samsung – LIVEdigitally

It's got a pen?!

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Jeremy Toeman

For the 14 people who missed the Super Bowl this year, a “notable” commercial was the debut of the Samsung Galaxy Note, which basically enlisted virtually every trick of the trade. Hipster rock band? Check. Playful teasing of Apple users? Check. Flashy seeming new gadget? Check. Tablet with a stylus? Check. Wait a sec, rewind, what is this, 1998? Or, as I tweeted (and BTW, Twitter – yet another simple feature: enable easy embedding and reblogging of tweets to other platforms, because screenshots? really?):

So my advice this evening is to Samsung and everyone else competing with the iPad – which is actually nobody in reality. If you want to play this game, you need to stop grasping at straws. Go build a damn good product and the market will support your endeavors. I’d heard some interesting buzz about the Note, that it might be the first “other” tablet to give the iPad a real run for its money. And then? StylusGate.

Now wait, maybe it’s not about consumers. Maybe it’s enterprise or other specific applications. I’m sure there’s a decent market in several verticals for a tablet with a stylus (something I blogged about a full year ago now!). But your marketing wasn’t about some productivity device, it was about consumers.

Does anyone really think any hipster, businessman, student, soccer mom, or any other typical consumer with an iota of self-respect would walk around using a stylus when everyone else doesn’t have to and can accomplish the exact same goals? That commercial didn’t show a product superior to an iPad.

That’s the key thing here. The stylus is showing up in an effort to get on par with the iPad’s user experience.

Except it doesn’t.

Not even close.

Did Manufacturers Lose $2 BILLION on Android Tablets Last Quarter?

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Jeremy Toeman

Strategy Analytics announced today: “Android Captures Record 39 Percent Share of Global Tablet Shipments in Q4 2011”. Bloggers go nuts with it, headlines such as “Android Grabs 10% Tablet Market Share from Apple in Q4 2011” and “Android tablets gain ground with 10.5 million sales in Q4 2011“. Here’s a quick fact check: the report was about tablets shipped, not sold. Sounds like a minor little nit, but it isn’t, and if you’ve never been inside the actual business of hardware before, it’s a fairly common mistake.

Shipping a product implies it’s been manufactured, packaged, and transported into a distribution facility, and in some way allocated by a retailer. It hasn’t necessarily been purchased by the retailer yet, nor has it been sold to a consumer. Which means a massive cost was incurred by the manufacturer, with no revenue so far. Further, even if the retailer has made some form of purchasing agreement/commitment, they typically have many many ways to back out if units aren’t moving. All, of course, at the expense of the manufacturer. This is how Logitech lost $100 million on the Revues, as they made a bunch, but couldn’t sell them. As Seinfeld might’ve put it: “See, you know how to ship the product, you just don’t know how to sell the product and that’s really the most important part of the product, the selling. Anybody can just ship them.”

So let’s go back to that report. 10.5 million Android tablets shipped in Q4. Not too shabby. Now Apple did just announce they sold 15.4 million iPads in the same quarter. So we know we aren’t talking oranges-to-oranges comparisons already.

I’m going to add in a personal observation/anecdote here, take it with a grain of salt. In the past year, at over 20 conferences, 30 flights, and possibly hundreds of meetings, I’ve seen about 15 android tablets in use “in the wild”. I’ll go as high as 20. That’s it. Not only isn’t it close to 40%, it’s not even close to 1% of the tablets I’ve seen in use, in every major metropolitan area in North America. But that’s not a fair way to look at it, so I’ll assume I’m off by a few percent, especially including the international market plus the recent hotness of the Kindle Fire.

But let’s pretend they somehow sell-through 5% of the total tablet market, as defined by iPad sales. That’s 750,000 units sold. Maybe a little low, but as I scan the numbers from a bunch of different reports, doesn’t seem too far off the mark (NPD reported a grand total of 1.2 million non-Apple tablets sold between Jan-Oct last year). Let’s bump it to a cool million, just to seem “fair”. That leaves manufacturers with 9 million unsold tablets.

According to a variety of reports (best from iSuppli), tablets cost manufacturers between $200-$300 to manufacture, on average. So again, averaging it all out (which isn’t exactly right, but that’s kind of the theme of my blog anyway, right?) at $250 times 9 million units equals holy crap.

$2,250,000,000

Oh, and this doesn’t include marketing, packaging, shipping, warehousing, taxes, and all the other costs involved. Please, somebody, show me how I’m wrong! No, seriously, I don’t actually want to be right here!

Smart TV: Not Dead Yet!

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Jeremy Toeman

I'm Not Dead Yet!

