Mobile Forward

Archives for July 2015

Why I Discount Wristly’s Apple Watch Survey

You may have seen the Wristly survey data about Apple Watch. Wristly claims to show Apple Watch customer satisfaction is higher than with iPhone and iPad. I like the Apple Watch, and customer satisfaction with it may indeed be that high.

But I’m completely disregarding Wristly’s data and any resulting conclusions. For two reasons:

1. Wristly data includes input from people who a) visited its web site and b) proceeded, there, to sign up for its survey panel. That is a very poor method of building a panel of consumers to survey. It tends to add consumers who really like the product and are eager to participate in surveys. Would you say that defeats the purpose of measuring customer satisfaction? I would. It reduces the randomness in the sample. Wristly’s sample may consist of other consumers, but the practice I outlined is a warning sign.

2. Wristly then compares the results from its survey to the results from another survey organization, ChangeWave. Its intent is to show that Apple Watch customer satisfaction is even higher than it was for the iPhone and the iPad (as measured by ChangeWave). Sure, that’s an interesting thing to do. But unless Wristly and ChangeWave used the same methods, it’s a poor practice. And the change (or increase) in satisfaction between ChangeWave’s last survey and Wristly’s may well be in the margin of error for Wristly’s flawed data set (point 1, above).

So again, I think the Apple Watch is a good product, and it’s the product I choose to use. Customer satisfaction is probably at a very healthy level. But I don’t put any stock in Wristly’s numbers, whether they claim success or failure.

Apple’s Approach to Updating the iPhone’s Industrial Design

Good words by John Gruber, on Daring Fireball, about the iPhone’s industrial design:

I think Apple’s logic is that they want top-tier iPhone industrial designs to sit atop the lineup for two years […].

Keeping the same industrial design for two years serves multiple purposes:

  • It recoups the hard work put into design. During this time, designers can focus on developing better ideas for the next generation of products. Remember, design isn’t just the “look”; it’s also the functionality. Considerations like display size, button placement, material selection for durability and radio transmission, heat dissipation, acoustics, waterproofing, and more.
  • It allows for a similar hardware configuration inside the device, because the dimensions remain the same. This minimizes changes to the shape and layout of the circuit board, the antenna placement, the battery shape, etc. In turn, this makes efficient use of Apple’s massive investment in manufacturing. Engineers and supply chain experts can shift their attention to new consumer needs and new technologies to address them.
  • It allows many customers who like the design, but who aren’t able to upgrade when the first version debuts, to purchase it in year two. And the people who do buy the first version of any design don’t feel, one year later, that their model is out-dated.

Basically, solving important problems is intense work, and Apple wants to maximize the return for the time, investment, and risk.

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Update: To improve readability, I shortened the introduction of this post, by removing the reference to Jason Snell’s article and reducing the excerpt from John Gruber. That content wasn’t directly related to the rationale for a two-year design cycle.

Why Facebook Automates Work

Julia Kirby, for Harvard Business Review, interviewed Facebook’s Vice President of Engineering, Jay Parikh. I added the bold emphasis.

So this notion of augmenting your people and enabling them up to take on more interesting work – that is really what drives the automation agenda?

The reason why the automation is so important is that it does free up these teams to go think about and do things for the future. If you think about it, most tech companies in the world today are spending an incredible amount of time competing for the best of the best in the world. For a smart person in tech, there are just a lot of fun companies with fun problems to go work on. So once you’ve worked so hard to get people into the company and to ramp them up and to understand your environment, you want to keep them. You want to have them be engaged. You want them to grow and develop their careers and stay with you for this ride that is scale over a really long period of time.

Hat tip to Marginal Revolution, where I first ran across this.

On Xiaomi: Imitation is a Choice, Sameness is an Opportunity

Emily Chang, for Bloomberg, interviewed Xiaomi SVP Hugo Barra. Hugo had some interesting things to say:

So this whole [accusation that Xiaomi copies Apple] all boils down to one chamfered edge, on one particular phone model, which was Mi4, which people said looked like the iPhone 5.

Judge for yourself, about this “one” product: here, here, or here.

If Jony Ive and his team — who are the most constrained to continuity in the iPhone’s design language — can make the latest major generation of iPhones look different from the last major generation, then so can any other OEM. Imitation is a choice. Different design is possible. It just requires leaders with fortitude and integrity.

On that note, congrats to the Nokia and Microsoft industrial design teams, who cared to be original and succeeded with great designs: the N9 and the Lumia series.

