HP’s New Servers Take a Page from the Smartphone Playbook

Yesterday, HP launched the Moonshot 1500 server, targeted at scale-out HPMoonshotSystem_HPProLiantMoonshot_serverdatacenters that drive today’s and tomorrow’s mobile applications, internet, big data and IoT. In its its first instantiation, Moonshot increases density, or the numbers of servers in a given space, by up to 8X. So for every rack of HP Proliant servers today, you could put up to 8X the number of servers in its place at the same power and space.  This equates to a huge cost savings in power and building space.  One of the more interesting parallels is that HP is taking a play out of the smartphone playbook to accomplish this.  Let me start with a brief review of smartphone technology ecosystems.

Today’s smartphones are powered by an SOC (System on a Chip) designed and sold by a collection of companies like Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, Nvidia, Intel, Huawei, MediaTek and TI.  SOCs, unlike processors, have all the capabilities to run an entire phone, making capable the wide myriad of functions from texting to updating social media status, playing games, watching videos, listening to music, making and editing videos, taking and editing photos, and of course, talking.  The SOC that makes this happens is actually made up of multiple different accelerators that just happen to be packaged in one chip.

In fact, each smartphone has the following “accelerators” to accomplish a specific task, which I will GROSSLY simplify here:

  • CPU– boots the OS, runs serial app code well, multitasking, and is the orchestrator of the phone
  • GPU– accelerates games, UI and more and more doing parallel computing functions assisting in things like editing photos and videos
  • Video decode– plays back the high density, 1080P and even 4K video
  • Video encode– converts video to another format when doing things like video editing and even AirPlay to the TV
  • Audio- plays back music at extremely low energy
  • ISP (image signal processor)- required to take pictures and make them look pretty
  • VSP (video signal processor)- required to take videos and make them look pretty; sometimes bundled with the ISP

As you can see, all of the smartphone functionality comes from many different accelerators.  The alternative would be to use a general purpose ARM Intel or MIPS-based processor and do everything on it.  The problem is, that this could use 20-100X the power and heat.

So what on earth does this have to do with HP Moonshot servers?

The new HP Moonshot servers take a very similar approach to smartphones as they are designing specific servers for specific workloads or applications, just like a smartphone uses an SOC. Instead of playing games or watching a video, these servers will execute specific workloads like web serving, web applications, streaming content, analytics, cloud, database and caching.  Like an SOC’s accelerators, HP will be offering different server cartridges with on-board accelerators:

  • Processor– general purpose from AMD, Applied Micro, Calxeda and Intel, great on serial workloads and integer parallelism
  • GPU– used for visualization, remote access, cloud gaming, facial recognition, GPU compute
  • DSP– semi-custom, useful in many ways, but starting at video encode and decode
  • FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array)– extremely custom, popular with government agencies and aerospace for a myriad of tasks you will probably never hear details about.

Like smartphones, HP Moonshot’s design addresses specific workloads and applications with a specific accelerator.  HP packages these different accelerators in a server cartridge that can be slid in and out of the Moonshot chassis very easily.  I have actually done this and it is very easy.  It’s not like installing a PCI Express card but is more like opening and closing the door of a sport car- very fluid with a “click” at the end.

One other analogy between smartphones and HP Moonshot servers I’d like to share is in regards to ecosystem.  I think we can all agree that much of the success of Apple and Google is around their app store ecosystems.  Well-oiled ecosystems that enable growing economic opportunity for both sides of the equation work very, very well.  Without the iOS ecosystem, Apple would have a handful of apps they wrote and then pointers to web sites for other content.  We all know how horrible that would be.  Also, the iOS ecosystem enabled applications I am sure were never thought of in the beginning.  These are apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Foursquare, and Pulse.  This is a testament to the combined innovation, creativity, and ingenuity a broad and thriving ecosystem can provide.

HP is setting up an ecosystem called the HP Innovation Ecosystem (a mouthful).  Its goal is to create a hardware and software ecosystem where, like in the case of iOS, all parties win and the combined innovation creates deliverables much larger than it could on its own.  HP has a really strong start with the hardware, as yesterday, I saw no less than 7 unannounced server cartridges and am promised there are many more on the way.  HP will essentially give you the specifications for what the card needs to plug into and a company can design their own cartridge.  In fact, for some government applications, HP may never see the actual server cartridge. This type of hardware ecosystem will be very interesting to watch.

On the software side, HP has enabled multiple OS, tool and app vendors, too, with an early focus on open source Linux.  To make coding and testing easier, HP has what they call the Discovery Lab, where ISVs and developing customers can install their code on HP’s servers in Houston, eliminating the need to buy a server for development.

This is the most comprehensive ecosystem I have ever seen and I look forward to seeing some applications we would have never thought of in a closed environment.

Ironically, the smartphone and tablet phenomenon has driven the need for a radical new approach to server and datacenter designs.  It’s even more ironic that to accomplish this, HP Moonshot servers have taken a page from the smartphone playbook of executing tasks on specific accelerators and creating broad ecosystems.

Who says servers aren’t cool?  If you would like a very deep dive, I have published a white paper here.

Why Google Shouldn’t Be Concerned About Facebook Home

Yesterday, Facebook announced “Home”, a skin that runs on top of Android, pulling consumer’s Facebook experience up to literally the lock–screen of the phone. The demos were facebook homefast, fluid, and very different than anything Android has to offer.  A lot of the press coverage ensued that talked about the big threat this could bring to Android.  Techpinion’s own Steve Wildstrom got into the action, too. The drama is fun, but nothing is farther from the truth on how this will play out.  Facebook Home, in its current form, is nothing more than a skin like MotoBlur, Sense and TouchWiz which will encounter the same challenges and consumer push-back and carrier and handset challenges.

Some of theories that were used to justify the big threat to Google went like this:

  • It’s harder to get to native Google search, their bread and butter
  • Friend updates show up on the lock screen, eliminating the need to get into your phone and Google services
  • Home will lead to Android forking, causing more fragmentation and more app incompatibility

The problem is, none of these logic paths end with the destruction of Google or Android. Let’s peel back the onion.

Anything that slows down the experience for a phone will ultimately get disabled or make consumers very unhappy.  Consider the skins that the major manufacturers install.  There isn’t a single one that doesn’t slow down the base experience when compared to a native Nexus phone.  Not a single one.  I doubt that Facebook Home has found some magical way to crack the code on how to place a layer onto a layer on top of an OS and make it fast.  The demos were fast and fluid, but I am highly skeptical that it will actually work this well.  Only Google holds the keys to this as it involves deep access to the kernel of Android, not the base Android APIs. You think Google gave Facebook access to that?  No way. Facebook will be constantly chasing multiple versions of Android, never able to get the experience where they need it, and it will be slow and buggy.

The next issue with Facebook Home is that doesn’t enable the total experience.  Users will be abruptly moving back and forth between Home and the rest of their home, kind of like switching between two different phones. While not as jarring as moving back and forth between Windows 8 Metro and Desktop, it is still like having two different phones. Facebook Home offers Facebook and Instagram capability, Address book, Messenger and even repackages texts.  But what about the other things you want to do with your phone?  Things like searching for the nearest restaurant, driving directions, tweeting, taking pictures, or web search?  Does anyone really think that if Facebook makes those critical usage more difficult to access, consumers will like that?  The promise of Facebook all the time will be extinguished by the complexity of having two experiences or two phones.

Let’s now address control, control of Android and control of the experience on two levels.  Let’s start with Android control. Google controls Android and they can change the terms and conditions as they see fit.  Android isn’t Linux, it’s owned by Google and they can do what they choose with future versions.  If Facebook Home would surprisingly gain popularity, they will simply change an API or a condition of Google Play or the Android license to make life difficult for Facebook.  It’s no different from what Microsoft has done for years on Windows and I don’t see that changing if or when Tizen or Windows 8 becomes more popular.  Let’s look at control of the experience.  Facebook Home has a built-in governor.  The carriers and handset makers know from Apple that those who control the experience hold the keys to the kingdom.  Sure the carriers and handset makers will take Facebook’s revenue share deal and engineering resources, but don’t think for a second they will keep doing it if it starts to get too much traction.    Therefore Facebook Home can only get limited traction or they will get shut down by carriers and handset makers, which forces Facebook to do what they didn’t want to do, which is do their own phone.

In summary, the Facebook Home announcement showed some nice looking demos of Facebook and how the Facebook experience could be improved.  It doesn’t show, however, how the holistic phone experience is improved.  Consumers do more than Facebook on their phones and that’s where Home breaks down.  Consumers don’t want different experiences, they want one connected experience.   Didn’t Apple teach us that? Even technically, Facebook will have challenges even delivering a fast and engaging experience because, like skins, they are constantly chasing a moving target. They have the same access to the APIs as everyone else does, and only Google holds the keys to the kernel.  If Facebook Home ever does get traction, it will be fleeting because Google can and will change something in Android or change the terms and condition to make life difficult.  Carriers and handset makers will gladly take Facebook’s money now, but if it gains too much traction, they will be forced to drop it else lose control. They don’t want two Googles.

Facebook Home will be a niche offering until Facebook can build out a winning set of holistic phone services and apps, but based on control, will ultimately need to get into the phone business, a tall and risk-laden order.

What are the Implications of Increased 7” Tablet Popularity?

Last month, DisplaySearch published an analysis, entitled, “Smaller Tablet PCs to Take Over in 2013?”  The report essentially laid outipad-mini-nexus-7 the volume decrease of 9.7-10” displays and the increase of 7.X” displays in January of 2013.  While this isn’t the freshest of data, it’s still valid and certainly makes sense, given the popularity of the iPad mini, Kindle Fe HD, Nexus 7 and the long tail of “white tablets.”  If we are indeed in a volume shift from larger displays to smaller display tablets, there are two key implications which I think are very important as they impact the entire tech ecosystem.

Let me start by taking a brief look back at tablets a mere 9 months ago as it’s important to know where we came from to appreciate where we are going.

Until the Nexus 7 tablet was launched, Android tablets were literally dead in the water and the “tablet market” was really the “iPad market”.  This makes sense even today as 10” Android tablets lack the app ecosystem that Apple provides.  Why would a consumer pay $399-499 for a tablet that has maybe 5,000 optimized tablet apps?  They didn’t and still won’t.  Google attempted to compensate by “stretching” phone apps to 10” displays, but the experience is still lacking. Stretched phone apps still look and operate horribly on a 10” tablet.  7” Android tablets like the Nexus 7 were different in that they can effectively leverage Android’s large phone app ecosystem.  The rest is history as volumes rise for 7″ tablets.

Let me dive into the implications.

The first implication of 7” tablet popularity is the creation of a new ecosystem. Let me focus on hardware.  The iPad hardware ecosystem is large, but not diversified, particularly in hardware, as it is essentially Apple, Foxconn, and Apple’s chosen IHVs.  On the OEM side, I believe companies with subsidized business models will be the most likely OEM winners in 7” tablets.  These are companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.  They can accept lower hardware margins as they drive their corporate profits from e-tailing, advertising, operating systems and application software.  Other winners will be OEMs with strong consumer brands or huge marketing budgets like Apple and Samsung. Less clear are the 7” opportunities for PC giants HP, Dell, Asus, Lenovo and Acer.  With a new crop of OEMs come new ODMs like Quanta, Pegatron, and the long tail of “white tablet” manufacturers.  With new OEMs and ODMs come the component manufacturers.

To get the full appreciation of just how many different component suppliers are involved, you just need to go over to iFixit’s iPad 4 teardown and see the myriad of companies involved. The challenge before was that if you weren’t in the 9.7″ iPad, you were out of luck, because Apple rarely second sources components and they owned the tablet market.  On the SOC side, now Nvidia, Qualcomm, Intel, Mediatek, Hi-Silicon (Huawei), and even relative unknowns like Rockchip (in the HP Slate 7) will have opportunities.  Needless to say, all this new competition will lead to lower prices and hopefully more innovation. I say “hopefully” because with the lower prices, it’s not a foregone conclusion there’s money left over to invest in a lot of innovation.

The final implication of the increased popularity of 7” tablets has nothing to do with tablets at all, but with personal computers.

10” tablets, more than 7” tablets, had the ability to augment or replace certain PC usage models.  Like many, I used the iPad for years as my primary (% time spent) productivity device when paired with a ZAGG/Logitech Bluetooth keyboard. My personal iPad usage model was probably ahead of the curve, but a 9.7” iPad worked well for email, calendar, research via the web or news apps, reviewing presentations and documents, and even writing reports and research.  I would never never finalize a document on the iPad as I would do this on a notebook, but the initial research and text entry worked well.

Usage models are different on a 7” tablet versus a 10″ tablet.  7″ tablets are more appropriate as content consumption devices, driven primarily by the screen size and input methods.  If you have ever had to type out a lengthy email on a 7” tablet, you know what I mean.  Typing on a tablet entails some very uncomfortable typing where half the display is covered by the on-screen keyboard. 7” tablets are great, however, for reading and deleting emails, watching videos, reading e-books, and browsing simple web sites.

With all of this considered, I believe this means that those with the 7” tablets have a greater need for a modern notebook more than those with a 10” tablet.  This is not to say that I expect the market for MacBooks and PC notebooks to explode immediately with amazing growth, but I do believe it will lead to increased notebook sales. When you consider the aging installed base of low battery life, thick and chunky Windows XP and Vista-based notebooks, my thesis gets stronger.

Net-net, the popularity of 7” tablets make notebooks look more attractive and I believe will give a boost to MacBooks and Windows notebooks.

Summary

Until the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD arrived, the “tablet” market was really the “iPad” market.  While not providing the best experience, 7″ Android tablets provide a good enough consumer experience at a very low entry price.  The iPad mini launch validated the 7-8″” tablet market and, based on DisplaySearch figures, the mass of volume appears to be headed to the 7” form factor.  This shift brings with it two key implications.

Android will becomes a player in the tablet market and with it, brings much more competition across OEMs, ODMs and even component suppliers.  This increased competition will drive lower prices and hopefully more innovation.  There is a case to be made that only those with subsidized business models or a stellar brand will survive, but we will have to wait and see on that.  Finally, I think notebooks will get a boost from the popularity of 7” tablets driven by the usage model differentiation between the two devices, which is absolutely the most ironic implication.

Who thought a display size change was boring?

Are the New Crop of Enterprise Tablets a Threat to Apple?

Over the last three years, Apple has reshaped many industries, including the smartphone, tablet, PC and even SOC industry.  One areaHP-ElitePad-900 of Apple success that was in Microsoft’s own backyard was enterprise tablets, where, according to Apple, 94 percent of the Fortune 500 is either testing or deploying iPads.  For a product that has only existed for a few years and the slow pace of enterprise change, this is no small feat.  While no competing enterprise tablets emerged over the last three years to challenge the iPad, technologies developed over the last few years by Intel could very well change the competitive dynamics.

Enterprise iPads were deployed for very similar reasons that consumers bought truckloads of iPads for themselves.  IPads were thin, light, sexy, easy to use with 10 hours of battery life.  Through the use of EAS and an MDM, iPads were “secure enough” for enterprise email.  As time rolled on, Apple added even more security features and companies like Oracle, SAP, and Salesforce.com started to develop enterprise front-ends to their products and services.  This enabled iPads to be more than email machines, but devices where workers could quickly get access to HR and financial system data.

8024514200_050496a1feBecause iPads aren’t Windows PCs, enterprises needed to spend a lot of time and money making iPads “enterprise-compliant”.  By this, I mean IT had to buy products and services and create parallel processes to secure, provision, deploy, manage, service and support iPads.  They did this because of the benefits iPads brought and the lack of a Windows alternative.  At that point, the Windows alternative was thick, hot, and expensive with no more than 5 hours battery life.

Intel Atom Z2760, aka Clover Trail, could change this enterprise dynamic.  If you look at many of the vectors where Windows tablets had an issue, many of them are solved with Clover Trail.  With the Atom Z2760, HP, Dell, and Lenovo have just recently started shipping created tablets that are thinner, lighter, as sexy with better battery life than today’s iPad.

