Ultimate Mobile Device (5) Universal User Experience

Is Windows more difficult to operate than a household appliance? I don't think so.

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[+] A requirement for universal user experience

Let's look closely at the development paths of the major mobile devices. The first type we think of is PDA. Since its first appearance as an "electronic business notepad", the device has taken a road toward the smart phone. In an effort to break away from the limitation of the business market, it is leaning toward another end: entertainment, which makes it more like PMP (Portable Media Player).

In addition to traditional PDA functions, the PMP-like model also enables movie playing and offers larger memories. You can get more information on this model of Palm, one of the leading PDA manufacturers at: http://www.palmone.com/us/products/mobilemanagers/lifedrive/

The history of the mobile phone is known to everyone: integrating a number of functions, from the camera, PDA, to MP3 player. To avoid extinction, MP3 player manufacturers are beginning to produce PMP to develop into a higher end market.

While the mobile phone is developing toward the featured game console functions, the game console manufacturers are eroding the PMP market by offering built-in media playing functions; as a counter-attack to the handset manufacturer, the digital camera is providing built-in sending/receiving Email functions. Follow the trend, the portable digital camcorder will be the next target of the integration into mobile phones.

Predictably, future terminals will fall into two major categories: the handset-oriented terminal with generic all-in-one functions, and the featured non-phone device that offers professional functions for hardcore players.

With such a diversified portfolio of terminals, a more important topic is surfacing: is a universal user experience needed for the increasingly numerous kinds of mobile device?

[+] "Windows experience" is the mainstream user experience.

In the future, one person could have a number of terminals at the same time. Even if all-in-one units would become pervasive, it is also possible that such products become fad items and consumers change one every half year.

The key to save the trouble of learning how to use so many kinds of terminal device each time is the user interface. If all devices could share a similar operating method, they would be much easier to use, and the device replacement frequency would increase substantially.

That is why a universal operating system is necessary for every mobile device. Traditional mobile phones do not have many complicated functions. Making phone calls, sending short messages and checking phonebooks are what most people expect from them. However, when many functions are integrated into one device, it is important to provide universal user experience.

Although it is hard to sense or describe, the importance of an easy-to-use interface and consistent user experience has significant weight in the heart of consumers. As a result, some operating systems or mobile devices brands would prevail over time.

When it comes to the integration between the Windows-based IT products and the consumer electronics, a common argument is the latter should be easier to use. However, Windows-based products are not so easy to use, therefore not fit for the "household appliance mindset".

Although there is still room of improvement for the Windows interface on mobile devices, Microsoft's idea of extending the competitive advantage of Windows to mobile devices is frightening from the viewpoint of "extend the user experience".

Most of us have the experience of using household appliances, and the majority of those between 15 and 45 years old also have the experience of operating a computer. "Windows experience" today could be seen as the mainstream user experience, which is comparable to that of watching TV. Obviously, that is a force no one could afford to ignore.

[+] Integrated user experience of digital home appliance and mobile device

In addition to its own diversified functions, an ultimate mobile device might be used as the remote controller for other household appliances. In fact, with mobile phones, remotely controlling toy cars or transmitting music files around the house through wireless means, such as Bluetooth and WLAN, are applications already in development.

That means the communication between mobile devices and household appliances is becoming more and more frequent. In the past, the method of operating a TV set or an audio system might vary substantially from brand to brand. The user interface of Brand A might differ from that of Brand B, even though they are the same type of product.

However, to realize the dream of digital home, allow dozens of digital appliances and their control center: the computer to communicate smoothly with the mobile phone, and reduce the complexity of operation, it is extremely important to provide consistent user experience.

In today's market, Microsoft is the only one capable of providing such user experience, from household appliances to mobile devices, and the software giant is working on its way toward that goal. The effort may seem fruitless in the short term. Yet compared with other rivals in this field, that might prove to be a real competitive edge.

In a market with hundreds and thousands of competitors, there might easily be calls for a leader. However, will the mobile terminal industry and digital home industry end up to be another IT industry, which has a very thin profit margin because manufacturers struggle under the heavy burden of license fee for the operating system? Let's wait and see. (
2005/07/24 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )

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- Today in History

New Landscape in China's Telecom Market (7) The Pricing of 3G Value-added Services - 2008/07/27

New Landscape in China's Telecom Market (6) Insight into 3G Price War in Taiwan - 2008/07/20

From Idea to Business (2) How to Estimate Your Income and Cost? - 2007/07/22

New Era of Online Advertising (2) from Exposure to Deal - 2006/07/23

Ultimate Mobile Device (5) Universal User Experience - 2005/07/24

Ultimate Mobile Device (3) Video, Storage, Copyright Management

The methods of multimedia storage should be considered in line with the copyright management.