But Hugo had more to say:

Without a doubt every smartphone these days kind of looks like every other smartphone, right? You have to have curved corners. You have to have at least a home button, in some way. That’s how interaction design works.

Sounds like an opportunity to me – an opportunity to be different in a sea of look-alikes. This difference can range from the small to the large: industrial design details, form factor, or even product type. Think of the beige boxes that PC makers shipped before Apple introduced the iMac. Or the candy bar phones before the Motorola RAZR.

Intel Anticipates Longer Time Between CPU Process Improvements

Don Clark, for WSJ (bold emphasis is mine):

Intel, which tends to brag about shrinking circuitry on its chips more quickly than competitors, disclosed Wednesday that for a second time it would miss a two-year schedule for making more compact chips. The Silicon Valley icon went further than projecting another one-time delay; it set a new definition of what people should expect in the future.

“The last two technology transitions have signaled that our cadence today is closer to two and a half years than two,” Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said during a conference call with analysts to discuss its second-quarter results.

This prompts the question: for vendors who design their CPU in-house (e.g., Apple, Samsung), does the slowdown in process (precision/size) improvement imply that their in-house team gives them greater advantage?

Meaning, will in-house CPU teams now be less focused on changes based on process size, and more focused on other ways to improve performance? Even so, presumably CPU makers will still release CPUs each year. Those, too, would include improvements (even though process size won’t improve every year). So perhaps the slow down in process improvement won’t increase or decrease any advantage that in-house-developed CPUs have. All this is simply my speculation; upcoming facts and others’ insights may change my understanding.

As always, though, in-house teams can focus on the areas that maximize their own products’ performance. In contrast, chip vendors have to consider a range of customers. This aspect of the in-house advantage won’t change.

Moto G (2015) to Offer MotoMaker Customization

Interesting Tweet from Evan Blass, here. Below is a screenshot, to make sure readers can also see it in RSS or email.

Mobile Forward 00342 2015-07-15

Letting consumers pick the color, finish, or material of their device is cool – that’s MotoMaker. And now it’s coming to a very budget-friendly product.

I have great respect for the mobile phone makers that make affordable devices for billions of people who, otherwise, might not have one. To echo the title of this site, they move mobile forward in a big way. Motorola, and the Moto G product, are great examples of companies and products that do this. And the thing about a product like the Moto G is that you don’t need a case. It’s very durable.

Tip of the hat to Andy Ihnatko, for voicing a similar sentiment – about making affordable devices – on one of my favorite podcasts.

A Former CIA Executive’s Advice on How to Make Hard Decisions

Stephanie Vozza, for Fast Company:

Philip Mudd is accustomed to making tough decisions. As the former deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center and FBI’s National Security Branch, he has gathered information and made recommendations about some of the world’s biggest threats to national safety. […]

Mudd breaks down his decision-making process into five steps:

1. FIND THE REAL QUESTION
People often focus on the wrong question because they assume questions are self-evident, says Mudd. Focusing on better questions up front yields better answers later.

“Good questions are hard to come up with,” he says. “We typically overinvest our time in analyzing problems by jumping right to the data and the conclusions, while under-investing in thinking about exactly what it is we want to know.”

Good advice.

Fitbit’s Dilemma – What Problems Will it Solve Better than Other Devices?

Christopher Lochhead, Dave Peterson and Al Ramadan, co-founding partners at Play Bigger Advisors, writing on TechCrunch:

Fitbit operates in the emerging space for fitness trackers. And they are the leader, but (and it’s a big but) they face massive competition from companies in adjacent spaces like Garmin, Jawbone, Samsung, Xiaomi and, of course, Apple. Even scarier, Fitbit has not answered the seminal question:

“Are we in a standalone category or a feature of a bigger category?”

It could turn out that Apple subsumes fitness tracker capabilities into the smartwatch or smartphone in much the same way Microsoft crushed the word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software categories when they popularized Microsoft Office. […]

For Fitbit to win they must prove to customers that they solve a problem that encroaching smartwatch and smartphone players can’t. And right now, that’s looking like a tough argument to make.

Smartwatches – at least the Android ones – will eventually rival the price of Fitbit’s high-end products. Fitbit will need to either make smarter products or lower-priced products. It doesn’t appear to have the basis for the former, and it likely won’t have the cost structure for the latter (compared to low-cost rivals). It might just maintain an existence in the US, where its installed base and brand are strong (today). I don’t doubt there will always be some consumers who prefer the Fitbit’s design, user interface, analytics, subscription services, or power efficiency. But, at least in terms of the performance level visible today, Fitbit’s proficiency in those areas doesn’t appear to be unique enough to constitute a protect-able advantage.

