“It’s Just A Big iPod Touch”

I emailed my mother a series of questions about her usage of the iPad. Her response was illuminating:

So yes, I like the iPad, but I miss a keyboard. I don’t like this touchpad. But I use it now in place of my old computer. I go on Pinterest. But I am having a few issues (as usual). It just shuts down and the Apple appears on the black screen. Must be that I’m using it too much? I use it for email, Facebook, and checking things out. Love you. Xoxox

Sent from my iPad

I’m not 100 percent sure this is the perfect response from an “average” iPad user of a certain age, but I’d bet it’s pretty close. “Miss a keyboard.” “I go on Pinterest.” “Email.” “Facebook.” “Checking things out.”

Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

My main complaint with the Surface Pro is the incredibly lackluster battery life.

This is what happens when a company is more concerned with holding onto what they have instead of innovating forward.  Sure you will make people mad, but they will come with you if you lead the way.  Microsoft at this point is not innovating on their most important product, they are trying to maintain their market share.  There is 1 competitor.  They should have learned they got to where they were because Apple stood still and Microsoft passed them up. We are in the middle of seeing Microsoft standing still while Apple passes them back up.  Very interesting how organizations can't innovate when they have a big lead.

How long can Tim Cook avoid taking any risks at Apple?

Under his leadership, Apple hasn't entered any new markets. It's only done one radical overhaul of a product, the ultra-high-end Mac Pro, which represents only 4% of all Apple sales. The most aggressive new product features it has introduced—Siri, Apple Maps, and Touch ID—have had very mixed results.

Wow.  Just because they have not entered into markets that either are controlled by content creators (TV) or where the technology is not quite ready (smart watch).

To say Tim Cook hasn't taken any big swings, Jason Hiner hasn't been paying attention.  Apple just overhauled their mobile OS, called iOS 7, has he not heard?  iOS runs the hardware that is responsible for most of Apples profits.  It was very decisive.  If that wasn't aggressive, I don't know what is.  To aggressively move to 64-bit on hardware and software a year before anyone thought possible is very ballsy.  

The boldest thing Cook has done during his two-year tenure as CEO was to fire Scott Forstall, one of Apple's most talented executives. That's not a great sign. While Forstall was legendarily difficult to work with, he was also one of Apple's most creative and innovative leaders and had a lot to do with the success of the iPhone and iPad. He was rumored to be one of Apple's future CEO candidates, so his departure clearly smells like a battle for control and influence in the post-Jobs era.

These are not moves by someone that is holding innovation back at Apple.  Firing Scott Forstall, while seemingly a political move, is something that needed to be done.  Steve Jobs is a different type of leader.  He was the alpha dog and people like Forstall understood that.  Tim Cook has a more easy demeanor, he will never be Steve Jobs.  Under Tim the organization has to make up for what Steve brought to Apple, innovation.  To do that, there needs to be a cohesive team.  Sometimes in organizations there are leaders that drive an organization to do amazing things, but can't take it farther into greatness because to get to the place they are they had to ruin many relationships on the way.  That was Scott Forstall.  It was probably the best move for Apple.  Scott Forstall is great, but Craig Federighi will take them a lot farther now.  

How Apple iBeacon Will Transform Local Commerce

Overall, one thing is clear: mobile platforms are set to change the way we buy, transact and consume in our local environment.  Local commerce is a massive carrot for growth, a $1 trillion opportunity in the US alone. And somewhat ironically, it may end up being Apple’s “closed platform” which helps unify how online to offline commerce evolves, while fragmentation within Android actually slows adoption of these technologies down.

I am fascinated by this technology.  I never liked NFC.  I used it in the gaming industry to track bets on table games.  The chips were imbedded in the table chip and the antennas were placed under the layout.  It was so fickle.  Granted, it was new technology, but there were so many little nuances.  For instance, you couldn't have any metal anywhere around, or it could ruin the results.  The antenna had to be placed "just right" under the felt.

That's what I felt when NFC was touted as the payment mechanism of the future.  Anything you have to be so close to and there are many ways to interfere, that is not the future.  I can send a picture to my friend across the table, why do I need to touch my phone to theirs?  Same with payments.  If I have to take something out of my pocket or purse, how is that better than what we have today?  

