If mobile operators don’t start to demonstrate value and build trust amongst customers then they will continue the slide to bit-pipe utility status. Apple’s handling of AT&T’s 3G data service on the iPad is a chilling pointer to the future relegation of mobile operators even for the delivery of one of their own core services.

Can you think of any more areas where the mobile operators would add value to your Smartphone and mobile internet experience?]]>Thu, 29 Apr 2010 01:50 +1200 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh/7204back in January we have seen an unprecedented number of major product announcements over the last three months, far more than at any time I can recall in my twelve years in the mobile industry. 2010 is a really exciting year for users and pivotal for a number of the vendors. The Smartphone space is running white hot being driven by the maturing mobile internet ecosystem with vendors making sure they stake out their share of what is becoming a massive new market.  

The key pieces of the mobile internet ecosystem that have converged are:

A. From Device vendors and Internet players:

- powerful mobile devices and OS’s with fast processors, high res screens, rich GUI’s, GPS + compass, and very important software update mechanisms to keep the software on these devices at the latest version and to fix any bugs,

- rich mobile application development tools, over the air app distribution, and app charging/revenue share mechanisms including advertising insertion,

- sophisticated on-line cloud services that interact in real-time over the internet with the mobile device and applications downloaded onto it.

B. From mobile operators:

- fast mobile broadband networks (3G, 3G+ - HSPA) with wide geographic coverage,

- open internet access without any walled gardens,

- reasonably priced mobile data bundles meaning most users don’t have to worry about bill shock from ‘normal’ use of their device – I accept that international roaming is a major problem and that very heavy users blow out their bundles – there is still important work for the operators to do here.

With all these pieces coming together users are finding that a range of web activities (messaging, social networking, photo sharing, location services, games) actually make more sense on a mobile device than on a PC. Compared to the fixed internet mobile devices are generally less expensive, more portable and personal, and always ‘logged on’. Many more people will have access to the mobile internet for more of the time compared to the fixed internet.

The iPhone absolutely blew open mass market expectations for what a great mobile internet experience can be and all other vendors have been scrambling to meet that standard. Predictions from the U.S. are that fully half of all mobile users will have a Smartphone by Q3 next year (2011) – not just a ‘feature’ phone with a good camera or that can play music or that can sort of browse a few web pages – but a fully featured Smartphone.

Two vendor models have emerged for how these devices are taken to market:

1. One vendor makes the OS and the hardware – this model is currently dominant and is followed by Apple, BlackBerry and Palm.

2. The OS vendor licenses to multiple hardware OEM’s – this model is followed by Google, Microsoft, and Symbian. This is leading to a flurry of new Android devices and a wide range of WinMo in the past.

Given the staggering number of platform and device releases going on there are large shifts in market share taking place and it is important to understand how these changes are different in the U.S. vs. the rest of the world, certainly vs. NZ. The U.S. has become the leading Smartphone market as the recent focus on mobile from their computer and internet giants gains traction but they are having different success outside the U.S.

Below is a summary of recent announcements for each of the major Smartphone platforms and how they are performing in the U.S. vs. New Zealand. Note that the total Smartphone market is growing strongly so even if a vendor is static or losing total market share they could still be growing their customer base. U.S. statistics are well publicized but there is nothing formal for NZ so I have used my best estimates.


Platform – Apple iPhone

Recent major announcements:
- iPad details released

- iPad launched in U.S.

- iPhone OS 4.0 details announced.

U.S. position – Has rapidly grown to 25% of the total installed market but remained flat now for the last quarter, i.e. growing at same rate as total Smartphone market. Although note that Apple claim the iPhone OS (incl. iPod) accounts for 64% of all mobile browsing. Remember that the iPhone only works on one mobile operator in the U.S. - AT&T. 

N.Z. position – Probably accounting for over half of all Smartphone sales and would be much higher if it wasn’t officially restricted to one of the two main mobile networks - Vodafone. Note that all iPhones sold in NZ are unlocked so can be used on either network and is in fact better suited to Telecom’s AT&T aligned 850MHz 3G network.

Upcoming activity – Current boost in US with iPad sales but unknown when iPad will be available in NZ. Expected new iPhone device (iPhone HD + video calling?) running OS 4.0 in July will also push up sales. Perennial questions over whether Telecom will begin offering the iPhone. 

 
Platform – Google Android OS & OEM devices

Recent major announcements:
- Nexus One sold on-line by Google unsubsidized in U.S. although this sales distribution ‘experiment’ is not regarded as a success.

- Several new high-spec device launches across all carriers in U.S. from HTC and Samsung with 1GHz Snapdragon processors and very high resolution screens

- On-going improvement of cloud services such as translation and visual recognition to enhance mobile search

- Android 2.1 released – fairly minor update with some UI enhancements.

U.S. position – Huge amount of Android related activity means it is the real Smartphone growth story currently. Grew total market share from 4% to 9% over Dec’09 to Feb’10. Wide range of devices across all carriers and large marketing campaigns from non-iPhone carriers.

N.Z. position – Barely a ripple. Still only one Android device launced as of beginning of April, the HTC Magic on Vodafone in mid-2009. No market understanding of Android and its capabilities. Lacking the ‘killer app’ of spoken word turn-by-turn navigation as in the U.S.