Think about the more distant future. In 20 years, if you have (or when you have) a wearable on your wrist, is it more likely to perform a few functions or a broader set of functions (e.g., will it help you communicate)? What kind of affinity will it have for other devices you carry? What type of company is better-positioned to make such a device?

Google, Huawei Discuss China App Store

Sam Byford, for The Verge, incorporating information from the original source, The Information:

The relationship between Google and Huawei could be mutually beneficial beyond the phone’s co-development. The Information claims that talks are in progress for Huawei to help Google bring a mobile app store to China, where government regulations have restricted the search giant from conducting much business of note.

Will this be effective? Call me skeptical. (That’s not a knock on Google, by the way. I respect its choice to stay out of China.)

Small Teams with a Purpose Crush Large Teams with a Process

Great, short article by Dustin at ThinkCollective. Found via @RichRogersHDS on Twitter (the article and the line I used in this post’s title). Besides the great line I used in the title, another sharp insight is:

Stop putting your A players on process teams – a great process will reduce variability and mute the contribution of your A players. Staff your process team with C players – everyone will be happier.

Yes.

Apple’s Share of Smartphone Operating Profits Reaches 92%

Shira Ovide and Daisuke Wakabashi, for WSJ:

Apple Inc. recorded 92% of the total operating income from the world’s eight top smartphone makers in the first quarter, up from 65% a year earlier, estimates Canaccord Genuity managing director Mike Walkley. Samsung Electronics Co. took 15%, Canaccord says. […]

Apple’s share of profits is remarkable given that it sells less than 20% of smartphones, in terms of unit sales. […]

Neil Mawston, executive director at market researcher Strategy Analytics, said many Android vendors are stuck between low-cost, high-volume brands such as China’s Xiaomi Corp. and Apple’s premium smartphones.

You can compete on the basis of making differentiated products or on the basis of making low cost products. Successful execution of either approach is difficult and expensive. You’re either investing in technology development and the customer experience, or you’re investing in lowering your costs across your business and supply chain.

Most smartphone OEMs never wanted to invest enough to operate at one extreme or the other. “Too expensive” or “too risky” was probably the prevailing thinking. And so their products aren’t differentiated enough, and their costs aren’t low enough to enable a profit. They’re stuck in the middle. That’s a pretty expensive and risky place to be.

Put differently, if you don’t take on risk, eventually your competitors will deliver it to you.

Samsung Adjusts its “Pre-Empt and Out-Size” Launch Tempo

Jonathan Cheng, for the WSJ:

[Samsung] will move up the autumn launch of its oversize smartphone lineup by several weeks to mid-August, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The South Korean company’s move is part of a bid to give its Galaxy Note smartphone-tablet hybrids some breathing room before mid-September, when Apple Inc. typically unveils its refreshed iPhone—a product whose popularity has the potential to monopolize media and consumer attention for weeks.

[Last year] Not only did the iPhone 6 Plus’s 5.5-inch screen rival the Galaxy Note 4’s 5.7-inch screen, the new iPhones were unveiled six days after the Galaxy Note 4 was introduced on September 3. The Galaxy Note 4 went on sale just weeks after the new iPhones.

Despite my earlier post about Samsung’s product management, the company has taken several effective actions over the past several years, and this move is a related adjustment.

What prior actions am I referring to?

  • It was the first Android OEM to develop a global flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S, in 2010. It took other Android vendors years, in some cases, to realize they couldn’t have their A team work on 40 – 80 different products per year. And that they couldn’t fragment their sales team time and media spend, either.1
  • It took inspiration [a euphemism] from the iPhone to a much higher degree than other Android OEMs. It’s not a move I respect but, in retrospect, it was very effective. Court fines were a fraction of what market losses could have been.
  • It ramped up its media spend. Good products deserve good marketing (or at least an attempt). It took other OEMs time to realize that if you concentrate your product risk into one product, you need to back that product with media. HTC learned that the hard way.
  • Samsung created the phablet. Great move. I don’t know if it was anticipatory or an experiment, but it really doesn’t matter.
  • Finally, with both a mainstream flagship (Galaxy S) and a phablet flagship (Galaxy Note), it decided to book-end the iPhone’s annual launch. Each year, it introduced the Galaxy S in the spring and the Galaxy Note in the fall. Its intent was to capture new smartphone users and iPhone-defectors (few) prior to the iPhone’s launch, and then to offer something different (larger display) after the launch, with the Note. In a nutshell, it was a “pre-empt and out-size” tempo.

