Ged Carroll

Category: wireless | 無線 |무선 네트워크 | 無線

This blog came out of the crater of the dot com bust and wireless growth. Wi-Fi was transforming the way we used the internet at home. I used to have my Mac next to my router on top of a cupboard that contained the house fuse panel and the telephone line. Many people had an internet room and used a desktop computer like a Mac Mini or an all-in-one computer like an iMac. Often this would be in the ‘den’ or the ‘man cave’. Going on the internet to email, send instant messages or surf the internet was something you did with intent.

Wi-Fi arrived alongside broadband connections and the dot com boom. Wi-Fi capable computers came in at a relatively low price point with the first Apple iBook. I had the second generation design at the end of 2001 and using the internet changed. Free Wi-Fi became a way to attract people to use a coffee shop, as a freelancer it affected where I did meetings and how I worked.

I was travelling more for work at the time. While I preferred the reliability of an ethernet connection, Wi-Fi would meet my needs just as well. UMTS or 3G wireless data plans were still relatively expensive and slow. I would eventually send low resolution pictures to Flickr and even write a blog post or two. But most of the time I used it to clear my email box, or use Google Maps if I was desperate.

4G wireless services, started to make mobile data a bit more useful, even if the telephony wasn’t great

 

  • iPhone pragmatism

    Despite working as a digital strategist and creative thinker (whatever the hell that means) agencyside, I have a very pragmatic relationship with technology both past and present from the iPhone to my original Mac. I have had Macs since 1989, primarily because they were the closest thing I found to a computer that just worked.

    I had analogue mobile phones from my time DJing and having friends who worked in cell phone service centres. My first phone that I had to buy was digital, the mobile phone was a Motorola; mainly because One2One (now Everything Everywhere) sold a package where you paid just over 100 pounds and had a phone for 12 months, with a small amount of inbuilt local call time. At the time I used it as a more reliable version of my pager. Even back then SMS proved to be more reliable than the pager that I had used previously

    I went from Motorola to Ericsson, mostly because Ericsson handsets were really well made and then moved to Nokia when Ericsson merged its handset business with Sony. I moved from Nokia to the Apple iPhone and a Samsung feature phone for two reasons:

    • Apple had an address book that worked. My address book didn’t brick the phone. I haven’t had that bad problems with data corruption and it syncs with my computer. It has all the productivity applications I enjoyed on my Nokia phones like MetrO and QuickOffice. The iPhone also has major flaws. For instance, the browser isn’t great, but I put up with it because I can sync my bookmarks for it across from the Safari browser on my Mac. The biggest think that I miss was the Nokia keyboard and laptop layout on the Nokia E90 Communicator
    • My Samsung phone could take two SIMs which is a boon for traveling. This is something that most phone manufacturers don’t provide for markets outside the developing world

    My iPhone was also expensive, like the price of a cheap laptop kind of expensive, which means that I look at it in a different way to previous smartphones. Instead of getting rid of my phone every 18 months, I am thinking closer to three years, just like my laptop.  An additional factor  is that whilst the first iPhones were a radical leap forward,  the iPhone 4 and 4S don’t have sufficient must-have value for me to move on until my current phone dies or the next iteration of the iPhone comes out.

    Now I wouldn’t say that I am an everyman for the iPhone using population; but this has to have some effect on sales. For every iPad that Apple sells there maybe at least a few iPhone upgrades put on hold as an opportunity cost.

  • iPhone 4S

    I read through the Apple press materials following the iPhone 4S and iCloud services launch the other day. There was a lot of disappointment out there when the phone revealed wasn’t a massive step-change forward which is probably massively unfair for example Carnegie Mellon University professor or computer science David Farber posted the following message on his Interesting People mailing list:

    After yesterday’s announcement by apple I decided to   explore changing phones and/or carriers. I am specifically interested in the most advanced smartphone with “4G” capability.

    Any suggestions?

    Having done my own research, I ended up coming away with questions rather than forming opinions.

    Firstly, iCloud; I read and saw nothing that altered my initial perceptions and concerns when I wrote about the service back in June. So rather than repeating myself it is easier to link out to my earlier post.

