smartphones | Paul Wallbank - Communications Professional

A gigabit milestone for mobile networks

The rollout of Telstra’s gigabit 4G network is another step on way to the next generation of connected devices.

Yesterday communications vendors Qualcomm, Netgear, Ericsson and Telstra, unveiled their Australian gigabit LTE service that gives users high speed internet connections over the 4G mobile network.

Billed as a world’s first, Telstra will offer customers the Netgear supplied hotspots that can connect up to twenty devices over WiFi.

Listening to the Telstra spiel yesterday, it wasn’t hard to conclude the company is making a pitch for the market frustrated by the National Broadband Network’s tardy rollout and patchy service.

The service doesn’t come cheap though, as Finder’s Alex Kidman points out, an hour’s movie streaming on one device could easily cost $4500 dollars on Telstra’s current plans with one of the company’s executives emphasising the product is “aimed at the premium end of the market.”

Being aimed at the premium end of the market is shame for Qualcomm as their spokespeople were keen to show off the gaming, AR and VR potential of the Snapdragon CPUs driving these devices. It would be a brave or very affluent family that bought one of these devices for their kids given the data costs.

While the Telstra Gigabit LTE service might be an NBN replacement for deep pocketed customers, telco veteran John Lindsay points out the mobile network can’t support too many people doing so unless many more cells are deployed.

For the moment the Telstra service is going to be attractive for companies needing high speed. low volume connections in the central business district and as the gigabit LTE upgrades roll out across the country, it will be useful for travellers as well as frustrated NBN customers.

Ultimately the gigabit LTE product is another step toward the 5G networks that we’ll be seeing appear at the end of the decade, something that both the Ericsson and Telstra PR folk were keen to highlight.

The key message for consumers and businesses is the rate of innovation in the mobile communications market is not slowing and another generation of connected devices is coming that will change things as dramatically as the smartphone did.

Inside Samsung’s exploding batteries

It’s not easy to design a safe and affordable portable device as Samsung found with the exploding Note7

One of the most humiliating corporate crises of recent history has to be last year’s recall of the Galaxy Note.

Airlines around the world started telling passengers that the devices were banned during their pre flight briefings, causing untold damage for the Samsung brand.

Now Samsung have completed a review into what happened including an infographic illustrating the exact problem with the batteries.

That review shows the design and manufacturing errors that resulted in the batteries bursting into flames. How Samsung are fixing it or putting in systems to prevent that happening again isn’t discussed.

What the infographic does show is how complex the design, engineering and manufacturing is in modern technology – something that is often overlooked by many technologists.

Battery technologies are particularly fraught as a lot of energy is compressed into a small space and the chemistry of Lithium Ion batteries makes them particularly dangerous should they be damaged or incorrectly used, as Boeing found with the early models of the 787 Dreamliner.

Modern life and the devices that we take for granted are complex and that complexity though can easily come back to bite us. As Samsungs’ exploding batteries show, sometimes that complexity is difficult to manage.

Google’s grab for the smartphone market

Google’s Pixel smartphone is part of the company’s bid to exert greater control over the smartphone market.

This week Google released its latest smartphone, the Pixel, to mixed reviews. Controlling the most popular mobile operating system, Android, isn’t enough for the company.

As Microsoft found, just supplying the operating systems for smartphones isn’t enough to influence the market. Apple, along with Nokia and Blackberry before them, showed that the path to both controlling the segment and being profitable relies on having devices designed for their software.

Given the Pixel’s price point, it’s unclear how well it will do against the iPhone, Samsung’s models or the plethora of Chinese devices but for all the Android ecosystem’s players, having its controlling owner running in opposition to them can’t be comforting.

Again though Microsoft’s experience is instructive, and encouraging, for the broader Android community as Microsoft’s attempts to push out Windows CE devices failed dismally. For Google to be successful where Microsoft failed would require a degree of corporate discipline the search engine giant is not renown for.

In the Windows ecosystem, Microsoft strength was licensing and controlling access to the operating system. Android’s strength in the smartphone world is that Google doesn’t have the same veto power. To be able to exercise control over the market, Google needs a big device share.

Ultimately though the success of the Google Pixel smartphone will depend on how many users will adopt it. It may be time for another round of smartphone subsidy wars.

Ditching the old tech – Lessons for the iPhone from the Apple iMac

Apple’s rumoured changes to the iPhone 7 are causing disquiet among customers, but they could mean opportunity.

