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Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

joshondesign.com

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Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#21

Post by CanSpice »

namenotrequired wrote: post #7

* A few new Android manufacturers may join the game* For anyone interested, Fairphone are doing so pretty successfully right now. http://fairphone.com/

Fairphone's website says they've sold 25,000, and have another 8200 on the way.

Apple sold over 9 million iPhone 5s and 5c models in the first weekend they were for sale.

While it's impressive that an independent group is putting out a phone, their sales are orders of magnitude away from what Apple puts out in a single weekend. Sure, they're "joining the game", but they're not in the same league.

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#22

Post by hershel »

gbvb wrote: post #8
natural219 wrote: post #2

Sorry, but you don't seem to be offering anything new here. We know there are large capital costs for hardware businesses. We know network effects exist for phone applications. We know UI performance is a key issue in smartphone adoption (currently). Maybe "It's Hard To Build A Smartphone In 2013" would be a better title. But to suggest people will be using iPhones and Androids in the year 2050...Yikes. I pray that f…

The way I read this article, It is less about building new smartphone but more about the next technology shift that is going to change the direction. Basically, as oft repeated Ford statement goes, 'if you asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horse'. So, at this point, smartphone business is settling into a faster horse business. So, I would really expect the next big thing to be not a be an iPh…

The biggest problem the smartphone solved was boredom. That's the reason for it's popularity.

At it's core ,boredom might be manipulated neurologically, so maybe you won't feel bored and just feel content with whatever. If we're going to aggressive means as neural implants ,this seems a more interesting option.

Another options(without opening skuls) is something that offers far better experiences.

Maybe more immersive (up to a point we can't differentiate from real life).maybe something that enriches our daily interactions without interfering with them. Maybe something that help us manage emotions and brain states optimally. Maybe something that augments fluidly our cognitive capabilities without interfering with what we do.

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#23

Post by samspenc »

CanSpice wrote: post #21
namenotrequired wrote: post #7

* A few new Android manufacturers may join the game* For anyone interested, Fairphone are doing so pretty successfully right now. http://fairphone.com/

Fairphone's website says they've sold 25,000, and have another 8200 on the way. Apple sold over 9 million iPhone 5s and 5c models in the first weekend they were for sale. While it's impressive that an independent group is putting out a phone, their sales are orders of magnitude away from what Apple puts out in a single weekend. Sure, they're "joining the game", but they're not in the same league.

I think its impressive, nonetheless. I do wonder what prices they were able to get components when they sold a "mere" 25,000 though.

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#24

Post by bobbles »

willvarfar wrote: post #15

I was at UIQ back when the iPhone "happened". It really was as pivotal for the industry as he says. I quipped that the iPhone made us irrelevant and Android made us redundant. I was surrounded by people with strong ambition and vision, at UIQ, Symbian, at our owners Motorola and Sony Ericsson, who wanted to build the iPhone and knew how to build the iPhone long before the iPhone was announced and before they knew any…

Well they do have that "Special Projects" division.. I'm sure they'll be cooking up something nice for 2014.. at least I hope so

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#25

Post by r00fus »

mmahemoff wrote: post #13

"I owned a string of PalmOS devices during this period. Their ‘app store’ was literally boxes of software in a store which you had to install from your computer. No different than 1980s PCs." That's not really true. Mobile devices around that time were designed as peripherals of the PC, so you could download apps to PC and install them by cable-syncing. Palm apps were just .PRC files. It really wasn't too complicated…

I'd say that downloading software on my original iPhone was probably the 2nd most OMG moment of owning the device (the first being the capacitive IPS display that made the icons seem painted-on). Seeing an app download over a 2G cell connection and be usable in 2 minutes - that was amazing. No clickwrap installer, no license keys, no entering payment details. It foretold the doom of non-AppStore software sales in a wonderful zen moment.

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#26

Post by roc »

Pxtl wrote: post #11

> Challenge: you are now competing with the iPod Touch. It disappoints me that nobody does this. Every attempted "competitor" I've seen that stands against the iPod Touch either costs more than the touch or is reviewed as unusable garbage.

If you have the money/competence/manpower, there's more upside in selling phones in the current market. And if you're making phones, the carriers would really rather you not dip your toes in data-first devices that might accelerate their dumb-pipe destiny.

Which leaves the devices we see as sadly inevitable.

Minus someone with the power/resources of, say, Amazon or Microsoft, doing it carriers-be-damned.

Though I'm still not sure why Apple is so slow to this party. A $300 "iPod Touch With SIM slot" sounds like a great product for an awful lot of overseas markets. (Where a considerable amount of their sales and growth are.) Though maybe that's where the 5C experiment is going.

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#27

Post by davb »

contingencies wrote: post #10

This guy is so ex-Nokia, it's sad. He rates the latest Maemo/whatever as a higher chance of market presence than Firefox OS. OK, Nordsman... we understand you are grieving for your lost mobile device business... but you can do it in private. Linux, via Android, commodified smartphone platforms by giving away the OS and thus commodifying the position of mobile device hardware manufacturers. This was coming anyway, but…

First paragraph snark aside, I agree.

To say that any tech market is completely closed to new entrants seems slightly ridiculous. Sure, the barriers to entry have increased - if you're chasing mass-market appeal, a strong app platform is as important as excellent hardware. However there will always be some niche to serve or an opportunity to tackle bloated or less open, established competitors.

I think Josh's option is very biased and colored by operating in a certain type of environment. Not that it's any less valuable or valid than any other, but I disagree with him.

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#28

Post by Aloha »

This should be called "Why You Can't Build a Smartphone Ecosystem"

Building the phone itself is easier, license the software from google, develop some cool hardware, build and sell it.

Admittedly, selling it is probably the hardest part, hard to innovate on features, you can innovate in packaging, price, assembly place, any number of other things.

If you have a big enough bucket of money, you could build a new ecosystem, it wont be easy though. Even without the bucket of money you could build a new ecosystem - but you might only capture 2-5% of the market.

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#29

Post by girvo »

willvarfar wrote: post #15

I was at UIQ back when the iPhone "happened". It really was as pivotal for the industry as he says. I quipped that the iPhone made us irrelevant and Android made us redundant. I was surrounded by people with strong ambition and vision, at UIQ, Symbian, at our owners Motorola and Sony Ericsson, who wanted to build the iPhone and knew how to build the iPhone long before the iPhone was announced and before they knew any…

UIQ3 was amazing, and my M600i had the greatest keyboard on any phone ever. Thanks for making the OS for one of my favourite smartphones :)4

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#30

Post by joshmarinacci »

I'm the original author. You can probably guess this from the blog, but smartphones don't interest me anymore. I loved my time at Palm, but I'm working on new things now. Stuff that needs good innovation right now:

* Internet of Things, esp. on the usability side.

* 3D printing. making it more useful and accessible.

* Changing how we teach math and science. I can't stress this enough.

* Improving programming. We still do it like it's the 1970s.

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