Upcoming activity – Telecom have finally announced two devices for imminent launch in NZ - the low end LG GW620 ($699 - old version of Android) and the high end Sony Ericsson X10 ($1399). SE don’t have a great reputation with recent handsets on 3rd party OS’s and this one will have to be very good to justify the price tag. Telecom will have to work hard for these devices to get cut-through especially from late-June/July when the next iPhone is revealed. Really need to have the latest HTC and Samsung devices at sub-$1000 to generate any sort of buzz.

 
Platform – Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.x/Phone 7 and KIN + OEM devices

Recent major announcements:
- Windows Phone 7 announced at Mobile World Congress in Feb is a complete ground-up reworking of Windows Mobile. But no devices out until Oct/Nov/Dec 2010, and no ability for OEM’s to differentiate by ‘reskinning’. A brave and bold move that now must be executed on well.

- KIN One and Two just announced, teen/youth focused social networking and media uploading devices exclusive to Verizon in the U.S. (and Vodafone in rest of world - thx Mauricio), launching in May. Evolution of the T-mobile Sidekick from Danger, purchased by MS in 2008. Devices will continue to be built by Sharp and jointly branded. We will have to wait and see what reception the KIN gets upon release in the U.S. but this is a very interesting development with some commentators stating this shows the Smartphone market is maturing and fragmenting with specific products designed for specific market segments. A couple of important things seems to be missing - no IM (MSN Messenger is huge amongst NZ teens, not sure about U.S.), no app development so no games. The KIN move definitely raises questions as to how these devices will sit alongside Windows Phone 7, will services be interoperable, and Microsoft’s position in competition with its OEM’s. Also these devices will need to be cheap as 95%+ of the target market are PrePay users - if they aren't cheap then won't users just go for a fully fledged Smartphone. 2010 is make or break year for Microsoft's mobile strategy.

- HTC HD2 setting the benchmark of what could be achieved with WM 6.5. While selling robustly in markets it has been launched in it will struggle under expectations of WP 7 – and it is not upgradable.

U.S. position – Rapidly losing market share with all previous versions of Windows Mobile 6.x, dropping 19% to 15% of total base over Nov – Feb. KIN coming in May on Verizon is the only hope for most of 2010.

N.Z. position – Poor sales ever since Telecom stopped pushing the Okta range. Probably maintaining a few business sales on Telecom but very little else. Unsure if we will see the KIN or WP7 this year.

Upcoming activity – everything as above. Any new WM 6.5 devices will really struggle.

 
Platform – BlackBerry

Recent major announcements:
- Nothing significant.

U.S. position – Slightly gaining market share from 41% to 42% over Nov-Feb. Very entrenched in the business market but also seeing uptake amongst 20-25 age group due to the excellent BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service on cheaper 2G Curve handsets. BBM is the best of IM combined with SMS to provide always-on group messaging, status etc. I have also heard that this service is gaining some traction in parts of Europe. It really requires the mobile operators to push BlackBerry into Consumer markets which is increasingly difficult with the outdated handset range on the aging OS.

N.Z. position – As most NZ business customers are in small businesses who use the BIS service (rather than Corporates who use BES) it is losing market share to iPhone. Vodafone declined to even launch the 'Storm 2'.

Upcoming activity – Nothing rumoured but expect some announcements out of the Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES) at the end of April. Note that the ‘WES’ name is looking increasingly dated. Weaknesses with lack of cloud services and good touch-screen handsets as the ‘Storm’ failed to impress.

 
Platform – Symbian/Nokia & Sony Ericsson - MeeGo/Nokia & Intel

Recent major announcements:
- Nokia and Intel announced merger of both of their mobile linux initiatives into “MeeGo”. However strategy is unclear and will be difficult to get traction in an increasingly crowded market.

- Nokia N900 (on previous Maemo linux OS) released in some parts of the world but not given a major push.

U.S. position – Symbian devices are virtually non-existent. Nokia have slipped majorly in the U.S. over the last 5 years to the point where most analysts don’t even measure them against other vendors.

N.Z. position – Nokia has only a couple of business focused devices that come close to being called Smartphones in market, has really slipped since the N-95 revolutionised Consumer Smartphones. There are a couple of Sony Ericsson Symbian based devices focusing on high res cameras but are not true Smartphones.

Upcoming activity – unknown but desperately needed for Nokia and SE.


NB: Palm webOS is not available in NZ so is not reviewed.

 
Of course mobile is just one of the many battlefronts between the huge tech and industry players as they fight it out for ownership of our digital lives. From a vendor perspective it will be interesting to see if anyone outside of Apple, Google and Microsoft and their hugely rich and integrated services can stay in the mobile game over 2010. And how will those three differentiate themselves from each other?]]>Sat, 17 Apr 2010 03:40 +1200 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh/7180predicted to reach 50% of all mobile users by Q3 next year. Total Smartphones shipped in 2009 was 27% up on 2008 with 2010 forecast to be up 38% again over 2009 – all during a major recession!