There’s a post on Wired entitled “Smart-TV Space May Never Take Off as Predicted” in which the author quotes a comment from ViewSonic:

“’Smart TV’ has not achieved the consumer acceptance or market expectation… that was forecasted over the last couple years. In addition, consumer spending for Smart TV’s in general has experienced a significant slow down as the economy has slowed. Our current strategy is to stay involved with the various technology developments and consider them in the future as they become available.”

Now with all due respect to ViewSonic, the last time I checked they didn’t rank in the top 5 TV manufacturers, and based on looking at prior years reports, my hunch is they represent somewhere between 0-3% of TVs sold (they do well in monitors, not as much in TVs). So when they predict Smart TV to have a problem, perhaps they aren’t the voice we should be using, as compared to companies such as Samsung, who has over 2 million Smart TVs in homes already.

Source: DisplaySearch Quarterly Advanced Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report

As Michael Wolf, of GigaOM, tweeted: “Folks, Viewsonic is not the bellweather company by which to judge success of embryonic sector on #smarttv.” Now that said, I completely agree with James McQuivey (Forrester analyst who is hitting Smart TV issues squarely on the head):

“What’s happening in the connected TV space is it’s not really about what consumers want, it’s about what manufacturers are making,” Forrester principal analyst James McQuivey says. “Simply having a connected TV doesn’t mean you’ll actually use it.”

According to all the analysts and manufacturers I’ve spoken with personally, and that’s virtually all of them, the industry is pretty well agreed that somewhere between 1/4 to 1/3 of all Smart TVs actually get connected. Further, the vast majority of them are just using them for Netflix, and just about everything else is getting pretty well ignored (stats show the #1 Smart TV app is Netflix, #2 is YouTube, and #3 is “other”).

The Wired author goes on to cite failures of the Google TV Revue box as more evidence to why the market is stuttering. The truth is, the Revue box is failing because it’s a lousy product with a poor customer value proposition, and Kevin Bacon commercials aren’t enough to pull the wool over it. But this would be like saying there’s no SmartPhone market because the BlackBerry Storm wasn’t so hot.

Wait a sec, that's not a touch screen!

Last January I wrote a piece for Mashable called “5 Reasons Connected TV Could Flop in 2011” and in my opinion, all 5 of those problems are happening. And I don’t see anybody really emerging out of the pack to do it any better – yet. In fact, I’d wager we’re going to go a full calendar year from now before seeing signs of change. And here’s why:

The TV UI (aka “ten foot user interface” aka “lean back UI” aka “onscreen display”) is simply unable to scale to meet the demands of convergence. I’ll write more on this topic in the next couple of weeks, but mark my words: we have utterly reached the apex of functionality of all forms of TV-based user interfaces/experiences.

I believe TiVo pushed the concept to the breaking point with their original UX back in 1999, and I’ve seen nothing push it further since. Yes, there are some prettier looking things out there, with beautiful icons/etc, but from a UX standpoint, we’re well past the zenith of what you can do with a remote. And no, I don’t believe gestures are going to cut it either, and I’ll go into depth on that topic in an upcoming post as well.

I'd change the channel, but honestly my arms are just too tired.

The last point on Smart TV I have is this – the biggest “thing” that’s going to slow down all forms of growth is replacement cycle consideration. If you buy a device once every 7-8 years, yet know intrinsically that the technology inside that device will be outdated long before that, you are less likely to buy it. The only way manufacturers can solve this problem, as far as I can see it, is through a modular component that will enable future-proofing of the set. Hm, yup, time for a blog post on that.

So is the Smart TV world fragmented? Yes. Confounded? Yes. Faced with turbulence? Yes. Full of shoddy products that are causing backlash and poor word of mouth due to radically complicated living room experiences when all we want to do is kick back, turn on Bear Grylls, and have a beer? Absolutely. Dying? Nope, not even a tiny bit.

Does anyone really use Android tablets?

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Jeremy Toeman

My friend Harry has done some deep sleuthing (read: he Googled it) and it’s seeming that two of the “user testimonials” in Samsungs latest ads are in fact made by actors:

I did notice, however, that freelance travel writer Joan Hess bears a striking resemblance to New York actress Joan Hess:

And that real estate CEO Joseph Kolinski could be New York actor Joseph Kolinksi‘s twin brother:

Filmmaker Karl Shefelman, on the other hand, looks a lot like…filmmaker Karl Shefelman. Who works for a New York production company. One that’s done work for Samsung.

Don’t fret too much folks, they aren’t the only ones to have faked some reviews.

