Hard War

Being the nerd I am I’ve kept a keen eye on all the happenings at IDF 2011. The usual things have held my interest – Intels Ivybridge ‘tock’ architecture and X79 ‘Sandybrige E’ in particular. However, the biggest surprise of the show was the announcement in Intel CEO Paul Ottelinis key note that starting next year Android will be optimized for x86. For those of you unfamiliar, X86 is the instruction set that computers in the traditional sense of the word have used since around 1978 (though now in a highly modified form).

Intel has long since made clear its intentions to break into the mobile space. At this point, it’s worth running over why. Near domination of the PC CPU market, combined with slower than usual sales of laptops and PCs mean that new revenue streams must be sought. In turn, the reason for this reduction is a decreased need for ‘moar powa’  and a cannibalisation of the market by at first netbooks, and now tablets.

However, x86 was never designed with power efficiency in mind, and this is why ARM has become so very dominant in the mobile computing space. Intels newest ‘Sandybridge’ architecture is very power efficient in terms of ‘performance per watt’ but still remain wholly unsuitable for tablets or mobile phones requiring heavy, all day use.  So for x86 people to be banding about not just the word ‘compatible’ but ‘optimized’ in regards to Android is surprising.


I had always assumed that Intels inevitable transition to mobile would be with Microsoft or Meego Linux as its bedfellow rather than Google. The Atom lines newest iteration ‘medfield’ does have the advantage of 32nm lithography over its Arm rivals 40nm chips, and it is perhaps this that negates the disadvantages of using a less efficient instruction set. In the long run, Intel  does appear to be set on sticking to x86 in the mobile space. To do this it will either have to spend on fabs to keep its lithographic process ahead of its rivals or it’ll have to develop complex additions to the instruction set to compete with ARM. While competition in any market is good, should Intel and x86 succeed in the mobile space, their unflinching domination of desktop CPUs leaves me (perhaps prematurely) concerned for ARMs ability to compete against the chip juggernaught.

To spend or not to spend.

So I was amongst the lucky few who managed to get my hands on a HP Touchpad last week. Its a marvellous bit of kit..... For £89.99. However this isn't going to be a post about how good or bad the Touchpad itself is but more a going over, what for me, is old ground when it comes to apps. The Touchpad has become the poster boy for some of the current problems faced by discerning consumers when it comes to paying for apps.

The question I return to is this: As Android and iOS have now established themselves as the markets dominant players are our paid for apps now more likely to be with us with us until our death bed? Doggcatcher, my most treasured Podcast app has gone through many iterations since I first purchased it nearly two years ago, and has matured from what was once a clunky, ugly piece of software into a highly intuitive, but still fairly ugly piece of software. Questions of whether you'd want to turn up to the Android ball with Doggcatcher on your arm aside, it seems reasonable to expect that she'll get better with age.

HP Touchpad apps however, will not. In fact, they are already on death row. The beauty of smartphones or smart anything really, is that its functionality can be augmented and customised beyond its shipped state. With WebOS not being able to do basic tasks like play (obviously legal) DivX files, I'd like to download an app that can enable this functionality. Except that I don't want to pay for something that I'm only going to use for a few months until some bright spark creates a Honeycomb Rom. Phones and tablets are replaced roughly every 18 months, and what happens if an OS you've spent £50 on apps for dies? Apps are not media in the sense that they are like games that can be completed and discarded, they can be much more part of your everyday life.

Paradoxically with the demise of the Touchpad we've seen two things. Both a weakening of the perception that apps you pay for are yours, forever, and yet, a strengthening of the chance that in fact they will be. Android and iOS are here to stay, and though its now down to individual developers to continue support for their applications I think its also fair to say that a certain element of risk has been removed when it comes to paid for apps. Go spend your money!

Two goodbyes in one week Part 2

If I was Andrew Kelly right now, I'd be banging my head against the table, and cursing Leo Apothker. Two not exactly well known names to start an article with, I'll admit.

Andrew Kelly aka 'The Mattressman' is the CEO of the company by the same name. In a surprising move Kelly has branched out into the potentially lucrative budget tablet market, with the Andypad.