Pricing and Apple

A lot has been made about pricing after this weeks event.  I saw three different groups of controversies this week, two involving Apple and one involving Tweetbot.  I think all three are interesting case studies in pricing in the hardware and software section.   

The iPad pricing was the most controversial thing coming out of the event.  Again it stems from every industry pundit wanting Apple to price their products to maximize market share.  Apple isn't in the business of maximizing market share, they are in the business of creating the best products and having quality over quantity.  As John Gruber stated this week:

As for pricing overall, I think concerns that iPads are “too expensive” are overblown. The same was said last year, and the year before that. The tech and business press frequently compare iPads’ prices and specs to those of high-end Android-based competitors — from Samsung, Google, and Amazon — and find the iPads lacking. How many pieces were written last year arguing that the iPad Mini, with its non-retina display and $329 starting price, was incongruously overpriced compared to Nexus and Kindle Fire devices with retina-caliber pixel densities and prices under (sometimes well under) $300?

But where these comparisons go awry is when they are conflated with tablet market share numbers showing Android devices, as a whole, making significant gains. As Benedict Evans argued this week, the rise in Android tablet sales has not been driven by the high-end would-be-iPad-competitors from Amazon, Google, and Samsung, but by profoundly cheap “$75-$150 black generic Chinese Android tablets” that are seemingly used primarily for video consumption. Evans calls them “the featurephones of tablets”, and argues they compete with televisions just as much, if not more, as they do with iPads.

The iPad does not have competition in the way that the iPhone does. Tens of millions of people use high-end Android phones — largely Samsung’s — in much the same way iPhone users use theirs. There just aren’t that many people — yet? — using Kindle Fires, Galaxy Tabs, Nexuses, or Surfaces as alternatives to the iPad. Thus the massive discrepancies between the iPad’smarket share and usage share numbers.

As John argues, even the market share argument is not a fair one compared to phones or PC's.  The Android tablets eating the market share of the iPad are not customers that Apple is interested in serving.  Apple is interested in customers that interact with their devices in meaningful ways; browsing the internet, purchasing legal content, listening to music, playing games.  Apple is not interested in customers that only browse YouTube or watch bootlegged movies.  These are not customers who will continually buy high-end Apple products, purchase apps to stay in the ecosystem.  These customers will also cost much more to service.  The hidden secret behind Apple's success is their service through the Apple stores.  Imagine even more customers coming through that channel.  Apple is building a high-end experience from purchase to consumption to service.   

The iPad also hasn't shown that it needs to come down in price.  Would I like an iPad mini retina for $329?  Yes I would, more than $399.  Is that $70 going to change my buying decision?  Nope.  What I am debating is the same thing John Gruber is debating in his article, which one to buy?  Or maybe both with T-Mobiles new pricing plan for cellular versions of these iPads.  

The second big pricing move from Apple is software pricing.  Where as the hardware pricing is being criticized, the software pricing is being applauded.  Everyone is saying it's an attack on Microsoft.  Look out Google.  

I look at it as a couple of different strategies at play.  First and foremost I believe it is a retention play on the part of Apple.  So much is made of their ecosystem in iOS and now I believe it just adds to that arsenal onto the Mac as well.  If all the software is free in the Mac ecosystem, then it makes the purchase price of a Mac more palatable.  It also prevents customers from jumping ship onto the PC.  The iPad also becomes a creation device on par with a PC.  And for free!  

The second part of this strategy is innovation.  When the customer base is moving ahead with Apple, the newest innovations in software are propagated throughout the ecosystem and everyone is using and showing it off.  This also makes for a compelling reason to choose Apple first for developers.  If the Mac can have the upgrade cycle that is seen in iOS, developers will be able to move their software forward without worrying about backward compatibility.  

The last big pricing controversy is Tweetbot.  They released their popular twitter client for the iPhone this week and they created a whole new app and charged for it.  Of course the world is a worse place because of this.  Someone had to forego their coffee at that price.  

Why has the world forgot the software model just a few short years ago.  You bought a piece of software, the next year a new version would come out, you would go to the store and buy a whole new version of the software.  Oh ya, this cost $50 every year.  If you didn't perceive the version was worth the new price, you forego the years version and kept using the old version.  This is what the market should be. 

