Ged Carroll

Category: gadget | 小工具 | 가제트 | ガジェット

What constitutes a gadget? The dictionary definition would be a small mechanical or electronic device or tool, especially an ingenious or novel one.

When I started writing this blog the gadget section focused on personal digital assistants such as the Palm PDA and Sony’s Clie devices. Or the Anoto digital pen that allowed you to record digitally what had been written on a specially marked out paper page, giving the best of both experiences.

Some of the ideas I shared weren’t so small like a Panasonic sleeping room for sleep starved, but well heeled Japanese.

When cutting edge technology failed me, I periodically went back to older technology such as the Nokia 8850 cellphone or my love of the Nokia E90 Communicator.

I also started looking back to discontinued products like the Sony Walkman WM-D6C Pro, one of the best cassette decks ever made of any size. I knew people who used it in their hi-fi systems as well as for portable audio.

Some of the technology that I looked at were products that marked a particular point in my life such as my college days with the Apple StyleWriter II. While my college peers were worried about getting on laser printers to submit assignments, I had a stack of cartridges cotton buds and isopropyl alcohol to deal with any non catastrophic printer issues and so could print during the evening in the comfort of my lodgings.

Alongside the demise in prominence of the gadget, there has been a rise in the trend of everyday carry or EDC.

  • Belkin Audio + Charge Rockstar

    The Belkin Audio + Charge Rockstar is an accessory that allows you to charge and listen via headphones to a modern iPhone at the same time.

    Apple’s move to the Lightning connector leaves a lot to be desired. It was designed primarily for its cosmetic benefits. Apple got rid of headphone sockets just to allow them to make iPhones even slimmer. Lightning is a triumph of form over function. But as an iPhone user; you have to work with what you have. Apple often isn’t great at providing solutions. If they were Apple would have made the Belkin Audio + Charge Rockstar.

    The anonymous white dongle now has a permanent place in my computer bag. It has come in handy listening to voice memos, audio books and miscellany whilst I’ve been working at client offices. It has come in handy when I have been on conference calls, without disturbing people around me. When I moved down to London, I said in a cubicle with an open back which added a certain amount of screening to calls that I made.

    The offices I have been working in are long white featureless bench tables with seating canteen style. Which is barely adequate for working, let alone listening in on a conference call, even with a judicious use of the mute button.

    Untitled

    I started off by trying an alternative product that I bought on Amazon. It the sound was barely audible, full of noise and clicks. One of Amazon’s challenges is the lack of quality control of products featured in marketplace. This has become stuffed with Chinese vendors whose products vary considerably in quality.

    Untitled

    It was rather like listening to a numbers station shortwave transmission. Except the static was induced by poor product design. Rather than the distance, frequency jamming and atmospheric conditions between the listener and an anonymous low power shortwave station in the Middle East, Cuba, North Korea or Eastern Europe.

    By comparison, the Belkin Audio + Charge Rockstar, adds nothing. No cracks, no hisses, no white noise that wasn’t there beforehand. And it charges. More related posts here.

  • Qualcomm smart speaker platform + more

    Qualcomm smart speaker platform for AI-enabled devices – Business Insider – will Qualcomm attract the same developer community as Amazon’s Alexa has? The Qualcomm smart speaker platform will find it hard to get audiences wanting high quality audio as Apple found out with the first generation HomePod. It won’t only be Qualcomm chips that boost the cost but the complete component chain

    Google is making antitrust concessions in Europe – Business Insider – reminds me a lot of the European settlement that Microsoft made with the EU that then facilitated the popularity of Firefox (and Chrome)

    The New Zealand shooter finds support in Islamophobic corners of China’s internet — Quartz – many comments reflected the view that the shooting was a by-product of the West’s excessive political correctness, a perspective that has found increasing support on China’s internet in recent years as part of what’s known as the baizuo, or “white left” movement, a derogatory term used to describe Western progressives that is roughly analogous to the term “social justice warrior.”

    Google Stadia is a Net Neutrality Nightmare – Variety – the numerous unknowns and uncertainties of Stadia, from pricing to game library to concerns over internet latency and speed requirements, what’s truly disconcerting is the unspoken assumption that forgoing hardware is a net positive for consumers and creators alike. Ultimately, the adult in all of us is sick of having to repurchase video game boxes just to keep up (at least, I am). But if a PC is like a puppy in how it brings you some kind of joy or entertainment, you have to ask yourself one question. Would you rent a puppy?

    MoviePass co-founder’s new app rewards you with movie tickets for watching ads | BGR – how many ads would you have to watch and what kind of personal information is being used in targeting? Also what kind of incentives does this set up and is that the kind of demographic an advertiser wants to reach?