These actions worked. Samsung was the only smartphone maker to earn a profit, other than Apple. For many quarters, Apple would earn approximately 60% of the profits in the handset industry, and Samsung would earn approximately 40%. (Other companies’ profits were minimal, or negative.)

But then something changed. Apple finally introduced a larger-display smartphone, the iPhone 6 plus. Now, the “out-size” aspect of the tempo no longer makes sense. And Apple’s share of profits has climbed to 92%. So Samsung is focusing on the “pre-empt” aspect, by moving up the launch of the Galaxy Note line.

Will it make a meaningful difference? Perhaps, in a small way. I’m sure Samsung’s done the math; looked at when consumers in the US and other markets are most likely to upgrade their handsets. The August timing might align with that. And, as the smartphone market saturates, many of the late adopters aren’t loyal to particular brand, including Apple. So, an earlier Note launch might attract some of these consumers. But, fundamentally, this is a tactic; it doesn’t change the drivers of Apple’s or Samsung’s fortunes. Apple has excellent hardware and software, and an excellent ecosystem. Samsung just has really good hardware. That’s why Apple is number one in profit, and Samsung is number two. This move won’t change the overall situation.

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1 Samsung, itself, continued launching dozens of product per year, but it had a resource advantage that other OEMs did not.

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Update: I updated the last paragraph of this post to include Apple’s ecosystem, and made several other minor changes. I also added the statement and link about Apple taking 92% of the smartphone industry’s profits.

How Smartphones and Smartwatches Changed Search

Connor Dougherty, for the New York Times:

“On a phone, the biggest intellectual difference is you don’t go to your search box as your first resort,” said Keith Rabois, a partner at the venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, who has invested in a search start-up called Relcy. “On a watch, it’s inconceivable that you would go to a search box perhaps at all.”

This is why Google and Apple are investing so intensely in advancing Google Now and Siri.

As I wrote back in June:

Machine learning is to 21st century devices as the graphical user interface was to 20th century computers [in terms of how] critical it will be to a high-performance product.

Zeroth, Qualcomm’s Effort to Put AI in Your Smartphone

Kevin Fitchard, for GigaOm (when it was still operating) wrote an interesting piece on Qualcomm’s “Zeroth” technology, expected soon. It’s from March, but still very relevant.

New cognitive computing technology Zeroth […] aims to bring artificial intelligence out of the cloud and move it – or at least a limited version of it – into your phone. […] I sat down with Qualcomm SVP of product management Raj Talluri, who explained what Zeroth was all about. […]

Zeroth […] will perform basic intuitive tasks and anticipate your actions, thus eliminating many of the rudimentary steps required to operate the increasingly complex smartphone, Talluri explained. […]

The most basic use case would be taking better photos as it can optimize the shot for the types of objects in them. It could also populate photos with tons of useful metadata. Then you could build on that foundation with other applications. Your smartphone might recognize, for instance, that you’re taking a bunch of landscape and architecture shots in foreign locale and automatically upload them to a vacation album on Flickr. A selfie might automatically produce a Facebook post prompt. […]

Other examples of Zeroth applications include devices that could automatically adjust their power performance to the habits of its owner or scan its surroundings sensors to determine what a user’s most likely next smartphone action might be. […]

Zeroth itself isn’t a separate chip or component. It’s a software architecture designed to run across the different elements of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors […].

Exciting. It wouldn’t surprise me if Apple’s enhancements to Siri use similar technology. I’m not sure of the approach that Android, Google Play Services, or Android vendors will take. Perhaps, for instance, Google Now will simply take advantage of Zeroth capabilities for Google-Now-Relevant functionality, while the OEMs apply Zeroth to other consumer problems.

Andreessen Horowitz’s Lessons for Asian VCs and Founders

Good words by Michael de Waal-Montgomery, at e27.co, after interviewing Marc Andreessen and other VCs:

Mediocre VCs want to see that your company has traction, top VCs want you to show them you can invent the future. […]

The key to investing is to be aggressive and to fight your instinct to pattern-match (“breakthrough ideas look crazy”). If history has taught us anything, it’s that so much of the future is unpredictable despite our best efforts to analyse current trends and extrapolate future outcomes from them.

The context was VC investment, but the ideas apply more broadly.

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