Clearly customers want devices that give them a great mobile internet experience for a wide range of on-line activities. Many of the so called ‘Featurephones’ have simply not been able to deliver this and leave users frustrated when they try web browsing or email or downloading applications.

According to the Canalys figures all the main vendors in the US are growing their shipment volumes except Microsoft which is forecast to be static given their build-up to the impressive looking Windows Phone 7 at the end of the year. Presumably they accepted taking the hit over 2010 to build towards a fresh assault from Xmas 2010 onwards – a big call and the right one.

But the real mover in the US is Android which is forecast to increase market share from 9.7% of total Smartphone sales in 2009 to 12.3% of the rapidly growing market in 2010 – meaning a 170% increase in shipment volume. This Android momentum is also reflected in US gadget and business web sites. There are two main reasons for this rapid Android growth in the US over 2010.

Firstly, Android momentum in the US has been established with a very large amount of recent activity driven by non-iPhone mobile operators trying to compete:
- T-mobile launched the first Android device (G1) in September 2008 and promoted it aggressively.
- Motorola and Verizon conducted a US$100m launch campaign around the Motorola Droid handset in Sep-Nov 2009.
- Google released spoken word turn-by-turn navigation in the US only for free to coincide with the Droid launch – the ‘killer app’ that no other SP has.
- Google launched their own Nexus One (built by HTC) in early January 2010 via on-line store and promoted this via links on various Google web assets.
- A number of new very high-spec devices from HTC, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have been announced across all the main networks and each device + network launch again drives up Android awareness.

Secondly, OEM’s (like Samsung, HTC, Motorola, LG etc.) will use Android to bring out progressively cheaper Smartphones to drive adoption into new customer segments.

But the situation in the rest of the world is very different. As Aaron posted recently Smartphone adoption varies greatly in different regions. While these Admob figures refer to actual ad serving (into web pages and applications) rather than sales, they do reflect the relative momentum between the Smartphone platforms. In NZ (Oceania) the iPhone is absolutely dominant with Android barely registering. The most recent Admob figures for the US show again how Android is taking off there.

So far in NZ we have had only one Android device (HTC Magic) launched by Vodafone in June 2009 with a low level of marketing activity despite being a great device. As long as Vodafone is the only operator officially with the iPhone it does not make sense for them to spend heavily to promote anything else. So far there have been no Androids from Telecom. Apple has built strong operator relationships all over the world but Google has been relying on their OEM partners. There is a limit to what the OEM’s can achieve without strong buy in from the mobile operators and they in turn want Google involved to help drive uptake – Catch-22.

For Telecom + OEM to make a big play with Android will require a huge investment to raise awareness about it in the mass market. Most non-techy people I talk with don’t understand how Google can be making mobile phones - there is a disconnect. None of the OEM’s has yet staked out their Android presence in NZ. Samsung and Motorola are the two most recognized consumer brands in NZ with HTC having the widest range of devices and of course the only device yet launched.

Further complicating any Android play is the hype around the new Apple products – the iPad and probable new iPhone. Despite these devices not being available in NZ until mid-year the buzz is already building from overseas. 

Telecom of course knows that they need a Smartphone play to restore XT faith and overall Brand credibility not to mention impact on revenues. Assuming they don’t have the iPhone coming anytime soon the good news is that the US is showing that Android is certainly attractive to the mass market.

The bad news is that a very large investment is required to move the NZ market to that point from where it is now, and would they get the necessary OEM + Google support to do this?]]>Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:26 +1200 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh/7146Further details have just been released by Apple on how the 3G service will work on the iPad in the U.S. and it represents a paradigm change in mobile network usage. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that with the iPad Apple has effectively become a data MVNO (mobile virtual network operator), at least in the U.S. Whether they take a cut or not on the data plan they are managing the overall experience in a very elegant way from the users' perspective. The 3G service becomes part of the 'Apple' experience rather than an iPad on AT&T.

We already knew that there would not be any contracts on the data bundles meaning that AT&T will not be subsidising these devices to reduce the device cost and lock in customers. That's OK for AT&T given they are the only network supporting Apple products in the U.S. 

We also knew the pricing - US$14.99 for 250MB (OK) and US$29.99 for Unlimited (awesome!). I think we are all interested to see if 'Unlimited' will have some sort of cap at say 5 or 10GB.

But what's really new is how the user interacts with their 3G service. All functions (activating, payment, changing plans, deactivating) are managed from the iPad itself using a 3G manager application. You also get usage stats on how much data you have left if you have the 250MB bundle and pro-active usage alerts - excellent!

These functions must have quite a strong tie-in to the network operator to enable payment, provision the service and extract these usage details. So what's incredible is that there does not appear to be any reference to AT&T in this 3G application - the network operator is hidden and the user doesn't need to know who it is! It is not clear who the payment is with as it looks to be via credit card (rather than your iTunes account) but is that settled through Apple or directly with AT&T?

It will be fascinating to see how this model translates outside the U.S. where almost all countries (NZ excepted) have multiple iPhone provider networks. Will every operator that wants to support the iPad need to work with Apple to provide the approved pricing plans and network integration? Will the iPad only work on such approved networks?