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[+] Audio and video are the mainstream of the mobile device market.

With the steady decline of storage costs and the increase of the storage medium capacity each year, a trend has been shaped, leading to much smaller size and larger capacity. As a result, many handheld terminal devices begin to offer built-in memory expansion slots or micro drives.

In the meantime, the development of the wired (mainly ADSL and Cable) and wireless (mainly 3G and WLAN) broadband has enabled real-time transmission of bandwidth demanding files and contents to users' terminals.

Nevertheless, technology alone is not enough to change the specification of product. The most important driving force behind all this is manufacturers' expectation on consumers' demand for mobile audio and video services and the consequent changes in their strategies.

The most typical example is the built-in camera, which is now a must-have function of every handset, although it is only for taking static photos. Today, no consumer would ask: "can this handset take pictures?" any more. Instead, they would ask: "how many pixels does this handset have?" With the increase of the number of pixel, the storage capacity has to increase, too.

By June of this year, the amount of sold global MP3 handsets has surpassed that of sold MP3 players. In addition to proving the "MP3-and-nothing-else" trend among handset consumers, it also implies that the MP3 player is the next victim of the handset.

Now that the handset allows playing music, will they be able to play movies next? With the advent of the 3G era, each handset will have two basic functions: making video calls and playing streaming media. They will be expensive in the beginning, but as the market grows, everybody will be able to afford such handset sooner or later.

[+] Video phones and PMPs will play different contents.

For most people, the largest question concerning the 3G mobile video function is: who will be interested in watching a 2-hour movie on such a small screen? Also, there is the problem of power supply and the GB-grade size of current movies.

In my opinion, those who want large screens and satisfactory effects had better go to the cinema; those who could put up with small screens could watch TV or DVDs on PCs. Watching video programs in outdoor (mobile) situations is either entirely an action of time killing or for something that one cannot miss (e.g. live broadcasts). The programs will not be very long.

In that case, a proper format of content would be streaming media, which enables playing simultaneously with downloading through broadband. As the content will not be stored in the mobile device after playing, content providers could rest at ease with the copyright protection issue.

Hardly will anyone download a movie from a PC to his/her handset to watch it outdoor. If they do have such a requirement, a better option would be to buy a portable DVD player, which is larger and offers better movie quality, or a PMP (Portable Media Player), which is a fad in today's market.

Using hard drives as their storage media, PMPs have relatively bigger a size. However, they present better effects with their large screens. SONY PSP, for example, is a product designed mainly for gaming. It uses a special kind of disk called UMD (read only) as its storage medium and additional memory slots to allow MP4 movie storage.

As a mobile audio and video device, whatever terminal it is, the critical role of the content can be seen. One that has no content to present will have little value and would hardly be appealing to consumers.

[+] The hard nut of the copyright management

What content providers are afraid of the most is another MP3 tragedy. Apple's online music stores have very low profit margins for the music files they sell. They depend entirely on iPOD for their income. Most iPOD buyers use the product to play MP3 music they get from unknown sources.

Now that PSP has adopted the special UMD format, it must have a way to prevent illegal copying. Since SONY has its own film studio, it does introduce UMD-based movies, such as Spider-Man II. Nevertheless, there are not many such movies, and only SONY does not sufficient to support the UMD format.

For games, a special format would be OK as long as there are enough game developers that support such format. For movies, however, it's another thing. If a consumer buys a PSP to watch movies, he/she will have to face the question of "how many movies support the UMD format?"

That is a dilemma. Currently, PMPs are mainly hard drive-based. Consumers can download movies without considering their copyrights (in fact, some manufacturers have already developed PMPs that enable the copyright protection). PSPs enable full protection, but have to face the challenge of content shortage.

Predictably, there will be copyright protection mechanisms on such portable audio and video media players and content providers that support such mechanisms too. However, that will not stop illegal contents from flowing throughout the Internet for free download just like MP3 contents do. No content provider is bigger than the Internet.