Here are a few snippets on the new tablets that only became available for pilot and deployment:

  • Dell Latitude 10: Dell’s tablet is made from shock-resistant magnesium alloy yet weighs in at nearly the same weight as the iPad.  The battery is user-replaceable, too, providing up to 20 hours of battery life and enabling the user to focus on the client, not searching for a plug.  The desktop dock enables users to come in from the road and dock the tablet to their giant display via HDMI, GigE LAN, and 4 USB ports for a full-size keyboard, full-size mouse and even external storage or a printer.
  • HP ElitePad 900: Made with an aluminum design, the ElitePad is thinner, lighter, more durable and serviceable than the iPad.  HP even provides enterprises with a fixture to remove and repair the display, PCB and battery.  We all know what happens to an iPad 4 when the display breaks.  Also, HP’s “jacket” system provides every imaginable port a user and enterprise would want, including an extra battery that doubles battery life to 20 hours.  Other jackets are available, including rugged designed and one with a keyboard.
  • Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2: Almost a full 100g lighter than the iPad, the ThinkPad is made of plastic design and comes standard with ports that typically only come standard with a PC, like USB, HDMI and SD.  Lenovo also provides an optional desktop dock and keyboard.

Windows 7 is still the enterprise desktop standard and Windows 8, with its issues, is actually viewed by the enterprise as a simpler choice.  You see, while enterprise isn’t enamored with Windows 8, it’s a lot easier to secure, provision, deploy, manage, service and support a Windows 8 tablet than it is an iPad.  This is because it is a PC and can use the same tools and process they do on their 100s of thousands of PCs.  These new tablets can also run legacy desktop apps, too, which means as productivity devices, they can access more of the company’s systems and data without any changes to the older apps.  Finally, the tablets are compatible with the 100s of thousands of USB peripherals, the ones important to enterprises like corporate standard receipt printers, laser printers, full-sized keyboards and mice.

Net-net, these new Windows tablets offer support or the tools enterprise IT already know and have paid for and eliminated the downsides of the previous 22 years of Windows tablets.  The large enterprise CIOs I have talked to really like this combination, too.  Because these new tablets only now became available for pilots and deployments, it will take a while for them to start driving mass volume, so the iPad impact will be minimal at first.

Just as it took Samsung and Google years to get their act together in smartphones and consumer tablets, HP, Dell and Lenovo are now ready to lean into enterprise tablets and have the potential to start chewing aggressively into enterprise iPads.  Apple finally has real tablet competition in the enterprise and will need to amp up their game to maintain their position.

If you would like to learn more about this, I have published a detailed white paper here.

HP ENVY X2: One Step Closer to the Hybrid Future

As a technology analyst, I spend a lot time analyzing and keeping the pulse on the latest in inflection points, the ones that matter. Modularity is one of those factors and will be an specs_laptop_front_tcm_245_1287690important thing to keep an eye on for the next 5-10 years. In present day, modularity is important with the smartphone to the TV and the tablet to the keyboard, the latter the subject of this analysis.

The entire PC market is in a bit of a funk driven by the macro-economic environment, but primarily driven by consumer’s fascination with smartphones and tablets. Many consumers voted in 2012 to buy a new tablet, upgrade their phone rather than upgrade their PC.  Hybrids and convertibles over time will change this and I believe 2014 is the year where consumers will view PCs as perceptually cool again. The process will start this year, but end in 2013.

Tablet hybrids first came officially on the scene with the Asus Transformer, an Android-based tablet that fit into a keyboard. I have spent a lot of time with hybrids from the Transformer to the Samsung ATIV to the Surface RT and now after having spent a month with a new device, I will share my experiences with HP’s ENVY X2 latest consumer hybrid.  The X2 is very different from the predecessors I tested before it.

Design
The first thing that’s different about the X2 is its striking, all-brushed aluminum design. During my month with the X2, I visited three different countries and spent a lot of time in airports and trade shows floors where I took the X2. Many people would ask me what is was and comment on the design. In tablet mode, it is extremely thin and feels like an iPad but an 11.6″ one. In laptop mode, some people thought it was a MacBook Air until I popped off the tablet. When I pulled off the tablet, every single person said “wow”. The power and volume buttons are flush with the system and designed to be used without the user re-orienting the device which is a nice attention to detail.

Weight and Dimensions
The X2 weighs in at 3.11 lbs, which is a bit heavy for an 11.6″ notebook, but aluminum isn’t plastic, which is lighter. This is a design trade-off that consumers will usually always accept as long as it is near that 3 lb. mark.  As a tablet, I didn’t feel like I was straining, either.  My guess is that it is heavier than the MacBook Air because it needed counter-weight in the keyboard to keep the unit from tipping over, as all the major components are in the keyboard.

Keyboard and Trackpad
The hybrid comes with a full-sized keyboard with full-sized trackpad that is responsive to the full Windows 8 gesture set. Most hybrids cheap-out on the trackpad and I think the use of Synaptics is to be commended. I wrote everything including research papers on the keyboard which has function keys, delete keys and arrow keys and never felt cramped.

Multimedia
Thankfully, the product managers didn’t cheap out on the multimedia features. The X2’s rear camera is 8MP which is much appreciated at volleyball and basketball games. Yes, I am one of those annoying parents taking video with a tablet. My rationale is that it is better than on my phone which will suck the batteries dry. If you don’t understand this then you probably haven’t spent three, 10 hour days of club-level volleyball with your  kids.  The camera also has a very bright flash, unique in its class. The front facing camera supports 1080P video, much appreciated on Skype. In the follow on products, I would like to see some work done on the camera subsystem to take pictures as fast and as high quality as a phone.  This is primarily of the Intel Hive-acquired ISP.

At 11.6″, the display was large for a tablet and perfect for a highly mobile laptop. The 1366×768 resolution is perfectly fine for notebook mode and even watching movies. I love higher-res displays like Retina, but there are certain use cases a user must have them so they don’t see pixels or need the fidelity for photos. This isn’t one of them as an 11.6″ display tablet isn’t the one you will use in bed and read a book on. That’s better territory for the Nexus 7 or ipad mini. The closer the display is to the eyes, the higher the res should be so you don’t see pixels unless you must see original view of pictures.

Expandability
Compared to just a tablet, the X2 offers the full sized keyboard and trackpad that converts it into a small notebook. The tablet holds one microSD card slot for photo or data transfer. The keyboard dock has a much-appreciated full HDMI connector and a full-sized SD card slot for inexpensive mass storage. I really appreciate the full HDMI slot as I cannot tell you how many of the iPad HDMI adapters I have lost.  The dock also has two USB 2.0 slots and mini-connector for speaker and mic. After my long business trips, I appreciated coming home and connecting the X2 to my 32″ display extending my experience even further.

Durability
I dropped the X2 (unintentionally) twice on concrete floors and I can say the unit fared a lot better than I expected. Using many devices, I have broken many devices and I have broken three iPads. After my unexpected drop-test, the unit suffered only scrapes but no cracked display.

Software and Hardware
The HP hybrid runs all Metro-based apps as well as Windows desktop style apps. This is great and I really appreciated using Outlook with Google Sync plug-ins, fully-synced Google Drive, Google Chrome and Evernote. While I consider myself a sophisticated user and know the limits of the system, I can see how a general consumer could easily overload the system. While the dual core, four thread Intel Z2760 (aka Clover Trail) is good in its class, it’s not the processor you can do everything a Core i Processor is designed to do. On occasion, I had too many Google Chrome windows open and the system came to a crawl. I also found myself running out of storage space due to my own fault of putting my Google drive and Outlook .OST on the C drive. I didn’t feel comfortable putting it on the SD cards because I have sensitive and confidential information there. I am very much looking forward to Intel’s next generation Bay Trail in this form factor.

As with full Windows 8 and X86 processor, I can connect just about every hardware peripheral I have and it just works. I connected all my mice, cameras, printers and they just worked.

Battery Life
The X2’s battery life was the biggest shocker. In tablet mode, I got around nine hours with the tablet and with the keyboard, I got around 14 hours. I didn’t do official benchmarking, but I did test while on many transcontinental trips where I was writing research papers.

Price
Price is a challenge to place a verdict on because the X2 is just so versatile. Launch pricing was set at $849 for the 64GB-WiFi edition but right now, the unit is selling for $599 on sale, which is an absolute steal. At $849 one must compare it to the MacBook Air which starts at $999 and apply value to touch, convertible design, and battery life and deduct for Core i5 performance. At $599, the X2 with keyboard is a no-brainer as compared to the 64GB iPad 4 at $599.

Conclusion
The HP ENVY X2 shows that hybrid designs are evolving to a point where in late 2013, early 2014, consumers will need to find some other justification to pay $499 for a tablet-only design that doesn’t elegantly dock in a very integrated fashion. By elegant and integrated, I’m not talking just about adding a Bluetooth keyboard, but deeper integration like that of the X2 and beyond. By 2014, no premium-priced (499+) tablets will sell well that cannot do this and OEMs and ODMs will need to address this and invest in better modular capabilities.  And as Apple scorned video on the iPod and 7″ tablets, I am sure they have a few prototypes of a few “fridge-toasters” in test which would make for a very interesting 2014.

Lytro-Type Cameras for Smartphones Coming Soon?

Lytro fascinated many with the first mass marketed camera that enabled the user to alter the focal point dynamically after thelytro picture was taken. The camera won a lot of awards but also came with some downsides, too. The Lytro’s opening price point was high at $399, was packaged an unorthodox tube form factor, and the output was a very low 1.2MP. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get this kind of experience on your smartphone and at a much higher pixel rate? Believe it or not, that technology is just around the corner.

One of the biggest improvements to the next generation of smartphones nvidia comp photoyou are hearing from smartphone technology providers like Qualcomm, Intel and Nvidia is called “computational photography”. Computational photography enables many improvements to taking pictures with your smartphone. HDR (High Dynamic Range) is improved by enabling an always on, ghost-free, motion-blur-free and even a panoramic experience. DVR-like functionality is also being added where you never miss the shot because the camera is taking the picture before you actually take the picture. Face, smile, and special people detection are also being pulled from higher end digital still cameras and pulled into standard smartphones. These improvements are driven by improvements in the ISP (image signal processor), sensors, and dramatic increases in CPU, GPU and DSP performance.

None of this, however enables a Lytro-like experience because of the kind of focusing mechanism used in today’s smartphones. The focusing mechanism just cannot focus the camera fast enough to pop off 3-5 pictures at different focal lengths in less than a second. All of today’s smartphone cameras use what is called a VCM, or voice coil motor to focus the picture. A VCM is a motor using magnets and electrical pulses to change the position of the lens and harkens all the way back to the days of Alexander Graham Bell. In fact, the original VCM patent goes back to the 1870’s. And you thought you were using the latest in technology.

A disruptive technology called “mems|cam” was announced by DigitalOptics at this year’s Mobile World Congress and I got mems camthe chance to check out its features and functions. The most disruptive feature is its variable focus technology at high mega-pixel rates. Versus the VCM, DigitalOptics demonstrated that it could focus the lens up to 7X faster than the best smartphone cameras on the market today. This means it could take multiple pictures in rapid-fire succession at different focal lengths. Users can choose the picture they really want after the picture is taken. [pullquote]With this technology the industry could be on the precipice of never having an out of focus picture. [/pullquote]

What about the other attributes? Well, the quality is better, it uses 100X less power, and takes up 1/3rd less footprint than other camera assemblies. Sounds too good to be true, right? Not when you dig in and research how DigitalOptics does it.

The mems|cam uses technology recognizable in its name called “MEMS”, or “micro-electromechanical system.” Think of MEMS as tiny machines that have miniaturized almost every other important sensor including gyroscopes, barometers and microphones. These tiny machines are manufactured in a fab just like a microprocessor. They are very small and take a small fraction of power, create less heat, and are more precise versus their large predecessors.

My biggest question isn’t about the technology, but more about why we don’t see smartphones with MEMS-based cameras. First, the technology is being perfected for mass-volume manufacturing and we should see cameras this year with the technology. The market is billions large so you better know how to build them. Then there is the matter of the older-school VCM market. It has a lot to protect and aren’t exactly running to the new technology with open arms. Buggy whip makers were slow to embrace cars, too, until they saw their business crumbling in front of their eyes. This is the scenario I can see coming with this new breed of cameras.

One of the biggest areas of smartphone differentiation is photography. Apple, Samsung, Nokia, LG and HTC all have a great camera experiences in their top 3 marketing list and therefore being perceived as the leader is very important. Now that mems|cam is a possibility for the next generation of cameras, it provides a black and white differentiator for an OEM or ODM. As a strategist and marketer, I would have seen this kind of feature as a huge opportunity. Mems|cam can do something that no other camera can do and it has a black and white reason for doing it better, which is, MEMS technology. I like to call that the “reason to believe” which harkens to “why the clothes are whiter” with the answer being the “magic blue crystals”.

Variable focus technology for smartphones like DigitalOptics mems|cam are a distinct possibility in phones this year and it is something the entire industry should get excited about. Since when has there been such a black and white and demonstrable smart phone differentiator?

Asus FonePad Phone Functionality not as Odd as it Seems

20130226-074657.jpgAfter having spent a few days in Barcelona at this year’s Mobile World Congress, I have had the chance to play around with a few mobile “toys”. A few of these devices caught my eye and the Asus FonePad was interesting not in form factor, but utility. The FonePad is essentially a 7″ Android tablet that makes phone calls. The phone usage model has been the butt of jokes, particularly when holding the tablet u to your face to make a phone call. After seeing the tablet and thinking of future applications, it’s not as silly as it seems.

As a tablet alone, the Asus FonePad is relatively straight forward 7″ Android Jelly bean tablet. The graphics resolution isn’t spectacular at 1,280×800 but in line with other low cost tablets. It also offers storage upgradability, which is a nice feature the Nexus 7 doesn’t offer. The biggest differentiator is the inclusion of a 3G phone, and when priced at $249, provides a real interesting value proposition. This is particularly true as 5″ smartphones can cost $699 unsubsidized.

Let me drill into the phone functionality.

Backup Phone

Too many people focus on the phone functionality as a primary phone…. but it doesn’t have to be the primary phone. The PadFone could make a decent backup phone if your primary has run out of batteries. When I travel, I undoubtedly run out of battery power on my primary device and scramble for a Mophie charger or a power cord. I’d prefer to eject my SIM and put it into my tablet. Sometimes while on a call and while charging, the phone will run out of power and interrupts the call. I’d much rather put my SIM in my tablet.

Primary Phone

It is a little harder to think of the PadFone as your primary device, but there are certain use cases, phone features, and demographics where it cold make sense. Let me dive into those.

Headphone user Many people don’t put the head up to their ear and opt for a headset. I am one of those. I use a high quality cabled headphones. Others prefer Bluetooth enabled headsets. The worst case is that if they lose their headphones they can put the PadFone up to their ear.

Purse or murse carrier– A 7” tablet for most people puts it out of range to comfortably place in a pocket. Some carry 7” in their back pockets or put it in their coat pocket, but most don’t. Anyone who carries a purse or murse (man purse) won’t have an issue, though.

Battery life– Tired of your smartphone running out of batteries? The PadFone gets 9 hours of continuous use, more than a phone, and it makes sense because it has a much larger battery. It could even get more battery life in usage models where the display isn’t lit up because essentially the guts are a phone.

Speakerphone- A good speakerphone typically has two microphones that are spread out to do noise and echo cancellation. The PadPhone is wider than a phone and theoretically could make a much better speakerphone. Tablets also have more area with louder speakers, too, which is better for a speakerphone.