    As for the iPhone 4S itself; the updates to the device compared to the iPhone 4, felt as much about feature catch-up as about innovation. The improved camera matched features in top of the line Nokia and Samsung phones. The much-lauded speech recognition application Siri was as much about matching the voice activated features in Android software.

    Unlike many online who were looking for a new thinner form factor, I was glad that the new phone kept the iPhone 4 size as there is already an unhealthy focus on size zero design at the expense of battery life, product performance  and ergonomic design.

    When Steve Jobs talked about the transition to Intel processors for the Macintosh product range, the rationale was mostly around a new focus on processors moving from computing power to computing power per Watt. I’d like to know what effect that Apple’s new electronics design for the iPhone 4S has on power consumption and battery life. Does the faster video transitions come at the expense of usability due to declining battery life?

    Only time will tell if the aerial changes and new electronics have improved the iPhone performance in areas such as call quality and dropped calls. After the initial rush to buy from completists and early adopters the word-of-mouth around these issues are going to be important for iPhone sales. More information about the iPhone.

  • Asian woman & more news

    Asian woman observations

    Marketing to the modern Asian woman: Trends to watch by Vic Corsi, Landor – WPP – “Shopping is a social activity and the goal is not necessarily to make a purchase. Group shopping is one of an Asian woman’s main hobbies—over 20 percent of Asian women go shopping every weekend with no expectation of purchasing. While she peruses the malls contemplating what to buy—either now or on some future shopping mission—the Asian woman is looking for brands to convince and entertain.” – the author is writing from a Singapore perspective, but still great content. The big challenge is that the asian woman as a demographic isn’t homogeneous. Shopping is an activity, partly because of air conditioning, which occurs in certain markets like Singapore or Hong Kong. But many asian women are very value orientated. A classic example of this Asian woman would be in lower tier Chinese cities, Indonesia or the Philippines where is the a huge difference in incomes. I suspect that the modern asian woman of the title is code for wealthy and relatively young.

    Consumer behaviour

    Report: Workers in China and India Most Likely to Play Hooky – WSJ

    Design

    JNKsystem.com　 : NEIGHBORHOOD C.W.P. ALT.Zippo – I love the way Neighbourhood puts pocket wear and tear on these to provide authenticity

    Ethics

    A VC: Following Facebook Down The Wrong Path – interesting post on Facebook privacy

    Ideas

    Text of Steve Jobs’ Commencement address (2005)

    Talking To The Future Humans – Bruce Sterling | VICE

    Japan

    Japanese manufacturers see positive signs – FT.com

    Media

    Irish Post bought as going concern – RTÉ News – this is potentially good news

    UK Labour Party wants journalism licenses, will prohibit “journalism” by people who are “struck off” the register of licensed journalists – Boing Boing – this sounds very suspect

    Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value – NYTimes.com – e-education doesn’t necessarily work: schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning

    Online

    Questions Arise Over Yahoo’s Value as Buyers Weigh Bids – NYTimes.com

    Facebook: Sharing it all | The Economist – Facebook the sociopathic network

    Software

    Communities Dominate Brands: Analysis of Smartphone Wars and 3 Big News last week or so: Part 1 of 3: Intel + Samung – Nokia = Tizen (not MeeGo)

    Technology

    Why do some people really hate Apple | guardian.co.uk

    Michael Dell Advises Hewlett-Packard – NYTimes.com – its about scale in other areas rather than margins

    Wireless

    Sony Ericsson CEO: We Should Have Taken The iPhone More Seriously | TechCrunch

    Chinese phone systems ‘no threat’ to Google – FT.com – yeah right

  • Palm | HP portable devices

    I decided to jot down some thoughts on the demise of the Palm | HP portable devices business. I am not going to say whether it was the right or wrong thing to do mainly because other people have been doing that already.

    HP and the mobile device

    HP was arguably the original modern mobile computing device manufacturer, coming out with the HP-35 scientific calculator back in 1972. The company had a long history of being a pioneer in mobile computing; so the move away from mobile devices is actually putting an ending to a long line of devices.