Concerning copyright management, I have a new idea. Currently the products are certified and authorized through hardware and software. Is it possible to do the certification through the GSM or WLAN network of the telecom operators and charge fees for movies through telecom bills? Maybe integrating wireless modules could generate new applications. (
2005/07/03 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )

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- Today in History

New Landscape in China's Telecom Market (4) Dealing with Existing Subscribers is Key - 2008/07/06

Ultimate Mobile Device (3) Video, Storage, Copyright Management - 2005/07/03

Ultimate Mobile Device (1) Age of Hybrid Handset

Will the handset end up being the terminator to all other mobile devices?

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[+] Yesterday's science fiction proves to be what life is today.

Black Jack is one of the master pieces by Tezuka Osamu, the most famous Japanese comic artist in 1973. For many people, it is also a memory of their childhood. The book was so classical that it was made into TV series in October 2004.

I watched a few episodes at the home of a friend, which brought me back to my life as a little boy. However, some of the scenes were set in contemporary life and I did not know if that's because the TV series were made 30 years later or not. For example, in one episode, a teacher who was concerned about a student injured in a car accident called the hospital with a handset.

It was not until the 1990s when mobile communication technologies started their commercial use. The first users had to suffer from high prices and the clumsiness of the handset. 30 years ago, when most of those technologies were still in military or university laboratories, a teacher could hardly afford a handset even with the salary of his entire life.

Yet it is not an issue only about the price. A scene of "making phone calls anywhere, anytime" in a cartoon series 30 years ago could be nothing but a science fiction, for there was not such a concept in the real life, and it was not so common to allow a teacher to own a handset.

Today, everybody is accustomed to carrying a handset. Or, even if not, people also have been accustomed to see others carrying one. Handsets have turned into fashion items, with people replacing their mobile phones every year. For manufacturers, however, it is a time of thin profit margin, which seems to be the doom for all high-tech products that become well-infiltrating.

[+] The pressure of the cross-industry integration

The pressure for handset manufacturers is obvious. With the global communication market getting more saturated each year, the time of high-speed growth is gone. The only hope left is the sale growth in emerging markets (e.g., mainland China) and the development of new functions to enter new application fields.

One of the challenges in emerging markets is consumers' demand for lower prices. Entering new application fields, on the other hand, requires changing consumers' user experience and introducing the cross-industry integration. Particularly, new functions mean bigger challenges, as they require not only upgraded hardware, but also related communication and content services.

One of the first proposals for the cross-industry integration is the camera phone, which has been marketed along with the MMS service for years. With the increase of the pixel amount, the built-in camera has become one of the basic functions of the handset.

Smart Phone, which appears a little later, attempts to integrate the personal calendar, business card management and other functions into a single handset. In addition, it allows software installation for diversified function extension through an opened operating system.

The business market-oriented smart phone has its limits. Manufacturers know that the next hot topic is entertainment. Perhaps out of the inspiration of the hot sale of iPOD, a lot more handsets made this year offer the built-in MP3 player, which has become another most concerned function after the digital camera for handset buyers.

[+] All-in-one terminal as a portable pet

For entertainment, of course, there's movie in addition to music. With the advent of the 3G mobile communication time, the video phone is becoming a basic function. As a result, every 3G handset would have a built-in video camera and recording videos would seem to be a natural function of the handset.

And there will be video players too. Handsets are taking a road toward the portable multimedia player for playing pictures, music and movies. Maybe the current popular Portable Media Player (PMP) would be integrated into the handset one day.

Another heavy-weight component of entertainment is gaming. Manufacturers started to provide built-in mini-games as early as in the black-and-white handset years to allow time-killing. Today, color handsets enable direct Java game downloading from the websites of telecom operators. Will the handheld game console become the next integrated target?

We have plenty of other imaginations for handset functions, for example, air conditioner/refrigerator remote control, or satellite-based positioning/navigation. One day, when the artificial intelligence is mature enough, we might talk with our handsets when we feel lonely, because they would have become our electronic pets.

Maybe there are many other science fiction whims waiting to be realized decades later. For manufacturers caught in the turmoil currently, however, a common question is: will an all-in-one ultimate handset be the expectation of the future consumer, or, will the handset end up being the terminator to all other mobile devices? (
2005/06/19 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )

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- Today in History

Web 2.0 Think Again (4) "Private Property" and "Class Inequality" - 2007/06/10

Ultimate Mobile Device (1) Age of Hybrid Handset - 2005/06/19

Pricing is a Handful for Internet Business - 2005/06/11

Brief Study at Portable Multimedia Player (PMP)

PMP is currently at the early adopter stage, but it is not expected to go any farther.

