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:
Now, that was a week!
Two trade shows, a big Apple product launch, T-Mobile US going for “Lucky 7.0” in its “Un-carrier” never-ending story and an investor conference hosting top CEOs. Not bad for early September.
While there is much (too much) to talk about, I think it would be only appropriate we focus today’s efforts on Apple, as that is all people really care about and, well, we do like to cater to the masses.
Historically, when Apple rolled out a new device it sent rivals into a lather trying to answer the move. Those responses resulted in some hilarious early efforts, with rivals seeming to need a few years before understanding just exactly what the hell Apple did and why the hell people were lining up outside Apple stores.
However, with Apple’s latest product launch, what sort of response can be expected?
Nearly all of Apple’s rivals already offer various-sized smartphones, and some even have ventured into the smart watch space. As for Apple’s Pay announcement, various entities across the mobile space offer such a platform, whether it’s device makers, wireless carrier, credit card companies or some combination of the three.
And that’s the trick. Apple did not launch anything revolutionary this time around.
In the iPhone space, Apple simply rolled out bigger-screened products that its customers have been clamoring for and that its rivals have been using to poach some of those Apple faithful that did not have the patience to wait for Apple to make them whole. You can’t blame Apple for that, and I have even predicted that this basic move will be the most significant iPhone advancement since the second-generation “3G” model.
(Though, I have also begged Apple to only increase its screen size by a fraction, thus drawing considerable ire from Apple fans who would still fork out their hard-earned funds for a 4.01-inch screened device.)
The smart watch could be the most interesting move to follow as that market is still in its infancy, or as I like to call it the “what the hell to I need a smart watch for!?!” phase. This is a phase the tablet market also endured for about 13 seconds, before people stopped asking dumb questions and just began handing over their money for that momma-bear product. I of course needed a few more seconds to finally realize the appeal of tablets, but I stand by my initial claim that tablets are stupid. STUPID!!!
While the arguments for tablets could at least hang their hats a bit on some potential usability gains, the smart watch space seems to take the worst attributes of mobile devices and tries to use them to replace a product that makes sense in its form factor because it is so simple.
Traveling this week again showed me that for mobile devices battery life is the only thing that matters. Watching people wander around airports/convention centers/food courts in search of a power outlet was hysterical. These were people that had their arms full of laptops, tablets and smartphones, dragging along power cables in a desperate search for an outlet … any outlet in which they could re-power their lives.
The thought of now adding a watch to this mix is mind-bottling.
The beauty of watches is that they are so simple. They sit innocently on your wrist; tell you the time; maybe allow for some basic calculator work; and virtually never, never, never require any maintenance. Now, attempting to make that piece of simplicity smarter by embedding an operating system and features no one needs with the need to charge it once per day, which no one will remember to do or will want to do, is a recipe for disaster.
(And since I have now made such a proclamation, it’s guaranteed that smart watches will become the next pet rock, both in its success and its ability to be used as a weapon.)
That same short-sightedness also clouds my view of the Apple Pay announcement. I know about all the claims of how people would rather lose their wallet or purse instead of their phone, but that is only because those people are wrong. Sure, I would also say that I would rather lose one of those things over the other. But, when you have you wallet embedded into your smartphone and then lose your smartphone, you lose both. Well done idiot.
Even better, drop that cellphone into a drink at a bar, where it seems this sort of activity happens all too regularly, or into a public toilet, which also happens all too regularly, and now you don’t have a phone or any way to pay for that round of drinks you offered up for the whole bar. There’s a reason NFC and this whole mobile payment model has yet to take off. It’s not that there is a lack of suitable offerings. It’s science.
But, of course, science does not make sense to marketers who will now flood the market with both smart watches and smartphones with embedded payment capabilities. And this will be the revolution that Apple will be credited with and that some (me) will be forced to curse.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for an extra:
—In attempting to navigate tradeshow-mageddon this week I did manage to enjoy one bit of frivolity. Foolishly I agreed to participate in an off-venue showing of a wireless carrier’s “smart store” in an outlying part of the Las Vegas metroplex. I have learned over the years that venturing outside of the cocoon of a convention center in the middle of the day is ripe for disaster, but for some reason let that learning slip from my mind when taking the appointment.
As such, I was rightfully rewarded by having the driver sent to curry me to and fro getting lost on the “to” part of the trip and spending a majority of my scheduled time making u-turns in various residential neighborhoods. Of the total of 90 minutes set aside for this field trip, I managed to spend 95 minutes riding around in Las Vegas traffic.
What’s that saying: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, I’m an idiot.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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