Please allow me to introduce myself…
You likely don’t care and would not believe the volume of blog posts, research reports, technical writings and analyst studies I sift through on a daily basis.
This is necessary both to stay informed and to re-evaluate my opinions as new facts emerge. I refuse to let my initial reactions to the latest rumors cement my long term perspective. Though I consider my views well-informed, reasoned and likely to be proven true in the due course of time, my peers disagree.
For your reading pleasure, below are opinions I hold that currently run counter to conventional wisdom.
Who’s side are you on?
Sympathy For The Devil
Unlike all of Silicon Valley, it seems, I applaud the EU’s ruling that affirms an individual’s “right to be forgotten.” I expect this ruling to become the global norm by the end of the decade. Technology should be empowering and liberating. Of course, I should be able to require Google, Facebook et al to obliterate any digital data on me they possess. Everyone should.
I consider Apple’s iMessage – SMS “bug” to be a sure sign of corporate hubris. The absolute worst trait any large company can have is hubris.
I love that Microsoft is sticking to its vision despite the doomsayers. Surface Pro 3 is meant to be both iPad and MacBook. Comparing it to just one device is skating to where the puck never was.
Yet, industry analysts seem universally opposed to the very idea of the Surface. They are wrong. The market for paid software licenses is, to quote Bob Dylan, rapidly fading. Microsoft should not even consider reigniting the licensing ecosystem of its glory days. Such a strategy will fail, miserably. iOS, OS X, Android, Chrome and Linux are now good enough and are cheaper and readily available. Microsoft must create its own devices for a bold new world even as its OEMs fall to pieces. The Surface Pro 3 has the potential to become the device we all really crave: both a tablet and a laptop.
Someone — anyone — says the word ‘grok’ and my brain instantly screams: poseur! I cannot turn this off. I refuse to believe this is wrong.
This recent New York Times piece that glowingly praises a smartphone app, backed by VCs, that sends under-employed Americans on a mad scurry to fetch groceries for harried tech warriors is, I suspect, that singular article we will all point to ten years from now as the glaring, obvious symbol of the last bubble.
Think about an iPhone 6. Go on. If it’s not a larger form factor, why do you even care? Odds are very high you don’t. I have to assume Apple knows this. No iPhone phablet this year and iPhone’s market share will plummet.
I can’t fault a Samsung lawyer for calling Apple “jihadists” considering the Steve Jobs “holy war” email.
But Then My Homework Was Never Quite Like This
Your assignment, dear reader, is to map the decision-making tree that led the Microsoft Corporation to offer the Surface keyboard as a separate item. I bet you fail. It is inexplicable.
Fitbit hires design icon Tory Burch. Intel partners with Barneys. Apple hires Burberry’s Angela Ahrendts. Rumors say Apple is dangling billions in front of cultural trendsetters Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre. I think this is wise. Fashion boasts, fashion beguiles, fashion demands. Value and quality speak softly. It’s a big, noisy world out there.
Get a drone with a camera. Link it to your Oculus Rift glasses. Experience the world about you in profoundly new and different ways. Now, stream and share all you see and hear — on Facebook, of course. That’s Zuckerberg’s strategy.
One app, one task, one screen is a core value of iOS. If the new iPad allows two apps running on a screen, as rumors suggest, then we immediately know two things: 1) Apple is legitimately nervous about both Samsung and Surface, and 2) Apple intends to launch an assault on the enterprise. Smart and smarter.
I have serious doubts Tesla can ever build a car the 95% can afford.
We are all rock stars with our cool mobile phones.
Still Crazy After All These Years
The Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 is pretty. It’s also quite functional — provided you own a Samsung Galaxy. I think the bad reviews are all wrong.
I think a co-branded Mickey Mouse “iWatch” would be awesome.
Within ten years, schools and HR departments will have us wear Oculus Rift or a similar device to experience how others feel, think, and react differently to the very same people, words and actions.
The GoPro IPO, the rise of wearables, the Internet of Things, the budding Maker ecosystem. Hardware is eating the world, not software.
The best part of an iPhone phablet is it will create radically new experiences and app types. This Opera graphic reveals that phablet use is starkly different from smartphone and tablet use. No, I do not believe this is primarily driven by current phablet demographics. Rather, form factor.