    Compaq had a set of handheld computers in the mid-1990s called Aero. These ran DOS and Windows 3.1, being the predecessors of devices like the ASUS eeePC netbook.

    HP developed a number of PDA devices in the early and mid-1990s including the 95LX, 200LX, 100LX and the OmniGo 700LX which allowed a Nokia 2110 to piggyback on the PDA with a specially molded section on the back of the case.

    The Jornada series of devices was a range of Microsoft Windows-powered PDAs were launched in 1998 and had a number of achievements including the first Windows Pocket PC colour touchscreen device and a UK-only GSM smartphone. The Jornada brand was phased out following the merger with Compaq.

    The iPAQ succeeded Compaq’s Aero line in 2000 and the HP Jornada line after Compaq had been acquired. The last iteration of the iPAQ range was in 2010.

    The Palm range of devices were first launched in 1996, the operating system was tweaked and prodded over the next decade to power various different devices including the iconic Palm III, V and Treo range of smartphones. Ultimately it eventually came up with the webOS after repeatedly fumbling its future.

    This is a long and rich history of engineering innovation for which the Touchpad and Pre don’t stake up as worthy successors.

    Things I never got when the Palm acquisition was first announced

    I wrote up some bullet points of things that I didn’t fully understand when HP originally announced the Palm acquisition:

    • Is HP overpaying for the company? There isn’t that many people interested in Palm and analysts had set a target share price of zero. Is this price as much about emotion as assets?
    • Why is the Palm WebOS going to live up to HP’s faith in it?
    • Much was made of Palm’s cloud services technology in the webcast, but how many extra servers or services will it actually sell for HP?
    • SKUs. I was alarmed at the amount of proposed device variants HP was envisaging in the future on the call with possible support in differing form-factors for Microsoft Windows, Windows Phone, Android and WebOS in personal devices

    With the benefit of hindsight:

    • Unless HP manages to parlay Palm’s intellectual property assets into a patent war chest either through an auction or successful legal action, it is unlikely to make its money back on the Palm acquisition and its Palm | HP portable devices. There isn’t likely to be licensing revenues from other manufacturers that would make up Palm acquisition. Whilst, the current uncertainty around Android may make manufacturers open to looking at an alternative operating system; but why take on webOS when both Palm and HP couldn’t make it work properly? It’s not like both these brands didn’t have a good reputation and heritage in building mobile computing devices, also in order to license the operating system HP would have to maintain and continue to develop it. What would that road-map look like and why would HP continue to develop consumer-facing software given its renewed focus on the enterprise
    • I never did find out how webOS was going to live up to HP’s leap of faith in the operating system because it evidently didn’t pan out, hence HP withdrawing it’s Touchpad and Pre devices

    The value of the Touchpad and its implications for the webOS

    Many of the eulogies for the Touchpad and the Pre point out that webOS was good software held back by Palm | HP portable devices hardware chops. This was the same criticism leveled at the original Palm Pre; so it begs the question why didn’t new owner HP try and deal with the performance issues second time around? I suspect that the leadership of Palm knew that the original Pre sucked, which why it was kept out of journalist hands for so much of the launch period.

    Given the resources of a large company like HP, I would have thought that the former Palm engineering team and their new HP would not have wanted to continue making poor performing products; and instead would have looked to draw a line under everything with a superior device.

    Yet when you look at the price that the remaining Touchpad devices are flying off the shelves in the US: 99 USD, this tells you a lot about the perceived value of the product.

    The 99 USD price point is some 220 USD below the tear-down price of the HP Touchpad. The tear-down price is a conservative estimate of the total cost of a Touchpad to HP. Now you can allow for the fact that the product has some discount priced in because HP was withdrawing from the market, but even Nokia isn’t taking that kind of bath with its Symbian handsets.

    So a fair amount of this discount must be due to the device experience provided by the webOS software. The risk versus rewards offered to users by this operating system far outweigh the intrinsic value of the hardware on which it runs. I would have to question why anyone would want to license webOS? You can find more more related content here.