So much is made of free software these days.  The problem is this ruins the business for many independent developers because they are playing a different game than the people offering free software.  The free software providers are either trying to be purchased by Google or Facebook, or they are the Apples and Googles of the world and these companies are using the software as a "loss leader" or a strategy to sell more hardware or advertising.  

I believe more developers should take the Tweetbot approach in the App stores.  Charge for new software every year, it's only a few dollars now.  This approach is much better than the freemium model pervasive now.  It also makes developers make the product they have a passion for much better.  If Tweetbot and others continue to give out free upgrades, these products become worse over time.  Why?  There are a set number of hours in a day.  Those hours have to be spent on something that will return on the time investment.  If Tweetbot never brings in more revenue, it doesn't make sense to spend time working on it, so it becomes stagnant.  Under the Tweetbot model, it makes sense to work on Tweetbot because that innovation can produce revenue in the future, which is why they are in business.  Hopefully more software developers start charging more often for their software and we see even more innovation in return.

The Steve Jobs Nobody Knew - Rolling Stone

Great insight of a great man. 

Apple Under Siege

I recently experienced a small epiphany: I think the never-ending worry about Apple’s future is a good thing for the company. Look at what happened to those who were on top and became comfortable with their place under the sun: Palm, Blackberry, Nokia…

In ancient Rome, victorious generals marched in triumph to the Capitol. Lest the occasion go to the army commander’s head, a slave would march behind the victor, murmuring in his ear, memento mori, “remember you’re mortal”.

With that in mind, one can almost appreciate the doomsayers — well, some of them. They might very well save Apple from becoming inebriated with their prestige and, instead, force the company to remember, two years later and counting, how they won it.

As usual, great piece by Jean Louis.  I really like the last part of the article in which he states the constant naysaying about innovation will drive Apple to be that much greater.  It is true when you are on top and everyone tells you how wonderful you are, you can get complacent.  When everyone tells you how much you are going to fail, it causes you to dig down deeper.   

Apple should buy big companies, says former boss

Apple should use its enormous cash reserves to make some big-name acquisitions, the company's former boss John Sculley has said.

Rarely do large acquisitions of companies outside the core business turn out successful.  The only successful large acquisitions come when say a telecom company buys another telecom company.  This is just becoming larger much quicker through acquisition and not entering unknown businesses.  

I don't think Apple should buy large companies and move the company in a different direction.  This is why Sculley was unsuccessful as CEO of Apple.  He tried to grow the company getting into many areas outside of its core competency and it lead to a confusing direction for Apple.  

It scary to think he is out there giving companies this kind of advice.  He should have learned from his mistakes, but clearly he hasn't.  If Tim Cook takes his advice in this case, Apple surely would be doomed, for real this time.

Why Apple is Growing Its Bank Account

Samsung has a nearly limitless bank account. Samsung, like LG, is backed by their nation state of South Korea. After I made this point, Benedict added that so is Huawei, and of course several other Chinese ODMs, who are also backed by their nation state. When there is a guarantee of a cash trove behind you, it is possible to make business decisions that perhaps other companies without such a wealthy backer would make. In essence the rules for spending may simply be different for a company like Samsung and other Asian OEMs / ODMs who have nation state backing.1

This is an interesting take.  I'm sure this is not the sole reason for the large treasure trove, however US companies are at a disadvantage in the marketplace if the competitors have a limitless budget.  I was wondering how Samsung could afford all that advertising.  When there is no downside, why not spend it? 

Long Term Strategies vs. Short Term Market Share

Android users are not as active and engaged with online activities as iOS users are. And when companies from start-ups to established players decide which platforms to target with their apps, their web services, and their marketing campaigns, they’re going to go where the eyeballs are. If you follow where the money should be going, it should be focused on Apple.

Which creates a virtuous circle of engagement. People develop their tools for iOS because iOS users are more engaged and easier to monetise.

There is definitely a difference between Android and iOS users.  This brings up interesting points when talking about different business strategies.  When having products, engagement and return loyalty are things that create a sustainable business.  Samsung is selling a plethora of products and in volume, however if the customers are not engaging in the platform and are purchasing items through the Google Play store, Samsung has nothing to hold onto customers when their contracts come up.

