Two Kins, Two Strikes?

Microsoft’s new mobile devices, Kin One and Kin Two, are aimed right at the lucrative teen segment of cell phone users. With a stylish design and some interesting new features, one reviewer was smitten. After reading, I’ll admit that I started to think Microsoft had made a winner, or at the least, a contender, in mobile technology. Long battery life, cloud connection as a standard feature, cool little shape.

Other critics, though, were more…critical, citing poor software and expensive monthly plans as reasons to overlook these offerings. OK, so maybe they’re not looking as good as I thought.

Still, hats off to Microsoft for being bold and trying.

I’m guessing though, that the company will not get the traction of this phone, or this one, or this one, or…

Ah, the fickle public, the growing list of technical abilities needed to capture the attention of busy geeks, and the high bar set by the iPhone. And I have to wonder: Where will mobile devices be in five years?

No Cash, No Worries

I don’t carry much cash. In fact, right now I have $1 in my wallet, and that’s it. I don’t visit ATMs with any frequency, either. I’ve just been a credit card carrying consumer (say that fast five times…). In a break from the majority, however, we pay off our cards every month. So I don’t think I’m abusing credit. I’m certainly not overspending my cash!

If you’re at all like me, here’s something that may be of interest to you: the trend toward using phones to pay for services and purchases. With the advent of the smart phone, it is easier for stores – and consumers – to use a mobile device for a transaction.

My last trip to the Apple Store bore this out. When I had the software I needed, I asked where to pay. The friendly-guy-in-the-cool-t-shirt looked at me with a smirk. “Right here,” he said, as he pulled out his iPhone, I gave him my Mastercard, he swiped it on a little attachment to his phone, and we were done in about 40 seconds.

“Cool,” I thought.

Read this to learn more about the cashless — and cash machine-less — future. It’ll be here very quickly.

Where Will Tablets (And Pads) Take Us?

I remember the Newton, Apple’s infamous first attempt at a ultra-portable, hand-held computing. It was not altogether a bad idea, although it wasn’t integrated or compelling enough to win over a large base of users. Alas, Newton is now (and frankly, has been for a long time) a relic.

What might have been Newton’s domain, the medical world, has now been populated by tablet computers running various Microsoft operating systems. My own physician uses a Fujitsu )?) tablet to track my physical data-points, and can update things easily with a few touches of the stylus. Not elegant, but good enough. If only Apple had seen this niche and gone for it with some seriousness. Oh well.

More recently, netbooks have made advances in business and personal use, although I know only a handful of folks who use their handful of netbook to…check email and look at the web as they travel. I don’t know of anyone who raves about their netbook. Nobody who likes it half as much as their laptop. In fact, netbooks seem tethered, if you will, to laptops. Min-laptops. Cute little laptops. Cheap laptops. But not a serious computer, or a replacement for laptop, or for that matter, a replacement for even a smart phone. Caught in the in-between world, that’s where netbooks seem to be in life.

And smartphones are..well, phones that do more. I love my iPhone. I have friends who love their Blackberries. And some industry pundits (here, here and here, for instance) are suggesting that Palm is going to die, if it isn’t already in its final gasps. Still, my middle-aged eyes need reading glasses to see my contacts and email. Sorry, but the screen on that thing is just a tad too small for my taste. Not that I want it any bigger. No, I like putting it into my pocket, and I like its interface, and I like its apps, and so much more about my smartphone. But that’s a phone, not a replacement for a standard computer.

Which leads us to…the possible future of computing, that new category that many want to establish, but which will likely be won (at least initially) by the Apple iPad. (BTW, I hate the name, but I love the concept). What will the iPad do that makes for something really new, and as Steve Jobs suggests, “magical?” Why, just about anything and everything! Surf, watch videos, read books, and eventually, make calls via Skype using that built-in camera (oh wait, that’s not until next year’s iPad). For a more reasoned assessment of what it’ll do, read this perspective to see where iPad – and some other bold offerings like Google’s Chrome – will take computing in the coming years. Eventually, suggests author Steven Levy, the desktop computer I’m using to type this post, and the GUI with which you are reading it, will be gone. “Dead, deceased, it has gone to meet its maker,” as John Cleese might say.

And, by the way, no offense to Microsoft, but many think they’ll remain stuck to the cash-generating Windows model of computing until the very end. Maybe, maybe not. But it is difficult to envision a future with Windows 10, don’t you think?

So, where will tablets lead us? Hard to say. But it surely seems to be a promising future. Fun, even. That is, if these things deliver even half of what Genie Steve promises.