[Edit May 5th: It looks like Apple is taking a very open position with the iPad on 3G. Going by this post from iPhone New Zealand the iPad will accept any SIM card and all you have to do is enter the APN details. As the iPad is launched in more countries I would expect the iPad to detect the SIM card and auto-fill the APN field.]

]]>Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:00 +1200 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh/7109

Two key reasons that GSM won out were the users’ identity actually being on the SIM card rather than the handset meaning no hassles changing from one phone to another, and the amount of standardisation (GSM is grafted neatly onto ISDN) to aid interoperability which was born out of a desire to have harmonious communications across Europe. Occasionally design by committee produces good results and GSM turned out to scale very well.


As an aside, a Lucent engineer told me in 2003 that the U.S. mobile operators instructed their CDMA infrastructure providers to prevent roaming and interoperability between U.S networks so as to stop customers moving from one network to the other. 


While the Europeans were developing the Groupe Special Mobile (GSM) standard in the 80’s (later Anglecised to ‘Global System for Mobile’) the Americans were busy with the PC revolution and the building blocks for the internet. The (fixed) internet and mobile voice both exploded from the late 90’s.


However these two worlds were on a collision course with 3G providing usable mobile access to the internet from about 2004. In Europe this mobile internet experience was very much controlled by the mobile operators (walled gardens) who could dictate design features to the traditional handset vendors (Nokia, Ericsson). The U.S. mobile operators were equally restrictive but there was also a drive for more openness coming from the U.S. PC & internet tech industries with Palm, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile (on HP, Palm & HTC devices) and BlackBerry from Canada. At first these were focussed on business users who wanted access to their information without operator restrictions which operators let them have while they focussed on their Consumer customers. This meant the open mobile internet model was now in place but the uptake of mobile internet usage was held back by very high and uncertain mobile data pricing and devices that were difficult to configure. BlackBerry’s success came from price certainty ($x for your monthly email) and relatively easy set-up, especially for Corporates.


Our expectation of how easy it could be to use a powerful Smartphone was revolutionised in mid-2007 with the launch of the 2G (EDGE) Apple iPhone, again from one of the PC industry pioneers. The iPhone provided a highly usable mobile browser and Apple negotiated reasonable mobile data plans with unfettered mobile internet use - oh and it was an iPod to boot! Since then the Application Store, cloud services and the GPS/accelerometer/compass hardware features have been added to create the ‘table stakes’ of what a mobile Smartphone platform should now provide. And at the same time the networks have gotten so much better with HSPA now delivering wireless broadband performance.


Which brings us back to MWC 2010 held in Barcelona, one of the major European cities. Because it looks like the only ones who can match Apple are the other U.S. computer industry giants. Yes 2010 at MWC was the year of the American mobile internet and the realisation that the computer/internet guys have also become the mobile guys. They are close to owning outright the Smartphone market and over the next few years we will see how cheap they can make them to drive up user numbers and increase usage of their cloud services.


Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7 Series. Despite the mouthful this is a major step forwards and real break with the previous Windows Mobile 6.5. It was generally very well received even though we won’t see devices in market until ‘holiday’ season 2010 - which I think means somewhere in Oct or Nov. Of course Apple and Android will have gone through further upgrades by then. The ecosystem around Windows Phone looks to be very rich including; Zune, Xbox, Windows Live & My Phone, Facebook and Bing search and maps. While a range of OEM’s were listed as partners there were no specific device announcements. Development for WinPho7 will be a major topic at the Microsoft developer conference ‘MIX’ in Las Vegas in March.


Google CEO Eric Schmidt presented the official MWC keynote address saying that mobile was the #1 focus for Google now. While lacking any big product announcements he revealed that 60,000 Android handsets were now being sold daily around the world which equates to some 20million in a year - a very impressive number. He also talked about features like voice recognition with real-time translation, and photo translation of text in street signs. These types of services play to Google’s strength in massive cloud based processing in a way that maybe no-one else can match. And Android support for Flash was demonstrated in the keynote by Eric Tseng who is really getting around these days as the public face of Android. 


On the Android device side there were a number of new Android devices announced with the most exciting coming from HTC including the HTC Legend made from a single block of aluminium. Also of note are vendors like Huawei who might drive Android device prices to new levels that could really stimulate Smartphone adoption amongst new market segments. It seems that the main challenge for Google is to not be a victim of their own success - there are so many new handsets coming out so quickly with the HTC Desire looking like it has already trumped the Google Nexus One - also made by HTC - which was only released on Jan 5th. Perhaps it’s a good problem to have but reports are that a number of customers are annoyed that they have an obsolete phone so soon after its release.


Apple wasn‘t even there physically but of course their impact was everywhere. Apparently Apple Execs do attend MWC to hold backroom meetings with prospective new iPhone mobile operators. There will almost certainly be the next round of OS and hardware announcements in Jun/Jul.


Nokia is the last one standing from the old GSM world maintaining their own OS but they chose not to even be present at the official MWC instead holding their own alternative conference nearby - although I saw very little coverage of it on the web. Along with Intel they announced that they would merge their two Linux mobile initiatives - MobLin and Maemo - into MeeGo! Good lord, what this means and how it fits into the open sourcing of Symbian and a cohesive mobile OS strategy is anyone’s guess. And not a single new device was announced.