Price– At $249, this is cheaper than almost every smartphone without a subsidy. You would think a larger 7” tablet costs more than a 4-5” phone, but in some cases, it’s the opposite. With more surface area, manufacturers can use less expensive components that are less integrated, cheaper thermal solutions, and even cheaper glass. Smaller and integrated is more expensive. It’s similar to the way desktops were back in the 90’s. They were cheaper than laptops because they could use larger components and were cheaper to assemble.

Summary

More tablets like the Asus PadFone will emerge that blend voice with tablets. Samsung launched the Galaxy 8 that had voice, too. As consumers and business people get more comfortable with this usage model, it will start to become pervasive, particularly as vendors are looking to differentiate their tablets. Just as some said video was to be watched on TVs, not personal media players like the iPod, consumers want to do most of their usage models on multiple devices and not limit themselves, more people will make calls with their tablets. They already make Skype, FaceTime, and Google Hangouts on tablets, so what makes a phone call any different?

 

 

 

The Nvidia Tegra 4i: A Step Forward in Smartphones

Nvidia today announced the Tegra 4i, a smartpone chip with an integrated LTE modem on the same physical die.  This is a follow-on to t4ithe Tegra 4 that was announced at this year’s CES 2013.  Nvidia is making some very bold claims about the Tegra 4i versus Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800, and while there are no 3rd party benchmarks yet substantiating the performance and efficiency claims, if Nvidia does deliver as promised, they could have something very unique for smartphones.

Today, Qualcomm is the only mobile phone SOC designer who currently offers an integrated LTE solution and they have historically led in different and new communications standards.  Qualcomm also have one of the few ARM architecture licenses, meaning they can optimize their CPU solution as long as they adhere to the ARM instruction set to assure app compatibility. Nvidia has an architecture license for the 64-bit v8 version going forward.  Qualcomm took advantage of integrated LTE in 2012 and were rewarded by their unique offering.  Phone makers, however, rarely like one dominant supplier and that’s where the Nvidia Tegra 4i and the Icera i500 modem come into play.

Let’s dive into the Nvidia Tegra 4i and run down the spec list:

  • Processors: four A9 (latest revision 4) CPUs running at 2.3Ghz plus one power saver core
  • GPU: 60 GPUs (shader units) with Ghz. TBD
  • Modem: integrated i500 LTE solution
  • App-specific processors: camera ISP, video decode, video encode, audio
  • Camera features: similar to the Tegra 4, supporting real-time HDR , tap to track and HDR panorama

With the Tegra 4i, Nvidia will become the only other supplier in 2013 to offer an integrated LTE solution. Integration can mean lower power, lower cost, and smaller package and this is a big deal in itself.  The bigger deal are Nvidia’s performance and efficiency claims and estimates versus Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800:

  • Tegra 4i is half the die size area of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800
  • Tegra 4i is 2.7X the CPU performance per mm2 than the Snapdragon 800 on synthetic, integer-based benchmarks
  • Tegra 4i is 1.2X the CPU performance than the Snapdragon 800 on synthetic, integer-based benchmarks

What is absent are GPU, usage model, application and power benchmarks which will need to come later.  Nonetheless, if Nvidia’s estimated do stand true and the synthetic numbers do translate to real-world  usage models, then this is a real step forward for Nvidia. Timing is another area where Qualcomm appears to have an advantage.  Qualcomm said its new silicon would ship in phones in Q3 and Nvidia in Q4.  If this stands true, Nvidia is risking it schedule-wise for the holiday selling season.

So what do we make of the Tegra 4i?  If Nvidia can deliver the goods with an integrated LTE solution at the estimated perfomance levels which extend to real-world usage models, they will have raised their game in smartphones and have the ability to take some share.  Smartphone SOCs are a competitive business, in particular, with continued vertical integration by smartphone makers like Apple, Samsung and Huawei, low-priced SOC vendors like Mediatek delivering the low end, and Intel with a major mobile chip on its shoulder.  Regardless, Nvidia has raised the smartphone SOC stakes for 2013.

Will Gen 3 Chromebooks Finally Hit the Mark?

Now on their third generation, Chromebooks have taken a deserved perceptual and business beating samsungover the last few years. Generation one and two were flawed in many basic ways, with high prices, sluggish performance, and lack of robust off-line capabilities. This makes Lenovo’s and HP’s latest entry into the category all that puzzling. Is their entry into the market an indication that the third generation of Chromebooks will be a success?

When Google introduced the Cr-48 Chromebook prototype in late 2010, hopes were high that the industry would see a viable alternative to the PC notebook. In 2010, most notebooks sold were thick, heavy, with around three hours battery life, and were sold between $499 and 599. The Cr-48 prototype got 9 hours battery life, weighed 3.8 lbs, was less than an inch thick, and came with integrated 3G. Chromebooks promised an inexpensive, enjoyable and simple, connected experience with very fast start times. That’s not exactly what was delivered.

What was delivered was way short of delivering on the value proposition. Prices were as high as a PC at $499, performance was sluggish, had limited storage, limited battery life, and didn’t operate well or at all offline. As expected, the first two generations were only embraced by Samsung and Acer, and only a few consumers actually bought them.

The third generation Chromebook experience is a positive step forward. Compared to the promise, here is how it stacks up.

  • Instant on: almost immediate
  • Google offline capabilities: Drive, Mail, Calendar, Docs, and Slides
  • Prices: between $429 and $199
  • Battery life: between 4 and 6.5 hours
  • Storage: 16GB SSD to 320GB HDD
  • Weight: as low as 2.5 pounds
  • Thickness: as low as .8 inches high

The “feel” is hard to characterize, but generally, with simple apps like Docs in one windows, the experience felt very snappy. Get on a complex web site with lots of J-script, videos and ads, and the experience starts to get very sluggish. It gets even worse as more tabs are added to the experience. Oddly, SD videos purchased off Google Play were very choppy on the Samsung Series 3 but HD YouTube videos were fine. Keyboards have remained solid and some models have even added the caps lock key. I wish there were a delete key, though. With 95% of the world on Windows PC’s this make a lot of sense.

Will all these improvements turn the tides for the Chromebook? No.

The challenge for Chromebooks as a category is that as they are improving their value prop, so are tablets and PCs and the “feel” is compared to a phone. The biggest of these issues is that PCs are improving.

For nearly the same price, consumers can buy a Windows 8 PC that’s nearly as thin, with mores storage, and similar battery life that can run millions of apps. No, you don’t get the crapware or malware, but consumers don’t think like that. Tablets are an issue, too. If a Chromebook cannot replace the PC then it is an add-on to the experience, which then becomes a question of tablet versus Chromebook. Chromebooks are too much like a PC form factor and consumers will choose the tablet.

Chromebooks have improved their value proposition over the three generations but it won’t be enough to significantly provide the boost that it needs to become a credible category. Chromebooks need to make a much more significant jump in utility or a lower price to do that. By adding better performing processors and graphics combined with more offline capability, it could do that, but that’s for the future.

 

A Private Dell is a Stronger Dell

In one of the worst kept secrets out there over the last few weeks, Dell announced this morning that it will go private in a deal dell logowith Silver Lake Partners, Microsoft, Michael Dell’s investment company, and Michael Dell himself.  The question is, is this better or worse for Dell?  Based on the way Wall Street views Dell, its competitive position, and its enterprise growth ambitions, this is the right move for Dell.  I want to break down some of the reasons why a private Dell is a better Dell, starting with secrecy.

Secrecy

Public companies are bound by SEC disclosure regulations that say they must make material changes to the company public within a reasonable amount of time.  Literally, any time public companies makes a material investment, an officer or director buys or sells stock, a layoff happens, misses quarterly guidance, etc., all must be disclosed.

It also has annual and quarterly disclosure obligations as well in the forms of 10-K (annual) and 10-Qs (quarterly).  These 10-Xs aren’t unimportant as they give insights into profits margin structures, product costs, net pricing, discounts, major suppliers, major customers, major contractual commitments, business risks, legal risks, etc.  Having run competitive analysis teams, the first place the teams would start with were the SEC disclosures as you can pickup 75% of the needed information there.  The information is accurate, too, because if it’s not, companies can be subject to fines and even imprisonment of officers.  This risk is why these documents are left to the CFO and chief legal counsel, signed by the CEO, and not left to the marketing.

A private Dell could fly literally under the radar screen of competitors.

Speed

In addition to being secret, private companies are faster, as SEC regulations described above slow a company down.  Public companies spend a lot of time asking for permission and insights from stakeholders like the SEC, directors, shareholders, accountants and a lot of lawyers.  Lots of lawyers….

Private companies still have boards, lawyers, and accountants, but there are a whole lot less of them. There are a lot less steps, too, as you don’t have to deal with the SEC.  One good example are acquisitions.  It literally takes 5X the time as a public company to make a najor acquisition as it does a private one. Divestitures are another good example.  The market typically needs months of pre-conditioning before major moves can be made.  Otherwise, the market could hammer you.  This means months and months of hints, planned leaks, etc. to get people ready for a major move.  If Dell decided to exit or sell the PC business, for example, they would need to pre-condition everyone.  Look at HP and what happened to what they needed to disclose that they were “exploring options” with PSG.

A private Dell would be a faster Dell.

Business Flexibility

Publicly-traded companies are under the minute, hourly, daily, monthly and annual scrutiny of the Wall Street trading machine.  Financial analysts set expectations on nearly financial vector and make these expectations public. After earnings disclosure, the press machine kicks in where you see headlines ranging from “beat”, “meet” and “fell short” of expectations.

In response to going through the Wall Street wringer, companies pander to them by doing everything they can to “market” to them.  Companies many times make bad long-term business decisions to meet those expectations.

Hitting revenue is a great example. If a company is short on revenue going into the end of the quarter, the CEO, COO and CEO ensue to hammer the business units and sales to hit their numbers.  This makes sense as commitments need to be made, but many times those end of quarter deals aren’t the best deals financially.  Customers are trained by the cycle and know they can get better deals by doing business at the end of the month.  To get the business, companies will do anything from cutting prices, pay for shipping, extend payment terms and stuffing the channel with more product than it needs. This may be good to make the quarter, but not necessarily good for long term profits.

Another example is layoffs.  Many times companies will plan, announce, and execute layoffs just to show Wall Street they are serious.  Wall Street loves layoffs… just ask your CFO. The problems is, many times the layoffs weren’t really needed and the people normally cut are those working on future products and initiatives, the future life-blood of the company.  The first people to go in a layoff are anyone not directly tied to today’s revenue, which limits future growth, not to mention the personal toll it takes on families and employees.

A private Dell will have a lot more business flexibility.

Final Thoughts

There is a lot of upside for a private Dell, namely increased secrecy, speed and business flexibility.  It’s not all wine and roses, though.  Private companies need to spend more on marketing if they want to continue to be top of mind in awareness, familiarity, and even to drive preference.  Sure, it’s great not to be in everyone’s face every second of trading hours, but you can’t fall off a cliff either.  Incenting employees become a challenge as well, as you can’t pump publicly-traded stock options out.  Like Twitter does today, there can be an internal “brokerage” but the process is just so much more complex.  Dell stock hasn’t done well in a decade so it’s not all downside for employees, but they will need to compensate differently for the employees to share in the upside.

Net-net, this is a really good move for Dell.  Given the lost love with Wall Street and the public markets, there’s little downside.  A private Dell will be better able to complete their enterprise transition, do it faster, and compete more fiercely with HP, IBM and Cisco.  To smooth the transition, they need to make some very quick announcements regarding their PC business and their commitment level, otherwise their competitors will pick them apart.

Leaving the iPhone- How Windows Phone 8 Stacks Up

Approximately six weeks ago, I made the decision to stop using my iPhone 4s and immerse myself in Android, which I lumia 920did for about a month.  I wrote about that here.  After Android, I wanted to try out Windows Phone 8 for an extended period of time and I want to share my experiences with you. My goal here is provide some insights into how an American, technically astute Apple iPhone user would feel about using Windows Phone 8.  I don’t represent the masses, but do represent the demographics of a an influential block of analysts, press, pundits, etc.  I will talk about the pros, cons, and things that just didn’t matter one way or the other when comparing my iPhone 4s to the Windows Phone 8 powered Nokia Lumia 920.  The 920 is considered by most as the flagship Windows Phone 8 phone and a good representation of the state of the art.

Let’s start out with the Windows Phone 8 (WP8) plusses.

Windows Phone 8 Plusses

Camera: While I know this has more to do with Nokia than WP8, it’s important to talk about it as it’s such a core feature.  To be fair, when I am bragging on iOS, I always talk about the iPhone camera.  Flat out, the 920 has the best camera I have ever used.  It has superior low light capability and nearly every picture was in focus.

Responsiveness:  Amongst Android and iOS, WP8 is by far the most responsive operating system.  Screen flows are elegant and very rarely, if ever, did I feel any stutter.  This says a lot given the immaturity of WP8.  It also says a lot about how helpful restricting true multitasking can be.  I’ll touch on that later.

Live Tiles: Instead of icons, WP8 uses Live Tiles, or large icons that display information without actually having to open the app.  The most useful tiles were mail, calendar, and weather.  It was nice to just look at my phone and get a glance at the latest email and appointment without having to open multiple apps or down-swipe a notifications bar.  Sure, it only saves a few seconds, but our minds amplify time savings, so it feels like a lot more.  It also helps in the car, too where I can glance at my phone at a stop light and see what’s going on.

Stability: Flat out, WP8 never crashed nor did any app I was using.  I find this absolutely amazing, given the immaturity of the OS.  I cannot say the same about iOS 6 or Jelly Bean.

Contact linking: I liked this about webOS and I like it about WP8.  I have close to 7 social media or email accounts. WP8 (like Windows 8/RT) allows you to link contacts together so instead of seeing up to 7 contacts for one person, you see only one.  Some of the Android shells do this, but WP8 is flat-out superior at it.  It’s nice, too, that the linking gets shared to Windows 8 and Windows RT devices.

Calendar and contacts: WP8’s calendar worked really well with Google services, but not as well as Android, of course.  It supported adding attendees, accepting meeting notices from Outlook, etc.  Contact sharing with Google was flawless.   This is an area of intense weakness for iOS and I hope to see improve quickly.

The “back” button: Having a back button may sound like a nit, but it is a genuine time saver versus iOS.  iOS requires the double tap on the home button and a selection of the app versus just tapping the back button.  I was surprised at just how much I liked this.  When you hold the back button down for a second, your a screenshot of your last used apps pops up and I really liked that.

Internet Explorer browser: Very simply, the browser worked on all sites and was very fast, and in fact it felt faster than both Safari and even Chrome.  That’s saying a lot.

Full email search: WP8 allows me to do a full search of my email, where iOS just enables people and email title search.

Spell check: Unlike iOS and Android, WP8 gets it right for me more times than not and automatically makes the change.  This was one of those “wow I didn’t know it could get better” features.

People App: This app is unique in that you can organize people into groups, like Favorites and Family and see real-time info on them, like their social media updates, uploaded pictures and comments.

Full photo and video uploads: Unlike iCloud and iOS, WP8 uploads full size photos and even videos to SkyDrive.  To keep battery and broadband fees to a minimum, WP8 gives you the option to only upload over WiFi.  This is awesome as I never need to connect my phone to my PC, which I could never say about my iPhone.

Now let’s move onto the areas that didn’t make a difference one way or another.

Windows Phone 8 Neutrals

Copy-Paste: Unlike Android, WP8’s  copy and paste worked nearly as good as iOS.

MS Office: With WP8, MS Office files can be flawlessly read and Word and Excel can be editred.  As iOS has decent Office “read” capabilities, this brought nothing to the table, so I am indifferent.  When I was doing more “Powerpointing” in corporate America, iOS did make grievous mistakes with many Powerpoint files.  Seriously, who edits Excel on their phone?

Multitasking: As far as I can tell, there is no way for the user to control multitasking at any fine grain level.  Mail, calendar, and social media will sync in the background, but many apps won’t, and it’s aggravating.  Therefore, I must have the following apps open to sync data: Evernote, SlapDash Podcasts, and even Skydrive.  This is a “neutral” because iPhone isn’t much better with user controlled multitasking.

