The Mobile Web Tablet

Disappointing not to see an Android-phone from the Sony Ericsson MWC press conference. But one thing is interesting. For the first time (as far as I know), Sony Ericsson used the internal project name for a phone in public and as part of the launch (at least according to Engadget). The phone is called Idou.

Why is this significant? Well, most companies do like this: before a product is launched it has an internal project name. The final name of the product is decided by the product manager and marketing department right before launch. Up until then, the phone is a secret, so the internal project name can not be leaked. It’s super-secret and very sensitive information.

But now Sony Ericsson is using this name in public, as part of the launch. When I worked for the company a few years ago, this would have been a big no-no. There were (and still are) numerous rumor sites showing pictures of upcoming devices and Sony Ericsson did all they could to stop this. But, this means all the buzz, all the conversation, will be about a product name that’s not “endorsed” by the company. That also means all the Google searches will go to web sites beyond Sony Ericssons control. Sony Ericsson employees will also be forced to use a different term for the same product that their greatest fans are discussing.

That is pretty bad conversation architecture.

I don’t know if this is a shift in the way Sony Ericsson launch their products or just a one time coincidence, but it’s at least interesting that they are lifting the veil just a little bit and opening up to be part of the conversation. It reamins to see if they keep the name when the phone hits the stores, but I doubt it.

Popularity: 23% [?]

• It has the latest Java Platform 8. Perfect for a mobile developer. You can run Google Mail, Opera Mini, Zyb Mobile Client and it comes included with Google Maps.
• Multitasking makes switching between the applications fast. This is what my application switching screen looks like:
  
  The main menu I only use for launching the apps.
• It’s cheap. I paid 1400SEK including VAT, about €140.
• It’s small and light.
• The camera doesn’t have autofocus and no flash but it is fast which means you will take more pictures. Personally I prefer speed over the still mediocre picture quality of the 8 megapixel monsters like C905 but YMMV.
• Picture and videoblogging with Blogger built in.
• HSDPA!
• Battery time is excellent.
• Did I mention it’s cheap?

Not so good:

• Why isn’t the web browser listed in the running application list?
• Build quality could be better, but I guess you get what you pay for.

In summary: if you want an excellent phone at a low price the G502 is it. Install your favorite java applications and enjoy a smartphone like experience at a pricepoint far below that of its Symbian or Windows Mobile cousines.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Wow. Sony Ericsson sold 25.7 million devices Q3, Motorola sold 25.4 million. LG sold 23 million.

That would make Sony Ericsson number three after Samsung and Nokia. A goal I know they have been trying to reach for a long time. Congratulations!

Popularity: 12% [?]

Capuchin monkey.

Sony Ericsson has announced Yet Another Mobile Platform:

Project Capuchin will provide developers with an intuitive tool to create applications with a cleaner user interface (UI) without sacrificing the strong, feature rich and widely deployed Java ME
infrastructure, including secure, well-developed content distribution. Project Capuchin’s bridging software will empower two distinct developer communities to leverage their respective expertises to create the next generation of highly engaging and immersive mobile content.

The GUI layer in MIDP2 is one of its biggest drawbacks, limited and full of bugs and incompatibilities. Merging Flash Lite as a GUI layer with the Java APIs as the underlying engine could be a brilliant move towards a new platform.

The question of course is: do we need yet another mobile platform?

Anyway, nice to see Sony Ericsson be at the forefront of the upcoming merger between the web and telecom from a technology perspective.

I guess the upcoming JavaOne sessions will be more telling than the press release. Go see Viktor Mårtensson talk about CHAPI (JSR211) if you’re there! Should be interesting.

Updated: Adobe is announcing a move towards a more open Flash, even removing the licensing fee for mobile devices.

This means that the Sony Ericsson feature phones will have a powerful and open development platform based on JavaME and Flash. Now, if they only could bring in the web browser and XHTML/Javascript in the mix…

Popularity: 11% [?]

Sales for first quarter 2008:

• Motorola: 27.4 million devices.
• LG: 24.4 million devices.
• Sony Ericsson: 22.3 million devices

In a few months time the top five chart can be completely rewritten. I wonder if Motorola will even be in it!

