I just came across the article "10 ways the Nokia N800 is better than Apple's iPhone" and I'm surprised with the ingeniuty of the author. He just completely misses the point. Don't get me wrong, I like the Nokia N800 and is very likely I will buy one very soon. But there is just a single way iPhone is better than the N800 and anything else out there: usability.
just consider this excerpt from a review of the iPhone "You could call iPhone perfect":
"The touch-interface works flawlessly, in terms of both technical function and user interface design. Whatever you want to do -- select an album to play, make or take a call, compose and send an e-mail -- your first impulse is almost always the correct one. It is the simpler phone ever. And there are no lags, no pauses, no waiting for the slickly animated UI to catch up with you, even when you're scrolling through a stack of album art that's flopping past your finger in 3D: It's liquid." (bolds are mine)
This is simpler device ever, indeed. That is. No matter the open/close software discussion. No matter pricing. It is . . . just elegant, functional, simple. You WANT to use it. Even non geeks and technology illiterates want to use it.
You can call it perfect.
Sunday, 21 January 2007
Convergent devices for convergent life styles
I've been lately investing a lot of time looking for a single device that satisfies my digital needs. That is, that allows me to both generate and consume digital content in a convenient way. This basically includes a multimedia player (music and video), camera and video recording, Internet access for both rich content access (say, youtube videos), convenient creation of digital content (write to a blog, upload a photo) and some tools to help me get organized.
I have considered a lot of platforms, including:
First at all, creating a brand new, revolutionary device is a risky business so most companies try to play safe and just create variations of devices that already have a market. New companies that create new devices found difficult to survive long enough to create a market. That's is why mobile phone manufacturers have such a big advantage when introducing "new" devices.
Therefore, most of the "innovation" comes from companies that already have a strong market presence and this leads to two very important problems. First, they are afraid to cannibalize its own products putting too much new features in new devices (for instance, why does the Nokia N800 not have a decent digital camera?). Second, they tend to create "new devices" as evolutions of already existing device categories, instead of approaching the problem from a fresh perspective.
Finally, there is a strong problem related to the business model behind this kind of devices. Hardware only business are long ago became unsustainable for but a few companies. Only those companies that are able to create a business around content or value added services (or to make agreements with partners able to provide these added value and subsidize the purchase of the device) are able to survive. Again, mobile phone manufactures have a big advantage.
Or should I say, they "had" such a big advantage. Apple have irrupted the marked with its iPhone, showing how far are others from creating an innovative device and changing the rules of the market. More on this latter, in a different post. Stay tuned.
A very lucid (but maybe a little reiterative) exposition of this problem can be found in the now classical book "The Innovator's dilemma".
I have considered a lot of platforms, including:
- Sony PSP (yes, i know it is a game console, but...)
- GP2X, a less known game console GP2X which is Linux based and completely open to development (with a much announced successor, the GXP that will rock, if ever delivered)
- PepperPad a web pad or companion device that is basically aimed to access Internet content.
- Nokia N95 multimedia phone
- Nokia N800 Internet tablet
- Multitude of pda/phones
First at all, creating a brand new, revolutionary device is a risky business so most companies try to play safe and just create variations of devices that already have a market. New companies that create new devices found difficult to survive long enough to create a market. That's is why mobile phone manufacturers have such a big advantage when introducing "new" devices.
Therefore, most of the "innovation" comes from companies that already have a strong market presence and this leads to two very important problems. First, they are afraid to cannibalize its own products putting too much new features in new devices (for instance, why does the Nokia N800 not have a decent digital camera?). Second, they tend to create "new devices" as evolutions of already existing device categories, instead of approaching the problem from a fresh perspective.
Finally, there is a strong problem related to the business model behind this kind of devices. Hardware only business are long ago became unsustainable for but a few companies. Only those companies that are able to create a business around content or value added services (or to make agreements with partners able to provide these added value and subsidize the purchase of the device) are able to survive. Again, mobile phone manufactures have a big advantage.
Or should I say, they "had" such a big advantage. Apple have irrupted the marked with its iPhone, showing how far are others from creating an innovative device and changing the rules of the market. More on this latter, in a different post. Stay tuned.
A very lucid (but maybe a little reiterative) exposition of this problem can be found in the now classical book "The Innovator's dilemma".
Wednesday, 17 January 2007
My life online, not an online life
After a very short trial period, I decided not to continue using Yahoo 360º for my personal page and blog (I just made a couple of blog entries, including my new year's intentions for 2007). However, I found it too oriented for "online grupies", that is, people that has an online social life and wants to use the web to keep in touch with their friends and family and even know new people or belong to a community.
I, on the contrary, am more the kind of people that wants to use the web to help me in my real life, which is to a great extend, offline (even when lately I have starting to consume a lot of online entretainment). I basically want to keep all the information I produce and consume, properly organized and accessible at any time, from everywhere. I want also to share some parts of it with other people, but rearely with a community.
Therefore, what I need is a virtual space (I would not say a worl space because i also would like to put some entretainment there) to gather different content and make its access easy. It would be nice if such space were located in one sigle web site, but this seams impossible now. Let's see what Blake Ross finally does with its Parakey project, which promesses to help all of us to keep our content on the way in a easy way . . . not much detail, should I say.
Until then, I will need a painfully long list of applications:
- a personal web page (google's personal page looks awfull. I haven't found one flexible enough)
- a blog (I thing blogger is ok)
- photos (now using yahoo photos, but I'l try Goggle's picassa)
- a PIM with notes, and todo lists (not sure, maybe stikkit, which combine both, but also a mix of posticky and remember the milk)
- online storage
Assemble all this pieces promisses to be a hard work to do.
I, on the contrary, am more the kind of people that wants to use the web to help me in my real life, which is to a great extend, offline (even when lately I have starting to consume a lot of online entretainment). I basically want to keep all the information I produce and consume, properly organized and accessible at any time, from everywhere. I want also to share some parts of it with other people, but rearely with a community.
Therefore, what I need is a virtual space (I would not say a worl space because i also would like to put some entretainment there) to gather different content and make its access easy. It would be nice if such space were located in one sigle web site, but this seams impossible now. Let's see what Blake Ross finally does with its Parakey project, which promesses to help all of us to keep our content on the way in a easy way . . . not much detail, should I say.
Until then, I will need a painfully long list of applications:
- a personal web page (google's personal page looks awfull. I haven't found one flexible enough)
- a blog (I thing blogger is ok)
- photos (now using yahoo photos, but I'l try Goggle's picassa)
- a PIM with notes, and todo lists (not sure, maybe stikkit, which combine both, but also a mix of posticky and remember the milk)
- online storage
Assemble all this pieces promisses to be a hard work to do.
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