Worst of the Week: Hey man. Let me tell you my (back) story

Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
While running the gauntlet that was this week’s CTIA event in San Francisco (I am trying to refrain from using the new “Enterprise & Applications” tagline to the event until we see that it will stick for more than a few weeks) one trend that stuck out to me more than others was the domination of anything Android.
This was indeed highlighted by the 90-foot tall “Android” blow-up doll silently watching all that was going on from its perch in the second floor lobby at the Moscone Center, where the event was taking place. I just kept waiting for “Andy” to break free from its light tethering and wreak havoc over anyone who uttered the word iPhone. Luckily Andy, which was what many began calling this new deity, remained calm during the event.
And why wouldn’t he? The Android name was everywhere. Just about every handset announcement from the show was powered by the Google Inc.-developed operating system and sported nearly the same slab appearance with a big touch screen.
This uniformity got me thinking about ways handset makers could attempt to differentiate their devices in a market that is becoming frighteningly stale in the style department. My solution: Back stories.
“What the what?!?,” you may be asking. “Back stories?!? Did you have a bit too much of the adult beverages and a bit too little sleep while at the event?” Well, yes and yes. But, that’s beside the point.
Hear me out. Why does any movie based on a comic-book character, no matter how obscure, make a trillion dollars in the theaters? Back stories. Sure, people love the tight clothing and homo-erotic overtones present in all comic-based stories, but what they really get into is how that superhero became a superhero.
Whether bitten by a toxic spider or accidently getting locked into an intrinsic field subtractor just moments before it turns on or finding a cheap green wetsuit online, people are fascinated by what turns an average Joe or Jane into a Super Joe or Jane.
And this is what handset makers need to tap into. Instead of just launching a new slab-shaped device with a large screen and running the Android OS, they need to come up with a back story as to how that device came into being.
LG Electronics Co. Ltd. looks to have a great start at this with its recently unveiled Optimus 5 device at the show. First, it has an awesome name: Optimus. Sure, it does not mean anything, but it sounds like it does and it sounds bad ass. Next, it has that number “5” at the end of it, and this is the important part. People will be looking at that “5” and wondering, “Is there a ‘4,’ or a ‘3?’ What about number ‘1?’ What happened there?” See, this is building interest and allows what is basically a low-end Android device to stand out in the crowd.
LG needs to jump on this mystique by next unveiling some intricate story about how the first Optimus device was being developed in some lab in Korea when a young scientist who had just returned from a secret trip to Antarctica brought back a meteorite sample he found that was infested with alien microorganisms, which he mistakenly inhaled. These microorganisms were now rapidly mutating and multiplying in his warm, nutrient-rich human blood plasma.
The unknowing scientist, having traveled back to his lab to work on further development of this new device from LG, accidently pricked himself with a sharp tool while working on the device’s motherboard and a drop of this now “alien” blood spilled onto the device,turning it into an alien-cell phone hybrid. People love hybrids.
The poor scientist, not realizing what has happened, is soon overcome with the growing alien microorganisms and is rushed to a quarantined military medical boat somewhere in international waters, where he soon dies.
The device is forgotten about and left in the lab where it soon begins to morph into something more than a cell phone. Luckily some other LG scientists see what’s happening with the device and try through various iterations, “2,” “3,” and “4,” to refine this now advanced “super-phone.”
Some people die. There is a love interest. There is a bad guy who suspiciously looks like Steve Jobs. Someone has some daddy issues. There’s a ninja fight. And boom! Optimus 5 is born.
And instead of being just another slab Android device, LG has a phone with a back story that will literally force people to line up outside every store set to begin selling the device for weeks before the launch date. Those people won’t know exactly why they are standing out there. They just know they have to.
And that’s how you make an Android device stand out in today’s Android-crazed market.
There are plenty of other devices out there with the same potential and it’s just a matter of who will take this winning formula first and run with it. There is money to be made here people.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–Motorola this week announced that its WiNG 5 802.11n product portfolio somehow broke a Guinness World Record for the “most powerful wireless access point as demonstrated by the highest number of 802.11n wireless connections streaming unicast video content to 84 laptop computers” from a single access point.
Really? Is this what the Guinness people have been reduced to? Giving out their prestigious “World Record” accreditations to access points? Aren’t there people somewhere trying to cram 302 cigarettes into their mouths at the same time? Or someone with 17-foot-long fingernails that needs some recognition? Access points? For shame Guinness. Let’s leave this access point nonsense to those Ripley’s folks where it belongs.
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