I predict by 2017, apps will be made first for China for iPhone. Then for iPhone for America. Then Android. Then iPad. Then AOSP. Then Windows Phone. Then X or other.
Rhymin and Stealin
Dollar for dollar, there may be no better value in smartphones than the Lumia 630. And if I’m wrong, it’s because the Lumia 520, available for about $70, may be an even better value still. The Moto X and Moto E may prove me wrong yet again. Amazing, amazing technological evolution.
In 1997, Microsoft loaned Apple $150 million. Apple now has 1000X that just in cash. Also, one of these men is on the cusp of being a billionaire. No one saw either of those coming. We were all wrong.
Apple hardware is beautiful, understated, austere. Beats hardware is big, bold, gaudy. I have to believe an Apple – Beats acquisition horrifies Jony Ive.
It’s hard to overstate how much Google must fear Facebook. Facebook has over 1 billion users, mostly on mobile. Hundreds of millions voluntarily give Facebook highly personal information about themselves every single day, sometimes multiple times per day. This is not the same as unknowingly handing over select personal information to Google bots. By the decade’s end, search will be nothing more than a ‘signal’ for Facebook’s massive knowledge engine.
The other day, Yahoo flashed a pop-up on my screen asking me if I wanted to make Yahoo my default search engine. This made me laugh.
I believe Yahoo is on the cusp of what could be its worst-run, costliest period ever — and that, dear reader, is saying something. In her tenure as Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer has proven without a doubt her greatest strength is spending money. Sadly, her signal weakness is getting a return on said spending. If you are an investor, it’s time to storm the gates, else those Alibaba lotto winnings will be gone — fast.
Am I wrong? Share your thoughts.
You are one of my all time favourites. Even in those few times i disagree, such as the 5c.
“I think a co-branded Mickey Mouse “iWatch” would be awesome.”
I’d be all over that! I miss my Mickey Mouse watch. Not just the one I had as a kid, but the one I had as an adult. We are kind of weird in “backstage” land. It’s the little things.
I still think Iovine is more about behind the scenes wheelin’ and dealin’ than necessarily bringing any cultural fashion value to Apple. But then, Iovine wouldn’t be where he is today if he didn’t have some cultural insight.
And I think Iovine/Dre/Beats is a package deal, you don’t get one without the others, or at least Apple doesn’t. I think an Apple branded Beats headset would horrify Ive. I don’t see the brands being coalesced. I think Ive’s sanity will be preserved.
Apple going larger than 4″ on the iPhone is a sure sign there is nothing left of real value to bring to smartphones and smartphones are pretty much doing all they can do. Kind of like adding video to the classic iPods, no real point except to say they did it.
I would never buy one, but I do think the Windows’ phones I’ve seen are better products than any Android phone. I hope MS finds some success. Android just seems to be a huge exercise and experiment in cheap.
But I’m an armchair, Monday morning quarterback at best. Most of the time I’m a fisherman who didn’t buy a rig.
Joe
well stated.
“The Surface Pro 3 has the potential to become the device we all really crave: both a tablet and a laptop”
If it ran iOS, then we’d be getting somewhere.
“Someone — anyone — says the word ‘grok’ and my brain instantly screams: poseur! I cannot turn this off. I refuse to believe this is wrong.”
I’d say if you’ve actually read Stranger in a Strange Land, then you get to use ‘grok’ whenever appropriate.
“No iPhone phablet this year and iPhone’s market share will plummet.”
Given the actual sales of phablets it would be pretty much impossible for the lack of a larger iPhone to cause market share to plummet. However, I agree they’re coming out with one given the regional data from China. The larger screen is important enough to a large enough audience now.
“If the new iPad allows two apps running on a screen, as rumors suggest, then we immediately know two things: 1) Apple is legitimately nervous about both Samsung and Surface, and 2) Apple intends to launch an assault on the enterprise. Smart and smarter.”
I think it’d be neat if you could turn this feature on and off. For me, on, for my dad, set it OFF! And it seems a larger screen iPad Pro is obvious. I’ve said this before, but this feature is not a reaction, there’s no doubt Apple has been considering this from the beginning. It’s a tough problem, how to introduce complexity back after stripping so much away. Apple has done this before though, they’re good at it.
“I have serious doubts Tesla can ever build a car the 95% can afford.”