Windows Phone 8 Minuses

“Page 1” Apps: WP8 lacks in many cases the apps and the depth of apps I want on my phone.  First, there were many apps that were just as good and in some cases better than iOS.  Facebook, LinkedIn, E*Trade, Netflix and Evernote fall into that category.   Many of my preferred apps lacked full functionality, though.  These were apps like Epicurious, Flixster, Yelp and ESPN ScoreCenter which didn’t enable me to login and import saved data or settings.  YouTube wouldn’t let me even upload a video.  The most difficult thing to deal with was some of the lack of my page 1 apps.  These are apps like WatchESPN, Neat, Nike Run, HootSuite, Instagram, Google+, TripCase, Waze, MailOnline, TWC TV, and Pulse.  I use these daily on my iPhone and they were really hard to live without.

App organization: There are two distinct places consumers can organize tiles; the home screen and app screen.  The app screen is a vertical string of apps that is endless.  If you’re like me and use over 100 apps you are left with a string of endless apps to wade through.   This is ridiculous and needs to change. (UPDATE: In app window, holding down a letter will bring up the alphabet where users can pick apps that start with that letter.  Still harder than folders IMO.)

Lack of synced bookmarks: I liked the speed and compatibility of Internet Explorer, but the lack of synced bookmarks felt archaic. In fact, there are no folders for favorites and like lack of an organizing principle for apps, leaves a huge, long and unmanageable list of links.

Phone search: I really like the phone Spotlight Search on iOS.  WP8 doesn’t have the capability and I missed it.  What compounds the problem is that there aren’t app folders and I want to search for installed apps.  Contacts were tough too, because it could take three clicks to search on a contact as I need to go into People, find “all” people, press magnifying glass, then type in person’s name.  The frustrating this is that one of three dedicated bezel buttons is search, but it’s just a Bing search.  I wish they would change that to a phone search.

Maps and nav: Apple Maps severely disappointed me because of the inaccurate or incomplete data, but it had a killer experience. Nokia Maps was the opposite; decent data with a challenging experience.  I must caveat that Nokia maps is still beta and it shows. First, most of the times, GPS got stuck for about 10 seconds before it could tell me where I was.  That was more of my impatience, but it felt forever when you’re trying to find out where you are or how to get some place.

About 25% of the time when I did go to turn-by-turn directions, the phone got confused and wouldn’t do turn-by-turn or any navigation.  It would just sit there, confused.  Finally, when voice directions did say where to go, Nokia maps doesn’t give street names, it uses generics. It will say, “turn right in 1 mile”, not something like “turn right in 1 mile at Main Street.”  This was very, very difficult when you’re driving 65 mph on the highway in a big city when exits are packed on top of each other.  I missed many turns because of it.  I hope during their beta period, Nokia saw others recognizes this and made appropriate changes.

Switching to Windows 8?

I was really impressed with WP8 “feel”, stability and the camera.  Yes, that camera was a real differentiator.  The challenge is there are way too many shortcomings with lack of apps, maps & navigation, and browser bookmark sync for me to make a switch.  When some of the basics are there, I would reconsider, but then again, there will be a new set of “basics” in a year.  I won’t switch from iOS to Windows Phone 8 for now but will now likely switch to Android.  I want to see what Mobile World Congress before I lock into a phone and I will keep you posted on that.

AMD SurRoundhouse Concept: Future Cure for the CE Industry Woes?

For a run of at least 30 years, the “classic” consumer electronics industry successfully transitioned from one technologyWP_20130110_037 to another.  TVs are a good example.  TVs went from big color tubes to rear projection to flat panels and HD projection to HD panels.  We can’t forget laser disc to Beta to VHS to DVD either.  Consumers ate it up, too, and were pleased to roll the old iron out of the living room into another room and roll the new gear in.

Then things changed with 3D TVs, which were an unmitigated disaster for the industry.  I call it a disaster because for the most part, consumers were not willing to pay more for 3D and in some cases flat out didn’t want it.  HDTV margins collapsed and are still in a funk for many CE markets.  4K TV and Smart TV is NOT the solution either as research I have seen indicates general consumers won’t pay a premium.  There are a few things going on here.  First, already-installed generic 1080P flat panels at 10” will be a very good solution for many years to come.  No one quite knows how long the installed base of displays will last, but it could be 10 years.

Smart TV’s, while valued more than 3D by consumers, isn’t valued at a lot either.  Consumers are getting conditioned, too, to know you can add “smarts” for as low as $50 with the external add-on of a Roku, Apple TV, or DVD player.  So what is the answer to revitalize the “classic” CE industry?  You really need to understand the problem, and the problem is lack of immersiveness and too many constraints.

Certainly,  3D HDTV was more immersive than HDTV, but not enough so for us to spend hundreds more to replace our current 1080P TVs.  Also, 3DTV had too many constraints, or what I like to call “if-thens”. Everyone in the room had to wear 3D glasses to enjoy the content and without it, the content is a blur.  3D glasses aren’t cheap, either, as active glasses were $50-$100 a pair.  Then there is the hassle of charging and making sure every one of them is ready for the big movie. Then there is the nausea some people feel when watching 3D videos.  There are 2.6M results from a Google search result from “3D” and “nausea.”  Passive 3D like LG showed at this and last year’s CES will significantly lower the glasses cost and a few manufacturers showed prototypes of glasses-less 3D TVs, but are many years off and are not very high quality.  3D may not the answer, but what is?

Consumers are looking for immersiveness without constraints which is affordable.  One example of this is a concept AMD showed off at CES.  AMD showed off its “SurRoundhouse” proof of concept which is quite expensive and complex now, but takes the industry in the correct, general direction.  The SurRound house is a “theater” room with 10, 55” HDTVs looking like windows in a house, 32 speakers, and four subwoofers.  The ten LG 1080P HDTVs displayed more than 600 Mp per second at 10,800 x 1,920 resolution, which is 3X the resolution of 4K (UltraHD), albeit spread around the room.  Driving the video and audio was one PC with an AMD FX 8150 8-core Black Edition processor with three FirePro 8000 graphics cards with Digital Multipoint Audio which was amplified by eight AV receivers.

AMD plays what looks like a hostage rescue scene from a video game and shifts audio from stereo to 32 speakers to show the value of high quality, multi-channel, positional audio. Each shift of the audio takes your eye to different windows of the house and as helicopters are flying, crashing, and as multiple machine gun melees erupt, you really feel like you are in a different and very real place.  The content was entirely custom and to it takes work to get games and movies to take advantage of a setup like this.   This is a different class of entertainment, one that could actually motivate to invest, maybe over-invest in new CE gear.

Here is a smartphone video I took of AMD’s SurRoundhouse.  Of course you don’t get the same experience as as the real thing, but you can get somewhat of a sense of the experience below.  Make sure you select 1080P and full screen:

AMD could have improved the experience even more by improving the quality of the graphics in the scenes.  They looked more cartoony than life-like.  AMD says that the goal of the demonstration was to show the experiential difference in the audio, but I’d still like to see max graphics to turn it into a reality show.

So how is a $35,000, 10 display, 8 receiver, 36 speaker setup requiring custom content “without constraints” and “affordable”?  It’s not right now, but if you look ahead to new technologies, the cost curve, and need for CE and entertainment businesses to create radically different experiences, it could very well become affordable and relatively simple.  Let me explain.

First challenge is content.  The entertainment industry has shown that it will make changes if it sees potential extinction or at least a major depression in business.  The film industry started shooting in 4K well before 1080P had mass adoption so the big question would be “if” they see the opportunity to shoot in multi-“frame” and multi-“angle” dimensions to be surround or at least convex.  The next challenge is cabling, but possibly already has a video solution with multi-channel, 60Ghz wireless display technology.  Lower frequency wireless speakers are already available, but the challenge would be to solve amplification at the current frequencies.  The great thing about wireless audio is that you wouldn’t need eight receivers to send the right audio to the right speaker.  Theoretically, you would only need one with a bunch of broadcast antennas.

Then there are the displays…. The current monitor sweet spot this year will be at around 30,” priced around $300.  I can imagine in 5 years that that $300 display becomes 40-50” for a full room display build out around $3,000.  This seems reasonable when you think that LG sells their 89” 4K TV today for $22,000.   Yes, 4K displays will lower in price, but how many years before it gets down to $3,000?

AMD’s SurRoundhouse gives the industry a potential scenario for the entertainment or theater room of the future.  While it doesn’t pass the tests for mass industry adoption today in media rooms, it could, and is certainly more interesting than the same boring, flat experience.  Neither 4K or SmartTV is the solution to the woes of the traditional CE market and I hope they are looking at AMD’s glimpse of the future.

Leaving the iPhone- How Android Stacks Up

About a month ago, I made the decision to stop using my iPhone 4s with the possible outcome of leaving the iPhone for an Android or motorola-razriWindows phone for an extended period of time.  I don’t want to use the term “never”, because that’s limiting.  As promised, I wanted to share with you my experiences with Android so that you may get a deeper insight into how other users may feel and respond to their next phone purchase and experience.  I want to reinforce that this is, at best, a qualitative research study of one individual; me. I possibly represent a market segment of U.S. mid 40-something males that is technically savvy and enthusiastic about technology.  I will talk about the pros, cons, and things that just didn’t matter one way or the other when comparing my iPhone 4s to Android phones.

I used three Android phones, bouncing back and forth between them to experience  Android.  The three phones were: Samsung Nexus, Motorola Razr HD i, and the HTC One X+ which were provided to me to use.  Let’s start out with the Android phone plusses.

Android Phone Plusses

Instant access to info and controls via Widgets: With Android Widgets I can look at my most often accessed information without even opening up an app.  My most often used app widgets were Mail, Calendar, sports scores, weather, social media updates, and TripIt.  The neat part is that you can actually manipulate the data in the app and there more often than not, don’t need to open the app. This is a big time saver.  My Android control widgets were display settings and hotspot, so instead of three clicks, it takes one.

Free hotspot: This one is very straight-forward.  On AT&T and my iPhone, I needed to pay extra for a Wi-Fi hotspot and with my Android phones I did not.

Easier content sharing: Sharing content like photos to multiple social media sites is very easy.  With my iPhone I need to open the app then I can pull in content like a photo or video with the exceptions of Facebook and Twitter.  With my Android phones I can share a photo or web link to Instagram, Dropbox, Evernote, Sugarsync, Foursquare, Google+, Google Drive, Flickr, HootSuite, Messenger, Picasa, Skitch, SkyDrive, Skype, WordPress, and HTC_One_X_Plusmany more.

Google Voice: As I said in my earlier post, I drive a lot and need speech to text for notes and texts that works really well.  Google Voice just works where Siri does not work well for me.

Flawless sync with Google Services: Google Services like Mail, Calendar, Tasks and maps work flawlessly. They don’t work well or aren’t as feature rich with my iPhone.  Contacts are a great example as my iPhone contacts would not sync with my Google contacts without the need of another app.  We don’t need to talk about Google maps.

Cool tools: I really like some of the very cool tools that come with the phones.  Motorola Smart Actions makes suggestions to automate task like personalizing context aware situations like while sleeping, at home and at work.  HTC has a power saver toggle that really did save power and a very detailed “usage” tab that showed me exactly how much data each app used and would send me warnings based on my pre-set conditions.

Multitasking control: Android lets the user control everything about multitasking, more like a PC or Mac.  This came in real handy when uploading photos in the background to cloud storage or social media sites.  It also works great to have a fully refreshed phone with the latest data from Pulse, Podcasts, and Evernote.  To not kill power, many of the apps give you a choice to only upload during WiFi connection or when plugged in.  Sugarsync is smart enough to stop uploading photos when the battery gets to 25%. My iPhone just doesn’t do this.

Chrome browser: This isn’t the WebKit browser in iOS, it’s the real thing, and I can sync my PCs bookmarks, passwords, and tabs from other Chrome browsers.  Yes, I could do this with Safari, but I preferred Chrome for my PC and Mac browser.

Google Now: I am very impressed with Google Now, primarily the search based cards. It is very helpful to be on a trip out of town and Google Now displays when my plane leaves, the gate, the weather there, hotel details without entering any data.  It’s indexing my emails which a bit creepy, but adds value so I let it do it.

Now let’s move onto the areas that didn’t make a difference one way or another.

Android Phone Neutrals

Same “Page 1” apps: Unlike Android of yesterday, Jelly Bean offer the most popular and trendy apps, they aren’t “ugly” anymore and have very similar feature sets. One exception, Evernote, is still very ugly compared to iOS, but that’s about it.  All my other “page 1” apps look and run just fine.

Feel and flow: I’ve used every version of Android since inception and none ever “felt” as good as iOS… until Jelly Bean.  Project Butter made a very big experiential difference.

Battery life: I didn’t feel and more or less battery life with any of the phones, except the Motorola Razr HD i, which seemed to last longer.  There are a 100 review web sites that can give you exact figures, so I will stop there.

Android Phone Minuses

Camera: However many people told me about the great Android cameras, they all felt short to my iPhone, except in some flash circumstances, where images were white-washed.  All my Android cameras took photos quicker, had more settings, but the pictures never looked as good as the iPhone 4s.

Mail: This is a tough one, one that I waffle on, because I spent the last few years on an iPhone.  I prefer iOS email to Android for reasons that are hard to explain.  Android mail doesn’t look or feel right to me and it’s too hard to find a new folder.  This may have something to do with the fact I have four email accounts, but that’s the way I operate.  The only exceptions are swipes, which you can customize in Android to do what you want, like delete.

Courtesy links: This isn’t the official name in iOS, but I dearly miss the “courtesy links”.  These are the links to addresses, phone numbers in mail, calendar, and web pages that allow you to do something.  Adding a name embedded in an email is torture in Android and pure bliss in iOS.

Copy-Paste: This, like mail, I am a bit torn.  Copying and pasting, a very basic function, and is more challenging for me on Android.  I don’t know if it’s because I spent most of my time on the iPhone the last few years but I get frustrated with Android.

Group text: Unlike the iPhone that presents group texts in order and in-context, Android presented texts to me in an out of order, jumbled way.  We’re 4 years into Android and I don’t understand how this can be.  Android can do better than this.

Next Stop, Windows Phone 8

I really did like the Android phones and none of the minuses turned me off enough to run immediately back to my iPhone.  After using Android phones for the last few weeks, I can see very much why so many people gravitate to it.  It’s more than low price; many of the experiences I found much more enjoyable than my iPhone.  Android felt so more empowering, too, as I am in control of the phone, not the manufacturer.  As my iPhone 4s is sitting in my drawer collecting dust for a while, I’ll be taking the Nokia Lumia 920 and Windows Phone 8 for a deeper spin.  I’ll keep you posted.

NVIDIA’s Project SHIELD Connects Disparate Gaming Worlds

Even before CES 2013 officially began, NVIDIA announced a new product that rocked the gaming world.  NVIDIA announced Project SHIELD, an NVIDIA-branded mobile gaming device that connects different world of gaming, across modes, displays and content.

My first visual impression of SHIELD when I saw it was that it looked like a high end portable game controller used with an XBOX with a 5”, fold out display. The user holds it with both hands, pistol-grip style, with access to all the different kinds of buttons you would expect.  While the controller does look very cool, what is most interesting is the gaming flexibility it provides.

Connects Small and Large Display Gaming

Gamers can display their games on two displays, the integrated display and to an HDTV.  The integrated display is 5”, 1,280×720 resolution, and is adjustable for optimal viewing angle.  When not gaming, it folds down to protect itself.  Gamers can also display on the big screen, too, up to a 4K display.  This can be done wirelessly or via an HDMI cable.  Wireless display is accomplished via a dongle that connects into the HDMI port of the HDTV.  Essentially, the gameplay is encoded into a an H.264 video stream and sent to the TV in a similar fashion as Apple  AirPlay.