“I’ve been betrayed, I’ll never buy another Apple product again!” was the cry in 1998 when the company announced their new range of iMacs and portables wouldn’t support the long standing Apple Development Bus (ADB) system and floppy disks.

At the time Apple had been in decline, only the year before Microsoft had bailed the company out with a few conditions that had deeply irritated the company’s loyal customer base.

Many of those customers – mainly in education and graphic design – had invested deeply in ADB compatible equipment and their irritation at abandoning that investment for USB based kit was understandable.

Today we’re seeing similar protests about the rumoured dropping headphone jacks from the upcoming Apple 7 device, customers aren’t happy about the possibility being forced from a well established standard to a less reliable and likely more expensive system.

Unlike the computer world of 1998 today’s marketplace is very different, Apple is no longer a quirky and niche product but the most profitable of the tech industry’s giants – as Microsoft was back when Steve Jobs swallowed his pride and accepted Bill Gates’ bailout.

However most of Apple’s profits come from one product line, the iPhone. While the iPhone is probably the only truly consistently profitable smartphone, it competes in a fiercely fought for consumer market.

Already in China, one of the company’s most profitable markets, the iPhone’s market share is falling in the face of good quality but slightly cheaper Chinese and Korean devices.

Should Apple push those consumers too far by shifting the iPhone to a more expensive or proprietary system then the competing Android devices may well pick up market share and dent Apple’s fat profits.

However history shows that these hardware shifts do happen and older technologies are supplanted by more expensive, but better, inventions regardless of how much users have spent on the status quo. A century ago the automobile started replacing a millenia of investment in horse drawn technologies.

In the case of Apple abandoning the ADB back in 1998, it was the spur to adopt the USB standard which up until then had been buggy and unwanted as Bill Gates himself had found.

As history shows, Apple thrived after ditching the old technology despite the complaints at the time and if the company resists the temptation to lock users into a proprietary system there is no reason to think the same can’t happen again.

Apple mouse (with ADB connector) courtesy of Wikipedia

Smartphones become a mature market

The smartphone market has matured, which brings a range of challenges for manufacturers.

As Apple celebrates shipping a billion iPhones, the smartphone industry has entered maturity reports IDC.

The analyst firm’s latest survey of the global smartphone industry reports only 0.3% growth over the equivalent period of last year.

While both Apple and Samsung have had successes over the past year with new models, IDC believes growth now lies in shifting ‘flagship products’ at lower price points with enhanced features.

A more mature industry opens opportunities for the cheaper Chinese brands and IDC is finding those companies are unsurprisingly proving successful in emerging markets. For the established brands redefining their price points and models is going to be the challenge.

That mature marketplace is going to focus the minds of product managers, marketers and executives at all the manufacturers as capturing profit and investors’ imaginations in a mature market is very different to that when selling a new, high growth product.

Lenovo and the hunt for profitable smartphone markets

Lenovo’s smartphone announcements are part of an industry desperately trying to find new profit centres and markets.

With Google’s Project Ara seemingly stalled, it was interesting to see Lenovo announce the Moto Z modular phone this week.

The question remains though whether this concept is a solution looking for a problem however if Lenovo open the device up to third party accessory makers, we could see a surge of innovation similar to the ‘plug compatible’ IBM days which may drive consumer interest.

Lenovo is still struggling to find its feet in the mobile phone market, so finding a compelling product to drive sales and improve margins in a largely unprofitable industry is a priority.

It may be the other smartphone announced by Lenovo in San Francisco, the clumsily named Phab 2 Pro, could be where the manufacturer finds its niche with Google’s Project Tango 3D sensing technologies.

The Phab 2 Pro’s 3D capability may be the beginning of accessible virtual and augmented reality systems however hands on reviews of the device indicate it may be some way from being ready for public release.

Lenovo’s announcements show how the smartphone markets is currently in a state of transition as vendors try to find the next new profit and growth centres. To complicate matters, all the Android manufacturers are waiting to see what Apple’s next move will be.

Goodbye Moto

The Motorola brand disappoints Lenovo as it looks to diversify beyond the computer and tablet

It appears faded mobile phone brand Motorola has proved disappointing for Chinese computer giant Lenovo reports TechCrunch.

For Lenovo, this is concern as the company explores ways to diversify away from the shrinking PC and tablet marketplaces although the smartphone market which itself suffers from poor margins doesn’t seem to be the opportunity the company is looking for.

