Companies Baffled By iPhone's Success

from the who'd-a-thunk-that-making-something-people-like-works dept

Rob Hyndman points us to a news report on what must have been one of the more bizarre panel discussions at this week's Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. It was a panel on the user experience of mobile phones, where a bunch of folks from other companies tried to puzzle out why people liked the iPhone so much, noting that people generally associated the iPhone more with Apple than AT&T (gee... wonder why?) What's amazing is seeing some of the execs trying to come up with solutions through more careful methodologies:

"One direction, advocated by Lucia Predolin... is to manipulate users by identifying their "need states" -- including such compulsions as 'killing time,' and 'making the most of it' -- and fulfilling them subliminally."

And that, of course, is exactly why no other company designed the iPhone before Apple. They're trying to overthink things and figure out how to manipulate users, rather than sitting back and saying "how can we build something cool that people like that doesn't suck the way existing phones do?"

Filed Under: iphone, telcos, usability
Companies: apple

Catching Real Fish With Your Mobile Phone

from the don't-play-with-your-food dept

Well, here's an amusing one. Some folks in Japan have put together a game for mobile phones that lets you go fishing for virtual fish. That, alone, isn't particularly interesting of course. What makes it worth writing about is that when you catch a virtual fish, you then can get a real fish delivered to your door from a local fish wholesaler. There's a bit of luck involved, as once you've "caught" the fish, you then have to have numbers match up on a virtual slot machine, but it could get people thinking about more creative ways to make ordering any kind of product more fun. We've already seen various crazes for "virtual pets" come and go -- but why not attach them to real life outcomes? Need fish? Catch a fish. Need bread? Manage a virtual farm to successfully grow wheat. Want a dog? Successfully take care of a virtual one first. Obviously, some of these ideas are a bit silly, but you could see some more interesting ideas developed out of them, potentially offering people discounts on the actual products if they partake in some of these games that either have subscription fees or advertising.

Filed Under: fish, games, japan, mobile phones

GPS Devices Damaging Thousands Of Bridges?

from the ignore-your-navigation-system dept

In the past, we've seen stories of GPS navigation devices not knowing enough about local roads that the directions were often inappropriate for the type of vehicle -- especially trucks. It had resulted in signs being placed on roads, begging drivers to ignore their own navigation devices. Engadget now points us to a report from the UK suggesting that bad directions from navigation devices was responsible for damage to about 2,000 bridges. That seems like quite a lot. The claim is that the devices direct trucks who are much too heavy to go over bridges not designed for that kind of load. Work is now being done to get the navigation companies to at least understand the types of roads and bridges, and how that corresponds to different types of vehicles.

Filed Under: bridges, gps, navigation, uk

Is Annoying Young People With A High-Pitched Buzz A Violation Of Their Rights?

from the the-right-not-to-be-buzzed dept

Back in 2005, we wrote about the Mosquito device that some shopkeepers were using to ward off loitering teens. The device supposedly emitted a high-pitched buzz that was inaudible to older folks whose hearing range had decreased. Generally, the noise could be heard by teens and some folks into their early twenties. Amusingly, some teens figured out a way to turn this noise to their own advantage, recording it and turning it into a ringtone that adults couldn't hear. Yet, The Raw Feed now lets us know that UK politicians are looking to ban the Mosquito device for violating the rights of teenagers, noting that it indiscriminately targeted all children and young people, even if they hadn't been doing anything wrong. That's certainly true, and it does seem rather silly to use this device in the first place, but does that mean it's actually violating anyone's rights? Is it illegal to play a noise that annoys people? Does it matter that it only annoys a certain age group? What if a store simply played music that annoyed a certain age group? Would that also be illegal?

Filed Under: loitering, mosquito, teens

Once Again, RIM Blames Upgrade For Outage; Time To Do Weekend Upgrades

from the just-a-suggestion dept

Last year when RIM's Blackberry service had a major outage, the company blamed a software upgrade, which made many folks question why RIM would be doing a major software upgrade in the middle of the week. Since most Blackberry users are corporate users, it would seem to make sense to do upgrades over the weekend -- or at least late at night. So, with this latest outage, it's a bit surprising to see RIM fall back on the old "software upgrade" excuse again. The company doesn't say that's definitely what happened, but suggests that's what caused it, failing to explain why the company would run an upgrade in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday.

Filed Under: blackberry, outage, software upgrade
Companies: rim

RIM Toys With Blackberry Addicts Again; Cuts Off Users For 3.5 Hours

from the want-to-stay-connected? dept

Last April, RIM woke many Blackberry users up to the idea that they might be Crackberry addicts by having the system go offline for a few hours overnight. It's amazing how people recognize just how dependent they are on a service once it goes away. The eventual excuse given by RIM (a botched software upgrade) was unconvincing. However, there hadn't been any more outages, so questions about the service died down. However, with widespread Blackberry outages Monday afternoon, lasting about three and a half hours, impacting all mobile operators, some of those questions are going to be raised again. The Blackberry system involves all traffic going through RIM machines, and a cascading problem across those machines can certainly cause quite a bit of trouble. At some point, people are going to start asking if there isn't a more robust, distributed way of offering a Blackberry (or Blackberry-like) service that would be more immune to these types of issues.