Connects Android and Windows PC Gaming

One of the biggest differentiators in gaming is that players can play Android and Windows PC games.  Android gaming is very straight-forward.  Just download a game from Google Play and you play it.  If you ever had an Android device like a Nexus 7 or HTC One X+ Android phone and purchased a game there, you can also play that same game on SHIELD.

SHIELD also plays Windows PC games, too, which is very distinct, something no other portable game device can do.  NVIDIA’s desired PC experience is straight-forward, while the technology behind the scenes is complex. In SHIELD-mode, the gamer slides the carousel to “PC” games where they are presented with a list of PC games.  They click the game and they play it, it’s that simple. The user never sees Windows Metro or the start screen or anything that resembles a PC.

Behind the scenes, the game is actually being played on a remote PC in the house and images are being transmitted to SHIELD or the HDTV.  It uses technology similar to that used on remote desktop applications, where the image is encoded into an H.264 video. The games are screened by Nvidia to make sure that they work well on the HDTV so the quality of service is better.  Small text could be a bit of a challenge in some games, but as devs realize they can expand their gameplay to SHIELD, they will accomodate by scaling the text to be used on the 5″ display.

I very much hope that the experience is as smoothe as NVIDIA desires, because if there are a few hiccups, gamers will stop using the Windows PC gaming function, one of SHIELD’s biggest differentiators.

Connects Portable and Console Gaming   

Finally, when you add up the fact that SHIELD can operate on the small screen, big screen, can be used as comfortably in the living room as it is in the car, it really is as, as NVIDIA’s Jen-Hsung says, a “portable console.”  While first designed as a portable gaming device, it really does beg the question on why you would need a gaming console as long as SHIELD works as planned and has access to the best titles.  Many hard core gamers will have both SHIELD and a gaming console, but where money is tight or consumers want just one device, they may choose SHIELD.

NVIDIA’s SHIELD a Success?

SHIELD is undoubtedly a major disruptor, but there are many things we don’t know yet, like price and distribution, to yield a market verdict.  What I can say is that if the experience is as good as presented, there will be very high levels of interest across “gamers” and consumers who really like to play games.  Nvidia plans to ship SHIELD in Q2 of this year and as soon as I get my hands on one, I will let you know about the quality of the experience.

A Few of My Favorite and Significant Products of 2012

One great thing about a tech industry in transition is that manufacturers amp up the amount and breadth of the products they announce. 2012 was a transition year for PCs, smartphones, and tablets, and there were so very many great options to choose from.

My selection criteria for my favorite, significant products was simple:

  • I personally used for extended periods of time as my prime device.
  • It brought something significantly new or better variable to the table.
  • It delivered a good or great experience.

Google Nexus 7 Tablet

The Nexus 7 tablet was announced at Google I/O 2012 at $199 when the going rate of a 10″ tablet was $399. The Nexus 7 sported a 7″ display, NVIDIA quad core Tegra 3 silicon, and Jelly Bean. The tablet leveraged Android’s phone ecosystem, not Android’s anemic 10″ ecosystem. The most significant thing the Nexus 7 brought to the table was “feel.” It felt great, almost as good as iOS, through the “Butter” enhancements, and that is something Apple had the advantage on for literally years over Android. I still use my Nexus 7 on an almost daily basis.

Apple iPad 3 Tablet with HumanToolz iPad Stand

I was a daily user of my iPad 1 and iPad 2 so it made sense to explore the iPad 3. Even though it was thicker and heavier than the iPad 2, I bought one because of the Retina Display. The display was simply awesome, particularly for a near-sighted person as I. The iPad 3 also ushered in the beginning of the public “graphics wars”, where Apple mistakenly went after NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 using some synthetic graphics benchmarks. This made Apple look weak and defensive and NVIDIA look strong.

My kids are now the primary users of the iPad 3.

The best stand for the iPad 3 was the HumanToolz iPad Stand, which equaled the iPad in design and mechanical craftsmanship. The forged aluminum stand fits like a glove through a combination of connectors, magnets and pads, and enables the user to use the iPad in about any angle or configuration.

Dell XPS 12 Touch Ultrabook

I was an advocate for hybrids and convertibles way before it was cool 🙂 and am still one today. The Dell XPS 12 is a touch Ultrabook whose display swivels to become a tablet. Make no mistake, as in the name, the XPS 12 is an Ultrabook, tablet second. Mine sports an Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM and 256MB of flash drive storage, so it’s no lightweight on performance and, like any Macbook, it’s a bit heavy, between an Air and Pro. As a tablet, it is heavier of course than a tablet-only device or Microsoft Surface, but until 2013 and Intel Haswell, you can’t have everything.

Motorola Razr I Smartphone

The Razr I is the first big-brand phone with Intel-inside and with a unique industrial design. The phone was fast and got really good if not great battery life. Some of the unique things I noticed was just how fast the phone was on basic tasks and just how precise it was on speech to text and web browsing, things that are important to me.

The Razr I proved many things for Intel:

  • X86 can be power-efficient for phones and tablets. In fact, tests at Anandtech show the Intel besting ARM-based silicon in power.
  • X86 at low power can deliver the required performance
  • Intel’s risky strategy of cloud recompiling or on-the-fly translations of ARM-based apps worked
  • Intel can effectively design, develop and manufacture mobile SOCs with third part IP (Silicon Hive and Imagination)
  • Respected, global brands will engage with Intel on phones

The Razr I wasn’t perfect as it supported 4G HSPA+ (not LTE), did not yet have Jelly bean but is on its way (up to Motorola), and I’d like a little better camera. The Razr I is one of three phones I carry.

Nokia Lumia 920

I got this late in the season so I’ve only had a few weeks with it. The reason it makes the list is its camera and overall experience. The camera, quite frankly, is the absolute best I have used so far. Low light really is amazing, and unlike my iPhone 4S pics, doesn’t white out while using a flash. Its physical optical image stabilization is part of the magic, the other part is finely tuned software connected to its sensor and ISP. The overall experience is elegant, and in my opinion, more elegant than on iOS, but then again more limiting, too. True multitasking is somthing of a black box as you’re not quite sure what is happening or can happen in the background. I never noticed a single lag which I will attribute to Qualcomm silicon, Windows Phone 8 integration, and the minimal allowable multitasking.

The only major downside is the absence of some of my “front-page apps” without replacements like TWC TV, WatchESPN, Instagram, Pulse, Sugarsync, TripCase, and Expedia. The Lumia 920 is one of three phones I carry.

HTC One X+ Smartphone

Like the 920, I got HTC One X+ late in the season, but it deserves to go on this list because it “feels” like the fastest phone I’ve ever used and it has really good battery life. If the phone sounds familiar, it is. It’s basically the HTC One X with NVIDIA quad core Tegra 3 clocked at 1.7ghz instead of a Qualcomm Snapdragon. Ironically in a chip sense, it does include Qualcomm LTE wireless.

What do I mean by fast? If you’ve used Android, you know that more things you allow in the background, more widgets used, your phone starts to bog down. I loaded the HTC One X+ to the absolute max and it didn’t skip a beat. Very impressive. With LTE in Austin, I got 53Mbps down on AT&T, which blew me away, too. With all the speed came good battery life, too. HTC claims on their web site that it actually gets “up to 50% better battery life than the HTC One X”. I am skeptical about sweeping claims like that as I want to see the details, but the phone did deliver very good battery life. The HTC One X+is one of three phones I carry.

Honorable Mention: ASUS VivoBook U38N Ultrathin

This ultrathin came in last week, so I haven’t been able to take it through its full paces, but I am initially so impressed that it makes it on my list. Why? Think brushed aluminum, thin, light, AMD Trinity quad core APU, AMD discrete graphics, 1080P IPS touch-display with Windows 8, gesture touchpad, back-lit keyboard…. low price. You get the idea. I will drill down into this the more time I spend with it, but this is a very nice laptop.

So these are my favorite, most significant products that I have used in 2012. Products that brought something entirely new to the table and ones that provided a good or great experience. I would love to hear your comments below.

 

Leaving the iPhone

I have used the iPhone since the 3G as my primary phone and have enjoyed my experience very much.  It was, quite frankly, ahead of its time in almost every conceivable way.  It “felt” better, had more apps, better apps, great camera and a built-in iPod.  Better in every way until now.  I am strongly considering leaving the iPhone in favor of either Android or Windows Phone and I want to tell you why. Interestingly, since I’ve had my iPhone, I have also carried an Android and Windows Phone so I could make weekly if not daily experience comparisons.  Things have changed and it could be time to move on.  I am not saying I dislike iOS or the iPhone- I do, it’s just that it just feels too restrictive and not as so far ahead as it once was.

“Feel” is Good Enough

With Android’s “Butter” introduced at this year’s Google I/O, the feel is nearly as good as iOS.  That says a lot, because as far reaching as the first Android phone, I could feel a major difference.  When I mean “feel”, it is the responsiveness that the phone has when you touch it, primarily the swipes, and the responsiveness to those swipes.  As for Windows Phone, it has always felt good and responsive to touches and swipes.

Key Apps Cross-Platform Apps Nearly as Good

There was a recent time when the newest apps were only available on the iPhone.  I don’t know if I am just becoming more settled (read:old) with my apps, but my front page apps have remained constant for a couple of years.  As those apps became available on Android, there was the quality conversation.  Those first Android apps were, well, ugly.  My front-page apps like Evernote for Android and Windows Phone are still ugly but they don’t keep me from doing my job or having less fun.  There is much less of a time delay or quality delta between Android and iOS apps than there ever was before.

Sharing Content Still Difficult

Let me just say up front that I am not the typical consumer as it comes to sharing information on social media networks.  I share a lot and I do it on a lot of networks.  Apple has been very particular in how it wants to allow you to share from the point of content.  Let’s look at sharing a news article.

On my iPhone from Safari, when I get to the page I want to share socially, I have two choices, Twitter and Facebook.  When I do share with those networks, a beautiful clipping emerges and there is space to say some things about it.  The problem is, none of the contextual info shows up like the website and the article name or author. That means I need to type in the article title.  This is a pain.  Alternatively on Windows Phone and Android, I have as many networks to share to as I subscribe to, and in my case this takes Twitter and Facebook and adds LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest. More times than not, it will take the article title and place it in the “share” as content.

I can still share that news article on LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest on my iPhone, but I need to copy the URL of the article, open the LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest  apps, paste the URL into the three apps, add the titles, then my own content, then post.  This is a whole lot of time I just don’t have.

Speech to Text and Control

I drive nearly two hours a day as I have three kids who are very active in sports.  One of my daughters is involved in club volleyball, basketball, equestrian, and cheer, all at the same time.  So my wife and I are in the car a lot.  Therefore, I need speech to text and speech command and control to actually work well.

Research shows that in general, consumers are happy with Siri doing very basic things like voice dialing.  My personal research has shown that Siri does not work very well at all under many circumstances.  With me, it is flaky and rarely works well.  When it does work well, it is like Siri is a different person.  I just don’t understand the massive variability.  We have good networks in Austin, I am originally from the Midwest which is considered at least by news agencies as having no accent, and I use the highest quality microphones.

Android speech capabilities are nothing short of incredible, but it takes the right phone.  The Motorola Razr I is one of the best as it accurately does speech to text over speakerphone at an unscientific 95% hit rate.  I talk, it types. With Google Now on my Samsung Nexus 3, it adds natural language to get very specific data points, very similar to Siri.  All in all, Siri is more sophisticated on paper, but does not work for me at all.  It is unfortunate, because Siri was the reason I bought the 4s.

Microsoft has been disappointing on this front so far given they have been doing speech control for around 15 years and the fact the Xbox works so well in a challenging acoustic and compute environment.

Newer or Different Technology

Apple actually has been ahead with its technologies and doesn’t get enough credit for it.  Apple has been ahead at times technologically on displays, SOCs, home sharing (AirPlay) and cameras. They have chosen not to lead technologically at times on wireless speed, WLAN speed, PAN, pen interaction, external storage, modularity, and notifications. I have been OK trading off newer or different technology for the better “feel”, better apps, better camras and iOS reliability, but with Android caught up in many areas and with Windows Phone on the move, it’s a more complex decision now.

Let’s take NFC as an example.  I was very skeptical about NFC for a myriad of reasons, particularly around NFC payments… that was until ISIS came to Austin.  I’m in my local Jamba Juice, and there it is, ISIS payments accepted.  At that point, I wanted it as I routinely forget my wallet and when I do remember, my debit cards get used so much it rarely scans correctly. I want NFC as a backup.  The Samsung commercials are funny and I do like playing around with sharing pictures and web pages over NFC, but that’s not driving my demand for NFC, it’s the potential for NFC payments in my city.

Where to Next, Android or Windows Phone?

First of all, I have not decided 100% to leave my iPhone.  Over the holidays, I will start trying out different phones and let you know about my experiences.  As a tech analyst, I will be separating my personal experiences and what I think the homogeneous consumer “market” will think as I am not a typical consumer.  I am much more technical, live a more digital and connected life, and am older than the median versus the “average” consumer.  Most interestingly, four years ago I didn’t think I would even be considering something else as my primary phone, and must give credit to Google, Microsoft, Samsung, HTC, Motorola, for their continued advancements.

 

Microsoft Surface: How Relevant Are Legacy Apps and Hardware?

Microsoft Surface has been on sale for a while now and reviews  are out where reviewers tell the public what they thought about their experiences. The reviews varied widely as I illustrate below, but I wanted to spend some time digging into one of the more controversial topics, Surface’s backward compatibility with legacy hardware and software.

Early Reviews Mixed
The headlines and results for the early reviews were mixed, ranging from ZDNet’s Ed Bott “enthusiastically recommended” to Gizmodo’s Sam Biddle “this is technological heartbreak” and everything in-between. Why the big disparity?

The big disparity comes from the different way reviewers approach their personal experiences, their projected experiences and the time frames in mind. Most of the positive review comments are coming from today’s sophisticated hardware and the potential for an improved software experience in future. The more negative comments involve the here and now software experience, primarily around the kind and numbers of apps in the Windows Store. Those reviewers who didn’t find the apps they wanted also pointed out that Surface cannot run legacy Windows apps. Some of those reviewers made it sound somewhat like Microsoft will make no future improvements down the line. This is a bit unfair in that Microsoft will improve the software experience, but, if a consumer does order a Surface today, this is what they are getting today. Thus we see the importance of having everything in place on day one of the reviews.

Product reviews reflect a snapshot in time of the reviewer’s personal experiences, sophistication levels, favorite software, preferred ecosystem and usage patterns. If you are like the reviewer, then it should work out well for you. Better yet, choose a friend you know who has the product and ask them what they think about it.

Is Windows Desktop Software Important?
One important thing for consumers to ask when considering Surface is whether they want to load any of the current Windows desktop apps they own today or if they will want to buy and install new Windows desktop apps in the future. Surface owners must select and buy all their “Metro-style” apps from the Microsoft store but cannot buy or load Windows “Desktop-style” apps.

Surface comes pre-loaded with full (not trial) versions of high quality Microsoft productivity apps Word, Excel and Powerpoint, so the basics of productivity are covered. Will consumers miss loading their older Windows software or buying new Windows desktop software? It depends. It’s not as simple as asking snarky questions like, “do iPad users miss this,” and moving on. It really comes down to perception and reality of what consumers will want to do with the tablet.

Shopper sophistication will run the gamut and the more sophisticated users will make a more surgical decision tree. All things equal, they will ask, “what programs do I run today and want tomorrow on my Windows 7 PC that I would want to run on my Surface tablet?”

All things equal like price, weight, brand and battery life, I want my tablet to run a few key apps that aren’t in the Microsoft Store or I just prefer in a desktop mode. For me, I want the following desktop apps to run on my tablet: Wizard101 and Pirate101 games for my son, Google Chrome web browser, and Evernote. Other consumers may want to run apps like World of Warcraft, iTunes, Microsoft Outlook, Picasa, VLC PLayer or Quicken.