So far, Levy’s argument for the death of GUI seems credible and yet…maybe I’m not ready to give up that laptop. I like its powerful processing and elegant and all-encompassing “all in one portable box” design.

Just in case, though, I’m thinking of getting a pad, er, tablet, sooner rather than later. I’ll admit I’m intrigued. It’ll take a bit of getting used to, and I may pay a price for being an early adopter. Perhaps I’ll find it all pretty shallow, as empty as cotton candy at the county fair. But at least I’ll have a head start on the future.

Boomers Going Mobile

If you want to target your message to baby boomers, consider this:

Baby boomers are on the verge of adopting smartphones and the mobile Internet…But boomers’ mobile Internet adoption rates will be similar to their social media uptake—that is, slow.

While it is expensive, maybe you should order the full report about boomers who are going mobile from eMarketers.

Or, maybe you could guess as to why baby boomers are moving slowly toward smart phones and mobile content consumption. And no, I’m not getting any financial compensation from eMarketers for suggesting you buy their product. Just think they have some timely, helpful research.

Media Business Changes: Publishing

With the iPad, Apple has signaled not only a new way we can access and consume our media, but they’ve also signaled a new way for media producers to monetize their products. Apple has done this before with music, and now they’re trying to do it with, of all things, book publishing.

Remember the day when you bought CDs? Whole “albums” with 10-12 songs on a disc? Hard to remember those days, I know. Apple revolutionized the purchase of music by offering $0.99 individual songs. No more buying a whole CD because you liked a song or two, and then being disappointed in the rest of the project. No more “concept albums” that wove a theme together through 10 different – but complimentary – songs. No, I just cherry-pick my favorites and pay $0.99 per tune.

They’re different, I know, music and books. And I’m not suggesting you’ll be able to grab the first and last chapters of a new novel at the iTunes Store for $0.99 each. No, there’s something else happening in the world of print (be that ink or e-ink).

When Apple announced the iPad, Steve Jobs indicated a new, strategic price plan for downloaded e-books. One with the publisher getting to set the price-point. One which gives great profit margins to the companies who find and produce the best-sellers. A pricing approach that affords the dying publishing world a breath of new life – if they can squeeze more margins out of their business model. Mr. Jobs negotiated with the major companies and – ta da! – found a price point that was appealing to them. And they, in turn, pushed back on Amazon (which has moved a lot of books at $9.99).You can bet that the publishers are feeling some new-found strength, and that there will be other changes coming.

So, look for other pricing deals to be made, and watch the other, existing e-book sellers to roll out a similar pricing tier for e-books. It could signal new life for the publishing world, one which gives them some new revenue potential. That bodes well for them, and for those of us who love books. It could breathe new life into an old-media giant that has been in need of some good news.

And we’ll have Apple to thank for it? Who’d have thunk it?

How Media Consumption Is Changing

With the introduction of the iPad, Apple is signaling a new phase in how the media world will work. There are certainly things about the new device that lack “wow” power, but there’s something going on here that signals where Apple is going, and why we should pay attention. Consumers, not manufacturing companies, are driving the media revolution, and this is yet another technology that will affect our media buying and consumption habits.

It is obvious that Sony’s eReader, Amazon’s Kindle, and now the B&N Nook all have their merits. They make it easy to carry a lot of books and to read multiple titles any time a person wants. They all have an ability to download various books, at various prices and in various formats.

To date, though, none of them does other media very well. You can’t listen to radio, surf the web or watch video on their E-Ink gray scale screens, nor would you want to. This is where the iPad will instantly make itself more appealing to many people. One device that does…one thing? Not gonna survive. These days, how many people have a cell phone that just makes calls? Or who has an MP3 player that just plays songs? So, by limiting their functionality to books, a dying medium (I hate typing that, but its a fact that fewer people are reading – and buying books, so let’s just live with it, okay?), the current offering of “readers” will find itself looking for an audience while mainstream culture goes with the flashy, color-screened, multi-functional iPad.

Read a book? Sure, anyone can carry around a small tablet-sized screen on which to read – all these devices can do that. That’s easy.

Carry around a business book AND a “guilty pleasure” fiction, too? Yep, the “readers” can do that.

Read the local “newspaper” while I listen to some classical music I downloaded? No, can’t do that on the “readers.” They do text really well, but not much else.

Interrupt my reading so I can check e-Bay for that item I was bidding on? No, sorry, the “readers” can’t do that. You’ll need to have a better tablet for online use – these things are for…reading.

