What Would Alex Bosika Do?

“Apple Inc is looking for a display specialist to lead the investigation on emerging display technologies such as high optical efficiency LCD, AMOLED and flexible display to improve overall display optical performance.”

The job listing has since been removed by Cupertino HQ.  We assume, this could be related to a future iWatch (can’t see this being released in near term with a ‘flex body’ if they’re posting the job NOW) or future iPhone.

On the matter of an ‘iWatch’,  Microsoft did try this before:

However, Steve Jobs also said this:

“So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it quietly, and, you know – just explore things.”

Ideas only become great when everything else is there to support it.  Am iWatch or future TV can be successful for Apple, because everything is in place to capitalize on the success: Apple ID, broadband, iTunes, App Store, Siri, iCloud, GPS etc. Essentially, an established, “integrated” ecosystem exists feed these “thin client devices”. 

Microsoft’s SPOT watch didn’t have that robust infrastructure and ecosystem…so it just didn’t make it far in 2003.

Sometimes, ideas are too ahead of their time.  If Apple had released the iPad first vs. the iPhone, they would have missed the BOAT because the ecosystem IS the mobile phone user…not the third category user. 

Releasing the iPad after the iPhone essentially staged the playing field properly as the education curve for users would allow them to easily adopt the iPad, and enable developers to tweak existing apps, before moving to full native iPad apps and easily add revenue to their bottom-line.  The resulting effect of third category success (iPad) for Apple has been the complete and utter decimation of PC sales as has been reported recently.

A.

Can we believe that “commerce” on the Net is already 20 years old? Gawd, I feel old. :-)  It seems like yesterday that I was reading every meaty tech media publication — overflowing with advertisements about the next .com ready to take over some bricks. ;-)

And now I have my hands dirty in m-commerce. :D 

How about some data points from Henry Blodget and the crew?

• 2+ billion online
• US new media stock valued at 3x old media stock
• US digital advertising exploding (mobile marketing starting to grow)
• Google Ads dominant but Facebook starting to grow
• TV dying; PayTV subscriptions trending down; Over-the-top video exploding

Look at Apple.  Wow.

Old walled gardens replaced by new walled gardens. :-)

Power is power.  When people pick on Apple for acting like a monolithic entity, Steve Job’s 1984 simply meant he didn’t like IBM perched in that position.  He wanted Apple. :-D

I am extremely surprised that online digital advertising is only 20% of total ad spend given that digital is metered and measurable compared to the old Nielsen Family model of blatant assumptions and non-existent metrics.  Wow…

Why are we spending dollars to drench eyeballs with “awareness” when some of that money is lost on people who will never buy from you?  Could a re-alignment lead to a great depression, of sorts, in the advertising community if everything becomes a measurable, ROI-driven campaign?

Shocking as it seems, TV is still the big spent but look at that metric.  Only 42% followed by a close second from online spend.  That’s dramatic.  Looking to print, we can see why media content companies and news organizations are working hard to install paywalls to make up for lost revenue in print and the “killing of free” in the digital/online realm.

What puzzles me about television is that so many people have moved to time-shift PVR solutions or are viewing content from streaming platforms such as iTunes, Netflix, Hulu etc.  Some of the broadcaster platforms like CBC and Globe/CTV are forcing pre-roll commercials before the main programming via tablets to re-coup for lost attention via old TV channels.

Sadly print is dying.  When was the last time you read a newspaper or picked up a magazine? The attention economy is fierce.

TV may be next?  This is a definite, not  a guess.  I know more than three handful of folks that have cut satellite and cable plans in exchange for unlimited internet bandwidth to stream to their heart’s content.  The 500-channel universe was a sham.  We didn’t need 500 channels with the same programming!  Quantity never results in quality.  Consumers have walked with their feet and wallets to control their media consumption habits and find the content they are interested vs. forced to pay for as part of restrictive telecom/cable bundles.

When I worked at Bell back in 2006, we knew this was going to happen.  At the time, we had product roadmaps that included tablets and portable devices for content/media consumption in terms of video, music and games.  Today, I stream baby stream!  Off my iPad, my Blackberry Playbook, iPhone, Mac and AppleTV.  TV? And I am part of the older generation when the Internet was just starting to commercialize and exist as a viable medium.

Google will remain the biggest.  Think about it - Google IS everything.  And they’re going to make it easier to connect the search to the transaction.

Ecommerce continues to roll with the punches.  Cyber Monday and Black Friday specials are the norm online and retailers without their full cards will lose.  M-Commerce is starting to infiltrate the holiday special mania too.

Did someone say the “Post-PC” era?I would have never guessed it with my iDevices in full play compared to the laptop (forget the desktop).

