Screen Size Is What Matters

As I wrote here, what's differentiating for me in terms of what device I use at a particular instant-in-time is not manufacturer or operating system, but rather screen size: 

Nearly any contemporary smartphone will get the job done; the hardwares have converged in terms of features and capabilities, and the several mobile OSes and app ecosystems are very close to identical.

What's important to me at the moment is the size of the screen --

Note 3

• smartphone, for use any- and everywhere;
• tablet, hanging around the house, traveling, and certain work settings;
• laptop, traveling and certain work settings;
• laptop connected to huge monitor, office and home office.

Every device is connected to the network. all data lives on the network and is synchronized across devices (Google, Dropbox), and the core apps -- Gmail, Evernote, etc. -- function pretty much the same on every device. 

In this piece in Walt Mossberg's <re/code> (he left The Wall Street Journal to start this), Andreessen Horowitz's Zal Bilimoria casts this perspective like so: 

Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

February 6, 2014

Back in 2011, I was having an all-consuming love affair with tablets. At the time, I was the first-ever head of mobile at Netflix. I saw tablets in my sleep, running apps that would control homes, entertain billions and dutifully chug away at work. Tablets, I was convinced, were a third device category, a tweener that would fill the vacuum between a phone and a laptop. I knew that was asking a lot — at the time, however, I didn’t know just how much.

iPad

I wasn’t the only one swooning in the presence of the iPad and its imitators. Everyone was getting in on the love fest. The typically sober analysts over at Gartner were going ballistic with their shipment predictions for the iPad, and a flurry of soon-to-be-launched Android tablets. Amazon (Kindle Fire), Barnes & Noble (Nook Tablet), HP (TouchPad running webOS) and even BlackBerry (PlayBook) all rushed into the market to take on Apple, which commanded 70 percent of the tablet market one year after Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPad. On the software side, startups like Flipboard, tech giants like Adobe and even large enterprises like Genentech were quickly assembling teams to take advantage of this new platform.

Now — three years and 225 million tablets later — I’m starting to see how misplaced that passion was.

The tablet couldn’t possibly shoulder all the expectations people had for it. Not a replacement for your laptop or phone — but kinda. Something you kick back with in the living room, fire up at work and also carry with you everywhere — sort of. Yes, tablets have sold in large numbers, but rather than being a constant companion, like we envisioned, most tablets today sit idle on coffee tables and nightstands. Simply put, our love for them is dying.

Article continues at link. 

Now that my smartphone is a so-called phablet -- I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, with a 5.7" screen -- I hardly ever use my tablet. 

The Smartphone Market IS Boring!

What I've been saying! Nearly any contemporary smartphone will get the job done; the hardwares have converged in terms of features and capabilities, and the several mobile OSes and app ecosystems are very close to identical.

What's important to me at the moment is the size of the screen --

• smartphone, for use any- and everywhere;
• tablet, hanging around the house, traveling, and certain work settings;
• laptop, traveling and certain work settings;
• laptop connected to huge monitor, office and home office.

Every device is connected to the network. all data lives on the network and is synchronized across devices (Google, Dropbox), and the core apps -- Gmail, Evernote, etc. -- function pretty much the same on every device.

Charles Cooper on CNET: "Apple's iPhone 5S, 5C debut: We live in boring times"

Marketers will do their best to convince you otherwise, but smartphones now belong to a maturing industry with little sizzle.

September 11, 2013

Apple is a tough act to follow, especially when you're Apple. And especially when almost every detail of your big unveiling had already been picked apart and reported on by the press.

After announcing on Tuesday what arguably was one of the most significant product refreshes in years, Apple shares still sagged a little more than 2 percent -- the equivalent of a Wall Street shrug. Besides, the stock had been running up, playing to the saying, buy on the rumor, sell on the news. None of that means that the new products and technologies Apple showed off were necessarily wanting or somehow disappointing.

Article continues at link. 

Smartphone Innovation

Jessica Dolcourt, in "Smartphone innovation: Where we're going next (Smartphones Unlocked)" via CNET, writes a comprehensive piece about the future of smartphones. (It's not just about the hardware!) 

Smartphone innovation: Where we're going next (Smartphones Unlocked) 

Smartphone advancements are on the edge of transforming in some crazy ways, but it isn't like you think. 

by Jessica Dolcourt  April 13, 2013 9:00 AM PDT 

The HTC One has a gorgeous chassis and a ton of camera tricks, the Samsung's Galaxy S4 pauses and unpauses video when you avert your gaze, and in the Lumia 920, Nokia was one of the first to introduce wireless charging and an ultrasensitive screen you can control while wearing gloves.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Yet compared with the real meat of what you do with a phone -- things like communicating with people, browsing the Internet, snapping photos, and playing games -- today's top phones are mostly all on par. Software and hardware extras that extend beyond the basics, while impressive, convenient, likable, and even useful, still amount to fancy filler. 