So the Europeans won the Telco mobile standards battle with GSM prevailing over CDMA. But as MWC 2010 showed the Americans have rendered that irrelevant by delivering a great user experience through quality of the handset software and the richness of the internet services it connects to - and the business case is in more than just hardware margins. The network in the middle just needs to be effective, scalable and interoperable, so thanks for that GSM and thanks for handing over the stage at your Mobile World Congress.  


PS: 
BlackBerry was there but made little noise. One announcement regarding some new BES version, and another that amounted to ‘hold tight, we know our web browser sucks but trust us we are working on a decent one’. I just can’t see how they are going to reach into Consumer markets in a meaningful way.


Palm made no announcements that I saw.


Samsung announced their own OS and SDK etc. to add to the others they support; Android, Linux Mobile, Windows Mobile. The recently dropped Symbian - glad they decided to rationalise!
Sony Ericsson announced a new Symbian and Android device and they also support WinMo. Then made the incredible admission that they had declined Google's request to build the Nexus One. Why would you turn that down? And then why would you admit it?]]>Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:06 +1200 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh/7075

[Author comment 10 June'10: this article was originally written in Feb'10 and since then Android has continued to grow very strongly in the U.S. It is still struggling outside the U.S. and I believe that most of what is written below still applies. In fact with Froyo 2.2 announced the OS fragmentation issue has gotten more confusing.]

I’m sure it’s been a blast working on Android over the last couple of years but I am concerned that your focus seems to be on the U.S. and that you are struggling for market share outside the US. You seem to be missing a great opportunity as Smartphones (or ‘Superphones’ as you call them) move from the early adopters into the mainstream market. The quality of the latest Android phones is getting very good and there is so much potential to connect them to your ever increasing on-line services that play to your strengths. But there are some basic execution issues that seem to be holding you back.


Up until the end of last year I worked for a mobile operator and I watched the HTC Magic Android get outsold by the iPhone by over 40 to 1. This seems to line up with recently reported NexusOne sales figures. We were the only mobile operator in our market with either the iPhone or the Android and we sold them both on identical plans with the same subsidies - so a perfect head to head test case. In fact the HTC Magic could get 3G across our entire nationwide network but the iPhone 3G(S) only in main urban areas. The Android retail price at first was between the iPhone 3G and 3GS 16GB and then we dropped it to substantially below the iPhone 3G - but this had almost no effect. Also I have heard from several of your OEM’s that in the Asia/Pac region they are getting no traction at all with their Android powered handsets (across a number of countries and mobile operators) and they are frustrated that you seem to have no plans to turn this around.


This post was initially prompted by my 9 year old son who asked me the other day: “Dad, can I play a game on your phone thing…I’m not sure what to call your Google phone, I mean it doesn’t have an easy name like your other iPhone.” It struck me that even someone who has spent quite a bit of time playing with a phone running Android doesn’t know what to call it. I can hardly imagine the confusion for your customers in the U.S. who have to deal with the G1, G2, Motorola ‘Droid’ and recently the Nexus One which is somehow more Google than the others as it is sold on-line by you. And apart from the weird names they all seem to come out with slightly different versions of software which actually have quite different features!
[Author comment 10 June'10: Google has in fact discontinued its online sales model]


I assume you are wanting to get as many Android based mobile phones into users’ hands as possible because this drives up mobile web usage that you can monetize - at least that‘s my simple understanding. For this to work then you are now going after the mainstream market - as are your competitors. You want everyone to at least consider an Android when they next upgrade their mobile phone. 


Well, this mainstream market won’t know the subtleties of the Smartphone world (and neither should they) and the place they will go to compare your handsets against your competitors and get advice is the stores owned by the mobile operators or their resellers. This is partly because there will be questions around upgrade deals and contract sign-ups and waiving certain fees, but also because given the amount of money being spent they might actually want to see and touch the phones and have them explained by a real person. 


When considering any Android powered phones a prospective customer will immediately come up with a number of good questions:
- What‘s it called?
- What’s does Google have to do with making an actual physical mobile phone? Aren’t they a web company?
- What can it do and will it do everything I need it to?
- What’s the difference between these different ones that all have Android on them?
- What’s this Chrome OS I am starting to hear about - how is that different to Android?
- Why should I get it instead of an iPhone?


And the poor mobile operator or channel sales person really won’t be able to answer any of these because neither Google, nor the OEM, nor the mobile operators has clearly explained it to them. And neither has any other communications that they might have seen from Google or elsewhere. (Perhaps the US$100m spent by Verizon and Motorola went some way to addressing this in the U.S. only.)


As it stands the Android devices are still failing to get good cut-through in many markets despite the increasing number of OEM's that support it. The iPad and iPhone (with iOS4) remind us again that this class of device is ‘Personal‘ - it is with us most of the day and performs several critical functions so we really need to be able to trust it. And we know this world is changing fast so we want to make sure we are in some way ’future-proofed’.


So guys, here’s what you need to do:  


1. Decide who your customers are:
This is easy as outlined above it is pretty much anyone even remotely considering upgrading their mobile handset - which is nearly everyone at some point in the next 3 years.