Think about it this way. A $30,000 electric car plus a solar powered home charging station could probably be financed for maybe $500 or so per month. There’s a tipping point coming soon (some people are already there I think) when the total cost of operating a gas/diesel vehicle is more than that. Viewed through the lens of ‘what does this cost me monthly’, Tesla is very close to building an electric car that is cheaper than most vehicles, perhaps five years away. The big problem is range right now, a couple hundred miles is not enough.
That’s a great point re Tesla — tax breaks, solar panel subsidies, no need for gas, Tesla charging stations…that should all be part of the cost equation. I’ll have to re-think my view above.
Electric vehicles also need less service and repair, I forgot to mention that. Fast charging and range are the major hurdles left. I wish we had electric tractors and such at the farm, you don’t wanna know what we spend on diesel fuel in a year. Electric farm equipment would be great, all that torque and power. I don’t need speed, I’m in the field all day going five miles an hour. And you could be charging in the sun all day as you operate, as well as overnight.
So why don’t you have it? Engines too costly?
I suppose the answer is the same as why don’t we already have cheap electric cars? Fossil fuel has been easier and cheap enough. I would guess electric tractors, combines, etc should be cheaper, there’s less complexity re: the engine. I’m not aware of any manufacturer making a full line of electric farm equipment, but I’m sure it’s coming. We’d never buy new anyway. Our motto is “Farming with Junk!” We keep input costs down by operating old equipment. I believe our newest piece of equipment is from 1983, an IH combine with a Russian engine (if memory serves) that we bought for $18,000 and fixed ourselves. Of course we farm a little less than three thousand acres, so we can farm with junk. You can’t farm fifty thousand acres with junk, you can’t afford the downtime.
“The Surface Pro 3 has the potential to become the device we all really crave: both a tablet and a laptop.”
I don’t crave that. Those things are mutually exclusive for me. An ideal tablet size for me is around 8″, an ideal laptop is around 14″. Unless it is going to do some kind of matter-energy conversion, it can’t be both. Meeting in the middle is just mediocre at both for me.
I would much rather have two devices ideally suited for their task, than one device ill-suited to both tasks.
Snap.
If a device is not handheld it is not a Tablet in my opinion. For a start how are you going to play handheld games on it ?
And 12″ and 800g is not handheld in my book (at least not for very long).
Case closed.
“The Surface Pro 3 has the potential to become the device we all really crave: both a tablet and a laptop.”
Who craves that? That seems like the worst of all possible worlds. An underpowered laptop merged with a short battery life tablet. All running an OS that has been widely panned by users. No thanks.
So do you also consider the MBA to be underpowered? The pen input IS something I crave, and if the display is anything like it’s claimed to be, I will most likely buy this device to replace my SP2.
A tablet and a laptop? That is *awesome*. I’m not sure how you would want a device that’s just one or the other.
Brian, why don’t we revisit that old chestnut about having the same GUI on all related devices? I feel a reprise coming on :-}
btw, Will you be leaning forward, or back with your SP3?
Except the laptop is not underpowered (well, less than MBA), the battery is not ridiculous, and people panning the OS are mainly sclerotic desktop users who hate change *and* don’t know they can get rid of Metro.
burn!
“Your assignment, dear reader, is to map the decision-making tree that led the Microsoft Corporation to offer the Surface keyboard as a separate item. I bet you fail. It is inexplicable.”
Easy: have low entry price, then make a killing on accessories. I used to sell PCs for which the margin on that one extra (and indispensible) stick of RAM yielded more profit than the whole PC. Same reasonning here, with people who are strapped for cash maybe making do with a BT keyboard+mouse then upgrading to the official KB.
Yes, but the keyboard is not an accessory — at least, not to any of the marketing. It’s a core piece of the hardware, methinks. Thus, it should be included. Otherwise, then, yes, Surface Pro 3 is an underwhelming laptop.
and that is why crap dealerships who short-changed customers died pretty quickly. Selling essentials as extras is an insult to anyone with half a brain or more. That you find it ok, tells us a lot …..
Could be worse, they could be selling phones and tablets w/o SD slots ^^
“The best part of an iPhone phablet is it …” will let us have a good laugh at the buyers’ expense: we’ve been on phablets -and mocked for it- for 3 years !
A big thank you for your blog.Really looking forward to read more. Want more.