Now I know I’m a long-time non-fan of Android, and my experience with the Xoom is only exacerbating those feelings, but really, what is going on here? I wrote a post back in the day explaining why I felt the tablet market was generally doomed, but the iPad proved me wrong. Or did it? Is the reality that only Apple can ship a “tablet-like product” successfully?

I think the answer might be something like “for the overwhelming majority of regular people, absolutely yes.”

As far as I can tell, the best use of any Android tablet presently on the market is to develop apps for Android tablets. Yes, I’m dead serious with that comment. Laptop mag just did a head-to-head comparison with the Xoom and iPad 2, and somehow actually managed to make it a “close call” – but then again, the guy writing it somehow managed to find the Android interface “better” than the iPads. If you are technically proficient, interested in widgets, and like coding, I could see that perspective. If you aren’t, it’s flat out wrong. But I digress (like usual).

So I come back to the key question here: who is using these things, and to what end? I’ve *never* seen one in the wild, and I live in the utter mecca of techieness (heck I even see Nooks on the bus to work). Further, I’ve yet to meet a single person outside of the tech echochamber who is even really aware of these devices, let along truly in the market for one. Go to the retail stores and try to get demos – there’s typically at most a single person in a store who even knows how to demo them (and yes, I do go to stores and do ask these kinds of questions – and anyone who claims to understand regular consumers and how they use technology should do at least the same)!

I’m working on another post (coming soon) on where I feel there is a market opportunity for HP and the like to bring tablets to market successfully, but if there’s one aspect I’m utterly convinced of – there is virtually no consumer market for non-iPad tablets. And by “virtually none” I’ll go with “about a million in North America, maybe two tops.”

What I Saw at CES 2010

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Jeremy Toeman

To be clear up front, this is neither a “Best of” nor a “What’s Hot” type of list. It’s literally the stuff I saw. Further, I purposefully avoided the most popular stuff, which you can read more about here, here and here (though they somehow missed the whole 3DTV meme, which was fairly unmissable). I unfortunately only have a few of the videos I made, as the quality was so poor, but I did get a handful of only semi-grainy Droid-cam pix. So here are some of the things I saw, in chronological order:

Skullcandy
Saw new headphones designed by DJs for DJs. New models at CES have the “Aviator” influence. I could so see Tom Cruise sporting these (pre-jumping the couch crazy Cruise that is):

Shure
My long-time favorite in-ear headphones have new updates shown at CES, coming later this year. Quick interview with them:

Optoma
I think a lot of the pico projector as concept. Optoma now has 4 different models for you to consider:

Chat with Roku’s Brian Jaquet
Met up with my old Sling Media officemate, had a fun chat about convergence, new media vs TV, 3Dtv, etc.

3DTV & 3D Gaming
If you managed to get through any CES coverage without hearing about 3DTV, well… I just don’t think it was possible. Virtually every company I saw displaying any kind of TV was also showing some type of 3D demo. Personally, I’m highly skeptical of 3D for TV, but also very bullish for 3D gaming. More to come on the topic in the next few days.

Funky Cases
The era of the black laptop briefcase is definitely at an end. I saw some very cool laptop cases, sleeves, backpacks, and more from a variety of companies. Here’s a shot of a laptop sleeve from Built that I really liked:

Additionally, there were just as many (maybe even more) cool iPhone accessories and cases (virtually none for Droid – more later). Here is Griffin’s custom iPhone case designed by Threadless (three great things that go together).

I wasn’t able to find ANY Droid or Droid Eris accessories! I will blog about this shortly, but in a nutshell, there’s simply no “made for Droid” program. Not good. But I did find a nice screen protector from BodyGuardZ:

Really, really, really, really thin TVs
There was a 7mm thick TV set from LG at CES this year (pictured below). It was just a prototype, but clearly an indicator of what we’ll see next year. A slightly under-hyped bit of CES 2010 was the prevalence of LED TVs, and while purists will complain on their picture quality, they were unquestionably sexy-thin.

And if you didn’t believe me on my word alone, Peerless (one of the major players in flat panel mounts, and the brand I personally purchased) launched wall mounts for thin TVs:

Cinq laptop monitor
I’ll blog more about these guys later this week (and I have a video interview to boot), but a company I’m on the advisory board of launched this week (disclosure: I’m on their advisory board). The product is called Cinq, it’s a portable lightweight laptop monitor. If you recall my blog posts on a dual-display laptop, this is probably the closest thing to it that’s actually coming to market.