2. Nail the core proposition:
There must be a rock-solid set of features that must be in every Android handset everywhere in the world. And when a major new release comes out it will automatically upgrade on all existing handsets. Absolutely differentiate on your strengths of mobile access to on-line services but make that consistent. 


At the moment there are different features on different software versions which are coming out simultaneously on different devices. And some features (Near me now, turn-by-turn navigation) are only available in the U.S. You are Google - I thought you were about turning stuff on for the whole world at the same time?


You need to answer questions like:
- How do I get media files between my handset and my PC or the cloud? 
- What music download service is widely available?
- How can I create ring-tones?
- Are all standard email attachment formats supported (incl. MS Office and PDF) and native MS Exchange support?
- How do I tether it?


Only once all this is in place can you let the OEM’s layer stuff over the top - HTC Touch Sense or Motoblur or whatever - as long as they don’t interfere with the core proposition.


3. Get your Channel Model pumping:
The on-line sales play is OK but I really think it’s a bit early for that until you have much more momentum and customers are comfortable to purchase this way. As above I’d argue that the starting point for most people in selecting a new handset will be the mobile operator they are already on and even mobile operators own on-line sales efforts do a tiny number of sales compared to their physical resellers. 


Frankly you have to get some feet on the ground in each region/country to engage the mobile operators and their sales channels directly. To position the proposition to their Marketing departments and to conduct channel training sessions for their resellers. To run sales incentive and rewards programs in combination with the OEM‘s. I appreciate this is a bit old-school for you but you’ve got to get momentum underway and you can’t just leave it to the OEM’s. If you don’t do this then the OEM’s aren’t going to be aggressively pushing their devices onto the carriers.


4. Get your communications together:
This might sound trite but please tell your prospective customers about your product, its features and the benefits to them. Excite them and give them trust and confidence in any Android powered device - and of course its differentiators. You need to talk about Android - with individual phones as examples of the core proposition.


You have a number of amazing mobile features that are barely known about e.g. Latitude to follow your friends, mobile Streetview, local search in the browser, Google Goggles, heck even Google Talk and the Marketplace, Wikipedia layer.


What is your customer facing website with all the key info anyone could want - no matter where they are in the world? Neither android.com nor google.com/phone are quite up to scratch.


And perhaps you need an identifiable person or persons front and centre to represent this class of products and other similar ones that might be coming. I’ve seen some great interviews with Eric Tseng recently [Author-he has now joined Facebook] and that seems to work well. 


At the moment it feels like you are not really focussing on many markets outside the U.S. This is a momentum game and at the moment I think the amount of tech media coverage is way out of step with your real world sales. 


Good luck and all the best,
Tim.]]>Wed, 3 Feb 2010 09:55 +1200 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh/7058
Many of us are asked by colleagues, friends and family "What is a Smartphone" and I have to admit that I struggle with a simple answer. You can either provide a usage definition or a feature list definition. I am going to provide both and then a list of what I consider to really be Smartphones available today in NZ.

A usage definition would go something like: "A Smartphone is a mobile device that can be used like a standard mobile phone and can also effectively provide access to a range of internet content and services,  some of which are specifically designed for mobile devices such as location based social networking. It can also store and playback multi-media content like music, photos and video." 


I'd like to add something that captures the emotion better like "and it completely blows you away every time you use it that the future is really here now and it's kind of magical how you can connect to the web over the air". But it's hard to make that sound credible isn't it? 

Below is a featurelist that I think is now required for a Smartphone but this is really only valid for the moment, i.e. as of early 2010. It is quite likely that new features will be added to this list in the near future. 

Smartphone Features:
- Operating system with SDK (iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Palm webOS, Symbian, LiMo)
- Large high-resolution screen (at least 480 x 320 pixels)
- QWERTY keyboard for effective data entry - either physical or touch-screen
- Data networking - HSPA and WiFi
- GPS and built-in mapping software
- Sensors: Accelerometer (critical for full screen device), Digital Compass
- 3.2MP+ camera (5.0MP probably expected now with 8.1 in next 3-6 mnths)
- Video recording capable (720p probably expected in next 3-6 mnths)
- Excellent web browser with quick rendering and sensitive user controls to expand/reduce page size
- Excellent email client incl. Contact & Calendar applications - tied to a cloud synch service (Mobile Me, Google, MS Windows Live)
- Media Player for music, photos and video
- 8GB minimum of storage (either on-board of via expansion cards)
- Application distribution mechanism and wide choice of applications including games that take advantage of the hardware
- Can be connected to a laptop or PC/Mac to act as a mobile modem (also called 'tethering').


And while MS Exchange support is important it's only needed by Corporate users.


So drumroll please...here are the Smartphones available today in NZ (excl. parallel imported or grey market) - in no particular order:

- Apple iPhone
- HTC Magic Android.


That's it - a very small list. Now here are some honourable mentions that are only really let down by their (default) web-browsers which I don't think are good enough for everyday regular use:


- BlackBerry Bold and Storm (although Contacts & Calendar synching isn't great for non-email server users)
- Nokia N97
- HTC Touch Pro2.


Still a pretty small list. 


