This is Swipe, a blog by pinch/zoom about mobile, design, user experience, usability, development and the future of technology.
I will be a guest speaker at Chetan Sharma’s upcoming Mobile Breakfast Series along with Mark Anderson, Satya Maliya and Laura Marriott. We will be talking about the highlights of 2011 and what we can expect from the mobile world in 2012.
I have begun writing my second book. After I finished Mobile Design and Development I didn’t think that I would ever write another book again. It is a long and painful process with marginal rewards.
But something has changed.
When I wrote my first book I felt I had a duty to share my knowledge and experience in mobile. I don’t know to who exactly, but I wouldn’t say it was for me. Don’t get me wrong – I stand by my work and what I wrote – but there is a greater message that I wanted to convey back then, but didn’t feel I was in the place to communicate it.
I’ve debated writing a second book for two years now. I’ve learned a lot since writing MD&D and founding pinch/zoom and there is plenty of good stories and techniques to share. I have a lot of notes and ideas on how to write that book. But that still feels like scratching the surface to a much broader thing that is happening all around us.
For this book, I will continue to tackle the topic of mobile. But I have no desire to write another technical book. This book will be for people like me, who are trying to understand how mobile fits into the world we live in – what to do with it – how to harness mobile to change the world.
At the heart of all of these transitions is mobile. I’ve seen it have a transformative impact on some of the biggest and oldest companies on the planet. I’ve seen geniuses become dumbfounded. I’ve seen great intentions fail miserably.
I want to explore and share those stories. I do not talk want to talk about the virtues of native apps or HTML5 apps – or any other irrelevant discussion that revolves around the technology of today. Mobile is no more about the technology, as the printing press was about paper.
Instead this book will be as much a manifesto of 21st century experiences as it is a guide to using century old tools to solve the problems of today, even the ones we may not be able to define yet. Or to use the words of Steve Jobs, to empower people to “stand at the intersection of technology and the humanities” for themselves.
I’ve decided to write this book in its entirety first before I decide on how to publish it. I may go back to O’Reilly. I may self publish. I just don’t know yet.
But for now all I do know is I have a lot of writing to do.
As I was reading this article this morning I came across this statement:
Apple has had a few knocks: the stock has been in decline on reports of lower unit sales in the next quarter, and user disgruntlement over ongoing battery issues with the new version of iOS.
Statements like this piss me off.
Asshat comments only help people lose perspective about how important the iPhone is to mobile. It completely ignores hard data. And gives people a false sense of understanding the goings-on within the mobile market.
Not a day goes by that I don’t see a link to an unfounded attack on the iPhone, iPad or Apple. Even though the data just doesn’t support these arguments. For example Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said this in a statement
iPhone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend—the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days.
4 million in the first weekend, from just the launch markets like the US. These are hard sales, that equals firm revenue, not activations or some other trumped up stat that doesn’t equate to anything but a self-serving press release. AND we are about to go into the historically biggest phone shopping season. AND there are still a lot of places in the world (like the largest markets of China, India and Brazil) that the iPhone 4S isn’t available yet, so the true sales potential of the iPhone 4S really hasn’t even been tapped yet.
This means that the iPhone 4S is the fastest selling phone… ever. In under a month Apple has sold more iPhone 4S’s than the most Android devices do in their entire lifetime!
If the iPhone 4S follows the same sales curve as the iPhone 4 (75 million so far) it is on track to being the best selling phone ever – the current record is 150 million which Nokia did with four devices – but unlike Nokia, it is entirely possible Apple can beat this record within a year of release.
However none of this phenomenal success or history-making sales seems to be understood by the press, which sadly has a direct impact on both the stock market and the perceptions in the mobile industry as a whole. It is like we have bubble economics around a single company instead of a market – fueled by speculation, uncertainty and lack of rationality in the face of clear and indisputable data.
The press seems intent on reporting on minor issues with the iPhone – that every device maker deals with – and blowing them completely out of proportion. We saw it with iPhone 4 Antennagate debacle. And now we are seeing it happen again with the iPhone 4S implying that battery issues is going to somehow spoil the iPhone 4S’s ascension, despite that Apple has always been incredibly proactive about replacing broken phones. Or speculating on iPhone sales numbers that for a quarter that hasn’t even happened yet? In what business world does that makes sense? Come to think of it aren’t there laws against doing that?