This is similar to what we saw with the PC industry.  Because the platform was owned by Microsoft and all the programs and files could easily be switched from machine to machine, the manufacturers had nothing to compete with.  So when there is no differentiation, businesses compete on price and volume.  When that happens everyone loses except the consumer.  However, the consumers gain is only short lived because the products they are buying are becoming cheaper and cheaper and over time they last a lot shorter than the products they purchased before.  

I believe this is what we will see pan out in the cell phone space outside of the US.  Also, you have already seen this in the tablet space.  Because no one can compete with the iPad on a product and experience level, the market has already taken a nose-dive in pricing to gain market share.  The problem with this is the experience delivered to the customer.  These companies are taking a short term gain and will be losing these customers when they are ready to buy again because their experience is subpar.  

This will be fun to watch.  Hopefully we will see much more innovation in the years to come, instead of just relying on Android as a competing platform and everyone racing to the bottom on price. 

iPhone 5S Review: Patagonia — Austin Mann

I love the new camera on the iPhone 5s.  The slow-mo video is absolutely a blast with kids.  When I took the camera to California and was with my girlfriends daughters, they had so much fun running and jumping, then watching themselves back in slow motion, they could have done it all day. 

The burst mode was great capturing moving images.  To select the best one was so easy, then delete the rest with a click.  These are the useful features Apple puts into their products, unlike a Samsung that goes for gimmicks.   

This article shows the power of the 5s much better than I could ever explain.  

Google Tabs happened, now marketers must step up their game

Marketing is always most effective when it is delivered with something else of value. If you open your postal mailbox and its nothing but ads, you tend to throw the whole bunch away. But, if one offer comes along with other interesting pieces of mail or if it includes something valuable like a gift card or a coupon, you tend to give it more attention.

Very profound statement.  It is not worth delivering a piece of mail or email without an offer.  The offer doesn't have to be something that cheapens your brand, but it has to deliver value to the customer receiving it, or else you will become junk mail or unsubscribed.

The new Gmail tabs obviously create an interesting challenge.  Even though they are being viewed less, it may provide customers a better way to interact with brands.  When all email is together, emails can get skipped or just ignored as they scan through.  However with the tabs, a customer has to be going and looking for a promotion.  Isn;t that what digital marketing is all about?  Engage with the customer when they want to be engaged, instead of the bombarding of their email feeds?

We asked nearly 5,000 consumers their attitudes toward the switch to Gmail Tabs inbox view. About 40 percent of respondents say they now spend less time with promotional messages from their favorite brand, while only 7 percent of users say they spend more time with promotions. This large percentage of respondents revealing they don’t spend as much time with their favorite brands shows that marketers must up their game.

Marketers should always be stepping up their game.  I get so many emails from companies on a daily basis, maybe this will make them stop and think about the "spam" strategy that seems to be the norm in this channel.  When emails are targeted and offers are valuable and thought out, customers will engage with your brand no matter what tab they are on.  Continue to over communicate and your brand will never make it out of the promotions tab.

Capturing the Innovation Mindset at Bally Technologies

As a former customer of Bally Technologies I have to say I didn't see any of this.  They remind me of Samsung.  Samsung is a first to copy, instead of a first to market.  They are quicker than their competition to copy what is innovative and do it good.  Where Samsung innovates tend to be on features and technology they just don't know what to do with.  For instance, video that pauses when your eyes stop looking at the screen.  Great piece of engineering, terrible implementation of such a technology.  Works in very few use cases.  

Bally's is Samsung, which isn't bad, just not innovative.  

School in the Post PC Era

My 10 year old daughter had a paper due recently on the Cherokee Indians.  We happened to be traveling to San Jose on the weekend before the paper was due, so we didn't have much time to do the research and write the paper.  Afternoon flight on Friday, packed weekend, late night flight on Sunday back to Vegas. 

While in the air on the way to San Jose my daughter was doing research on the internet on an iPad.  As she found sites with interesting information on The Cherokee Indians, she copied and pasted the information into the Notes app.  She did this for 3 different sites. 