US Smartphone penetration on the rise but not surprisingly, old and poor are not shifting.  In lower ARPU telecom markets where there is fierce competition for subscriber revenue, it is still a feature-phone game.  But this will change.

Emerging markets are growth markets for companies like RIM and with the launch of BB10, they’ll regain lost interest in North America, Europe and more established regions while keeping the momentum moving forward in emerging markets to mitigate efforts by Apple, Google/Android, and Windows from taking share.

No surprises here.  A large share of Apple’s sale revenue coming from China.

Being a games guy in career and personal life, I am not surprised.  Looking at my category penetration on iOS and Playbook, games are the dominant “app” on my mobile devices.

I am surprised that mobile is only 12% of global Internet traffic but then again, we’ve really only started to take advantage of the mobile Internet since 2007 with Apple’s revolutionary product launch.  Prior to that, the world was riddled with Wireless Access Protocols (WAP) which reminded us of the old Vic-20 terminal computer system experience with a 110-baud modem.  Yeck….we like visuals and we like colour.  Not terminal fonts!

Mobile commerce has taken off with music, apps and video. Now it’s moving into services and physical retail sales.  Even so, the view is that mobile usage is high for games, video, and other content consumption but that mobile advertising is still behind the curve and due to the smaller screen size, mobile CPM is much, much different than the online medium.  Compared to other mediums, mobile advertising is a “tiny fraction” of other channels.

Even so, $1.25 billion last year is nothing to sneeze at.  Tell that to iMobi and others.  We don’t hear much about AdMob (Google) or Apple’s iAds but the party is coming.  It’s just taking a little longer than expectation.  In 2000, at the height of the online dot-com boom, I remember reading briefing papers and notes from the research houses about the near-term m-commerce train.  That train ended up arriving almost 8-12 years later.  In 2008, while working for an innovative mobile advertising platform startup, we saw great potential and launched in several international markets.  However, we were still very early in the game which is what innovation is all about.  Most times, tt really is about market-timing, not whether the concept is valid or not.

I question this one.  Saturation is huge in established ecosystems and I think people are suffering from app-overload.  Must I launch everything to do everything? Steve Jobs said people don’t search but rather find things with apps.  Heck, I am trying to “find” my app and Apple’s weak search capability on iOS doesn’t get me to where I need to go in terms of discovery on device or within the iOS AppStore.  It’s no wonder they acquired Chomp! to make things more socially relevant and tethered.

We’ll see — great potential for unique differentiation in app store mechanisms as new ecosystems come on-stream with Windows Phone/Microsoft and RIM’s BB10 release.

Sure - most apps are free because freemium is in.  Less and less are willing to pay up front without a free before you buy sequence.  People don’t want to waste hard-earned content dollars on a guess.  Also, review systems are gamed far too often that the entire review platform is at risk as becoming a verifiable medium of trust.

Mobile may appear to be a two-horse race but it could become a four-legged monster.  Windows Phone launched too much fanfare and there is a lot of hope and belief for RIM’s Blackberry BB10 platform.  Is the world really small that it can only support two platforms across 7 billion souls…..overtime? Bullshit.

Even though developer interest is strongly rooted in the iOS and Android camp, there’s room for Windows Phone, RT and BB10 simply because these are fresh new channels for eyeballs and content consumption on a new device.  Since buying my Blackberry Playbook, I have been finding some really unique (non-iOS) apps on the platform by innovative developers and that is the beauty of choice. 

That said, the risk is that many people have already invested in their platform of choice and leaving can be costly.  Time will tell if the first-mover advantage in mobile is far more real than it ever wars online.  The barriers are quite different with mobile.

The good news is that my friends at K-W will be releasing two new BB10 devices on January 30, 2013.  Great news and the rumour mill suggests, “we haven’t seen anything yet!”

So was Scott Forstall fired for a failed Maps apology, his difficult style within Apple or a design philosophy battle over minimalism and skeuomorphism?

Oddly, the issue of skeuomorphism has taken the front stage since the news broke about the Apple re-organization.  I also remember reading about this design belief through Fast Company’s Co. Design article back in September 2012.  The battleground was already in place.

Even as Jobs supported Forstall’s views on skeuomorphism, he also viewed Jonathan Ive (Senior VP, Industrial Design) as his “spiritual partner” [Forstall worked at NeXT and he joined Jobs to return to Apple in 1997 as part of the NeXT acquisition as a move to SAVE Apple with OS/X — Forstall continued with iOS, Passbook, Maps]. However, Jony hated skeuomorphism as did many of the other designers.

