Category: Technology Trends

The iPad Effect

Tech news over the Easter weekend were dominated by one device: the over-hyped iPad. Every major and not so major tech source has done a review of this thing. Opinions were out weeks before the device was even available. Comparing it to it’s smaller cousin, the iPhone you may wonder if this device will have similar impact. The iPhone simply turned the telecom industry upside down and reshaped how we think of mobile phones. This is sometimes called the iPhone effect. So, what will the iPad effect be? Here I’ll present some ideas.

The iPad is a Consumer Device, not a computer. There is a big difference between technology products like computers and consumer devices. With the former, the focus is on the technology while the latter focuses on the non-technical consumer and functionality. Of course under the shiny appearance, the famous tablet is a computer with an industrial strength OS, but the important thing is, as with the cousin, that this is hidden.

We don’t have to look far for a computer dressed up as a consumer device. Consider the PlayStation 3. This powerful machine is a consumer device. It has two buttons, one to turn the machine on and one to eject disks. The operating system is focused on playing games and consuming content like music and video. Anybody can operate this machine right out of the box. And in many cases it is the most powerful machine in the house. Personal Computers and the major desktop metaphor operating systems are still very much technical although they have improved dramatically over the last few years.

The subject of the desktop is also an important issue. The iPad could challenge the conventional desktop metaphor user interface. The metaphor of a desk with folders and files, documents and directories is decades old. That’s like working in an office which needs to process paperwork all the time. That’s the legacy of PCs, but who want’s to organize their personal stuff and experience in file cabinets? The interesting point is this: will iPad start the escape from the old office-like desktop metaphor of organizing content?

An interesting side-note is that tablets are not new. When Microsoft introduced its tablets in 2002, they may have looked like crippled computers that were missing the keyboard and mouse. The reason was that these tablets were computers with the same desktop operating system as desktop computers. This is what I call the Prevailing Technology Trap. Users saw tablet PCs as inferior computers, not as a new type of device. If the iPad can avoid this trap, it is precisely the point that might make the iPad an important device. Perhaps the most important issue that separates the iPad from the old tablet PCs is both the elegant hardware and the excellent and intuitive multi-touch interface. This is the most noticeable feature of these new hand-held devices.

It still remains to be seen if the iPad is a new type of device. Initial sales numbers indicate an high consumer interest. As many technology writers have pointed out, the reviews of iPad are very polarized, either people like it or they see no use for it. This is very interesting if you look at history. Many disruptive technologies had similar reactions. The early PC was dismissed by many mainframe and minicomputer users as inferior and low performance. However, non-computer users embraced it. If this is any indication, we are entering the decade of the tablet.

So, Who Watches TV Anymore?

Another one bites the dust – TV is getting disrupted by the Internet

Last year I did a survey in my New Technology class asking about video rentals (see So, who goes to the Video Rental Store anymore?). The trend was clear: nobody goes to the video rental store anymore. This year I asked about TV. The basic question was how many hours do you watch TV each day. Again, some interesting things are happening. As it turns out TV watching is declining and viewing is going to the Internet. But only partly as it seems that viewing TV content is just declining.

With TV I mean the business model of pre-programmed schedule supported by ads or subscription fees. This model clearly does not attract the university crowd. The average time people in the class watch TV per day is 1.2 hours, compared to 1.6 hours per day last year. This is a 1/3 decline. The number of participants that don’t watch TV at all are 40% with 5 hours as the other extreme. Viewing 1.2 hours per day is much lower than the widely believed 3 hours per day which is the average viewing.

These numbers don’t mean that participants don’t watch video anymore. In fact viewing has not declined – it just moved. Now the Internet is taking the TV business over.

It is not hard to image why. Internet viewing is increasing and the statistics support that. According to OECD, broadband penetration of households in many European countries and in the US is approaching 70%. Worldwide there are about 1.7 million Internet users, 25% of the world’s population. But the interesting fact is that the rate of adoption is increasing exponentially.

This is leading to a shift in how people consume entertainment. World-wide, nearly three out of five  youth consumers logged on to YouTube to watch a music video in the last 12 months, compared to 56% who watched a music TV channel. According to YouTube  people upload 20 hours of videos every minute.

But why would people prefer Internet viewing to quality subscription based model. Here are some ideas:

Time shifting – people don’t need to wait or change their schedule to fit the program. They just watch whatever they want to watch when they feel like it.

Personalization – TV is traditionally about group viewing. With a large screen in the living room or den, watching TV is not a personal experience. There are not many shows that the whole family prefers to watch together. With so much variety of shows, they appeal to different age groups and to different cultures. Thus individual family members prefer watching their favorite show.

Fragmentation – Watching according to a periodic schedule is the TV station’s way to build the programming. Each week a new episode in a series is shown. But what if you want to watch the next episode? You just can’t wait a week. Of course, for new shows you might have to. But for older shows why fragment the viewing?

Another interesting thing in this survey was that viewing on the Internet seems to rise only slightly. If this has any meaning it is that participants are not viewing TV shows in general as much. Participants spent on the average 1.1 hour a day playing video games. And if you count only those that played, the average is 2 hours per day.

The trends here are clear. TV watching is declining and so is viewing of TV shows in general. People are get more entrainment on the Internet, including games and social interactions. Entertainment is getting more diverse.

The Software Era of Mobile

Mobile phones are no longer just about the hardware. Now, it’s the Software.


Earlier this month Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7 Series, an new version of their Mobile OS along with new handsets. These new handsets look nice and well designed. The feature list is impressive, enough to generate high interest with the enthusiastic gadget freaks. While all these slick shiny handsets are really cool, phones are not about hardware anymore. The real news in this Microsoft launch is the software – the Operating System.

The hardware has to be good. The hardware is what defines the capabilities and the coolness of phones. The way it is designed and how it feels holding it. The design is also important in impression and image of the owners. But adding to a cool phone, inferior and poor software seems to defeat the purpose. If there are any lessons from the iPhone effect, it is that the defining factor today is the software in the phone.

Hardware improvements are mostly incremental as the product performance increase is steady. Capabilities such as microchip clock-speed, memory and data bandwidth capabilities follow a reasonably predictable curve. This is a good example of sustainable innovation. Even the iPhone was not the first full-screen phone to the market and it was not the first touch phone. But is was a great improvement with elegant design, and lots of hype. However, what made the iPhone successful was the software packaged in to an elegant device.

The touch screen of the iPhone is awesome. It was a ground breaking experience to use and set the standard. But touch screens only work if the software works. It is not the hardware, the feedback comes from the software. Also, it is no surprise that the Apple App Store is so successful that it is five times larger than all other apps stores combined. In the 2010 NetSize survey respondents valued convenience as the most important factor of an app store. Device “coolness” was not a factor. Again, software.

With WP7S comes a new OS that breaks with the old legacy Windows Mobile. When Microsoft announced Windows Mobile 6.5 last autumn, it was clear that something was missing. However, Windows Phone 7 is a new operating system. It may not be based on Windows 7 but on Windows CE, still a huge improvement for Microsoft and for those who develop mobile apps for Windows phones.

The phone business has changed. It is no longer a closed business where few players dominate. It’s becoming more like the PC business with more openness. Mobile phones are now platforms for applications. In just few years a whole new industry has emerged where software developers write software for these devices.

While this openness creates new opportunities, compatibility issues will surely come up. Both Android and Windows will be deployed to multiple devices. Anybody who has developed for J2ME can tell you horror stories of getting different handsets to run the same application. But Android and Windows are operating systems and the applications developed for them are native. Compatibility issues will be a problem but as the development tools mature these will fade away as they have with the PC.

The walled garden has crumbled down.