The biggest challenge comes down to naming, unfortunately. When some uneducated consumers hear “Windows”, they could think they can load Windows software and “Windows”, albeit “RT”, will be splashed across every piece of marketing collateral. I believe some consumers will see “Windows” and buy Surface thinking it runs their older Windows desktop apps. Other consumers will view Surface more like an iPad or Kindle Fire and not care at all. I think this will be a short-term challenge until the entire ecosystem gets educated on the differences between Windows 8 and RT and consumer’s favorite apps become available in the Windows Store.

Is Legacy Hardware Important?
Another important thing consumers need to consider is whether they want to “fully” run all their currently-owned peripherals with Surface. These are peripherals like webcams, mice, printer-scanners, game controllers, label makers, receipt scanners, etc. At this point, no one publicly knows which legacy peripherals will work perfectly, work without special capabilities provided by desktop software, or not run at all. There will be new devices or relabeling of older devices as “Windows RT” compatible, but for other devices, it isn’t a known entity.

Let me use a personal example to illustrate my point. I have an HP printer/scanner/fax machine and a Neat sheet scanner for receipts, business cards and documents. On my HP today, I can scan a document in and it magically shows up as a PDF file in “My Documents” folder. Also, when I am printing I can set quality levels and the paper tray. My Neat scanner uses software where I repeatedly change features like color-BxW, dual sided, ignore blank sheets and collated scanning. Will these features work with Surface? I don’t know and I don’t know when or if I will know unless I have a Surface to use. For the record, neither my iPad or Nexus tablets support any of these special features.

Will this become an issue? The answer is the same as the one above on desktop software. It will depend on the user, their knowledge, their expectations of a device with a Windows brand and their experiences with other tablet devices. For those users who equate Windows with backwards peripheral connectivity, it will be an issue as they won’t know until they buy it and something doesn’t work as expected. Like legacy software, legacy hardware is a short term issue and should work itself over time.

What’s the Impact?
I believe even with all the Surface goodness, its lack of support for legacy Windows desktop software and legacy peripherals will continue to subtract from reviews and perceptions on the consumer side and particularly on the enterprise side. Enterprises use more of their head and less of their heart as IT is about business, not new and shiny objects. However, the legacy objections will die down on the consumer side over the next year as more high quality apps get added to the Windows Store and everyone gets proper expectations set. Right or wrong, given enterprise’s fixation on legacy everything, I can see a more protracted time-frame for them to get comfortable with Surface. I’m very interested to see the reviews in a few days on Intel’s Clover Trail-based Windows 8 tablets that compare the experience to Surface and other Windows RT-based devices.

As for impact to sales, that is a much more complex question which I will address in another column.

Note: This column previously appeared on Forbes.com.

Evernote and Sugarsync: Headed in Reverse Windows 8 Gear

Two of the apps that changed the way I work are Evernote and Sugarsync.  Evernote allowed me to go paperless and Sugarsync allowed me to have access to all my data accessible by any device.  Both of the apps have very robust Windows 7, OSX, Android and iOS capability.  Robustness stops, though, at Windows 8, where Evernote and Sugarsync are the biggest disappointment I have yet to encounter with the new OS.  It has been 15 months since Microsoft’s BUILD event, more than enough time to architect, design, develop and test any application, particularly one with robust Windows 7 functionality.

Evernote for Windows 8 Metro

For the last few years I have infrequently used a pen or pencil to take a note in a meeting or at home.  I take all notes with Evernote.  Even if someone hands me a piece of paper, I will take a picture and import into Evernote.  Business card?  Import into Evernote and throw it away.  Whiteboard?  Take a picture and import into Evernote.  The great thing is that every image imported into Evernote is searchable, too.  This experience gracefully (relatively) scales across my PC, Mac, iPhone, Motorola RAZR I, Nexus 7, and iPad.  But falls miserably apart on Windows RT and 8.

homescreen_ipad_iphone_large
Evernote for iOS

Evernote for Windows 8 looks kind of similar, but falls down immeasurably.

Screenshot.789.1000002
Evernote for Windows 8 Metro

For the first few weeks, Evernote would not sync.  It pulled in one note from each month, then stopped.  Windows RT-based systems would just crash.  About a week ago, the sync feature started working on Windows 8 but still to this day, will not sync and just crashes after a few minutes of sync.

Here is the delta list of what I can do on Windows, OSX, Android and iOS that I cannot do on Windows 8:

  • Sync on opening app
  • Edit a note with any rich text.  Will only append.
  • Adding attachment
  • Edit text font, size, color, bold, italics, strike-through, alignment, bullet, number
  • Adding check-boxes and grids
  • Voice notes
  • View attachments (ie pdf, doc, ppt, xls).  You can see the file and it looks like you can touch it and open, but you cannot.
  • Sync in background (cannot on iOS either)
  • Save searches
  • View by pictures
  • Auto-subject by calendar
  • Paper image clean up
  • View by place (geo-positioned)

As you can see, the list of unsupported features is immense and keeps it from doing anything other than viewing or making very basic notes.  The continued crashed with the Windows RT app is inexcusable.  Judging by the mass of one and two start ratings in the app store, I’d say I’m not alone.  Stay away from Evernote and Windows 8 Metro; they don’t mix well.  Use the desktop app with Windows 8 desktop.

Now, onto Sugarsync.

Sugarsync for Windows 8 Metro

Sugarsync for Windows 7, OSX, Android and iOS enable you to keep your files in sync across devices.  On PC, Mac, and Android, files can be automatically synced in the background, too.  Therefore, every file you have on every device can automatically in sync to view and edit.  This all breaks down on Windows 8.

Sugarsync for iPad
Sugarsync for Windows 8

The Sugarsync experience is equally weak as Evernote.  Again, Sugarsync is multi-platform just like Evernote, but for some reason, they have decided to support a narrower subset than even iOS or Android.  Here is the Windows 8 delta list:

  • Search (no, you cannot search your files, online or offline)
  • Offline access to synced files (you must be connected to have access to documents)
  • Background sync
  • Select all devices synced to Sugarsync
  • Look for recent documents
  • Sort files by date

Finding what you are looking for is nearly impossible as there is not search, sort by date, or recent documents.  I cannot recommend any alternatives because none are better.  Literally, with Windows 8, you are landlocked.

Where to Next?

Evernote and Sugarsync need significant improvement or users will simply not use these apps.   Ironically on Evernote, this type of behavior reminds me how they treated Blackberry OS, which they do not support anymore.  While I don’t believe Evernote will discontinue Windows 8 support, they need to improve quickly and substantially to keep it from becoming naturally extinct.  With Sugarsync, the story is a bit different.  Even Microsoft hasn’t enabled Windows 8 offline storage with SkyDrive and at least with some of their messaging, they are trying to help the user learn how to do some sort of offline updating.  Sugarsync prompts the user to, “If you make changes to this file, please open Sugarsync again to automatically save your updated file to Sugarsync.  This way your updated file will be available across all your other decives [their misspelling] with Sugarsync”.  Very kludgy but at least it’s a way to keep files fresh.

Both companies have had over a year to plan, code and test for Windows 8 and there’s really no explanation other than lack of belief and priority in Windows 8 that explains this.  For the sake of users, I hope the situation is remedied quickly.  At a minimum, can you at least call them “preview”, alpha” or “beta”?

Dell XPS 12: Windows 8 Ultrabook Re-imagined

With the advent of Microsoft’s Windows 8, computer makers developed different form factors to take advantage of the new operating system.  Most of these new Windows 8 form factors were shown for the first time at Computex in Taipei and then at the official Windows 8 launch event in New York.  The new PC form factors extend the functionality by taking advantage of touch screen and the Windows 8 Metro interface.  Consumers and businesses can now choose from a myriad of innovative form factors: hybrids where the tablet disconnects from the keyboard, convertible flippers, convertibles that flip 360 degrees and large, portable displays that are carried from room to room.

One of the best of these new devices is Dell’s XPS 12 Convertible Touch Ultrabook.  I have been using it for nearly a month as my primary notebook and wanted to share my experiences.

Ultrabook First, Tablet Second
The XPS 12 is an Ultrabook first and a tablet second.  This is important to understand, otherwise you may fall into the trap of comparing this to a tablet-only device, which would be a big mistake.  The XPS 12 operates as a tablet secondarily through the use of a very innovative flipping hinge, which allows the display to swivel back when you want to use it as a tablet, and swivel back when you want to use it as an Ultrabook. It also enables what I like to call “movie-mode” where the display is at the front and the keyboard is hidden but acts as a great stand.
The swivel display frame is very durable, regardless of what you may read elsewhere.  When you swivel the display into place, it emits a very robust “click”, which comes from magnets all around the frame. One thing that impresses the engineering side of me is that ability to deliver power, display and touch signals signals over a moving swivel mechanism.  Dell has added a few other details to improve use as a tablet.  Dell changed the power button from a bezel button to a side slider which enables the user to turn on the device in any form factor, Ultrabook or tablet, and keeps it from accidentally getting pressed when used as a tablet.  One other comfort feature that I only noticed after a week of use was that the rubberized “feet” act as great place to put your fingers when using as a tablet.
Industrial Design
The XPS 12 pulls from the design language of the entire XPS line, which looks premium but also very functional and durable.  The lid and bottom are both made from carbon fiber, which is not only durable and very light, but cool to the touch. The metal frame is machined aluminum, which is very sturdy and looks great.  The palmrest is made from magnesium, covered with black, rubberized material that is gentle on the eyes but also keeps your palms from slipping like mine does on my MacBook Air (MBA).  Like other notebooks made with machined aluminum, the XPS 12 is a bit heavier than some other Ultrabooks, but I personally like that trade-off  And at 3.35 lbs, it’s lighter than the MacBook Pro (MBP) 13″.
Beautiful 1080P Display
The XPS 12’s display is gorgeous.  It is 12.5″ with brightness up to 400 nits and at 1,920 x 1,080 resolution.  It’s made from bonded Gorilla Glass and therefore bright and durable.  Pictures and movies looked incredible.  This delivers a much higher PPI (176) than a standard 13″ MBA  (127) and less than a 13″ MBP with Retina Display (227).
Base Specifications
While thin and light, my XPS 12 came with relatively robust features:
  • Intel Core i7 3667U operating at 2.0Ghz up to 3.2Ghz in Turbo Boost
  • Windows 8 Pro 64-bit
  • 256 GB SSD/8 GB RAM
  • Intel HD 4000 GPU and mini DisplayPort out
  • Over 5 hours battery life (per reviews) with 47 wHR battery
  • 802.11 a/g/n, USB-3.0 with with PowerShare, eSATA/USB-3.0, BlueTooth 3.0, and WiDi 3.0
  • Intel RapidStart and Smart Connect Technology
  • 3.35 lbs/1.52kg
 All of these specs were very solid, but I would have appreciated an option for discrete AMD or NVIDIA graphics to play some higher level games and take advantage of programs that use GPU compute.
Apple MacBook or Dell XPS 12?
Ultimately, consumers must make a choice and in many cases, Apple and Windows Ultrabooks will be in the consideration set. If, and I mean “IF” the consumer is neutral on an Apple versus Windows 8 ecosystem and purchase experience, here are the things they should consider:
  • how important is touch?  The XPS 12 has it, Macs do not.  Apple may say that reaching across the keyboard to touch the display is bad ergonomics.
  • how important is being able to use the laptop as a tablet? The XPS 12 can, the Mac cannot.  Apple may say buy an iPad because it performs better as a tablet.
  • how important is having the highest resolution and PPI? Apple has the highest.  Dell may say look at the price penalty you pay for the Retina Display.
  • how important are discrete graphics?  Apple offers Nvidia’s latest graphics on the MBP, Dell does not.  Dell may say with such a thin and light design starting at $1,199, it’s not practical.
  • how important is price?  The XPS 12 starts at $1,199 with 1080P display, the MBP with Retina starts at $1,699.  Apple may say the XPS 12 isn’t retina, 500 MHz. more CPU, ThunderBolt and discrete graphics. Or Apple may say look to the MBA 13″, which starts at $1,199.
 Net-net, it is great consumers have such great choices with laptops and Ultrabooks.
Dell XPS 12: Windows 8 Ultrabook Re-imagined
As an industry analyst, I don’t publicly publish many product evaluations, but with the Dell XPS 12, I thought it was important, given its unique design and new usage models it enables.  As an Ultrabook, the XPS 12 was one of the most solid devices I have ever used.  It’s fast, light, thin, sturdy and Dell has paid great attention to details in form and function. As a tablet, I enjoyed it a lot better than I ever expected, and this is coming from a long-time iPad user.  I found myself using the XPS 12 on the couch propping it on my lap and even in bed in “movie-mode” where I historically used my iPad.  It doesn’t replace my iPad or Nexus 7, but I could see using my Surface a lot less.
Dell has a real winner with the XPS 12 and I applaud their courage for developing and productizing such a unique convertible, shape-shifting Windows 8 device during such turbulent times in the PC industry.

Samsung ATIV SmartPC 500T: Intel Strikes Back

Over the course of the Windows 8/RT industry discussions, ARM-based tablets have received the lion’s share of the discussion.  This has been particularly true with Microsoft’s announcement of Surface RT.  Does this mean Intel cannot deliver a competitive tablet solution?  Hardly.   Intel’s CloverTrail platform is shockingly competitive and I wanted to share some early experiences with the Samsung’s ATIV SmartPC 500T.  In particular, I wanted to share one of the differences between it and Surface RT.

First, just in case you were living under a rock for the past two years, two Windows operating systems exist, Windows RT and Windows 8.  Both run the newer Metro tile-based apps. Windows 8 devices will run those apps and all previous Windows 7 desktop applications and Windows RT devices come pre-loaded with Microsoft Office.

Offline Syncing

One of the major weaknesses of Windows RT devices is that they currently have no way to sync files so they are accessible offline.  With the Samsung 500T, I can install Sugarsync, Box, Dropbox or SkyDrive and have a folder of files that is accessible and synced, online and off.  This isn’t some corner case usage model for me as I have working like this for years and for me is a requirement for a “PC”.  I can even sync files with my iPad, so it’s not like this is foreign to tablets or even phones.  I do expect Microsoft to eventually add this capability but it’s just not here now which was very dissapointing.  They will need to write an ARM-based, desktop compatible connector to achieve this.

Outlook

Windows RT devices come standard with key Office apps like Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote, but it doesn’t come with Outlook.  With my Surface, I bounce back and forth between Metro-based Mail and Desktop Office, which is a bit of a shocker when in work-mode.  On the Samsung 500T, I can take advantage of Office’s features I us a lot like rich email salutations, filters, social media connectors, Word-like formatting, mail-merge, and reply with meeting.  I have to admit, I was surprised how responsive Outlook was with CloverTrail.  Intel really did their homework on the Atom Z2760 and Outlook.  I must point out that Outlook is an adder, a $199 adder, so this isn’t free, but a requirement for me when doing heavy duty work.  The Metro email app is good, but not good enough to run my business from.

Games

The Windows App Store does not currently have many games, but I am optimistic given the amount of Windows game developers out there.  One of the advantages of the Samsung 500T is that it can run legacy apps and games.  It’s not like you would want to run the latest Call of Duty game, but certainly you can run some of the lighter weight desktop games.  For instance, my son, as I have written many times before, plays a game called Wizard101 from KingsIsle Entertainment.  He literally plays this every day, and because Intel’s CloverTrail will run Windows desktop apps, he can play his favorite game.

Printer-Scanner-Fax

It’s hard to buy a printer without an integrated scanner, fax and copy machine built in.  I had no problem network printing from Surface, but I couldn’t install any of the advanced features that made the scanner work.  The Samsung 500T loaded the entire driver and app set and I could use all of the features.  The one I appreciate most is where I scan a document and it automatically shows up in the “My Documents” folder of the 500T.