From Fast C@mpany:

But before Forstall, it was Steve Jobs who encouraged the skeuomorphic approach, some say. “iCal’s leather-stitching was literally based on a texture in his Gulfstream jet,” says the former senior UI

When Apple announced iMessage, the telecom industry was caught by surprise.  If anything, virtually all of them heard about iMessage the day Apple (and Scott Forstall, might I add) introduced.  The date was June 6, 2011 and this would be Steve Jobs’ last Apple event.

Since then, iMessage has functioned reasonably well.  While Apple’s telecom-busting messaging product has had its own ills with service outages, the media has oddly not reported widely like Blackberry’s powerful and still compelling BBM service.  Another media bias but there she goes.

My current provider (Rogers) has had to deal with some competition from incumbent carriers like Telus and Bell but also from Wind Mobile, Mobilicity and even Public Mobile.  When the new upstart telecom providers entered the Canadian marketplace, most of the “value plans” that the incumbent providers had were priced based on the competition of three incumbent providers. 

A value plan back in 2009 included unlimited text messaging for my iPhone 3GS at $10/month.  With WIND Mobile advancements on price bundling, Rogers soon found it had to upgrade this value plan to include MMS as part of the same price-point in addition to unlimited GLOBAL texting.  The double-blow on global text came as a result of Apple’s iMessage which gives no revenue opportunity to telecom providers since it leverages the Internet and Apple’s own iCloud framework to get things from A to B. 

As of today, Ide-coupled the last possible add-on for my wireless plan at Rogers with my iPhone 3GS.  Now, I am down to a very basic voice plan and the classic and old 6GB DATA bundle I signed up for (in 2009) before Telus and Bell went HSPA .  After Belus (Bell + Telus — google it lol) went HSPA, iPhone data plans magically skyrocketed to equally high price points with no differential whatsoever (things may have changed but I don’t think so).

To cover off any risk of surprise per-use charges, I asked my incumbent provider to block any ability to receive or send SMS text messages by mistake on my iPhone 3GS.  Surprisingly, once off the value plan, the pricing was a magical .25c PER text messaging.  That’s pure robbery.

I did a few key tests by sending iMessages to other iPhone users and a regular text to someone without an iOS device. 

• iMessage successful
• SMS text unsuccessful

In all, I am now saving $20 a month for something I never really needed anymore.  Afterall, between iMessage, Facebook Messaging, WhatsApp, Kik and the myriad of other ways to reach someone, the value bundle of $20 to cover unlimited global SMS, MMS, Visual Voicemail and Call Display just had no relevance to me anymore.  Heck, I can even get Skype Voicemail for a bargain.

Simply put, this move saved me $240/year for an “add-on”.  Seems rich, no?  Call it what you want but that’s disruption and when I migrate to a newer iPhone, the game plan will stay the same.

Conclusion: Stop paying for things when there are clear substitutes in the market!  We all lives without mobile phones at one point.  I’m sure I can survive my add-ons.  This is also a signal to Canadian incumbents that the day of high ARPU is over.  In markets like Latin America and Asia, ARPU is so low that telecom providers must be innovative and release products quickly to gain revenue and market advantages that North Americans have not had to experience….until now.

Related articles

• iMessage Is Currently Down, Apple Silent (sporkings.com)
• How To Change Your iMessage ‘Caller ID’ In iOS 6 (appadvice.com)
• iMessage experiencing difficulties as Apple works on fix (slashgear.com)
• iMessage suffering from failed, delayed messages (ipodnn.com)

It’s funny to see the media report along the lines of “The Sky is Falling” already.  Since I am still using my iPhone 3GS, I cannot comment on Siri but for Maps, Apple’s strategic error to the “bass booster” called modern tech media  was not releasing the product as a “beta release” and eliminating Google Maps outright since have used it since the original iPhone release since 1997 2007 (sorry, tired eyes).  That said, Apple Maps hasn’t been that bad and I’ve never encountered any issues outside of missing “Street View” as a feature.

Apple’s strategic error with Maps was possibly a by-product of Steve Job’s ghost.  His thermonuclear stance with Android/Google may have blinded the troops into following through with their spiritual leader even though he was gone. Also, it doesn’t help when Wozniak (Apple’s co-founder) is talking to the media with a lukewarm posture about Siri right now - and I can assure you, he is a brute-testing nerd as I’ve seen his posts on Facebook, Techcrunch and in the media.  He uses everything which is an example of a good user.

Nonetheless, Apple announced the slaying of two executives part of the current management platform.  One came as a surprise (not entirely, but still a surprise) — with a long history at Apple since he joined the company in 1997 with Steve Jobs as part of the NeXT acquisition.