Of course not everyone needs a Smartphone, there are plenty of other mobile devices that have a number of these features or they focus on specific features like a very high resolution camera (Samsung, Sony Ericsson).

And let's not forget that the cheapest of the devices listed above is $749 (HTC Magic). However things are going to get interesting when we see devices with all the features listed above come down to $599 or even sub-$500. This may not be too far away.

]]>Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:35 +1200 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh/7051official invitations for their upcoming event next Wednesday Jan 27th at 10.00am US PST which is Thursday 28th at 7.00am NZ time. 


Over the last few weeks Apple has done their usual great job of controlled leaks to whip up a frenzy of pre-announcement excitement. Latest rumours are that it might cover the so called iTablet, iLife 2010 AND iPhone 4.0 OS. Wow! If so it will be very interesting to see if they are tied together or it is just a convenient time to announce them all.


Amidst this hype it seems to me that there are two important questions regarding the tablet: 


1. What new features/capabilities will this tablet have that requires a new hardware platform, rather than utilise existing devices? 


2. Is there really a big enough new market for what must surely be an expensive device? 


The one content area that Apple doesn’t distribute themselves is e-newspapers, e-books and e-zines. While a number of 3rd parties offer e-readers for the iPhone they differ in function and content and Apple will have noticed the success that Amazon is getting with the Kindle. To generate the type of growth that Apple likes it is probably time for them to take control of this content distribution - perhaps as another feed inside of iTunes. The venerable iTunes has certainly come a long way.


It is also likely that in embracing existing content Apple will extend it - will make possible the creation of new kinds of multi-media publications that can only be distributed by Apple.


Even so - all of this could be distributed to existing devices - iPhone/iPod touch, Macs and Macbooks. Perhaps the table/e-reader form factor is fundamentally better suited to print-like content as has been highlighted by the Kindle - it is hard for us to see that from NZ.


It is hard to see a large new customer segment being opened up by what must be a fairly expensive device. If the iPhone 3GS 32GB is NZ$1,349 and the cheapest Macbook is NZ1,699 then the tablet could well be at least NZ$1,500. If there are features that limit the new content to the tablet then that will upset existing customers and harm sales of those devices. Perhaps the new content will just work better on the tablet so as to prompt existing iPhone & Macbook users to also purchase it. 


I’m going to go out on a limb and say that sales of the new tablet may not hugely increase total hardware sales for Apple as there will be some canibalisation of other devices (surely someone will create a plug-in keyboard/dock so it replaces a Macbook) and it is too expensive to open up a large new market. But that’s OK because it is really the Hero device to promote a whole new category of print related content in electronic format. And their new advertising distribution mechanism from the recent Quattro Wireless purchase will be plugged right into it.


It’s also worth considering whether this tablet will be a mobile device and have 3G mobile data access to the internet for an ‘always connected’ experience? You’d have to think so in which case it will presumably be sold via mobile carriers with a subsidy - although possibly with a mobile data plan only - so less subsidy. What frequencies will it support? This new content will be data intensive so will really require HSDPA. Apple have been told loud and clear by a number of Asia/Pac and European mobile operators that they need to support the 900MHz 3G frequency  in addition to 850MHz so keep an eye out for that.
EDIT: What if the tablet was designed to pair to an iPhone for cellular connectivity?


So stay tuned to your favourite gadget website from 7.00am on Thursday Jan 28th (for NZ readers) who will no doubt be live blogging from the Apple event.]]>Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:05 +1200 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/timmyh/7050

I'm keen to put down a few thoughts - and summarise those of other commentators I respect - on where we are headed with Smartphones that are always connected to the web. Most of this will be well known to the Geekzone audience but hopefully I can cast some of the key trends in a new light and add in a local context where relevant.

By way of background I was the Head of Smartphones in Vodafone Marketing up until the end of last year with 2006/2007 focused on BlackBerry and a little Windows Mobile, 2008/2009 expanding to iPhone and Android. An exciting time for sure but only an introduction I suspect to what is coming in the next few years. I look forward to your feedback and lively debate.

Cheers,
Tim Hayward    


The Smartphone landscape and main players for 2010
With 2010 barely underway there has already been a flurry of mobile related announcements and rumours as the global tech giants continue to position themselves for the rapidly growing mobile internet. This growth is being driven by three complimentary trends;

1. powerful mobile devices (and very soon we might have a location aware Tablet),

2. high-speed and widely available wireless internet access - at increasingly affordable prices IMHO 

3. increasingly sophisticated web or cloud based services. 


The potential of the mobile internet is to use your current (mobile) location and your friends/contacts list to enable the following; one-to-one and one-to-many communications, local information and services search, status updating across your social networks, seeing which friends are nearby, sharing comments or reviews on places you visit/use, access to media & content, Augmented Reality (AR) etc. And across many of these activities runs advertising that is context aware including both your location and your preferences. 

The first set of mobile communications services on Smartphones simply used mobile access instead of PC access - email, IM and phase one social networks like Facebook. Even SMS never had a concept of location. But recently a new group of web services has emerged built from the ground up around location and mobility. These include Foursquare, Yelp and Gowalla. These and an increasing number of other web-sites are 'inter-connecting' to share messages/updates with the more established FB and Twitter. This web based 'interconnection' is very interesting when compared to telecommunications interconnection is much more formally defined and thus quite limited. 