Finish that video I started online last night before I begin studying my textbook for that upcoming quiz? Don’t think Sony can help me do that with their “reader” (despite the fact that Sony makes some gorgeous televisions these days).

Take a break from my book to in order a photo book of pictures from my trip – so it is waiting for me when I return from this trip? Um, I’ll need something more than a “reader.”

I’ll admit that these are all nice, hypothetical examples of how the “reader” will want to be replaced by something more. They don’t necessarily describe your life and how you operate – yet.

By making the iPad a multi-media device, Apple has tapped into where many of us are at – living in a fast-paced, media-saturated world. Apple is correctly seeing that if you  do one thing really well, you’ll likely be obsolete very soon (this is why the iPhone is so popular. It does many things well. Not everything perfectly, but it has enough of the capabilities that I want, and delivers them well, so that I’m finding it hard to imagine life without such a smart “phone.”).

The truth is, we want more more more from our technology, and we want to do do do things anytime, all the time. Apple may have made a big mistake here, that is possible. My guess, though, is that in a few years the iPad, and its various permutations and the inevitable competitors, will change how we do books – and every other media, too.

iTablet’s “Wow Factor”

Like many other techies, I’m really interested in the expected announcement about the Apple iTablet, or iPad, or iWhatever.

There’s great speculation about the size and capabilities of the new device, which I’d anticipate to be a game-changer for portable computing. Just as the iPod changed our music listening habits, and the iPhone changed the way we access our media, the folks at Apple must surely have an intent for how the iTablet should change…something. But what?

Here’s an intriguing look at how the iTablet could reinvigorate (resuscitate?) printed media…and forever changing how we “read” magazines and newspapers. What do you think? If the iTab – and other similar devices – can deliver something like this, would you want one?

UPDATE: Link to some specs and sales projections (10 million in the first year?!).

Can Newspapers Be Saved?

Over at the Tribune, former radio genius Randy Michaels has a new role, taking the helm as CEO from Sam Zell. Michaels has demonstrated he knows how to run a huge radio company, but it remains to be seen just how he can take the Tribune Company, which is trying to come out of bankruptcy – a rather embarrassing decline for the “World’s Greatest Newspaper.” How will the company make enough to fund the staff-intensive and printing/distribution infrastructure that has been newspapers?

And, related, the largest newspaper publisher in Europe suggests that there should be a payment system for news that we find on the Internet – so that link you follow from Google to a news piece could cost you. Monetizing the news departments of major daily newspapers might save them. If – and it is a BIG “IF” – folks like you and me will pay for that which has to this point been free.

And then I think about Chris Anderson, who argues that “Free is better.” In fact, he pushes for a free-for-all web, where free makes sense – even economic sense. I’m not sure that applies to newspapers, though.  Can Michaels turn around the Tribune with a free model? I rather doubt it. Will you pay for news that someone, somewhere, will offer for nothing? I don’t think so.

I’m not sure newspapers are going to make it. That’s a big deal to me. I’ve been reading papers on a daily basis since I was 10. Confession: I started reading…the Tribune. Every day I’d read it, after my Dad finished, of course. Now I get the Wall Street Journal, and consume as much as possible every day. Sometimes my kids read an article or two. But now the Journal is starting to charge for its web content. And I’m not paying for that, not while it is delivered to my door every day.

Can newspapers be saved? I hope so.

Top iPhone Apps

After being in some all-day meetings with new users who were hungry for recommendations, I’ve begun compiling a list of favorite iPhone apps. Meantime, here’s a list of popular apps that should serve as a good starting point for any newbie – or seasoned – iPhone owner. Of note, just today I’ve used three of those listed: Facebook, Tweetdeck and Shazam.

Who’s Going Mobile? You May Be Surprised!

The fastest-growing age group of mobile web users? Surprise – it isn’t teens!

According to Media Post, the Nielsen Company has recently released research findings that show an increase in audience of 34% to 56.9 million users in July 2009.

Overall, year-over-year growth among the 13-17 and 65+ age groups outpaced the growth of the total mobile Web audience, with a youth increase of 45% and seniors surging upwards 67% in July.

I wonder what is driving this trend, especially the growth in seniors who access the web though a mobile device. Is it the popularity and low cost “Net Book?” Or easier-to-use smartphones?  Or…what? Regardless, it is clear you cannot ascribe online and mobile use of the web as only “a young person’s game.” The shift to the web is rapid and touches everyone. How are putting YOUR message out there?