Surely, this is a big blow for Scott.  After Steve Jobs passed on, many articles dubbed him “Mini-Steve” with reports of ruffled feathers between Jonathan Ive and himself at times.  Before Jobs died, he reportedly told Tim Cook that no one should interfere with Jonathan Ive and this included Scott Forstall.  Jobs also said that his direct report should be Tim Cook and no one else.  This is remarkable revelation given Scott came to Apple in 1997 with Steve Jobs under a strong history of support. 

I will add, the other thing not mentioned in Apple’s release or in media reports is the lacklustre response to Apple’s passbook.  Yes, some major brands are getting right behind it but out of the gate, the value proposition has been slow for consumers to grasp. I get the concept.  But recently, I used my Starbucks app and was prompted if I wanted to add it to Passbook.  So I said yes.  After saying yes, going into Passbook does nothing with respect to the Starbucks app.  I see categories and then upon selection, I am simply re-directed to a bucket of passbook-friendly apps.  So what.  Nothing seems to be connected — maybe I should watch the Apple event on Passbook.  Cuz, if I don’t see any value now, its footprint on iOS6 and my old 3GS is a waste of space.  

This just doesn’t feel like Apple.  It’s like an empty shell of nothing promoted as something great.

John’s tour, on the other hand, was very short-lived at Apple.  Joining January 2012 until this month, very little was heard about his efforts in the media but some reports suggest that this wasn’t a great exec boarding at Apple. Perhaps a cultural fit or execution matter, I’m sure we’ll find out more from leaks or insiders as time goes on. That said, Apple’s revitalization through retail stores was put on the map through a combination of factors — Jobs, focus, and someone who understood consumer retail. We know about the predecessor but we know very little about Mr. Browett. Based on John’s background, I don’t think his experience fit with Apple’s cultural platform.  Most likely, a wise move.

That said, even as Apple’s press release praises the brilliant delivery under Cue’s online services group, let’s me be honest here. iTunes, while functional, needs a bit of an upgrade. I have a vague recollection about some minor aesthetic changes but what we’re using today has the feel of 2001. Further, Ping and MobileMe were failures and maybe not fully under Cue’s watch but my point is, more than ever, this new re-organization is going to place extra pressure on the online group.   Honestly, I feel that iTunes feels like WinAmp 17 (what is the current number, lol?) which is my point. Where’s the evolution — don’t ask me what I want just tell me what I NEED in Jobsian-speak! :-) Also, iOS6 AppStore offers up a dramatic re-design but the verdict isn’t in on this one  It seems much, much slower for on a 3GS and while unfair, it no doubt has far more utility on iPhone 5.  That said, developers have rumbled that it’s much harder to get traction into the AppStore ecoystem now.  We’ll see how this evolves.

I do believe Apple made another bad decision to deploy iOS6 support for the large installed base of 3GS users.  Simply put, we’ve had 3 major iOS upgrades over three years. That’s fair and it is time to move on.  Of course, Apple fearing a revolt probably went with some wrong assumptions. On 3GS with iOS6, I have no clear downgrade option and thus, am left with no option but to live through the iOS6 user experience on a slower iPhone..  

Even Instragram’s camera feature works poorly with my 3GS now.  It’s slow and non-responsiveness at times where I see a dark screen but no image most of the time.  I can’t definitively confirm this is attributed to iOS6 and 3GS but it’s made the social photo app non-usable for me. I’m now relegated to taking a photo with Apple’s camera app, then launching Instagram to upload it to the masses.  Not fun and it has all but killed my engagement with Instagram until I upgrade to the next iOS device.

Apple’s going to find it hard to keep pace with the new competition.  Sometimes, it’s much easier to be innovative from the wine cellar and nip at the feet of slow, lumbering, and somewhat blind giants like minnows or piranhas.  Perhaps Apple’s re-organization will shake things up leading to  dramatic re-imagining of Cupertino prowess in the coming years.  Apple is definitely not hurting but I will admit that market sentiment for recent quarter financial announcement was nothing short of silly  (C’mon! Headlines like “iPad sales weak” because the market EXPECTED 15m units sold but Apple only sold 14m unit smacks of foolish tomfoolery).  As it goes!

We’ll see in the coming year how Apple really is under Cook’s leadership.  I do like Tim Cook. He’s done some great things.  We can be sure that Cook will run the numbers like a tight ship (no squeaky leaky here and Jobs made sure of that) but let’s hope the vision, product direction and imagination continues in the absence of a laser-focused individual who lived and breathed Apple at the cost of a really enjoyable normal life.

