Is Smartphone Innovation All Tapped Out?

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A panel session probing the perennial heads or tails of cellular unit commoditization vs cellular unit innovation here at MWC 2016 earlier right now heard an fascinating variety of sights. Speakers ran the gamut of cellular makers huge and small (Samsung, Motorola/Lenovo and Wileyfox), by to chipset maker Qualcomm, choice open Android flavor Cyanogen, and cellular operator Telefonica.

Each individual experienced their have spin on what ‘innovation’ implies in the smartphone area now, in the context of mature Western markets — and inevitably aligning with their respective company imperatives. And no a single was very eager to pronounce smartphones much too unexciting to be bought in the sought for quantities to maintain the cellular progress motor. Despite the fact that there ended up several usually takes on what getting innovative in smartphone terms implies now.

Related devices extending the abilities of handsets — and hence acting as an extra offering level incentive — are evidently entrance of head for some, such as Samsung, which has of course experienced a more durable time in the hyper competitive smartphone market in new decades.

The thought that each innovation and commoditization are happening at the same time – with a two-tier smartphone sector in enjoy that is at the same time providing expanding benefit on the a single hand, nevertheless however coming up with powerful new bells and whistles at the high quality leading of the line was also frequently accepted.

“On the innovation facet when we hear innovation’s long gone from the category… we feel that is absolutely improper,” mentioned Tim McDonough, SVP of promoting at Qualcomm, pointing to flagship bulletins this week from Samsung and LG. “Innovation in the handset’s not constrained to the four.5 inch or 5 inch monitor in the unit it’s every little thing encompassing it, including the means to capture digital truth and check out it and share it in excess of wi-fi with pals and spouse and children,” he argued.

Samsung’s Jean-Daniel Ayme, Company VP of its IM division, asserted that the “centre of an ecosystem” is now constructing all around the smartphone – talking up the VR angle it was pushing greatly at its flagship start occasion yesterday. Its Equipment VR headset backlinks to and extends the abilities of its flagship smartphones so the headset featured prominently in the start of the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge (Some could say much too prominently… ). So you could argue a flagship phone in and of itself is not extended more than enough to switch heads and excite upgrades on its have. But toss in powerful more than enough linked extras and that improvements the game, argued Ayme.

Stephane Maes, VP of merchandise management and scheduling at Motorola, now owned by Lenovo, mentioned its acquire on innovation is far more about constructing features into phones that buyers are truly inquiring for –- noting, for instance, that it is offering a phone which boasts of having an unbreakable monitor. And talking up “meaningful improvements that matter to consumers”. So variety of the opposite of VR then i.e. genuinely sensible stuff, instead than pure fantasy.

The wild card on the panel, British isles smartphone startup Wileyfox, which uses Cyanogen’s flavor of Android on its smartphones, argued it’s providing innovative by giving buyers an choice on the two-year carrier contract that locks men and women into paying a significant chunk for handset hardware. CEO Nick Muir’s argument is that handset part fees have been commoditized so that when coupled with a lean startup philosophy it’s able to supply ‘innovation’ in the sort of a variety of economical nevertheless suitable (in terms of general performance and design and style) smartphones to funds-mindful shoppers.

“People may perhaps a great deal much too a great deal for their cellular devices,” said Muir. “More and far more men and women are starting to see the cracks in the conventional product – and that conventional product getting you have to spend for a two year contract to be equipped to afford to pay for the unit you want… I know that the invoice of supplies will allow us to be equipped to provide the unit at a affordable cost and the purpose we can do that is not monumental scale, it’s not just tier a single parts, it’s all around the simple fact that we do not have any sporting contracts, we do not have legacy pensions, we do not have glass places of work, we all vacation by EasyJet and we keep in Airbnb. We are a lower price firm and that lower price gets handed on to the buyer – and that is component of it.”

For Cyanogen itself, which builds its have application additions into open Android and thus aims to expands the abilities available by inventory Android (getting steered in that mission by inquiring a main neighborhood of developers what new OS features they would like to see), it’s latest application advancement is concentrated on reducing friction with app interactions.