There are some mobile operators also entering this social networking space, e.g. the Vodafone 360 service launched in Europe late last year and announced to be coming to NZ sometime this year. This is an ambitious combination of a new Linux mobile OS on the handset built around your contacts list and tied to an on-line back-up service that also connects to your other web networks. Perhaps it has the potential to link more closely to network based services but I do think it will be a challenge for a Telco to nimbly develop a handset and web ecosystem while also running a mature network business. 

It is early days for these location driven social networking and communications services which are being used mainly by tech savvy early adopters although as seen with FB and Twitter a service can very quickly enter the mainstream. While these start-ups are dukeing it out to be the #1 location based web and mobile app the tech giants are increasing the capabilities of their underlying mobile platforms, ecosystems and cloud services. This now includes; devices & OS, email, contacts, calendar, on-line document storage and editing, multi-media file storage, maps and navigation, 3rd party application SDK's and stores. These really are very wide and vertically integrated eco-systems from Apple and Google primarily, with Nokia and Microsoft playing catch-up, and BlackBerry and Palm in a more challenging position. In the space of only two years mobile innovation has become firmly centred on the web and this innovation has shifted from Europe to the U.S. with devices coming from innovative Asian OEM's like HTC.

Apple came from the PC revolution of the 70's but has shown it can adapt to major technology advancements to drive new product categories. Its strengths are:

- Controlling every aspect of the end users' device and overall service experience to make it seamless and intuitive,
- Digital content aggregation and distribution,
- The ability to enter a nascent market at just the right time and add the innovation needed to drive huge growth - also called 'good timing',
- Consumer 'cool' brand awareness driven off the iPod and iPhone - and the Steve Jobs 'X' factor if you believe it.


Google came from the internet explosion of the late 90's and its strengths are:

- Context relevant search becoming increasingly granular and personalised
- Massively scalable on-line services
- Rapid service development and trial e.g. Google Goggles image searching from mobile
- Google Maps and related overlay data in line with AR
- They can afford to give away the Android software so we can expect powerful devices at much cheaper prices over the next 12 - 18 months.

But working against Google is their brand cut-through on a Consumer electronics device for the mainstream. Google have a big job either themselves or with OEM/carrier partners to rectify this. The Verizon/Motorola Droid campaign was a step in the right direction but at a cost of US$100m. Perhaps they are relying on the ever dropping price of Smartphones but I believe that as mobile devices are personal we will always want some emotional connection with them.   

Nokia and Microsoft both have impressive service sets on paper but are struggling to execute.  They are both working quickly to plug the gaps but might find that by the time they get there the game has already moved on. Nokia are of course still selling huge volumes of mid to low tier handsets globally and increasingly in the developing world but won't want to cede the high margin Smartphone segment. Microsoft seems to always be looking to the next WinMo release even as the current one is unveiled. We also haven’t seen any results of the Microsoft purchase of Danger a couple of years ago.

BlackBerry is still important as they are selling good volumes especially in the U.S. and still have global business user loyalty. But it is mainly in the U.S. that they have managed to achieve some success with consumer customers by targeting them since 2005 and due to the slow uptake of SMS in the U.S. Although they have ambitions to move beyond the business segment in the rest of the world they have a much shallower set of on-line services and will always be trying to link into the services provided by others much as they have been doing with email. Their strategy is further hampered by their close relationship with carriers. They are also yet to deliver a top quality touch screen device, have a tired looking OS and a difficult to use app dev environment. Even amongst their traditional business users they are feeling the squeeze from the iPhone - 2010 will be a make or break year for them.

Palm has emerged with a new OS called 'webOS' which is getting good reviews in the U.S. but low uptake due to only being available on the Sprint network for now. They also don't have the breadth of on-line services. Rumours are that they might be acquired by one of the other players.

All these main players will be looking closely at which of the new location based social web services might be worth acquiring. As a pre-cursor last year Apple missed out to Google in purchasing the largest mobile advertising aggregator - Ad-mob - but moved much more quickly earlier this month to purchase the #2 player, Quattro Wireless. Presumably Google and Apple will embed their respective ad mechanisms into their application SDK's and content distribution thus taking a larger cut of the total revenue generated off their platforms. Also at stake is the Coupon market which has great potential in a real-time location aware mobile environment - imagine a bar offering a special promo to anyone within a 5km radius or who comes in the next 30mins.

All of this is important because sales of premium Smartphones (also dubbed ‘Superphones’ by Google recently) as a proportion of all phones sold is increasing very rapidly. Gartner estimated that for 2009 globally Smartphones will account for over 13% of all handsets being sold and that this ratio is increasing rapidly in the next few years. Given this is skewed by sales of lower end handsets in the developing world then the proportion of Smartphone sales in the developed world is far higher already. It has been seen that users of these types of devices are much more engaged with them and use many times more on-line services via mobile.

All the main platforms want to be ready to capture the lion's share of this growth with Apple and Google looking like the ones to beat and many great advances already here or coming soon. How brilliant for all of us!]]>Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:27 +1200