Rafe's Blog

Why smartphones will rule (aka smartphone ride to domination?)

Going to post this on Mobitopia, but is on my personal blog too. Wrote this during run up and around travel to Mobius.

One of the question I'm most frequently asked is 'but why smartphone, can't I just use an ordinary phone'. I'm not talking Symbian, Microsoft, Palm, or Linux smartphones in particular, but smartphone in general. A lot of smartphone users will dismiss this out of hand with the simple reply that the smartphone is better, it does more stuff. However to think this is to miss a fundamental point, a point which it seems to me many analysts and mobile watchers forget: Numbers.

Numbers
The number of users is critical, numbers are what makes the mass market, and the potential numbers of smartphone (over say laptops, PDA's etc.) is what make's nearly everyone interested. If we look at the mobile sphere today a lot of people would probably except it is still relatively small. However the potential, that we see building day by day, be it at conferences like 3GSM, CeBIT and the Symbian Expoisum, or on the web day by day shows that the mobile sphere is facing massive growth - this is the tech industry to be in. But in all honesty despite all the hype and neat stuff we see emerging the numbers aren't really there yet - even the best selling smartphone the Nokia 7650 has only sold a couple of million devices. Smartphones need to sell many millions to fulfill the promise of a mobile revolution.

The User Curve
The thing about users is that there is a curve. At the top we have the power users and the mobile professionals. The people reading this probably fall into this category. We don't matter, we're too small a group to really influence what will happen (and as an aside this will be why we will always be frustrated that our devices don't do more - we're above the intended design ceiling), lower down the curve are the majority of current smartphone users, those who like be with the latest gadgets, the early adopters and the like. They don't matter either. They are a bigger minority, but in the grand scheme relatively unimportant. On the whole they'll be using most of the features of the device, and they are relatively happy. Sure they download new software which does new things, but on the whole they're a happy bunch. They're heads touch the design ceiling and occasionally go through it. The last group is the mobile masses, they don't yet own smartphones because they either don't know about them, don't think they need them or more likely their mobile contract hasn't come up for renewal. They have a phone and are quite happy with it. They use it for voice and messaging, but don't really see the need for smartphone. Sure some think that camera phones are cool, and like the idea, but there is no momentum to move them to smartphone. They remain with oldphones partly because of inertia. The thing is about this group is they are the biggest and most important. They're important to the handset manufactures, and important to the operators. They are the numbers and they are where the money is. Everyone has to appeal to them.

Smartphones are expensive...
Smartphones remain relatively expensive. Oldphones are relatively inexpensive. Oldphones rule for the moment. There is a cost barrier currently to the mobile revolution. The mobile sphere is starting to see the benefits of the mobile revolution, but the average person can't see them yet. They are blind to the mobile revolution. For the numbers if things work ok they're not going to change overnight. So the question is how do we remove the blindfold and break the cost barrier?

Smartphone are inexpensive...
The answer to the cost barrier is we wait. Prices will come down. Like all tech things start out expensive and come down in price. Look at the first mobiles and compare them to today. Look at say the Nokia 5110 and compare that to the current low budget Nokia 3xxx series. Smartphones will soon be the Nokia 3xxx series. Prices will come down... Smartphone are better and given a choice numbers will go for a device with a nice screen, with a camera and games. They may even pay a price premium (but it needs to be less that 3 months contract price - say $70). At the moment this does not exist and smartphones have a certain amount of a size issue (I think that will change as people move away from miniaturization fashion and smartphones get smaller - buts that's another story...), and so adoption is limited to the two higher groups of the user curve.

Making the user see...
People need to see the benefits of smartphones. We all know how great are phone are and on the whole people are impressed when you show them off but the numbers are too big for us to all demonstrate how great are smartphone is. Smartphones have to have better user experience out of the box. I think we're seeing the start of this with Operator branding like Vodaphone Live or the Orange Smartphone pages. However this needs to be better. For example MMS must be international and trans-networks. Settings for GPRS, WAP, e-mail etc. must be automated and simple to customise. Services need to be on board and useful. Users should find travel, news, shopping, service readily and easily available. The mobile internet doesn't matter - services do (I'll explain what I mean another time). The numbers will use what is in the box. They won't want to add extra software. The user experience out of the box must be compelling and it must be easy. This is a combination of good user interface, but also good user experience of services. When this starts to happen the numbers will move.

Why smartphones being phones matters...
The move from oldphone to smartphones is rightly seen as somewhat revolutionary. People wonder why this revolution will happen or rather how fast it will happen. The answer is because smartphones are phone it will be fast. Mobile phones have faster upgrade cycles that any other piece of technology (mobile phone - 18 months, PC's 4/5 years, TV - 10 years), mobile phones are also sold with contracts meaning subsidizing can take place. This means that the cost barrier is lowered and more importantly the potential to jump the userbase through a revolution happens every 18 months (the reality is different but that's because users are blind). This incidentally (together with the number of mobile phone - personal devices not shared devices) is why everyone is so interested in the mobile sphere.

The wave is coming...
There are so many ideas I have leading off this. I'll try and post some more in the future. Subjects include the different OS approaches, the importance and vulnerability of operators, the misconception of the mobile internet and the key to the revolution - user experience. But the thing to bear in mind is that the mobile wave is coming. Ask yourself - where will you be on it?

Endnote: This is my first post to Mobitopia. It's a stream of consciousness rather than an organized piece of writing, but that's what blogging is right?