Mobile isn’t cheap – native, HTML5, it doesn’t matter. Mobile is a hard problem to solve and therefore it can be very costly if not done properly. A lot of companies want a mobile solution, but simply can’t afford it. Cost has always been an obstacle of adoption for the last 10 years. The iPhone’s success changed that. It dramatically reduced the cost to get to market.
The iPhone is the perfect mobile design and development platform – meaning you can do a lot (again natively or with HTML5) very fast for not a lot of money. I’m not being biased, I’m just stating my professional observation from being in this industry a lot longer than most people. You are don’t get to be successful in mobile if you ignore the facts on the ground or only look at hard problems with rose-tinted glasses.
iHating, bad journalism and questionable data has created a perception in the market that other platforms and devices are equals to iOS – and they simply aren’t. At least not in anyway that you justify in business like customer demand, cost of development, time to market, market size, addressable market, etc. (again not trying to be biased here, just a little homework and Business 101).
This effect actually has a name in economics. It isn’t a bubble, it is actually called a market distortion:
A market distortion is any event in which a market reaches a market clearing price for an item that is substantially different from the price that a market would achieve while operating under conditions of perfect competition
In other words, bad press can make companies believe that there is “perfect competition” in the mobile market – that all the players have an equal chance of being successful – that the market will eventually be a two, maybe three horse race with nearly identical offerings. But there isn’t really any data to suggest this – at least not yet. This creates a market distortion-like effect where false perceptions become reality.
This means companies are spending money that they probably shouldn’t. They are diverting valuable time and resources to areas that are not likely to make a substantial contribution to the business. And worse of all, they are making sacrifices to the customer experience on false hopes, promises and without proper justification.
This pisses me off. Not as an “Apple guy,” or as an industry expert, or an agency owner, but as a person that believes the mobile medium is the greatest invention mankind has seen since the printing press. I spend every waking hour trying to push the medium – one small step at a time – to reach its full potential.
Every time I see dumb-ass statements like the one above, we take a step back.
-Brian
It looks like Adobe has finally killed Flash on mobile devices:
We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations.
They state that they will however continue enabling Flash developers to package native apps use Adobe AIR.
Back in 2005 my sources told me that Adobe (a pinch/zoom client) purchased Macromedia for $3.4 billion largely to acquire Flash Lite, hoping to build it as a platform for the next generation of mobile devices.
In the six years since no device maker has been able to meet the increasingly high consumer expectations of mobile experiences using Flash. Leaving Adobe with an expensive investment that the tech of the day couldn’t support.
But given that Adobe has recently redoubled their efforts toward HTML5, I think this move makes complete sense for them and for the industry. This will allow Adobe a greater focus on HTML5 publishing and tools, which the industry is sorely lacking.
We are clearly seeing a shift towards consolidating the mobile platforms of the ecosystem. A good thing for brands, developers and consumers.
Good onya for Adobe to take the lead here. It couldn’t have been an easy decision for them.
What if I told you that you shouldn’t support Android?
Let me put it another way…
For an unknown multiplication of cost you can have a solution – for the minority of your market – that maybe works about half the time.
Let me even put it yet another way, in mathematics…
((effort x cost) x market share) ÷ addressable market = Android
What if after you calculate the formula that the Android math just doesn’t compute, would you still choose to support Android?
I have my own data and my own answers, but I urge you to find your own.
Had the fantastic opportunity to speak at the Seattle Interactive Conference (SIC2011) this week. It was really awesome to see a big interactive conference hit Seattle again!
I tried a different tack with my talk this time. I started by defining mobile experiences as not just design, or Photoshop, but the holistic experience that the user will encounter in wildly different contexts. I explained that the traditional tools of interactive design (wireframes, comps, even Basecamp) are no longer sufficient to communicate the complex concepts that mobile presents the business and the user.
I explained the challenges of mobile design from the perspective of the innovators dilemma and how to use the diffusion of innovation model to bring customers along with you on your mobile journey, instead of focusing on the challenges of technology.
