There once was a time, where a mobile phone was a revolutionary concept in itself. The sheer idea that you could make a phone call from where ever you were at the time, was exciting.
Time goes on, mobile phone gets colours. It gets widespread. It becomes popular, among other things because of covers you can change to fit your personality.
More time passes, and someone starts talking convergence and smartphones. Meaning "several functions in a mobile phone", and that "you can install applications, and contain your PIM data etc. on your mobile phone". Or to be fair, your "mobile device". Because as that happened, the mobile phone turned into a device. It no longer had calling as its primary function. The mobile device went beyond that. PDA's and phones came together in a beautiful marriage.
And so, the concept of a smartphone was born.
Time goes on, and smartphone grows older, more mature. That's how it's been for some years now. A lot of people discuss smartphones, and various more or less religious battles take place. Which is the better smartphone, which are even smartphones, which smartphone will kick which smartphones ass.
Which smartphone will earn the glorious title of "iPhone killer", is the big thing these days. Some claims have been made, none have actually killed anything, besides perhaps a fly here and there.
I've been thinking about writing about LifeDevices for some time now. And today, Joe Wilcox's article on
why the iPhone cannot win the smartphone wars triggered me. Because, as valid points as Joe Wilcox may have, the iPhone has done something that moved the landscape around a notch. Which has me going in a completely different direction:
I'm not even sure there is such a thing as a "smartphone war" anymore, at least not one the iPhone 3GS is part of. With the iPhone 3GS especially, with the appropriate camera, and the not so high-res, but very crisp video recording capabilities, and the various ways you can produce and share content, I'm not sure the term "smartphone" is actually sufficient anymore.
What started these thoughts, is my own upgrade from the iPhone 2G to the 3GS. Now, think about smartphones in general, what you will. Or iPhone for that matter. The thing is, the 3GS has transformed my use of my mobile device, and I'm betting a lot of other peoples use also. I no longer just use it for PIM data and music. I use it for a LOT more. Truth is, I might as well have done that with some other device. But in contradiction to what Joe Wilcox states, this is very much so due to the massive amounts of apps in the iTunes appstore. But who knows, perhaps Android based phones will end up equally successful in that direction. Time will tell. I'm actually hoping that both Android, Maemo, WebOS and Windows Mobile all will, even if I do have my own favorite at the moment.
So, why LifeDevice ?
If you consider it, smartphones have traditionally centered around a couple of things:
- Getting (primarily)/writing email
- Containing PIM data (calendar, contacts, tasks mostly)
- Various PIM supporting applications
- Various music/movie playing applications
- Games
But the primary functional areas were those supporting business tasks: Communication and organizing yourself.
Sure, you could use your smartphone as a music player, but consuming content has largely been a manual and not very well organized process.
Same goes for movies.
Games have been like applications, and bar the typical games you've been seeing on smartphones, it hasn't REALLY taken off. Because, it hasn't had that much focus. It's been an activity on the side. "Oh yeah, those suits might want to have a bit of fun at the airport, or at the hotel !"
The iPhone, and the 3GS in particular, changed this. And my argument is, that this is largely due to the app store, and the massive amount of applications and games.
With the iPhone 3GS, besides the typical smartphone tasks, more functionality has been added or enhanced:
- You now use the mobile device to communicate more heavily. Not only email, but Twitter and Facebook, blogs, and other social services as well.
- You have an application for everything, more or less. "There's an app for that !" - and it's true, there is. You get to do everything from lookups in medical databases, to navigation, to calculating menstrual cycles, to help you gain or lose weight and improve your fitness. You literally can cover most, if not all, of your daily activities, with some sort of application.
- Music in particular is extremely well integrated. You don't just listen to music anymore. You consume it. From clicking in a store, to it being on your device, the path is very very short.
- Movies (which covers both actual movies, TV series, video podcasts) are also easily consumed. Although there's a real need, at least on the iPhone, to support other formats natively. Like Xvid/DivX, wmv - perhaps even MKV, at this point in time. There's really no need to stop at Apple-centric formats. For a device to truly become a LifeDevice, it has to be open to the most popular formats, to better provide complete support of all the media types a person might consume.