Evernote

Because the 500T can run Windows 7 desktop apps, it runs full Evernote.  My entire life is on Evernote and I have been paperless for years because of it.  Quite frankly, Evernote for Metro is unusable.  It doesn’t sync in the background, crashes a lot, doesn’t handle viewing or adding attachments properly, cannot format, does not support audio notes, and does not support “Places”.  Other than that it’s great. The Evernote folks have been busy working on their iOS and OSX upgrades but I sure hope they get to Windows 8.

Chrome Browser

Chrome is my favorite browser.  I have all my favorites, folders, and even some passwords already setup.  I can use the full-strength browser.  Internet Explorer is nice, but unfortunately in Metro-mode it does not support favorites in folders.  Internet Explorer just lists a 1,000 of bookmarks without folders which is just untenable.

Camera

I will never understand why some tablets have such crummy cameras.  This includes the iPad and Surface, too.  It literally costs a few dollars to improve it.  I get the segmentation reasons and that every penny counts, but we are talking $500-700 devices.  I was quite pleased with the 500T’s camera as it captured stills at 8MP and vide at 1080P.  This is comparison to Surface’s 1MP still and 800P video capabilities.  Why would anyone want to take pictures or videos with a tablet given it looks so geeky?  In meetings I take pictures of white boards and even slides being presented.  Also, because cameras drain so much smartphone battery life, many times I will use a tablet because it will last so much longer.  So yes, I am the geek taking photos and videos of their kid’s volleyball game with the tablet.

Battery Life

Most people expected some monumental difference in battery life between Intel and ARM-based tablets.  I did a year ago, too.  I have not experienced any discernible difference between the 500T and Surface but some reviewers have noticed differences.  Given no one even thought Intel could even show up to this tablet battery life battle, Intel has proven a lot.

Startup Time

From cold start, the Samsung 500T started up extremely quick in around 13 seconds.  This is in sharp contrast to Surface which took around 29 seconds to start.  I think the last major update slowed the cold boot start for Surface, which is odd.  Users won’t need to do this often unless they run out of battery life because both devices support connected standby. The Samsung 500T and Surface, once on started immediately came to life and had updated content.

PC Oddities

The Samsung 500T is a full PC, meaning you get the advantages and disadvantages of a PC.  It is very easy to load an app that can bring it to its knees, like a video encoding app or game like Call of Duty.  If you want to run a program like that, you’d be better off getting an Ultrabook or ultrathin, but be prepared to pay a lot more.  So I did need to be aware of what was running in desktop if I noticed something was slow in Metro.

It’s also real easy to run out of storage.  I loved the synced files, but it does require that you have enough to store the data.  This may sound trite, but for many basic users, this is difficult.  Finally, I did notice that when I did restart or turn the 500T off, some app or process would keep it from shutting down.  Just like a full Windows PC.

Where to From Here?

This blog is about sharing my initial experiences with the Samsung 500T and not meant to be a sweeping analyst opinion piece on Intel versus ARM.  I will follow up with that as soon as I have used more Windows RT and Windows 8 systems.  That’s only fair. What I can say is that Intel has delivered every bit as good of a tablet experience as anything ARM-based companies have delivered so far, if you know how to navigate a Windows PC.  The Samsung 500T is responsive, thin, light and has good battery life.  In addition, it runs Windows 7 desktop apps, too, unlike Windows RT devices like Surface.  That cuts both ways in that an unsophisticated user could easily make a mistake and flood it with too much processing and/or storage from a Windows 7 desktop app.  But if you know what you are doing, you won’t do that.

What I can definitively say right now is that it is “game-on” between Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm in the Windows mobile space.

Things I Prefer to do on my iPad versus my Surface

Last week, I covered areas and usage models where I preferred to use Microsoft Surface over my Apple iPad(s). I was actually surprised I would like Surface in so many areas given it is such a new device and ecosystem.   This week, I will reverse gears and discuss areas where I still prefer my iPad.

Games

I prefer genres of games like action, shooter, and racing.  With the iPad, I get choices like Infinity Blade, Real Racing, Metal Storm, Modern Combat, Zombie Gunship, and Need for Speed.  The Windows Store is starting to have some decent titles like Hydro Thunder Hurricane that show the potential, but for right now that’s what it is, potential.  With the performance NVIDIA Tegra 3, I hope that the store starts to get filled with good games.

Podcasts

Since Apple added its own podcast app, they have been so simple and reliable.  On the iPad, I can simply subscribe and auto sync with the bare minimum toggles to manage everything.  Slapdash is a decent start for Surface, but it doesn’t auto sync and gets some nasty errors or crashes if I wasn’t connected.

Heavy Social Media

The iPad literally has a social media app for everything and more times than not, they offer the first native apps for a new service.  Also, the best apps like Tweetbot are on the iPad, too.

On Surface, the apps are OK for some casual social media, but not heavy duty.  They are a bit sluggish and lack key features.  One, for instance, is a very simple one, where you can pin a Twitter list to your start screen.  I can do this on multiple Android and iOS apps but not a single Windows RT app.

Viewing Photos 

I still prefer viewing and editing photos on the iPad.  It’s fast to open the app, open pictures, view and edit.  The editing tools are more sophisticated, too, with auto enhance and redeye.  While the Surface display is nice, I do notice a big improvement on the Retina display on the iPad 3.  One other pet-peeve I had with the Surface was when I wanted to sync photos.  It never asked me if I wanted to delete the photos on the iPhone.  Therefore, to delete the photos off the iPhone, I needed to add one more step.

Taking Notes

I take a ton of notes with my iPads using Evernote, unless it becomes unreliable and crashy where I then switch to the Notes app. The Evernote on Windows RT is the biggest disappointment of any app I have used so far.  I consider it Alpha as it either won’t sync, is slow to sync, or cannot view attachments without being connected.  Even though the app has access to the file system, you cannot add attachments other than photos.  Emailing notes works have the time and the other time crashes or displays the following error: “We’re having problems connecting to verify your info. Try signing in again.”  I tried OneNote for the tenth time. Incredibly confusing. OneNote then notes are displayed as “Personal (Web)>Quick Notes”. I’m sure if I used OneNote for years I would know what all that meant but I don’t.

Business Collaboration

While the iPad is primarily a consumer device, it has support for tools like Webex and GoToMeeting.  As an industry analyst, I get briefed a lot and these tools are invaluable for doing these.  Unfortunately, Surface does not currently have support for these and does not support them via the web browser, either.

Wireless Video Mirroring

This may sound uber-geeky, but I routinely mirror my iPad to my Apple TV to my HDTV.  I do this for many reasons, including to show off a web site, play a game, show off a new or funny app.  While the PlayTo functionality for non-DRMd video and audio is appreciated over the Xbox, it does not currently mirror the entire device.

Managing Contacts

I can very quickly and accurately view, open and edit contacts with my iPad.  I really do appreciate the linking of contacts on the Surface, but unfortunately, it is excruciatingly slow.  If I need to edit over 5 contacts, I usually just give up and go use Outlook instead.

Cloud Storage

iCloud storage for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for the iPad is nothing short of awesome.  Now, if the apps were more compatible with Office, I’d switch over right now.  Surface does not make it easy to automatically store and update Office documents.  You see, there is no SkyDrive for Windows Desktop, only for Metro.  There is an Office Upload utility in Desktop, but it only works if you pulled the document from SkyDrive or created a document or saved once to SkyDrive.  Therefore, if you created a document offline, there is no way to have it autosave once you are connected again.  Neither Box nor SugarSync have Windows RT desktop handlers, either, which is very disappointing.

Where does this Leave Us?

Surface and the iPad are very good tablets.  What is most surprising is that Surface is brand new and it can do many things better than the iPad, now on its fourth generation.   I was surprised just how well Surface did “tablet-only” usages like video playback and even surfing the web.There is room for both these devices as they take two very different tacks.  Surface is a PC that’s also wanting to be a tablet.  The iPad is trying to be a tablet, not a PC (or Mac).   Surface will be good for those consumers like me who want it all and are willing to deal with the idiosyncrasies of the PC or have another tablet for 100% content consumption.   This battle is just getting started at a time when many pundits thought it was a closed and shut case for Apple.

Ten Things I prefer to do on Microsoft Surface versus my Apple iPad

My primary tablet of choice for years has been Apple’s iPad. The iPad, iPad 2, and the New (now old) iPad (3). This is after trying at least 20 other tablets with Android phone, Android tablet, Kindle Android, Windows 7, webOS, and QNX operating systems. Before Surface, I used my iPad 2 primarily in productivity mode with a Logitech keyboard in “fridge toaster mode” and used my iPad 3 as my primary entertainment device when paired with the HumanToolz stand. I find that combination suited my distinct needs.

After all of the contextual “research”, I have finally found a device that could make me leave the iPad at home, that is, after some improvements. After using Microsoft’s Surface for about a week, there are some usage models that I prefer to do on the Surface over the iPad. Before you decide to go directly to the comments section and flame me without reading the article, my next column will be on where I still prefer the iPad in specific usage models, which are many.

Email

I have been critical of Windows 8 email earlier versions, but in the final throes of pre-launch, Microsoft redeemed themselves with a very solid Mail update. The email client is fast enough, is threaded, pulls in avatars from other services that personalizes the experience and easily handles attachments in a way that I am familiar with Windows. Emails are very quick with Surface’s keyboard, too. It’s not perfect as I want a unified inbox, in-message web links, and shortcuts like “add to calendar”, but given this is only version 1.0, I am certain Microsoft could enable it if they wanted to. Question is, how good will they make it until it pulls business from Outlook?

Random, Unplanned Web Browsing

Internet Explorer on Surface is a full, PC-grade browser, unlike Safari on my iPad, but it feels as fast as a tablet browser. While I run into sites that are just ugly on the iPad, Internet Explorer just works as it doesn’t need to cut corners. I never get a down-featured mobile site either, which I routinely get on iPad Safari. Like Mail, it’s not perfect either as it doesn’t even have synced bookmarks. For planned browsing where I go down my favorites list I still prefer the iPad, but I have to think Microsoft will add this or lose many customers to Google Chrome, which works very well on X86-based Windows 8 tablets. In fact, on my Intel Clover Trail-based tablet, I’ve already shifted to Chrome because of the lack of IE bookmarks.

The other thing that is, quite frankly, emancipating is being able to interact fully with a web site or service. I am very disappointed with the lack of Metro-based social media apps, but overjoyed that I can do EVERYTHING on my tablet with a social media site I can do with my full PC. Literally, upload, download, post, reply to every and any site without worrying about if that app has connected with that API or not. IE supports every Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest feature. Why? It’s simple, because it is full-featured PC browser with access to the system’s file system and peripherals. That, paired with Nvidia’s quad core Tegra 3 that accelerates HTML 5 drives a complete web experience.

Does this mean I don’t want apps? No way. I want apps for speed too, but want the web when I want the whole experience. I want it all.

Writing Research and Blogs

On my iPad, my blog workflow today moves from iPad Evernote to WordPress on the iPad and then final edit on a PC. If you have ever worked with iOS WordPress and photos, you understand why. With Surface, I start with Word then publish inside the app to WordPress. One app, one device; what could be simpler? And it is so, so much easier with the type cover with a trackpad to pound out a 1,000 word piece of work. For research papers, there is no substitute for Word. It’s just the gold standard of productivity. Enough said.

Wireless Printing

While not that sexy, I have appreciated the consistency of Surface’s wireless printing. Like web browsing, it just works. When printing from my iPad, half the time it prints garbage or ten pages when I really only wanted the first page. This has come in handy for my kid’s school projects and when printing out contracts to sign and scan. For the record, no, Surface doesn’t support my HP or Neat scanner and I do that on a full PC.

Task Switching

It seemed for the longest time, Apple was “holding out” for easy task switching. Then came the very much appreciated two finger gesture for the iPad. I thanked Apple profusely for this. Microsoft and the Surface take this a few steps forward with the simple left thumb flick, which allows the user to keep both hands on the device and task switch. When I am showing friends and family the Surface, they are all “gee whiz” on this very simple feature. I liked webOS and QNX task switching better than Windows 8, but must say, I have warmed up to Windows RT and 8 task switching, and certainly prefer over my iPad.

Instant Access to Information without Opening Apps

If you want to get an Apple fan boy riled up, just start a discussion about Live Tiles or Android panes. You can just see the blood pressure rising and the next hour of conversation is around ease of use and what normal consumers want. Well, I like Live Tiles because it saves me time and some don’t because they are “confusing”. Without even touching the Surface display I can see emails, calendar, and weather, stocks, Tweets, breaking news, updated podcasts and about 100 other pieces of information. I think other consumers will prefer, too, after some time as icons are so 1980’s. I believe Microsoft jumped ahead of the curve on this tile concept and Apple will follow at some point.

As the industry moves to large surface usage models and environments for full rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, etc., live tiles will be commonplace. And, yes, I had PointCast and Yahoo widgets and stopped using them because they became a hindrance over time, but these tiles are different, as they are the experience, not an add-on.

Rental Videos

I watch a lot of rental movies and TV from the Apple Store on my iPad. I do this a lot while crashing on the couch or in bed. I use the HumanToolz stand to prop up the iPad 3 on my chest so I didn’t have to hold it. When Amazon Prime came to iPad, I still used the iPad, but switched to Prime. It wasn’t about the deals, it was that Prime enables streaming and the Apple Store does not on the iPad. I sometimes had to wait over an hour for an Apple Store video to download. I get the QOS challenges with streaming, but somehow Amazon and Netflix deals with those. Plus, Apple deals with streaming on my Apple TV just fine, so it’s just frustrating. With Surface, I use the Xbox movie store where I can stream or download and play. This is a lot more convenient than the iPad.

One broadcast channel app that was quite good was the ABC Player. My wife and I watched “Revenge” together and Surface provided a better quality and stable video experience than the iPad. I haven’t had the chance to test every service, but I also thought the Netflix and Hulu+ experiences were also very solid.

Anything that Really Requires a Mouse

As I use my iPad for productivity in addition to entertainment, I attempted presentations with Keynote and spreadsheets with Numbers. I tried for years to love these on the iPad but ended up abandoning them after each new release. Pages was fine but spreadsheets and presentations were nightmares even for editing files I created first on a PC. The lack of a mouse was the biggest issue for me as I had to learn a bunch of new gestures on a small 9.7” screen. With Surface, I have a keyboard, trackpad, optional mouse, Excel and PowerPoint. If you’ve done spreadsheets and presentations, you know how much easier this is and can relate. As in web browsing, this is an area where the four Nvidia Tegra 3 cores are making an impact.

Group Music Listening

I still prefer personal listening of music on the iPad as it’s faster and simpler, but in a group environment, Surface is just all that better. Microsoft essentially took the Xbox music experience and put it on Surface. If you’ve never experienced it, you should, as it’s as much about the video as it is the music. As you play a song, you are fed some incredible transitions that go way above cover art.

Sharing Anything

With my iPad, it’s up to Apple to determine what app or service I can directly share to. Like rental movies, this is Apple simplifying for the consumer and ensuring QOS. Also, if all apps had access to all Apple APIs, Apple couldn’t fully monetize its connections. Microsoft has chosen a different another route, one that is more partner-friendly and inclusive. This isn’t Microsoft jut being the good citizen, it’s part of their business model of monetizing the OS and they are years behind in the tablet war.

In Metro, I literally click on the “Share” charm and any, and I mean, any app that has a “contract” to share, I can share with. Let me use sharing pictures as an example. On my iPad from the Camera Roll, I can share a picture to 2 non-Apple apps, Facebook and Twitter. On Surface, I can share that same picture to 6 different non-Microsoft services and apps and that’s only two weeks in before many social media apps even surface.

Hate my iPads?