From there diving into a few examples of how some companies are using my golden triangle (business, technical and user needs) to solve the mobile problem, as well as sharing some of the intimate and tough life lessons I’ve learned along the way.
But I will let you take a peek at my slides for yourself…
I don’t rehearse my talks, and I often put my slides together about 12 hours before I go on stage. For this one I assembled my presentation about two hours before. Most people think I’m crazy for doing it this way, and it has bitten me in the ass more than once. But my process allows me to improvise my talk a bit more. Adjusting pacing and content while on stage to draw the audience in, which can be vastly different per event.
So for a first time talk, I ended up being about 10-15 minutes short (and even then I think I ran long), so I had to speed through the last part (basically it is an 60 minute talk, not a 45 minutes).
But I was really pleased with the positive response from attendees and on Twitter. The mix of shared expertise, industry examples, and an honest deconstruction of effectiveness seemed to worked well. Everyone was very respectful and focused on the presentation (very few open laptops).
At a time when I thought I was starting to be going too deep (or not deep enough) on the mobile topic, it was great to have such an awesome connection with the audience …a reminder of why I love Seattle so much.
…and I only dropped two F-bombs! A personal best!
Here this what some of the attendees had to say about my talk…
Thank you to everyone who attended for their kind words online and off. I can’t tell you how encouraging it is to hear.
(Photo by @JoeDucksUO)
Great Business Week article on how Apple used amazing supply chain tactics to become one of the most valuable companies in the world:
Apple’s enormous profits—its gross margins were 40 percent last quarter, compared with 10 to 20 percent for most other hardware companies—are in large part due to this focus on operations, which is sure to remain a priority under Cook. The new CEO is known to give colleagues copies of Competing Against Time, a book about using supply chains as a strategic weapon in business. According to Martin, the logistics executive, Cook uses a catchphrase to hammer home the need for efficiency: “Nobody wants to buy sour milk.”
When looking to understand mobile platform marketshare and what devices to support, forget press releases about device sales and activations. The only number that matters is actual usage. App usage data is often unreliable, so actual devices accessing the Internet is always the best indicator of actual platform usage.
For October 2011 here is how each of the mobile platforms fared according to NetMarketshare
In other words if you had $100,000 to spend in 2012 on a global mobile strategy:
Ericsson has released a beautifully produced video on future of connected society and what that means, told through the lens of several modern day companies and thought leaders.
It is a long video, but worth a watch for those interested in where everything is going.
Some of the notes & quotes I pulled out of the video:
Our good friends at Creative Good (who we worked with on the BBC iPlayer) make a great statement of the importance of user experience today:
To succeed today, with a mobile app or otherwise, you’ve got to be obsessed with what your customers go through. Call it the user experience, the customer experience, the ideation-info-architectural-construct, whatever: it’s that delight-or-plight of your users that you must obsess over.
However I disagree with the conclusion that obsession can’t be outsourced:
Sure, you could outsource it to someone else – on the team, or outside. But it won’t work. You can’t outsource obsession. If the very future of your company depends on delivering a good experience, then you have to care about it as much as – no, more than – anyone else on the team.
I think obsession and perfectionism has to be taught. Some of my most successful client products were the ones where I was more passionate and obsessed about the product than the client. That I – as an outsider – obsessively drive the client to do better. And rightly so, I know what their product could be, they don’t. It was my job to help them see it.
I don’t think the craft of user experience is not unlike the sculptor that sees a sculpture trapped within a block of granite, or an artist that sees a masterpiece on blank canvas. We create a behavioral and cognitive experience that didn’t exist before. It is an art form.
However unlike artists, it isn’t enough to just do, it is our job to teach others how to see the product the way we do. They need to understand what is possible, what to look for, what makes it good? what makes it bad? Chances are when it comes to mobile, they honestly don’t know.
Clients need to learn in order to become obsessed.
Just as the role of user experience is changing – or more specifically is becoming more defined – so is the role of the consultant/agency/vendor what-ever – we need to be great teachers, not just great do-ers.
Helping to clients to both see the masterpiece in the granite as well as listen to what people think about it.