    APAC accounts for less than 15% of revenue for holding companies, says R3 – really interesting, especially when I remember Sir Martin (Sorrell) saying at Stream Asia a number of years ago that APAC had more WPP employees than Europe in his state of the union type speech

    The 2019 Lincoln Nautilus | Morning Run :60 | Lincoln – YouTube – interesting ad how Ford’s Lincoln brand is trying to associate the in-car information with the utility (in fitness terms at least) with wearable tech

    Why I’m Swapping My iPhone for an Alarm Clock From 1939 – WSJ – focused design rather than convergence (paywall)

    ThoughtfulGiftCards.com – Is It a Scam, or Just Shady Marketing? | JoAnna Wahlund – interesting marketing tactic / social engineering – I respect the thinking, if not the use that it was put to

    Can a Facebook Post Make Your Insurance Cost More? – WSJ – in Wadds book Brand Vandals I warned that this was inevitable. Seven years later and its now an issue

    Swiss Watchmakers Say Slowing Growth in China Won’t Hurt Sales | News & Analysis | BoF – Switzerland’s watch industry is going through a period of profound change, notably in distribution, as brands focus on developing their own boutiques — brick and mortar or online — while reducing their network of third-party retailers

    Amazon Beauty: Who Is Selling What? An Exclusive Analysis of Over 200,000 Beauty and Personal Care Listings on Amazon.com | Coreinsight – interesting read (PDF) particularly in light of Amazon Kicks Off Spring with the Launch of Belei, its First Dedicated Skincare Line | Amazon.com, Inc. – Press Room – 12 products including moisturisers, serums, eye cream, spot treatments and more

    Most Amazon Brands Are Duds, Not Disrupters, Study Finds – Bloomberg – but then most new consumer product launches are duds

    How Baselworld Can Establish its Relevance Once More | Luxury Society – interesting case study from the Digital Luxury Group. More luxury-related posts here.

    Why “Drop” Retail Is the Future of Luxury Sales in China – “Drops have been popular in China because consumers want to feel that brands are making an effort to design or offer product specifically for them and drop retailing gives brands the opportunity to show that they are focused on doing something special specifically for China”

    Luxury Marketers Can no Longer View Chinese Consumers as a Monolith | Luxury Society – they shouldn’t have ever viewed Chinese consumers as a monolith in the first place

    Walmart Builds a Secret Weapon to Battle Amazon for Retail’s Future – WSJ – (paywall)

    US Army applying new areas of math | John D Cook – expect homotopy type theory (HoTT) to be the new machine learning in a few years

    China’s middle class stress over debt payments as unemployment hits two-year high | SCMP – only a matter of time before this happened due to overheated property market and slowing economic growth

  • The insiders guide to smartphone launches

    MWC is one of the key dates in the diary for smartphone launches by manufacturers. Apple marches to the beat of its own drum, but Android manufacturers try and go close to MWC:

    • Samsung has gone out the week before with its foldable smartphones
    • Huawei starts off at MWC as one of a series of launch events for their products
    • Sony Mobile launched there, as well as other minor Android manufacturers


    The reason why they go to MWC is that it has a critical mass of journalists in Barcelona covering bigger impact stories.

    Mobile World Congress 2014

    Expect all kinds of hype on 5G that the smartphone vendors can then ride on.

    Why are smartphone launches news?

    So we know that smartphones are the most personal technology for consumers. For many of us it accompanies everywhere from waking us up in the morning, to work and back again. Some people even take it to the toilet. By definition the devices that we’ll be using through the next year or two will be news.

    But its a miracle that the launches make news since the details of the phones are often leaked. Specifications usually come out through sources in the supply chain. This usually affects both iOS and Android devices.

    Where Android device manufacturers differ is in later leaks. Handsets are often photographed during testing revealing the industrial design. There is often video giving an idea of device real world performance.
    These leaks aren’t accidental, but is often down to egotism or hubris of senior executives. This is very different to the discipline and self-control shown by Apple executives.

    This is often post-rationalised as building buzz. This is counter-intuitive to PR and marketing perceived knowledge. It would make it very hard to justify the kind of large scale dog-and-pony show used to showcase a new phone.

    So far, no phone launch has been seriously hurt by the ego-leak. But now things might change. We’re at a stage were smartphones are a mature sector. Total global unit sales are down year-on-year, this will impact media coverage of smartphone launches over time.

    The launch isn’t the end of the beginning

    The launch event is just the start of activity. Next comes the review programme. This means putting phones in the hands of media journalists and increasingly in the hands of influencers.
    Influencers are more important for a few reasons:

    • They flood social channels in particular YouTube with positive content
    • They’re naturally more likely to react positively as access and devices are still novelties for them compared to journalists
    • Influencers provide reach of marketing messages. Many manufacturers don’t advertise as much as they should relying too much on PR in their marketing mix

  • Brick and mortar retail + more

    Forrester: Why Brick-And-Mortar Is Failing Luxury 02/25/2019 – the failure is department stores rather than ‘owned’ brick-and-mortar stores. You could also argue that department stores are primarily aimed at the mid market part of luxury which is being crushed