Leo Apothker is CEO of HP, and the man that recently announced the termination of WebOS and the associated hardware, sparking what can only be described as a feeding frenzy on the heavily discounted Touchpad and Palm Pre.

Despite having much of their future centred around the Touchpad just a few months ago, HP has conceeded after poor sales that it simple cannot compete against the iOS, and to a lesser degree in the tablet market, Android. The reason behind the failure of WebOS is ultimately this: a lesser product at an equal price. Considering the component cost, and Apples usual affinity for price premiums, the iPad is surprisingly well priced at £400 for the basic model (don't get me started on the extra £80 for 32Gb of flash memory). They are able to do this, because of their vertical business model; controlling both the hardware and the software allows them to buy in bulk and far in advance of their roadmap, and reap the associated cost savings.

HP should have known that if they were to realistically compete then there must be something amazing to differentiate their tablet from the Ipad 2. As I've said before, in the exact same way as the computer games industry, success in the smartphone/tablet industry is largely attributable to third party support. Apple have this in bags. Hp didn't. HP had a great product in the Touchpad. They could answer questions like 'why would I buy one?' but ultimately couldn't answer 'why would I buy one over an iPad?'.

In my eyes, the only realistic answer would have been: 'Its cheaper'. But it wasn't.

...Until the fire sale! We have seen HP Touchpads flying off the shelves, people around me that have never wanted a tablet before, suddenly had to have one. £89.99? Sign me up! There weren't enough to go around, websites crashed, people queued, and sales employees of electronics retailers started carrying bear mace and wearing badges that said 'We have no HP Touchpads so stop asking'.

The underlying feeling is, that because of a tablets position (Is it a phone? No. Is it a computer? No. Do I have two separate products that already do everything it does? Yes), its something that no one needs, but people do want. For your average joe, they are hard to justify, and especially if they ring in at £400 or more!

Which is where the Andypad comes in. We've seen a large number low cost Android Tablets and all have been pretty terrible in their own way. My favourite is the Next tablet which received universally dismal reviews. The Andypad appears at a glance as if it could fill the low cost Tablet niche that Apple ignore and HP have proved exists. In many ways Andrew Kelly will be cursing the day HP discontinued the Touchpad and took a giant bite out of their target market. However, in doing so they might just have whipped up a hankering for a low cost tablet just days before the Andypads launch.

Two goodbyes in one week Part 1

Sorry! I've been away! I've spent a lot of time writing hardware guides over at Bit-Tech.net forums, but I'm back now and that's what is important.

I can't backfill the last few months with articles that have been drifting round my head, never to be penned, but in the constantly changing world of mobile, yesterdays news is yesterdays news today, so lets look at what has happened just in the last week.

Did you see that AMD just appointed Rory Read as their new CEO? Nope, didn't think so, I read the article a few days ago, but still had to go back to look his name up. Usually a company CEO stepping down is something you end up reading about because The Economist was the paper left on your seat between Kings Cross and Holloway Road, but its interesting to see the kind of mainstream coverage that the inevitable end of Steve Jobs tenure at Apple has garnered. So, love him or hate him you have to respect the work he's done at Apple, and the way they have shaken up the entire mobile industry since the launch of the iPhone. Ultimately, that's the way the industry was headed, but its also fair to say that because of Jobs and Apple we are about 5 years ahead of where we might otherwise have been.

So where do Apple go from here? Despite what I suspect will be minor share price drops, going forward Apple fans have little to be concerned about. Tim Cook, while potentially unable to match Jobs revered status on the catwalk, is an old hand, and it seems unlikely that Jobs would have made a final mistake in his endorsement of Cook, after doing so much right for so many years. Roadmaps will have been layed out, deals for coming generation ARM chips will have been shaken on, and assuming that the iPhone 5 launch goes as planned, we'll see very little that will rock the boat in the next year or so.