All of today's technology will certainly improve: cameras will get sharper and clearer, processors faster, screens stronger, and batteries longer-lived. But in tomorrow's tech world, that "filler" may be the more compelling story. 

With his shaggy, sandy blond hair and a 5-o'clock shadow, Mark Rolston, the creative director for Frog Design, has studied technology for the better part of two decades. As he sees it, smartphones are just about out of evolutionary advances. Sure, form factors and materials might alter as manufacturers grasp for differentiating design, but in terms of innovative leaps, Rolston says, "we're at the end of gross innovation for smartphones." 

That isn't to say smartphones are dead or obsolete. Just the contrary. As Rolston and other future thinkers who study the mobile space conclude, smartphones will become increasingly impactful in interacting with our surrounding world, but more as one smaller piece of a much large, interconnected puzzle abuzz with data transfer and information. 

We'll certainly see more crazy camera software and NFC features everywhere, but there's much, much more to look forward to besides. 

The innovations include 

• Sensors that track the world in real time -- sensors including for atmospheric pressure, temperature, and humidity, in addition to the standard ones for movement, speed, and rotation (gyroscopes), and lighting. 
• Applications that tightly integrate with sensors. 
• Gestures and touch-less input. (See also http://www.william-garrity.com/blog/2013/3/6/human-computer-interface.html.) 
• Devices even more tightly integrated into networks, including social networks. 
• Smartphones as central to wearable technology. 

See the full story at the link for surprising examples/scenarios of the above, and for more information. 

Smartphone OS Updates

Geek level: medium.

Via Gizmodo, here is far-and-away the most comprehensive thing I've seen about the business of upgrading smartphone operating systems, why Android devices are seemingly slow to get upgraded, the actual story with Apple's iOS upgrades. . .

Why Android Updates Are So Slow 

Brent Rose 

If there is one complaint we hear from Android users more than any other, it's the speed at which software updates arrive. Or don't arrive. It's especially tough on tech enthusiasts who read about all the advantages of the new update, but can't get it on their own devices for six months, if at all. Even brand new devices typically fail to launch with the latest version of Android. The Verizon Galaxy Nexus—a marquee Android flagship if there ever was one—only got its new Jelly Bean (Android 4.2) update today.

This has been going on for years. So what the hell? Why hasn't the problem been fixed? And who's to blame here? We asked Android manufacturers, carriers, and Google what the hold-up was. And, what a tangled web we found. 

Full story at link -- covers wha goes into an upgrade, why there seems to be hold-ups, why Apple's experience is seemingly better, and what can be done/what are your options. 

Smartphones: Apple Versus the Rest

There's a lot of fuss about this-smartphone-platform versus that-smartphone-platform; about which is better -- iPhone or Android.

This piece by The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg in his All Things D[igital] blog describes an aspect of the environment -- that there is 

• iPhone: (essentially) one OS (Apple's iOS), apps from a variety of developers, (essentially) one product, made by a single manufacturer (Apple)
• Android: multiple versions and releases of the OS, apps from a number of developers (but not Apple), multiple hardware products, made by a variety of manufacturers 

Even if you take issue* with some of Mossberg's opinions and specific assertions, his piece provides a useful perspective. 

How Apple Gets All the Good Apps 

MARCH 12, 2013 

Apple tightly controls its software and hardware, and is fiercely competitive in battling its rivals, especially in the mobile market. And yet, while the company never creates apps for anyone else’s mobile system or device, each of its major mobile-platform foes — Google, Amazon and Microsoft — make many of their apps available for Apple devices. That makes those devices the sort of Switzerlands of the mobile world.

If you buy an iPhone or iPad, you get Apple-written mobile apps and services like Siri, iMessage, iWork, iPhoto and FaceTime, which aren’t available on other phones and tablets. But you can get first-class versions of competitors’ official apps.

So, iPhone and iPad users who prefer apps from other big mobile-platform makers don’t have to switch to an Android or Windows Phone or an Amazon tablet. They have access right on their Apple devices to major apps from these competing platforms. But people with non-Apple mobile devices can’t get Apple’s mobile apps and services. 

Story continues at link.

*I think a headline like "How Apple Gets All the Good Apps" is more accurately, "Apple Restricts Its Apps and Services." And there's a potentially faulty premise; namely, that people are interested in having these apps available outside Apple's ecosystem. 

*Mossberg understates the comparatively fewer choices inherent in iPhone. "Note that I am only talking about apps that are officially published by Apple’s rivals themselves, not those from OTHER DEVELOPERS that may mimic or provide workarounds for an app from one rival for another’s platform." [Emphasis mine.] 

*It's important to note that "[i]f you want to live in a Google or Microsoft world, with a single sign-on to those companies’ services and all of their apps, an Apple device won’t cut it. " See http://www.william-garrity.com/what-smartphone-should-i-get/ Which ecosystem is yours should be one of your first considerations.