It does however show that Google is often right in casting off companies it doesn’t see a future in.

Building the internet of rice cookers

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi hopes an Internet of Things ecosystem can drive the company’s growth

Are domestic appliances the next wave of connected devices? Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi hopes so.

Xiaomi is best known for its cheap smartphones aimed at third world markets and the company’s move into connected kitchen devices marks an expansion into broader areas.

Smartphones being the centre of Xiaomi’s product offerings seems to be the common factor in the expanded range of devices, with the company hoping their ecosystem will be a compelling point of difference in a crowded market.

The idea the smartphone will be the centre of people’s connected lifestyles isn’t new but Xiaomi’s bet on low margin home appliances to drive smartphone sales and subscriptions to cloud services seems a brave move.

It may work however, the business models of tomorrow look improbable today.

The sensor in your pocket

Wayze brings together crowdsourcing, cloud and smartphone GPS services to create a useful product.

Very soon your smartphone will be able to warn you if you’re driving too fast reports VentureBeat.

Israeli founded and Google owned traffic application Wayze will soon give alerts to users in certain countries if they’re over the speed limit, the service announced yesterday.

Wayze is unique in that it’s one of the first genuine crowdsourcing programs where users contributed information on traffic conditions and it’s doing the same thing in gathering speed limit information.

The fascinating thing about Wayze is how it brings together crowdsourcing, cloud and smartphone GPS services to create a useful product.

Wayze also shows how the smartphone is the ultimate personal Internet of Things sensor, that’s something which shouldn’t be overlooked.

BlackBerry’s last smartphone

The BlackBerry Priv is probably the company’s last smartphone as it pivots to being a security provider

Having written about BlackBerry’s ambitions in the marketplace for The Australian last week, it wasn’t surprising to be invited to the company’s Down Under launch of their Priv handset earlier today.

The event illustrated some brutal realities about mobile phone market and BlackBerry’s efforts to build on its strengths in the enterprise security space.

With 2.7 billion dollars of cash reserves, the company has seven years of breathing space at its current loss rates although it’s notable the stock market values the company at $3.5bn, implying investors value the business’ operations at a measly $800 million.

Given the collapse in BlackBerry’s handset business from twenty percent of the market at the beginning of the decade to an asterix today, that pessimism from investors isn’t surprising and underscores why the company is recasting itself as an enterprise security provider.

Five major acquisitions in the last 18 months have demonstrated how BlackBerry is attempting to recast its business; security services like Good Technology and Secusmart through to warning software like At Hoc have seen the company bolster its range of offerings.

Coupled with the recent acquisitions are its own longstanding messaging and secure communications services combined with the QNX software arm that promises a far more reliable Internet of Things than many of the current operating systems being embedded into smart devices.

The Android smartphone system itself is bedevilled with dangerous apps running on outdated software and where BlackBerry hopes their PRIV handset can attract enterprise users conscious of the need to secure their employees’ devices.

For BlackBerry though, the PRIV being shipped with the Android operating system is a capitulation to the smartphone market’s stark reality where there is only demand for two products and outside players like BlackBerry or Windows are destined to wither away.

While the PRIV is a nice, albeit expensive, phone and the slide out physical keyboard is nice to use, the device seems to be a desperate attempt by the company to stay in the smartphone market.

As an outside observer it’s hard to see the justification for BlackBerry continuing as a phone manufacturer, there may be some intellectual property value from the development of the devices – although it should be noted the company only valued its IP assets at $906 million in November 2015.

While the PRIV is a perfectly good Android phone it will probably be the last smartphone BlackBerry makes, the challenge for the company’s management now is to tie together the software assets it has into a compelling suite of products for the enterprise sector.

In an age where devices of all types are going to be connected, the market for ensuring their security should be huge. Catering to that market should be BlackBerry’s greatest hope of survival.

The tough way to make a smartphone dollar

Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC’s problems show the dominance Apple has of the market

Times are getting even tougher for Apple’s competitors with Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC falling out of Taiwan’s main stock market index after their share price fell 66% over the last year.

Coupled with reports that Korea’s Samsung is laying off ten percent of their workforce, it’s clear the smartphone industry is by no means a license to print money.

Making matters worse for the sector, Apple will be announcing a refresh tomorrow morning which will almost certainly hurt the competition further.

For the marketplace, particularly as one as important as the smartphone market, having only one profitable supplier is not a good thing. The challenge though is for Apple’s competitors to find a way to make a profit.