What is more interesting, is Apple's continued diversification. Yes, Jobs is a perfectionist, with a real passion for the company, but what really differentiates Apple under Jobs is the way they are so successful at diversification. Apple sceptics will have in their armoury a whole raft of tablets that proceeded the iPad. And yet, none of them enjoyed any kind of mainstream success. Again, maybe the iPad is where tablets would be in 2013, but ignoring the dubious success of Apple TV, what Apple are really losing is Jobs Vision. His ability to take in the landscape and produce a product that is ahead of its time. Sales of the once revolutionary iPod classic are down 17%. No real concern, since Apple has replaced them with the iPod touch, and then the iPhone, but where do Apple go from here, and does the word 'innovative' appear anywhere on Tim Cooks CV?

Hardware

Three. That’s the number of times my lady partner has dropped her phone into the toilet in the last two years. With smartphones steadily packing more advanced tech, its good to see Toshiba go some way to improve their durability. The Froyo (Android 2.2) toting Regza Phone T-01C, features a 4-inch 480x854 resolution screen, a 12.2 megapixel camera with 720p video recording and a MicroSD slot while weighing in at 149g . As well as offering most of the functionality of rival Android smartphones the T-01C also has another trick up its sleeve. It’s entirely waterproof to 1m, so should be fine for a brief trip to the U-Bend and back. Speaking to Docomo, the Japanese network showcasing the phone at MWC11, they say that the waterproofing is achieved through the use of a layer of fibre that allows air, and thus sound, to move through it, while blocking and repelling water. A UK release is currently unconfirmed, perhaps someone should tell Toshiba about our weather.

Mobithinking

Just a quick follow up on what I wrote about the disposable nature of apps earlier in the week.

An interesting report over at mobithinking states that 1 in 4 purchased apps is never used again. This raises some interesting questions about why that is, and if its more related to the quality of the apps or the way in which we think about them.

Disposable Teens

First up, let me direct you over to Hexus:

Now lets begin.

Something with that story struck a chord with me, linking in from what I wrote last week about having to repeat buy apps for different devices/OS's (by the way, I am very excited about Googles launch of a browser interface for your account in the next few weeks this will will make it much easier to manage the apps you have bought). Whether or not Reggie Fils-Aime has a legitimate case for concern regarding the price people expect to pay for games, I couldn't say. Personally Angry Birds is, to me, not worth more than a couple of pounds. I can't imagine it had the budget of a legitimate console release so I find charging more than a menial amount a tough pill to swallow. When someone get Call of Duty up and running, I'll pay the asking price (not that far away if the launch of Tegra 3 lives up to the hype). So, before the time of night I'm writing at gets me more sidetracked than I already am, my question is this: how much money is throwaway money?

By this I mean, 'disposable'.

Obviously, an items intrinsic 'disposableness' is relative to what it is. A set of 6 plastic cups at £2 is to me, throwaway, but at the same time, I'd definitely pick up a £2 coin if I saw it lying on the street.

So do Apps fall into this category? Should I be thinking about apps as disposable? Part of the attractive nature of buying apps for my Android account is that I will always have them at my disposal, should I need them later, and its all ultimately tied into the customisation and personalisation aspects of smartphones that people find so appealing. But does everybody think like this? £2 might be a disposable amount to many people, money that they don't mind not recovering should 'gypsy wedding simulator 4' turn out to be the software equivalent of infidelity (appearing good at first but quickly turning out to be a terrible mistake).

If that is the case, and people do see apps as disposable then, a) how much can they raise the price before they move into the category of 'non disposable' (£2 is already in that category for me it appears) and b)how are they going to convince people to pay more, or monetise in other ways, the software they are releasing? Perhaps another reason why Advertising and Applications go hand in hand. For the first time we have an advertising medium that truly has the potential to give something back to the audience. We just need better integration.

vPlayer

I've recently been using the wonderful 'File Expert' app on my Desire, to drag videos straight off the home network and onto my phone. This is great for the tube into work, as while everyone else is standing around looking like they'd punch a lost dog for looking sad, I'm stood there guffawing at Family Guy (which by the way, is the perfect time length for a trip to work, and always lifts the spirits). This week though, the trial version of vPlayer, which I've been using to view said videos ran out, leaving me all at sea. For the full version the makers wanted HK$23 - or £1.82 in Sterling. Now there are other apps out there that I am sure fulfill the same function - my housemate uses Rockplayer, but I've found vPlayer to be a great little app, that is lightweight and plays almost anything you can throw at it. I had no real qualms about shelling out the price of a Sainsburys Tuna Sandwich and a packet of quavers for the app.