    More Links

    HP | Palm deal thoughts

    HP: What Léo Apotheker’s Decisions Mean | Monday Note

    HP gave up on cool webOS devices but promises webOS PCs and printers | VentureBeat

    HP TouchPad Carries $318 Bill of Materials – Teardowns at iSuppli

  • Funds of funds + more news

    Funds of Funds

    Funds of Funds May Actually Increase Risk, Study Finds – NYTimes.com – this feels counter-intuitive at first, until you realise that funds of funds are a synthetic financial instrument from the prospective of the end investor. Synthetic financial instruments led to problems like the 2008 financial crisis and the Savings and Loans crisis of the 1990s. The reason for the problem of funds of funds for the end investor is that there lots of known unknowns under the hood. It is conceivable that several funds make a similar wrong headed bet and get stung by it. Without directing the funds, how do you maintain continued diversity of investment and strategies to ensure the bet hedging. Lastly funds are less liquid assets in the grand scheme of things with limitations on when and how much you can withdraw. I wonder if a similar study has been done around thematic ETFs as well?

    Beauty

    At Makeup Alley, Advice From Online Peers – NYTimes.com – how user reviews are demolishing beauty treatment company claims and promoting other products that previously didn’t claim benefits

    Economics

    Wealthy Investors Grow Pessimistic About Economy – WSJ – US economy, due to government debt and economic growth

    Japan records surprise trade surplus – FT.com – rescheduling manufacturing work around power fluctuations

    Ethics

    danah boyd | apophenia » “Real Names” Policies Are an Abuse of Power

    A Billion Dollars Isn’t Cool. You Know What’s Cool? Basic Human Decency | TechCrunch – social norming around the social web

    Ideas

    Could Quantum Computing Kill Copyright? | TorrentFreak

    Korea

    Five Lessons From Samsung’s Second Quarter Results – WSJ – interesting that Samsung is husbanding its cash by reducing shareholder returns

    Luxury

    Second-Tier Spotlight: “Rich Second Generation” Fueling Ningbo Luxury Market « Jing Daily : The Business of Luxury and Culture in China – interesting divergence in consumer preferences

    Media

    To Spread Your Brand On Facebook, Don’t Target Your Fans–Target Their Friends | Fast Company – propagation planning

    More British papers dragged into hacking row ‹ Japan Today – not surprising, the practice may have started at the News of The World but could have been taken around the papers as journalists and editors move on to new roles

    Murdoch Selects Advisers Carefully – WSJ.com – it makes sense he needs a ‘clean’ team that can stay together through this

    Online

    danah boyd | apophenia » Designing for Social Norms (or How Not to Create Angry Mobs)

    With the Bing Search Engine, Microsoft Plays the Underdog – NYTimes.com – I am not seeing a cohesive vision to change search from Microsoft; this looks like the ‘we are innovative’ foot-stamping PR wrapped in a storytelling methodology that comes out of Microsoft corporate PR. I think that the social search stuff at Google and Facebook is of more interest. Bing needs to come out of the box with something 10 times better to get people to move in significant numbers. Qi Lu didn’t manage it at Yahoo!, what makes them think he can manage it at Microsoft?

    A Bomb in Oslo? What Google Lost by Ending Real-Time Search – The Atlantic – Google News just wasn’t as fast, it needs Realtime

    Official Google Blog: More wood behind fewer arrows – interesting change, more focus on fully formed products?

    Security

    Majority of South Koreans’ data exposed | FT.com – the interesting bit is the data wipe of PCs used in the attack to hide fingerprints

    Technology

    Data Centers Using Less Power Than Forecast, Report Says – NYTimes.com – green technology and virtualisation kicks in

    The Key Subtle Notes From Apple’s Earnings Call | TechCrunch – exclusives are doled out on the conference call without hype

    Wireless

    Apple Passes Nokia and Holds Off Samsung to Become World’s Top Smartphone Vendor [Updated] – Mac Rumors – Android is Toyota and Apple is Mercedes & Porsche