“Today we introduced a system on leading of Cyanogen, termed MOD, and what MOD is is fundamentally the post-app conversation product,” noted Vikram Natarajan, SVP, international partnerships & distribution, referencing its earlier MWC news. “We can acquire the greatest of applications and combine them in the surface area regions of the functioning method – such as your dialer, such as your calendar, such as your lock monitor, so you have a great deal richer conversation models with those companies that you know and adore, whilst however likely likely again to the app for a far more entirely featured conversation.

“MOD we consider is the future of interactions when it will come to these companies, and it’s not applications vs MODS, it’s applications and MODs — because MODs extend the app experience. And we feel this is fascinating because now from a commodity standpoint we can associate with handset makers and offer them differentiation in excess of and above typical good aged Android.”

Privacy and stability climbing up the agenda

One interesting theme that emerged from the dialogue was that privacy/stability is becoming an expanding differentiator for various gamers in a commoditized smartphone area. In the Android OEM area you could argue that is a symptom of the system getting steered by Google, a business whose company product is based mostly on amassing enormous quantities of knowledge about end users in order to ability its advertisement targeting company. (Despite the fact that Apple’s opposite, incredibly community professional-privacy stance when it will come to iOS may nicely be encouraging many others to follow its lead much too.)

So little wonder there has been space for Cyanogen to develop Android by, for instance, pushing the advancement of personal app controls for end users (a feature which has now trickled down to Wileyfox’s Android devices, for instance).

The lone carrier voice on the panel, Francisco Montalvo, director of the team devices device for Telefónica S.A, also asserted that privacy will be progressively important as the World-wide-web of Things proliferates — arguing that buyers will develop into far more aware of the trade offs they are producing in trade for accessibility to far more and more linked companies.

“I do not feel the smartphone itself will be providing the innovation we are anticipating. I definitely consider the info collected by the smartphone will generate new use circumstances for buyers – that is exactly where the benefit is. And that is why for us it’s so important that the buyer are aware of the info that the smartphone is collecting – and how that info is shared with other 3rd events. Which is why we are supporting Cyanogen. Which is why we consider buyers will need to be aware about the benefit they are finding in trade of info they are sharing,” he mentioned. “This is exactly where we see – in the subsequent two decades – a lot of motion.”

Qualcomm’s McDonough also talked up future developments coming down the pipe connected to privacy and stability. “We feel the subsequent is the phone is your personal identity. We do not suggest your phone just for payments, or your phone just for your well being documents. But your phone as a illustration of you. And when you feel about how important that unit could be for your, as your digital passport, likely from nation to nation, the will need for stability and authentication gets to be so extremely important,” he mentioned.

“Qualcomm’s investing a lot in issues like equipment learning, the means to operate all of the sensors in your smartphone all of the time. And with a unit that is aware of who you are, what your behavior designs are, it actually continuously authenticates that you are you – without having having to place in a pin or a password or a fingerprint. So feel about your phone as your personal identity and how important stability is and how you can shield that info. I feel that is a single space of innovation.”

“The other is genuinely your phone as a thinking entity. So once again acquire the means to operate a neural community on your phone, have that neural community aware of what’s likely on all around it from all the sensors that are running on it frequently – can your phone develop into a personal assistant that is context aware, can make choices for you… Which is aware of you, your patterns and what’s normally likely on with the knowledge in the phone and the planet encompass it,” he extra.

“Those are just a few of examples exactly where any person who’s saying there’s no innovation in the smartphone right now is likely to be here in a year or two or 3 is likely to be shocked with what the subsequent wave of handsets is likely to do.”

On stability and privacy, Wileyfox’s Muir explained it as a single of the differentiating “pillars” for its economical Android person experience. “We’ve expended a lot of time on that. I do not feel it’s correct that applications ought to be equipped to harvest your knowledge and give your knowledge absent to the greatest bidder or use on their own. You ought to have far more control in excess of that,” he pointed out, listing it 1st in his listing of crucial tweaks, in advance of even unit personalization and ease and comfort.

 

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Is Smartphone Innovation All Tapped Out?
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