- Snapping photos has been made easy, with a camera of appropriate quality. I say appropriate, because I'm not in any way buying the whole megapixel race on mobile devices. It's stupidity in its purest form, to stuff a 12mpx camera into a mobile device. Because, if you want to share those photos, it'll take a lot more bandwidth, and a lot more data transferred to do so. And the places you typically share your content - it doesn't matter at all, if you used a 3mpx or a 12mpx camera. I would rather have a good 3mpx camera, than a mediocre 12mpx camera any day of the week (it should be noted though, that the Sony Ericsson Satio seems to produce really nice pictures with its 12mpx camera).
- Recording movies whereever you are, is now a breeze. And the quality, although only in VGA resolution, is very nice, very crisp, and generally of a very good quality.
- Recording audio is now possible too, with Voice Memos.
- Games have reached a whole new level. The graphics, the game design, the types of games, the playability, and the sheer number of games, is simply amazing.
On competing devices, PIM data is not only PIM data, you now get contact profiling across social services (an area in which the iPhone in general is weak, and has been surpassed by both Android and WebOS in particular - Apple, please correct this !)
So all in all, you end up with a device that covers if not all, then most of your daily needs, for communication, fun, relaxation, work, navigation, and whatever else you may need.
The iPhone 3GS will support you whether you need to get to somewhere, if you want to snap a quick photo, record something, work, take a run, look up information.
But the point isn't actually that the 3GS does it. Or whether the competing devices do some of them. Or even whether the competing devices do it better in some regards.
The point is, that the 3GS does almost everything. And mostly in such a great way, that it's a joy to do. So you don't mind doing it. And so you actually do it.
And that's why I think that the smartphone war is still fought. But the iPhone has left the battle.
It has ascended to being a LifeDevice. But a LifeDevice in its basic form. Much more can be done, and much more should be done.
Of course, all of you not liking Apple or the iPhone will be quick to call me a zealot. But the truth is, I expect the rest of the bunch to follow. And I welcome it. Because neither of the mobile vendors can afford to win the battle.
The truth is, they all need each other. To stay sharp. To innovate. To constantly think one step ahead, and think of new ways to entice you and I, the users.
But... in the future, the devices will be about supporting your everyday life, and tasks. They will be about enabling you to produce and share content on your own.
The battle will be fought on the media production battleground. It will be fought on the sharing battleground. It will be fought on the availability battleground. And I don't mean the availability of the device, but the availability of that special app that lets you do whatever it is that you want to do.
And the devices will all ascend to devices that compete not on technical specs as such. But on who uses the hardware and operating system to create the best user experience. Who covers the most functionality ground. Who ties together the most types and sources of data, to provide the simplest, most efficient, most usable "contact/communications intelligence" experience. Business intelligence in a user context, used to connect.
But not only that.
New services, combining content publishing with social aspects, will be the backend winners. Like the 3GS supporting video publishing to YouTube, but in a much more versatile and extreme way. Everyone will end up being their own journalist, tv station, radio and newschannel.
The question is, which platform will allow the users to do this the best, and most usable, way ?
Which platform will best allow the users to create content that becomes the most visible to other users ?
The days of just consuming media, data and content are over.
The era of producing media and content has begun.
And the LifeDevice will be the tool you want to use for the job.
At the time of writing, the only device I see fulfilling this role properly, is the iPhone 3GS.
So, let me end this blogpost by stating what I think a LifeDevice is basically about, in the hope that you fill in the blanks I forgot:
A LifeDevice is a device that not only support you in being more productive in your daily tasks, be they private or workrelated. It will also enable you to have fun. To support creating or maintaining relations to others. To consume and produce content, in at least one or several generally accepted and/or open formats, and to share these contents as relevant. It will do this in a way that focuses on usability and user experience. And in a format and design, fitting of a device you want to bring to town, and show to others. It will not focus purely on hardware specs, but will have specs that support the tasks users want to perform.
It will be surrounded by an ecosystem which is well supported by the vendor of the device, and by 3rd party developers, as this is the basis of its future survival.
And it will continue to evolve, to provide a more consistent, usable, enjoyable platform, which you can and will use, to share your life with the world.
RIP Smartphone.
Long live the LifeDevice.
See you on the battleground, once you all catch up ;)