    The Kraft Heinz experiment in radical cost-cutting has failed. | LinkedIn – imagine if 3G Capital had succeeded in their hostile bid Unilever as well? 3G Capital deployed zero budgeting the wrong way. Focusing on cost cutting rather than budget optimisation. They haven’t supported their brands and now its coming home to roost

    Number of ‘McRefugees’ increasing, study finds | HKEJ Insight – a seven fold increase over 6 years. More on the background on McRefugees

    Luxury Brands Learn How to Speak Streetwear Their Own Way | High Snobriety – High Snobriety on the luxury fashion hybridisation. If you like that article you’ll love Louis Vuitton, Supreme and the tangled relationship between streetwear and luxury brands

    Explaining p-values with puppies – Hacker Noon – best bit of content that I’ve read all week

    LG’s Dual Screen foldable phone breaks apart – BBC News – probably much smarter approach. I still don’t get what the use case is

    Malaysia Airlines pitch called off – agencies get apology from CEO and compensation – Mumbrella Asia – be a client organisation like this

    Chinese Whispers: Tourists Spend Less on Luxury Goods When Traveling in Japan and Hong Kong, and More | Jing Daily – the massive size of China’s e-tailing sector is insane

    Why Meituan Dianping is one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies – recommendation of services a bit like Amazon’s product recommendations

    CYC – Technology overview – one of the best critiques of machine learning that I’ve seen. Cyc have spent decades building rules to move towards artificial intelligence. They now have products that do narrow jobs in certain verticals (PDF)

    ‘Huawei Mate X’ foldable phone leaks ahead of unveiling – 9to5Google – where’s the screen from; I thought this was Samsung exclusive technology. Why would they help Huawei?

    U.K. cites big se­cu­rity is­sues with Huawei (The Washington Post), 21 Feb 2019 – Huawei shockingly slow at fixing Infosec issues

  • Is there a luxury smartphone segment?

    There are luxury smartphones, but is there a meaningful luxury smartphone segment?

    From Apple’s iPhone price inflation to Huawei and Blackberry’s Porsche Design devices, manufacturers have looked to cater to a ‘luxury’ consumer.

    Prior to this is you had the Vertu phone with its concierge service and niche players like Goldvish catering for the the Gulf based clientele and Russian entrepreneurs. TAG Heuer tried launching its own phone.

    Pierre Cardin approach to licensing

    Prada and Bang & Olufsen had collaborations with Korean manufacturers. Even Dolce & Gabbana allowed their names to be used on a gold anodised Motorola RAZR. But these brand licensing deals rather like what Pierre Cardin were famous for in the 1970s and 80s.

    There was little input in the product beyond doing a launch.

    Luxury is an attachment

    Luxury brands have been smart enough to jump on the tech bandwagon in their product accessories. I used to have a Coach-made pouch for my Palm V courtesy of Sun Microsystems that I got given as part of a conference goody bag. (The dot-com era meant that money was thrown around willy-nilly).

    There were a variety slide in pouches from the likes of Louis Vuitton for Blackberry devices and Apple iPhones respectively. This then evolved into cases like Moschino’s famous ‘McDonald’s fries’ box.

    moschino

    Where’s the missing space?

    We know that China has become the workshop of the world. We know that Qualcomm’s reference designs, Google’s Android and Jolla’s Sailfish OS make smartphones easy (relatively speaking) to roll out.

    We also know that luxury firms are not afraid of:

    • Global supply chains and manufacturing in China
    • Attempting to step into complex manufacturing (like Louis Vuitton and Montblanc’s entry into watchmaking) or to do technology

    One only has to look at connected watches from the likes of Breitling or Louis Vuitton. Montblanc’s e-strap was way ahead of Sony’s WENA Wrist Pro Smart Watch Band.

    We know that luxury brands have moved away from the the stereotypical luxury buyer being an older western person of means to a younger Asian person with family money. That’s why we’ve seen the coalescence of streetwear and luxury brands.

    So where is the luxury smartphone? And why aren’t luxury brands embracing the space?

    Price elasticity

    I suspect that the issue is technology isn’t price elastic in the same way that luxury product categories are. Technology products by their nature are ephemeral. The benefits of technology products depends on network effects rather than exclusivity.

    In his blog post, Is the pace of technology adoption really speeding up? Nigel Scott put together evidence to show that price points and technology adoption are intrinsically linked. We are not in a state of constant acceleration of technology adoption, but instead only adopt it when the price is right.

    It would be reasonable to assume from this work that there is an inelasticity in technology pricing that makes luxury smartphones hard to sustain. It also explains why relatively low price accessories make more sense than ‘luxury’ smartphones. This seems to be a conclusion that Apple has some to (at least in China). It has rolled out discounts through third party channel members and made devices cheaper to purchase with zero interest financing.

    This makes the moves by Huawei and Samsung beyond Apple pricing with their latest phone launches a bit odd and a definite move to define a luxury smartphone segment. These must be halo effect handsets with no expectation of real profitable production; rather like Ford’s special cars like the GT-40. More luxury related posts here.