My thinking behind this was fourfold.

1. As above, its a great app that just works.

2. Regular updates mean that I'm buying into something that will be updated as new formats arrive etc etc

3. I'll be able to use it on my tablet when Honeycomb finally arrives

4. It'll be ad free.

Unfortunately not all of the above assumptions turned out to be true.

My biggest complaint is that it is simply not ad free. Is it wrong to assume that it would be? Its generally accepted that if you pay for media, whether it be, music (spotify premium), DVDs or games that what you are buying is not also ad supported. I may as well have just downloaded another app that does the same job, and also has ads all over the place. This is a perfect example of how to get things wrong on the Android app market. Some developers have already voiced their concerns about Androids users willingness to pay for things. Its a very delicately balanced situation, and making them pay for an ad supported product does not seem like the way to convince them that your Hong Kong dollars are being well spent.

Regular updates are another thing. Am I right to assume that I am entitled to free updates? This is more of a grey area. I am buying an app based on what it can do, right now, and yes, today it does play video's on my Desire running Android 2.2. But what happens when I inevitable upgrade (every 18 months or so)? Will the app then work on my Nexus S running 2.3 or even, my Honeycomb tablet. Many people may end up owning both a tablet and a phone. Will I end up having to buy a separate video playing app for that? Its an interesting question, given the divergent nature of the Android OS. You are buying apps for your account, they have no resale value whatsoever, so you had better make sure you want something when you buy it. If a developer decides that he has got better things to do than update his app, thats it, for your next phone, you'll have to buy another app that does exactly the same thing as the one you currently own, but is compatible with your new, slightly tweaked OS. I must however, put my hands up and say that I don't know what the solution is here. All I know is that I don't want to have to buy multiple apps that do the same thing for every new phone or tablet I buy.

Stuck in the middle

Well here we all are at some kind of mobile half way house. It’s the 28^th of January and the dust has finally settled from CES. Past the casinos and the neon lights CES bought so many other exciting things to the table this year. My personal, if somewhat predictable, highlight was the glut of (Android) tablets, mostly powered by ARM CPU’s. Motorola’s Xoom appears to be Googles flagship device, which they hope will go head to head with iPad2. The UI so far looks slick and intuitive. However, there is always the worry that with a company like Apple, they’ll pull something special out of the bag with its 2^nd iteration, and its possible the others will look like they are playing catchup. Interestingly, while we saw a number of tablets being demoed, there is still a lot of unknowns when it comes to Honeycomb and any small tidbit still seems to have the tech news sites clamouring for coverage.

HTC – one of Androids pioneers, produced on of the more mystifying things to come out of CES. The ‘Flyer’ a tablet based on 2.3 Froyo. Quite why HTC think anyone would knowingly purchase an Android tablet based on a shoehorned OS just a few months before honeycombs release is beyond me. Maybe they are counting on mainstream consumers not knowing the difference. Perhaps true, but a little insulting all the same. NEC on the other hand, made their claim for the most backwards and forwards tablet in the form of their dual screen Android tablet – imagine a large Nintendo DS. Not a bad way to protect the screen but being limited to 384mb of RAM and Android 2.1 is just asking for negative press and more concerningly for Google at least, a negative user experience. If consumers get hold of devices that are a pain to use, it’s going to push them away from Android for generations to come. It’s all very well Motorola and Google getting Honeycomb right, but if everyone else is getting it wrong, especially in the more mainstream price sectors, then all that hard work is undone. At least once Honeycomb is finally released it should signal the deathknell of tablets running 2.xx.

Just around the corner in February is of course Mobile World Congress – this year being hosted in Barcelona. I expect 4G phones to be prolific but this raises some interesting questions about the technologies penetration outside of the US – or lack of it. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, especially for Apple, who traditionally release a ‘one size fits all’ iPhone and will be keen to take advantage of the speed increase that 4G offers. Other manufacturers can potentially scoot around the issue a little more easily as they often release different phones for different territories.