I love my iPad and it has been the “chosen one” for many years, for basic productivity and for fun. I cannot tell you just now many times I received flak years ago, before the iPad, for forecasting three years ago that the tablet would be the primary content consumption device for the home by 2015. I think there are many more believers now. I am here to say that the iPad finally has some authentic competition, stiff competition, and that’s from Microsoft Surface and from other Windows RT and 8 devices. Holistically, the iPad has it more together, but then again, it doesn’t do as much, either, and has a multi-year head start. Surface is far from perfect, has its flaws, but also delivers a much better experience than expected, and selectively delivers a preferred experience in certain usage models.

Next week, I will outline usage scenarios where I still prefer my iPad.

Microsoft Pulls it Together (Almost) for Windows 8 Launch

I attended Microsoft’s launch last week for Windows 8, Windows RT, and Surface. While launch day is only one milestonephoto 1 (3) in a string of milestones, launch day is the one day that everything must come together, the day where some make their final judgment. So how did Microsoft do?

Importance of Launch Day

Launch days is one day in many important days that a product or service goes through in its lifecycle. I believe it is one of the most important days, though, as it pulls together all the hard work of the previous years into just a few hours. The value of launches differ between consumer and commercial products, too. In the commercial world, buyers like IT managers don’t expect and quite frankly don’t believe that everything would be together on day one. They’re a skeptical bunch, due in part to just how many times they have seen products and services not live up to their promises in the past. Maybe they even lost their job or got reprimanded for making what ended up being a tech mistake that cost their company time or money.

Consumer product launches are different, in that those product and services get measured by press and reviewers based upon what it can do on launch day, not at some point in the future. There are some exceptions that consumers make, where if they trust a brand and they make a future promises the company is believed, but for the most part, what is launched on that one day sticks for a very long time.

One final important piece about launch day is “permanence”. What gets written by press and analysts on launch day is rarely updated if something changes. With most consumers checking out the internet before they buy, this is vitally important. So how did Microsoft do?

Windows 8 Launch Day Plusses

Looking holistically at the day, I have to give credit where it is due. Microsoft did a very good job pulling everything togetherimage on game day. Microsoft made a good case that Windows 8 was the best Windows yet, good for older and the newest systems. On almost every metric, Microsoft showed that Windows 8 is better than Windows 7. They didn’t address the lack of a Start button or the potential confusion, but I don’t think this was the right place to do that. That is best demonstrated in the marketplace.

The demos were some of the best I’ve ever seen from Microsoft as Mike Angiulo and Julie Larson-Green did their magic. They made a pretty good case for why consumers would want Windows 8, particularly on touch-based devices. I particularly thought they did a good job showing and talking about how Windows 8 works with other Microsoft-based properties. Angiulo and Larsen-Green also did a very good job in showing the absolute breadth of designs supporting Windows 8 and Windows RT. The device onslaught was impressive, from notebooks, to hybrids, tablets, convertible flippers, convertible swivelers, to all in ones. They showed devices from all the big brands at prices ranging from $499 to $2,499.

Steve Ballmer was in rare form too, with a good balance of his famous passion and facts. He was there to put the final stamp on the event by showing just how committed Microsoft is to the Windows 8 ecosystem and experience by outlining just how many Microsoft apps and services have been developed to support a seamless Windows experience.

The launch wasn’t perfect, though.

What I Wanted to Hear More About

Microsoft demonstrated their best launch I have ever seen, but it could have been better, had they made a stronger case on a few items.

I have been a bit critical previously on how Microsoft has handled the rollout of Metro-based apps in the store. Without having enough high-quality apps, Windows 8 could have been compared to the webOS Touchpad or 10” Android tablet ecosystem, which would have been disastrous. Microsoft definitely came through on video streaming services by adding Netflix and Hulu within weeks of launch. They also showed up with many key new site apps, even though CNN is still MIA. What Microsoft missed at launch were key social media apps. While I understand that the People app has some good connections to services, it does not replace a native social media app for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or Google+. One example is Twitter. I, like many, have Twitter lists they want on their primary start screen. Not a single Metro Twitter app supports this. I would have at least liked for Microsoft to address this head-on and give a date when some of these apps are committed. In Surface reviews, the number of high quality apps was on key criticism in every single one of them. It didn’t have to be like that and was avoidable.

I would have also liked for Microsoft to address any hardware incompatibilities with Windows RT as opposed for users to find out on their own. Microsoft stated that Windows RT “works with 420,000,000 devices” but how do I know if that one Neat scanner or HP scanner that is so important to me works well? Microsoft has done a ton of work testing, but I would have at least liked to see accessible resources for consumers to check if their special peripheral works well. By not disclosing this, it made them appear to be hiding something.

Finally, there is the commercial PC and tablet market. Enterprises are currently shifting from Windows XP to Windows 7 on standard form factors like notebooks and desktops and therefore Windows 8 for the most part is irrelevant to them. Tablets are another matter altogether. Tim Cook routinely announces the extremely high per cent of enterprises rolling out or evaluating iPads, the latest figure pegged at 92%. Given Microsoft makes 75% of their profit from the commercial market, this seemed like an oversight. Given the competitiveness of the Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro tablets, many enterprise IT people would be hard pressed to justify an iPad purchase, Microsoft should have at least given a tip of the hat to Windows 8’s applicability to the commercial market.

Where We Go From Here

Many consumer reviews have been written and there will be many, many more in the future for Windows 8 and Windows RT. For the most part, the die has been cast and the Microsoft marketing and ad machine are in full swing, all which will make a difference on perception. The Windows 8 launch was the best Microsoft launch I have ever seen or attended, and I have personally attended many. While Microsoft didn’t address everything they needed to in order to seal the deal, they absolutely got Windows 8 and RT off to a solid start. Now it’s time to see if that translates to sales.

Windows, iOS, and Android All Have Something to Prove This Week

Prior to Apple developing iOS and over the last 25 years, there had never been much of a threat to the Windowsecolove ecosystem. With iOS, Apple proved many things, including the value of a holistic experience delivered through purpose-built combinations of hardware, software and content. Now in mobile, it’s Microsoft looking into the window wanting to get inside. After iOS came Google’s Android, which was focused on the same areas as iOS. This week, with multiple announcements, Windows, iOS and Android all have some things to prove and I wanted to dive a bit deeper into some areas.

Windows 8 Launch

For decades Microsoft has been the uncontested PC market share leader. Macs made a little bit of a dent, but for the most part, Microsoft ruled and for years it looked like Microsoft would have uncontested dominance. That was until the iPad. While the iPad isn’t trying to be a PC, it did provide an optimal experience for specific usage models the PC once delivered. Sure, you can surf the web on your PC, but when kicking back on the couch is it the best way to do this? Not for me and not for 100s of millions of other people. I still must have my PC, but I prefer my iPad for certain tasks my PC previously performed.

With Windows 8, Microsoft hopes to bridge the gap between PC and tablet. They will attempt to do this by releasing Windows 8 on about every conceivable form factor possible and seeing what sticks. This is a huge risk in that they are also sub-optimizing the experience for desktop-only experience by adding the Metro layer and removing the start button. The Windows 8 experience is optimized for devices with touch and an accessible keyboard, turning the devices into a Swiss Army device. I have used my iPads for years with an extended keyboard, so I absolutely see the value here. This week, Microsoft must prove that flexibility of Windows 8 trumps the purpose-built focus of an iPad.

Windows RT adds another proving ground. For decades, Windows equated to compatibility with the past, which is inextricable linked to Microsoft’s IT roots and the fact that many consumers are peeved about wasting a prior, large investment. I am not saying that consumers care less about backward compatibility, but they care more about what the device does today and in the future then the past. Unlike Windows 8, Windows RT will not run all the older Windows 7 desktop applications. Microsoft bridges the gap with some key Office apps, but forget about loading up iTunes or Quicken that you have. Hardware compatibility with USB devices is an unknown as well. This has never been an issue with the iPad, but then again, neither iPad or Apple stands for backwards compatibility.

Finally, we have Microsoft Surface, the first Microsoft-branded PC that directly competes with its ecosystem. This test will take a long time to play out but rarely do these examples of suppliers competing with customers work out well. While we don’t know exactly how pricing and features will work out over time, few premium-branded Windows tablet makers are excited about this. If Ballmer’s email to its stakeholders wasn’t clear enough, future Microsoft does two things: devices and services, and those devices that its customers currently provide.

While we will need to wait months and some cases years to fully understand how all these play out, the official launch for Windows 8, Windows RT and Surface this week will give better indications on where Windows is headed.

Windows Phone 8 Launch

Windows Phone was very respectable in the early days of smartphones and was one of the few phones until RIM’s Blackberry to be accepted by businesses. Then came the iPhone and iOS, which undoubtedly changed Microsoft’s mobile fortunes for the foreseeable future. Instead of a commanding 90-95%% OS market share like it does in PCs, in mobile, Microsoft is looking right now, at best, 3% share of the mobile market. Given how Windows Phone 7.X has done, there must be some huge change for Microsoft to start gaining share.

Microsoft’s biggest challenge in smartphones is consumer apathy. Metro is differentiated, the maps are good and Nokia has some really good imaging but consumers are not yet all that excited about Windows Phone. Microsoft needs more black and white, differentiated, and demonstrable features to break consumers out of their addiction to iOS and Android phones if they are to make big progress.

With the launch of Windows Phone 8, Microsoft could start to reverse its fortunes. If Microsoft can show that a Windows Phone 8 is a must-have device to pair with a Windows 8/RT PC or tablet and an Xbox, I do believe they can start to make faster traction with those audiences.

iPad Mini Launch

Apple, plain and simple, invented a new category with the iPad. Sure, there were previous Windows Tablets, but the biggest issues were a lack of apps, pen requirement and very high prices. Tablets , particularly iPads have started to eat into the PC market. It’s not that an iPad can replace a PC, but some consumers are choosing to buy the new category (and shiny thing) instead of buying a replacement PC.

The iPad Mini will be interesting for Apple. Apple has always been able to command a price premium in, quite frankly, all devices. Whether it’s an MP3-playing iPod, iPhone, iPad, or Mac, consumers are willing to pay more. The iPad Mini will test this pricing elasticity more than ever. I believe to hit its profit goals, Apple will need to be priced at least at $299, which puts it into that 30-40% gross profit range. They could margin blend on the rest of the iPad line to get the price even lower, but that’s pushing it.

With Amazon Kindle Fire at $149, a $299-349 price will be pushing the pricing power farther than I have seen in a long time. I do expect an iPad Mini to have a much better experience than a $149 Kindle Fire, but with many consumers just glad to be able to have an affordable tablet, many will opt for the Fire. Apple will sell truckloads of the iPad Mini this holiday season, but not nearly as many as they could have if the Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire didn’t exist.

Google Nexus 10” Android Tablet Launch

While Android has done well on smartphones and 7” tablets, anything above 7” has been a business and marketing disaster. Google had clearly deprioritized the 10” category as the smartphone market eclipses the size of the tablet market. At some point though, Google needs to bring their “A” game to large tablets and incent developers to create high quality tablet apps. Right now, Google does not allow anyone to easily count the tablet-specific apps as they number in the 100’s. Not 100’s of thousands, I am saying hundreds.

Google is rumored to announce this week a Google Nexus 10” tablet with Samsung. Price is almost inconsequential in that without more native Android tablet apps, a new Nexus tablet could be worse than bad. I expect 10″ Android tablets this holiday to be relegated to the bottom of the pricing barrel below Windows 8 and iOS. Unless Google can pull off something completely amazing and unexpected, this Nexus 10” will sell as well as all the other Android 10” tablets, not well.

An Amazing Week

Yes, this week will be one that all the ecosystems will have something to prove. When I step back a bit, I marvel at the amount of innovation and competition that is happening and just know this will be great for consumers this year and five years into the future. Competition and innovation are important as evidenced more than ever by this week’s announcements.

Why Maps are “Really” Important to Apple

In my last Apple Maps column I discussed why Apple would have delivered a suboptimal maps experience. This analysis was really a short term view of why they would do this, and the answer was Wall Street. Net-net, Apple would have felt the Wall Street wrath more than they are already feeling post-iPhone 5 launch had they delayed their launch for a quality product. Now, I’d like to look at the long term value of “maps” and why this could be so important to Apple. The answer is simple, it’s to monetize a huge portion of the internet they aren’t getting a piece of today.

Maps are for More than Getting from Point A to B
For most general consumers, “maps”, if they are even aware of the smartphone functionality, means getting help from getting from point A to point B. My son’s pee wee football coach even places a Google maps link to each away game that provides directions on the smartphone. Even if someone isn’t aware that phone maps exist, all they need to do is click on that link and they will get directions to the game.

For more advanced consumers, “maps” help them find brands or categories of products near them to get phone numbers or driving directions. Want to see how late that Jiffy Lube near your house is open on a Sunday? Search for it and it should have that info of it’s in the database. Looking for some coffee and you don’t care about the brand? Search for “coffee” inside of maps and be directed to the closest place.

With an Android device and Google Now, users can easily check in via Google+ once they arrive at a destination. If you’re searching on Yelp or checking in on FourSquare on any phone, you may even me able to find discounts on your visit.

You see, “maps” are more than about just mapping, they are a portal to the future of local advertising, commerce and payments. You need to teleport yourself five years into the future to get the best idea of just how valuable this is. This is about big money, money that dwarfs what Apple lost in market cap over the past few weeks. Let’s peel back the onion a bit.

Local Advertising, Checkin and Deals
Advertising as a business is larger than movies, games and music combined. Most of those ad dollars get spent locally by the billions of small businesses across the globe and the large businesses trying to reach local consumers. Getting a cut of this would be huge and is no surprise that Google, Groupon, Yelp and Facebook are all going after this full force.

Today and even more in the future, every place we go will be tracked and most consumers allow it. In fact, in the future, telcos will provide subsidies to consumers who let them be tracked and be anonymously “checked-in”. In-context deals will be provided to these users that actually provide value, not the horrible deals most users get today from Groupon and Google. The problem with Groupon offers is that they don’t have good enough profiling or enough deals in inventory to tee up enough relevant deals. The same thing for Google and even Facebook.

Knowing where people are and what they are doing is crucial to building these profiles and for delivering the ultimate in ads, the “pick-off”. The “pick-off” is when an advertiser knows you are going somewhere and will provide you an ad to go somewhere else. Let’s say you search for “pizza” and get directed to “Joe’s Pizza” on 5th and Lamar. “Luigi’s Pizza” is on 7th and Lamar, and through their real-time ad network knows this and sends you an immediate $10 off coupon message if you spend $30, and a window seat for the best people watching. You accept, and you, Luigi and the ad network benefits. OK, so this may be a bit exaggerated but you get the idea.

So who could Apple impact with this? Google, Groupon, Yelp and Facebook. That’s big. This isn’t the only opportunity. How about commerce and payments?

Local Commerce and Payments
Now that Apple and their network knows you have arrived at Luigi’s, the coupon will show up in your Passbook and you are ready to roll. You show up at the front door, show the coupon, and you and your friends are seated at the best seat in the house, right in the front window. The party tweets about what good seats they have and check in on Apple’s Maps.

What about when it’s time to pay? Apple, because they are tied into Luigi’s, has a deal that everyone who uses “Passbook Wallet” gets 1% cash back. Apple has a frequent flyer kind of program where they get freebies toward content and devices. So you are motivated to pay with your “Passbook Wallet”. Upon checkout, the waiter scans your phone’s bar code with their smartphone camera, similar to a Starbucks checkout, and you are off to the next big party.

What companies does this disrupt? It effects a ton of people including Isis, Google (Wallet), VISA, Mastercard, and American Express. Can you even imagine how much profit this could be for Apple?

Maps Drive Big, Long Term Apple Opportunities
As I outlined in my previous analysis, Apple delivered a suboptimal mapping experience to limit the punishment they would have received from Wall Street had they delayed iPhone 5 or iOS 6. Long term, though, the stakes are outrageously high and involve Apple monetizing an enormous profit pool, local advertising and payments. Apple need maps, and evolved maps, to make that a reality and they are well on their way to do this.