O. Luis Hernandez

Apple’s incredible run has made a clear and compelling case for what we can now call the “Appliance Era” of personal computing. From laptops to mobile phones, people are making it clear than simplicity and aesthetics can trump raw features and performance, and the financial performance indicates as much. The fact that an Apple device can literally span multiple content ecosystem / micro-economies seamlessly is supporting this as well, with an Apple laptop being able to consume Apple-supplied, Microsoft-supplied, Amazon-supplied, or Google-supplied content interchangeably.

There is no reason why this should be a solely Apple-driven phenomena however - Microsoft’s XBOX, Windows Phone 7, and Zune content ecosystem hold as much potential, and provide as much focused functionality and simplicity. Windows 8 promises to bring the Windows Phone 7 experience to the desktop, and finally take the focus away from the particulars of the OS (we hope).

I’m sure I’m not the only one who scratched their head back when Cisco announced their acquisition of Pure Digital Technologies (makers of the Flip) back in May of 2009. While the product seemed nifty enough at the time, it was clearly outside of Cisco’s comfort zone organizationally. 

In the time since that acquisition, video recording even HD-quality video has gone from a product category to a feature across a broad range of devices, from PC laptops to iPods to mobile phones and even digital still cameras. As quality improved and storage capacities increased, the product category itself began to make less and less sense as a whole. The fact that it had nothing to do with Cisco’s core business or expertise is a non-issue here - the consumer video recorder market is dead. Pro-sumer models and of course higher end commercial gear will continue to successfully address those market needs.

Flip’s recent high profile ad campaigns were head-scratchers, and I think reflected the last attempt to rescue the device category not based on its capabilities as a camera, but as a canvas for self expression. This clearly felt to me like flailing, a fight for relevance. Now, it’s an expense eulogy.

The fact that many of us already live in and depend on cloud services isn’t news, but do require more careful consideration and planning, as well as continued adherence to general computing best practices. While this is harder to do in the era of instant access web services for virtually every need, it’s this lack of friction that eliminates the need for more foresight and planning.

Case in point - this weekend’s Gmail outage / data loss. Until this event, we lived in a world where Google was seen as a utility, in the sense of reliability, at least by the majority of users. 

The reality is that the cloud is the future, that much we can’t control. Knowing and understanding the risks, and planning appropriately, are critical considerations, as is the continued re-evaluation of the following key factors:

Performance - while highly connection dependent, you need to ensure that the service’s performance is consistent, especially for file sharing or cloud-based storage services. This is also a factor when considering hosts that offer bandwidth or CPU scaling in terms of provisioning times, failovers, etc.

Stability - fast access and other performance benefits don’t outweigh uptime and other similar considerations. This also extends to feature set consistency, where features or key elements don’t change without proper notification, opt-out options for beta features, etc.

Viability - even the most reliable provider can’t continue to operate in the event its business collapses. Even the mighty Google is susceptible to this, as the businesses of hosting applications and storage aren’t the main revenue generators - advertising still is.

The continued move to cloud-based services for a large segment of the computing population is inevitable. But the planning and vetting that goes into these services, even for individual use, is important, and should be as considered a decision as any major technology platform or software product choice.

One thing Microsoft delivers, that Google hasn’t yet done successfully, is an established microeconomy, which they delivers via their existing Points platform. Sure, those that haven’t played Xbox or owned a Zune may not realize it, but Microsoft baked a payment system into it’s ecosystem a long time ago. It’s carrier independent, like Apple’s, and would open up all the existing content already purchased to WP7-powered devices. And while some would argue it’s not iTunes, the reality is that both co-exist today, with Microsoft points potentially being more appealing to the valuable first smart phone buyer demographic. And, as it so happens, this highly coveted target market is dominated by a large number of teen males already deeply entrenched in the Microsoft ecosystem via their Xboxes. The sheer number of users already buying points and content is not something to be discounted, or easily dismissed, in the new “three horse” smart phone race.

What’s even more promising is how this may finally bring the rich but disparate pieces of the existing Nokia ecosystem to great prominence by increasing their accessibility, while provide Nokia with a better chance for monetization, through centralized clearly platforms for applications and content. While not yet fully formed, the idea of combining ecosystems has been front and center in discussions on integration. That in and of itself is already quite promising.