Filed Under: addiction, blackberry, centralized services, mobile email, outage
Companies: rim

Starbucks Adds AT&T WiFi; Now You've Got A Choice

from the would-you-like-the-tall-or-the-vente-wifi? dept

For many years, Starbucks has provided a huge footprint for fee-based WiFi from T-Mobile (originally Mobilestar). While many, many others had determined that it made more sense to offer free WiFi in coffee shops and other places to attract users, Starbucks stuck by the relatively expensive T-Mobile WiFi offering. The deal was apparently somewhat (though not fantastically) profitable for both companies, which is why they never seemed to budge from it, even as the idea of fee-based WiFi lost a lot of its luster. However, it looks like things are finally shaking up a bit. Starbucks has now announced that it's also adding AT&T's hotspot offering to its stores, which is a pretty big deal, since AT&T offers access to its WiFi hotspots for free to most DSL customers. Prior to this, most of AT&T's hotspots were found in McDonalds -- so adding Starbucks is a big win.

It's interesting to note, however, that Starbucks hasn't dumped T-Mobile, it's just added AT&T. It's not clear if this means that Starbucks will be installing separate WiFi equipment for both services, but given the recent deal between Apple and Starbucks to let iPhone users access iTunes via WiFi for free, you had to figure that the company was going to be changing some of its WiFi backend equipment. Also given AT&T's iPhone connection, it shouldn't be a huge surprise that AT&T was a part of the new Starbucks offering. The other interesting bit is that for non-subscribers, the AT&T WiFi will be noticeably cheaper in one-off use than T-Mobile's -- meaning even if T-Mobile hasn't been "dumped" it may have just lost many one-time users. If anything, this may continue to push Starbucks to move closer and closer to finally giving up the paid solution and offering WiFi for free -- just as many Starbucks managers have been begging the company to do for years.

Filed Under: coffee, wifi
Companies: at&t, starbucks, t-mobile

Microsoft Buys Another Desperate Company: Danger Goes To Redmond

from the danger,-danger,-bill-gates dept

It would appear that Microsoft's M&A team isn't solely focused on Yahoo these days. Back in December, we noted that Danger, makers of the Sidekick mobile phone device, was planning to IPO, despite not having a track record worth an IPO. As we noted at the time, it seemed like the company was going to IPO because that was its only option. The truth is probably that the company was desperately looking for a buyout, and now Microsoft has come through. It will be worth watching to see what Microsoft does with Danger, as Danger does not use Microsoft's operating system, and its model is not based on licensing software, but in taking a toll from service fees. It would take quite a bit of effort to pull out Danger's OS, which was very carefully designed for the device itself, and replace it with Windows Mobile (and it also might lead Sidekick fans to flee to other devices). All in all, it's an odd sort of acquisition for Microsoft. One would hope that the company actually has more specific plans on what to do with Danger, because the obvious fit isn't apparent. From Danger's perspective, though, an acquisition by anyone at this point has to be viewed as a better option than trying to IPO, which almost definitely would have been a disaster.

Filed Under: desperation, mergers
Companies: danger, microsoft

British Telecom Drops Fusion Fixed-Mobile Convergence System; Is FMC DOA?

from the next-time-don't-be-so-optimistic dept

British Telecom has pulled the plug on its Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) offering, Fusion. In 2005, the concept of Fixed Mobile Convergence was red hot. FMC involved using a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth radio in a cell phone to transfer calls back and forth between the cellular network, and a broadband-based network in the home of office. Ostensibly, this would be appealing to subscribers because it would allow them to access cheaper VoIP tariffs, rather than cellular minutes, on the broadband network -- thus saving money. However, we were initially skeptical of the appeal of this complicated product because last we heard, many subscribers don't even use the mobile minutes they have bought each month. The complicated FMC phones cost more, use more battery, and offer very little by way of choice.

Meanwhile, carriers that did offer the service (Orange in France) had early success, but were then easily matched (warning: pdf!) by mobile carriers without FMC (Bouygues Telecom) that simply lowered their tariffs on calls made from the home cell tower. But in 2005, I got over-enthusiastic about British Telecom’s Fusion offering, because if FMC made sense for any carrier, it was this one. BT is the incumbent provider of broadband services in the UK, already offers the consumer premise equipment to subscribers, owns an outdoor Wi-Fi network, but does not own a mobile network. They pay wholesale rates to Vodafone and sell mobile as an MVNO. Thus, any traffic they can get off of Vodafone and onto the DSL would save real costs. Unfortunately, the subscribers didn’t see how lowering the costs for BT was particularly important to them. No surprise, really, since Mike noted that BT failed to pass over the lower costs to the subscribers. But in conclusion, if FMC failed at BT, where it fit best, it will be difficult to make a business case for it elsewhere.

Filed Under: fixed mobile convergence
Companies: british telecom

Luxury Mobile Operator Not So Luxurious Any More

from the the-rich-and-famous-aren't-that-dumb dept

In late 2005, we were amused by the story of a Japanese company trying to launch a special mobile phone service, called Voce, for the rich and famous in the US. The selling point had little to do with a fancy phone. You would get just a common RAZR. But, for a $1500 entry fee and $500/month (!?!) you would basically get unlimited calls, get a new phone each year and get a full-time concierge service. It's not difficult to recognize why this is a terrible idea. The people who could afford this sort of thing are probably smart enough to recognize they can simply buy themselves a new phone each year and sign up for an unlimited (or close to it) service from one of the big carriers. As for the concierge service, there are plenty of those around -- with most being a lot more established and trustworthy. Soon after launch, the company discovered that no one had signed up. So it dropped prices to a $1000 entry fee and $400/month. That didn't work either. So a year later, it dropped prices again to $500 entry and $200/month. Stunningly, it turns out that the rich and famous are still smart enough to recognize that's not a very good deal either. Well, other than about 2,000 people who actually did sign up. That's really not enough customers to run a business like this, so the company has shut down completely. Amusingly, the way the COO found out the company was shutting down was that his phone stopped working. As Engadget points out, you would think that the Chief Operating Officer would know that the company's operations were being shut down. Apparently not.

Filed Under: luxury, mobile operator, mvno, rich and famous
Companies: voce