Actually, that headline is somewhat incorrect.  I was already sold on the Playbook when I saw demonstrations of the device at the Mobile World Congress back in February 2012.  On full display at this event, it was hard to avoid it given Blackberry had one of the largest event displays at the conference.

Since purchasing the device, I have found myself using the Playbook far more often than my iPad (Gen 1) in many areas.  I just find the tablet far more portable and far more useful than the badly built Kindle Keyboard that died a mere week out of warranty.  Even more surprising is how well built the Playbook really is.  This is some solid-state technology at its best!  Nothing feels like garbage and it simply can’t compare to some of the crappy Android “tablets” out on the market.

Market perception that the Playbook isn’t a “premium” device is short-sighted thanks to biased media and simplistic assumptions of what makes a device good - sure, apps are far more bountiful through Apple’s AppStore, Google Play or Amazon AppStore.  But, more doesn’t mean better. Every ecosystem has its weaknesses — this includes Apple, Android and Microsoft. 

Which brings me to this point. If we ignore the tribal chatter of “my computer is better than yours” (nothing has changed since the Apple IIe vs. Commodore 64 days sadly :-)), and you focus on the really important stuff, the Playbook really stands out.  I actually prefer the Playbook OS 2.0 experience to Android.  Further, I believe there’s more than enough room globally to support a third and fourth ecosystem.  I could be wrong but I don’t see people complaining about Windows Phone or even the Playbook OS (minus the absence of a similar O/S experience on BB devices - it’s coming!). Even after doing some basic tests of Windows Phone 7 on my mom’s Nokia handset, I found it to be a likeable OS and U/X experience.

Also, the actual motion within Playbook 2.0 is “so fluid” (the scrolling), it’s simply beautiful.  When I would draw comparisons between iOS and Android, it was easy for me to suggest that this simple “feature” was better on iOS. Now, when I compare Playbook 2.0 and iOS, I can almost say without a doubt, the Playbook 2.0 O/S is visually more appealing than iOS.  Hands down.  It’s that good.

Playbook’s app ecosystem is growing.  I found a good bounty of “anchor brand” apps to keep the restless user happy.  I spent a bit of time over the weekend rewarding good app developers with actual purchases in several categories ranging from games, to productivity, to content-specific apps. There’s even a large assortment of mid-tier apps made by smaller developers that does a great job in keeping the ecosystem vibrant.  In fact, it’s this part of the ecosystem which reminds me of the old days when Apple’s MacOS (before Steve Jobs 2) had more quality “shareware” than a lot of the crappy “commercial” software found on the WinTel platform.  The mid-tier developer community really kept Apple alive during the lean, dark and difficult years. 

It is unfortunate that folks like Netflix have opted to NOT support the Playbook.  My view on that is simple.  It’s politically motivated. Especially, when you consider how deeply embedded Netflix is within Apple’s ecosystem since the TV “app” is included with the AppleTV out of box.  It’s sad that they feel they need to play that game because the Playbook’s capability cannot be questioned.  The video playback is amazing and so is the speed.  To be fair, both the Playbook and iPad don’t choke on their own own O/S but of late, with each new iOS upgrade, I have noticed the iPad stuttering to keep up which is probably an indication that I need to do a full, clean iOS install or the chip itself is at the heart of that issue.

There’s no doubt that BB10 (and yes, I BB10Believe) will be a strongly co-ordinated launch to release powerful touch-based and qwerty-based consumer/enterprise devices with a huge bounty of apps.  I do believe the new devices will surprise the skeptical media if they’re honest to themselves about balanced reporting.

I am ashamed that a lot of the Canadian media properties have had to be coerced into supporting the Playbook even as the tablet ranks second to the iPad in the Canadian market.  Yes, some of this was due to heavy price cutting but that’s beside the point.  I’d think differently (ha ha) if the tablet itself was of sub-standard quality. I would say the same if the O/S was terrible.  But the Playbook has an amazing O/S and it is solidly built!

Hey, this is the way I see it. If leading media properties like the Economist and the Globe and Mail can put their efforts forward to create a quality Playbook app, surely they must know something the other media properties don’t. I am actually quite impressed by the Techvibes Playbook app which was designed/built by Polar Mobile.  Functional, slick and fun to use.  So what are the rest of you waiting for?

#BB10Believe

Related articles

• New BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 Update Now Available: 3 Reasons to Download (blogs.blackberry.com)
• Unlike Samsung, RIM can claim originality (bbgeeks.com)
• Porting your iOS game to Blackberry Playbook (and future BB10 phones) (altdevblogaday.com)
• Blackberry Playbook to be used in trial program by UK police forces (ubergizmo.com)
• BlackBerry 10 needs more than Flow for RIM to swim (zdnet.com)