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[+] PMP, an expensive tool for professionals

Stimulated by the hot sales of iPOD and other MP3 players around the world, manufacturers are now on the move to launch the next wave: Portable Media Player (PMP). Shortly after the introduction, the product has been overwhelmed by compliments. Some brands have even got out of stock.

As its name indicates, PMP is different from MP3 players in that it can store and display photos and movies. Of course, as movies could easily be dozens of GBs in size, most PMPs choose to use hard disks as their storage media and, therefore, look quite clumsy.

Why don't they use optical storage media? If PMPs are mainly used to play movies, it will be ok to use small-sized DVD as the storage media. Yet the problem is if they could be connected directly with computers, it would seem strange to use CD or DVD. Doesn't it save a lot of troubles to download movies directly into PMPs?

The new product, which I once called jokingly "the fast food box", is nothing cheap. It ranges from USD 300 all the way up to USD 600. To a large extent, the price depends on the following factors: the size of the built-in hard disk, availability of external memory card slots, LCD display size and resolution, and brand.

Surprisingly, most PMPs have brilliant LCD displays fine enough for both photos and movies. Even more surprising is the duration of their batteries, which could be up to five hours, long enough to watch two movies.

Who will carry such a thing around just to be able to watch movies? Of course those people are early adopters. My visits to many electronic stores have confirmed that the majority of these people are travelers and photographers (who use the product as a memory to store their digital photos when they are outside).

[+] The challenge for watching movies on the move

As a matter of fact, portable DVD players have been on the shelves of 3C stores (or duty-free shops at airports) long before the introduction of PMPs, which is a solid proof of the demand for watching movies on the move. Personally, I had an experience of bringing a notebook on travel to be able to watch movies onboard a plane, but ended up with getting that notebook out of power.

Yet it is not easy to convert movies into the right format for PMPs. In the first place, you need to know what compression format your PMP supports, the subtitle format or the sound effect format, otherwise you would have to watch silent movies, or movies without subtitles.

Also, most movies are converted from DVDs. For many computer players, maybe it's no big deal to download a free software online, install it, use it to grab a movie with the copy-proof protection into his/her computer and compress it into the format acceptable for the PMP. For general consumers, however, this is too much.

In addition, we all know that, just like MP3s which are used to play illegal music in most cases, PMPs also can be used to watch illegal movies. It is not difficult at all for skillful computer players to download movies that have been converted into the right format from a P2P network.

As a matter of fact, most ordinary consumers do not know where to get movies. With a bought or rented DVD, it could really be a hard nut for them to convert the content into the PMP. In addition, isn't it illegal to crack the copy-proof protection with a special program?

[+] The opportunity of substitutes?

In fact, many portable devices are being integrated into handsets. At least it is very clear that the integration of handsets with digital cameras goes along that path. As handsets offer increasingly more pixels and additional slots for memory cards, this trend is inevitable.

Currently, digital cameras still have a superior position in terms of pixels over handsets. Yet one day when the pixel is no longer a problem (for example, when a 5 million pixel handset sells at only USD 200), the integration of digital cameras and handsets will be achieved, and standalone digital cameras will be forced onto a special purpose-oriented path, for some hardcore players.

For handsets, the next even more powerful wave of integration will be that with MP3s. In addition to the function of high-pixel cameras, handsets are expected to be able to play MP3 music. Pretty soon, handsets will integrate with MP3 players.

With the arrival of the 3G time, watching movies will be a basic function for all handsets. The only headache for handset manufacturers at this point of time is how to jam a 40GB hard drive into a small handset. It seems that PMPs still have a role to play as long as no major breakthrough is achieved in the storage technology.

Nevertheless, PMPs do have a distinct advantage: the larger LCD display. To watch movies, you would want a bigger display, even if it is a portable device. This is a problem for handsets, the answer to which will lie on the technology breakthrough in the user interface for handset manufacturers.

Despite their hot sale at the present time, PMPs will get into a sale bottleneck pretty soon. Just look at the identities of the user and the usage of the product, you will see it is true. The trend is to take a road towards smaller size and cheaper price. What can be predicted is, compared with handsets, PMP will become a special-purposed device for some hardcore players. (
2005/05/29 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )

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- Today in History

Web 2.0 Think Again (2) Upper-class Society and Lower-class Society - 2007/05/27

Web 2.0 Think Again (1) It's All about Relationships - 2007/05/20

Brief Study at Portable Multimedia Player (PMP) - 2005/05/29