What about Apple? Well, their target is 10 million iPhones sold by the end of the year. That’s about the same number that any of the three manufacturers above sell in one month. Impressive for a “new guy” but hardly a dent in the overall mobile phone industry.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Who would have thought it was possible to make Windows Mobile look sexy? Well, it does and I’m happy to say it’s Sony Ericsson that pulls it off with the launch of the XPERIA X1.

Some quick thoughts:

- I wonder what the deal looks like between SEMC and Microsoft. Microsoft and Ericsson has worked together before, but that collaboration failed. Some say it was because of the way Microsoft wanted to control everything. Of course, Microsoft probably sees it differently. Either way: they couldn’t work together.

- We’re now starting to see the impact of the iPhone on the way the user interface of a modern phone is designed. Much more playful and friendly.

- The main competitor to the X1 is not the iPhone but the Nokia E90, a Symbian based smartphone with a slider Qwerty-keyboard and large screen. I think the X1 looks much better, but it remains to see how the software works in practice.

- What happens to that other platform? Does anyone care?

Updated: wow:

3‚Äù touch display 800×480 pixels

Popularity: 4% [?]

Just finished updating my Nokia N800 from OS2007 to OS2008. What an improvement! The GUI is starting to take shape and find an identity if its own. The bundled applications are very good, for example the map application. Seems like the browser is a bit more stable as well.

So, how am I using the N800? Well, actually I use it mostly at home. The Sony Ericsson P1, together with Opera Mini, Google Mail and the built in web browser is a much better mobile solution. Why? It’s smaller, and more importantly: it can be used one handed.

Using the scroll wheel and changing the right side button to launch the task manager makes the P1 a very quick to navigate mobile device. I wish the N800 had a one-hand-mode…

Popularity: 4% [?]

Wow, what a success. At least the first weekend, the iPhone went for a knockout and succeeded. Up to 700’000 phones is nothing short of amazing especially considering the price. The iPhone has already become and iconic product that has changed the market. Every other smartphone will be compared to the iPhone.

Iconic mobile phones are otherwise few and far between. For a consumer market the size of the mobile phone market, the following is quite interesting:

[...] there are now only two mobile phones in American history that consumers ask for by product name: The Motorola Razr and the Apple iPhone.

I would have added the Blackberry, but OK. This is nothing short of a failure for a market that size. Truth is, most mobile phones are clones of each other. Even the last couple of years explosion of features (cameras, mp3 players, web browsers, games etc.) hasn’t produced a single phone that really sticks out with personality (I’m probably a bit biased when I say the Sony Ericsson T610 is a candidate).

Innovation has been in features, not in usability, design or marketing. Apple has changed that. None of the features in the iPhone are completely new, but the packaging is.

Time for the established players to start afresh and stop the cloning.

If I was the CEO of one of the major mobile vendors, I would have set aside a team of the most experienced engineers and the best designers and basically give them free hands to do magic. Preferably, they would be in a separate building from the other company. Their mission: to go to the soul of the company, the roots, and make the phone everyone in the company wants to make if they weren’t prevented by legacy requirements and old code. Start from a blank slate and work upwards.

Of course, such an endeavor would hit the bottom line pretty hard, which is why most CEOs don’t do it. A classic innovators dilemma which an outsider can take advantage of in exactly the way Apple has done.

Nokia is trying to do something along those lines with their open source and web tablet team headed by Ari Jaaksi. While the Nokia web tablets have been far from as successful as the iPhone (don’t know the sales figures for the web tablets, but I’m guessing they’re far below 500’000) I think in the long term it will pay off. (For Nokia, this is quite a courageous move. Their customers are the operators and I’m pretty sure no operator asked for a linux based wifi web tablet!)

This is also how Motorola came up with the RAZR, by the way:

They kept the project top-secret, even from their colleagues. They used materials and techniques Motorola had never tried before. After contentious internal battles, they threw out accepted models of what a mobile telephone should look and feel like. In short, the team that created the RAZR broke the mold, and in the process rejuvenated the company.

Seems like companies are only capable of pulling this through during hard times. Motorola was in a pretty bad shape when RAZR was born.

Exciting things are happening in the world of mobile and the established players better watch out – especially the ones with wind in the sails. The iPhone is not the last wanting to go for knockout and it’s so darn difficult to be innovative when times are good.

Unless you’re Apple, it seems.

Popularity: 6% [?]