How Not Understanding Nokia’s Vision May Impact the Developing World

Nokia’s historical approach to platform evolution and innovation is based on a long term vision and strategy, which clearly doesn’t resonate in the first world, but makes complete sense in and for the developing world. The key difference is timescale; Nokia innovates at the pace of a telephone network or infrastructure provider, looking at broader platform (technical) as well as sociological considerations for the markets it serves, especially in the developing world. What people are forgetting is that smart phones are not yet truly complete and self-contained devices. Especially with Apple’s platform, they’re designed as peripherals, dependent on traditional desktop platforms (activation, OS updates, even backups) and connectivity / infrastructure (wifi for larger file updates) for operation. This will not work in societies where the mobile device itself needs to be completely self-contained, with it itself being the closest that those individuals will come to a computing device in any form. 

Having had the benefit of spending time with the individuals at Nokia that look at these considerations, I’ve seen how they truly get that a family living within a 6m2 hut with access to a charging station on at most a weekly basis will have distinctly different needs than your typical smart phone user. It’s this type of forward-thinking and vision that needs to be preserved, and Nokia’s understanding in this area is incredible to witness. They really get it - it’s the rest of us that don’t.

One could argue that devices coming out of China and countries in the Pacific Rim take these needs into consideration, but the reality is that while the price points are right, they’re emerging into markets and regions that are progressing and growing at a much more dramatic rate than rural areas, or developing nations. While it’s hard to truly understand the difference between the quality of life of a rural villager in China vs. one in India from where we sit, what we do know is that neither of them are likely to buy a $49 US smart phone that still requires a desktop computer to be effective, wifi to download large files, and daily or even biweekly charging.

Back to the issue of timescales - it will be a long time before an iPhone-class device, with the benefits and dependencies required of its ecosystem will be in the hands of individuals that use Nokia handsets in these developing markets today. And by that time, we should all hope that Nokia’s long term vision has persevered and they’re delivering even greater value in a much more meaningful and relevant way to these individuals. Perhaps the smart phone of the first world will barely resemble the one that best serves the rest.

Full disclosure: Nokia is a current client. 

The Mac App Store Opens Software Race Wide Open for Smaller Players

With my new MacBook Air 11 (1.6Ghz, 4GB Ram, 128MB SSD), I was extremely hesitant to deploy my typical creative suite of tools. While the Air is extremely snappy on a day to day basis for most applications, I just didn’t want to deploy the full app install until I was sure I needed it on my mobile machine; my creative suite of choice runs great on my more stationary setup, and as long as I can read the files I need to for reference, I’m good. I’m also extremely sensitive to how quickly that 128GB SSD is filling up.

I found Pixelmator based on reviews for graphic applications on the newly installed Mac App Store, and have to say, I’ve grow more and more enamored with the tool as I’ve used it to develop my new Twitter and personal site background images. For a very palatable $29.99, I’ve discovered something that’s not only functional, but fun to use. The fresh approach on simple things like wand selection show that there’s room for innovation, and thanks to the Mac App Store, I foresee more of it coming from apps that would have remained undiscovered otherwise.

Now, my experiences haven’t been as positive with gaming apps, but more on that later…

Link to Forbes Article

Apple’s greatest success isn’t in creating the micro-economy infrastructure; it’s user behavior that they’ve changed, creating an entire community of individuals that value, and pay for, the convenience of access to content, which made the app payment options a simple extension of it. So, while the reduced friction of in-app payments and carrier billing may making payments easier for the user, is it really just a question of audience conditioning to cure them of the aversion to paid / premium applications and content? This begs the question that if a premium / curated experience is their desire, isn’t the Apple ecosystem a much more compelling offering? Now that carrier concerns have been elicited with the iPhone coming to Verizon, it will be interesting to see. 

As to the announcements of additional services offerings:

* Carrier Billing - Apple proved the best model is an independent one, so carrier billing may not be the answer, especially if it translates into increased app costs. 

* In-App Transactions - While in-app sales have been an important revenue generator for Apple, it ties back into the fundamental culture of paying-to-play that’s been firmly established within the ecosystem they’ve created, and that’s still the fundamental challenge for Google. 

The potential for Android to come out ahead is great, but as Google has already sensed, the overall experience is key.

Interesting but not surprising - http://ping.fm/dNpaH

Catalyst Group study - Bing vs. Google performance - http://ping.fm/LpLQi

Great Bing vs. Google piece - http://ping.fm/lKQWs

Neat - http://ping.fm/nwuSJ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpWM0FNPZSs&feature=player_embedded

Looking for Senior Interface Developers, Web QA team members, and Tech Leads…

Soon to be seen at E3 - http://www.riiflex.com/ - order one today!

Game changer - http://ping.fm/mW4Zn

Microsoft’s Home of the Future…. http://ping.fm/23BDi

hear hear - http://ping.fm/Dv0oc

Great press on the Land Rover Twitter campaign - http://ping.fm/DxnhJ

Sun. Oracle. 1995? News. Now? Snooze..

http://ping.fm/SFnM2