Cool booths
While they are ostentatious in virtually every way, there were some very cool booths at CES. And since the show is held in Vegas, which is ostentatious in virtually every way, I guess it’s hard to argue against it. Ideally it would be less brightly lit and more eco-friendly (considering there is a “sustainability” pavilion at the show – more below), but I don’t think that’s coming anytime soon. My favorite booth, in terms of design/presentation, was Samsung’s “kaleidoriffic” display:

E-readers/E-books
Another category I’m really not bullish about is e-readers. I think there’s a market for the Kindle, the possibility of an Apple device, and that’s about it – and I’m being generous. This is still a niche segment for those with a lot of disposable income, and I don’t see the mainstream (aka paperback) book-buying market investing heavily in a gadget that brings them more expensive (though cheaper than hardcover) anytime soon (especially not pre-rebound economy). However, should someone figure it by devising a new model for e-book purchasing, like say, subscription-based, I think there’s a shot. One of the readers that got people pretty excited this year comes from Plastic Logic:

Green(ish) Stuff
This is a tricky one. I’ve personally woven more sustainability into my day-to-day life, and still look for ways to improve. It’s clearly “buzzy” to be green, despite the tremendous amount of greenwashing going on. So when you’re in Vegas (a city in the middle of a desert) at CES (with huge displays on all the time) and there’s a sustainability movement, is it ironic or noble? Hard to tell. But I do applaud the numerous LED technologies, batteries, recycling, and other effort to help improve the overall consumer electronics industry. My highlight was probably a chat with the folks from Greenpeace, who also issued this year’s “Guide to Greener Electronics“:

More to come…
I have a lot more to say about CES 2010, the hot (and not), the trends, my predictions, etc. Will try to get one post up per day all week with the thoughts and more.

How Verizon Could Improve Their Mobile Gaming

Posted on August 28, 2008 by Jeremy Toeman

As a long-time Verizon Wireless customer (originally back with GE!), I must say I’m generally quite happy with my service. My bill is a tad high, but then again we have 2 phones with lots of minutes, a Family plan and full access in the US and Canada, thus offsetting our home phone bill (~$10/mo for a landline). During my daily busride, I like to play games on my phone (Samsung SCH-U740 – awesome). I think Verizon may have created one of the best platform potentials but laden it with one of the worst user experiences I’ve ever seen.

In my phone menu, going to Games, then Get New App gives me a fairly easy set of options. I can instantly buy one of their top 2 games/promotions, or browse through categories to find what I want. The categories are pretty self-explanatory, and that’s about where the usability ends.

Picking a game brings you to a screen with three options: Subscription price, Unlimited price, and Info. On a rare occasion there’s also the option for a Free Trial, but we’ll ignore that for now. Let’s presume that I pick an interestingly named title, for example “Stranded: A Game of Survival” ($2.99 Sub, $7.99 Unl). Clicking “info” shows me the following text:

You awake Stranded on a mysterious island with other survivors. You discover that not everyone can be trusted. Will you escape? Without a price plan that includes an unlimited data feature, you will incur either (depending on your plan) airtime charges at applicable overage rates if you exceed your minutes bundle or megabyte (“MB”) charges of $1.99/MB for downloading the application. Some applications may result in additional charges for sending/receiving data during use. [Size:479KB]

First of all, I don’t know anything about the game! This category (strategy games) includes things ranging from Command and Conquer to Triple Scoop Twist, so there’s no information about gameplay. Is it a RTS? An RPG? A puzzle? Etc. Interestingly the website has nice screenshots and much more text describing the game itself. Why isn’t this available in the game page on the phone when I’m considering a purchase? Even the website descriptions are lacking the specifics I’d want to know to make a decision.

Second, the data usage warning is terrible. I get that they want to warn me about a potential charge, but how is the text they use going to help? I don’t know if the app actually uses airtime/minutes to play, or if that’s just for the download itself! I understand it is a lot of extra work to figure out a user’s plan in real-time (well, no, I don’t *really* understand it, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt), but a simple clarification of the English would be swell.

Finally, I think a lot more free trials would sell me a lot more applications. I’ve downloaded several of the ones that give me a free level to play, or a few minutes of playtime, and have actually purchased one game as a result. I am a big believer in putting some bait on the hook, as opposed to just throwing a hook in the water and saying “here fishie fishie fishie!” Especially considering Verizon’s Get-It-Now system is a complete walled garden, I don’t think there’s a way to “steal” a game even if I wanted to!

For the record, I’ve purchased the following games: Sudoku (good version too), Diner Dash (fun, but a bit repetitive), Call of Duty 4 (I’m such a sucker, though it was simple and fun), Transformers (not much more than meets the eye), and Townsmen 3 (meh). I’d really like to have a very simple Ultima-style RPG (think Ultima 2 or 4) that can be played in short, bite-sized amounts of time. It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to figure it out even if I find one, but one can always hope…