What's That In Your Pocket Sir?

So we have the introduction of wearable mobile devices; watches from Samsung and also Google Glass. Both providing ‘accessories to be seen wearing’, but which will probably date and be superseded very quickly. The Samsung watch is far from sleek and has as much design cache as those first ‘brick’ mobile phones. To make matters worse it doesn’t replace the mobile but ‘compliments it’.

It’s as if the manufactures can’t decide how big our physical pockets are, or just how many gadgets we actually want to carry around with us. Will tomorrow’s commuter really be wearing Google’s Glass, have a Samsung watch on their wrist, carry a smartphone and have a tablet tucked away in their bag? They could be soon joined by other devices to track our health and dismisses the eink readers as an evolutionary step we have already taken..

The challenge is that they all have to have significant feature and functionality overlap and the common denominator is actually very high which make accessories either very specialist or prone to be pure fashion statements and subject to the swings and moods of the market.

However, just when we thought we had seen it all up steps Sony with its supersized lenses which connect to smartphones by wi-fi, allowing them to take higher-quality photos. They are compatible with Android and iOS handsets and were announced alongside a new Sony smartphone which features a 20.7 megapixel camera and a larger-than-normal image sensor. The QX10 lens offers a 10x optical zoom and 18.2MP resolution which Sony says makes it ideal for taking shots of distant landmarks or close-ups of people. It will cost about £170.

There would appear to be two flaws in Sony’s strategy. You either want to give more megapixels to the camera within the phone and compete head to head with the pack, or you step to the side and develop the accessory lens. To do both effectively creates two competing products, adds costs and confuses the consumer. We are living in a YouTube age where convenience out strips quality and ask how many video cameras you see today. For those wanting top-quality photographs, the experience of having a DSLR [digital single lens reflex] offers a better experience than a Sony add-on camera. Sony itself has even acknowledged that it did not know how strong demand would be.

So what does this tell us about the developing market. It is clear that peripheral devices will evolve and that leads one to ask whether they will then shrink the smartphone to a network hub or compete with it as a standalone. It is like the laptop, tablet smartphone battles, we have to establish the optimum form factor and what differentiates one from another.

This is very important for all content, media producers and services who want to be device agnostic.  

Samsung Add Another Galaxy to the Mix

Samsung is about to throw in another tablet to the mix, the Galaxy Note 8.0.

The device is neatly positioned to start to offer Samsung users a range of devices that vary merely in their size and unlike the Apple world these in the main offer the same or similar functionality without the defined walls created by Apple. In other words you have the Galaxy phone with pen, the Note II, 7 & 8 with pen all with the same SIM size and all capable of being tethered or being a phone. Apple like to separate their media light device iPod, from their phone, Iphone from the Tablet, iPad.

The point is that all mobile devices are converging in technology and are all underpinned by a common platform but separating in how we use them. Do we want different devices to do different things or do we want all devices to inherently offer the same but vary in their form and footprint? We may want a basic phone tethered to a sophisticated larger form tablet / server. We may want this reversed so we have the smaller footprint on the go with the option to tether the tablet when required. The world is not about having devices that perform X or Y but a mobile platform that offers choices and interoperability.

It is not hard to envisage a mobile server which is ‘connected’ to slave mobile devices, each with its own specialised usage and with a common set of functionality. This year we shall see the ‘glasses’ and the wrist ‘watch’ and we already have the earpiece.

Ask yourselves what the difference really is between ASUS, Acer, HP, Dell, Samsung, laptops? Then what is the difference between these and a Mac?

Maybe it is down to Android versus IOS and for some that may be Déjà vu.

Slimline LG Please

The upcoming CES (Consumer Electronics Show) at the beginning of next year is going to once again excite and stir the market with new innovation in technology.

LG are rumoured to be about to announce and Android smartphone which could be even slimmer than the iPhone 4. It’s claimed by Phandriod to be named the ‘B’.

It’s apparent, that like cat walk models, size does matter and the slimmer you are the greater the potential to gain acceptance. Clearly the days of the brick mobile phone have long gone and now size is not about small and chunky but slim and sleek.
It’s also claimed that the ‘B’s screen is brighter with much greater luminosity than either the iPhone 4 or the Samsung Galaxy S smartphones. This could make a big difference as we increasingly move to the world of permanent mobile connectivity and increased functionality through apps.

LG is not just fighting Apple and RIM but is also fighting a hoard of Andriod players such as Samsung and HTC, both of whom probably have a stronger offer and also Samsung has more sales today.

The one thing that is certain is that the smartphones we see today will not be those that we will be using in just a few years time and the way we use them is also bound to drastically change. The CES shows are going to be even more innovative going forward as they have been in the past.