On Sunday, we were delayed for an hour in the airport, where my daughter opened up a Macbook Air.  The notes were all synced to the Mac and she started on her paper and finished it on the plane ride home. 

I wish I had the technology Apple is putting together when I was in school.  The ability to take a device to school and do research and everything transfers to the main computer when writing the paper is something that will make school and amazing experience for young children.  

Obsoletive: Revolutionary Products in Tech Don't Disrupt-They Obsolete

Three things irk me about “disruption” as it’s used in technology:

New products that do what existing products do, but (theoretically) better, are not disruptive. They are “sustaining.” Instagram Video is not disrupting Vine. It’s competing with it.

The misplaced obsession with low-end disruption, which, as I argued last week, doesn’t apply nearly as strongly to consumer markets.

The characterization of obsoletive technology as disruptive.

I like what Ben Thompson has to say here.  Everyone loves holding on to buzzwords, but the iPhone did obsolete its competition.  It literally put two of the most powerful companies out of business.  That wasn't disruptive, it was destructive. 

The rest of the article hits it on the nose.  Good read. 

How A ZIP Code Can Tell A Marketer Exactly Who You Are

Yep. 

Platform updates and the rate of innovation

the really interesting thing is that there are now 200m people using iOS7, where last year 'only' 100m people upgraded to iOS6 in the opening weekend.

Apple is truly playing a different game then anyone in the mobile space.  Google has done a herculean effort to own the platform race from a market share perspective, but Apple just keeps moving everyone forward with new technology.  Looking around at all the people around me, most not technical, upgrading their OS's to the latest version.  That is amazing.  You never saw this in the past and Apple is moving hundreds of millions onto new platforms in a week.  Tough to keep up. 

http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2013/9/23/platform-updates-and-the-rate-of-innovation 

Nate Silver on Finding a Mentor, Teaching Yourself Statistics, and Not Settling in Your Career

I had the pleasure to sit through a keynote at the Tableau Conference in Washington DC and the speaker was none other than Nate Silver.  It was a very good keynote and his book it a great read.  

I find it very interesting what he says about education and working with data.  I find the same thing.  I don't have a background in Stats or Math, however I feel I have a good intuition with data.  I have always loved numbers and working with them, but have never liked the mechanics of math or stats.  I think in todays age of technology, it is more important to have the intuition than the mechanical knowledge.

Again, I think the applied experience is a lot more important than the academic experience. It probably can’t hurt to take a stats class in college.

But it really is something that requires a lot of different parts of your brain. I mean the thing that’s toughest to teach is the intuition for what are big questions to ask. That intellectual curiosity. That bullshit detector for lack of a better term, where you see a data set and you have at least a first approach on how much signal there is there. That can help to make you a lot more efficient.

That stuff is kind of hard to teach through book learning. So it’s by experience. I would be an advocate if you’re going to have an education, then have it be a pretty diverse education so you’re flexing lots of different muscles.

You can learn the technical skills later on, and you’ll be more motivated to learn more of the technical skills when you have some problem you’re trying to solve or some financial incentive to do so. So, I think not specializing too early is important.

When I look for new hires i tend to find people who are smart and try to figure out their critical thinking.  The tools and the mechanical portion of data analysis and modeling can be taught, but it takes special people to have critical thoughts.  

I always say that an analysts job is not to report on the data, but to find the money.  The analyst that can take a dataset, find actionable insight and are able to articulate the findings are worth their weight in greenbacks.   

Very cool article from a great thinker. 

The Myth of Steve Jobs Constant Breakthroughs

For every great leap forward Apple ever made, it accomplished at least as much through small steps that made its products easier, faster, thinner, lighter, more polished and/or more useful. Apple’s most important products may have been the game-changers, but its best products, always, have been those that benefited from smart, evolutionary improvements. And as far as I remember, Jobs never seemed guilty about the profits they brought.

Super article.  Why does everyone want to put a fork into Apple and call them done?  The product they put out on Friday is so superior to every smart phone out there.  Incremental or not, they are still innovating.  

The items in our new iPhone 5s' are the foundation for their next jumps.  The M7 processor is the beta test for a wearable technology.  The 64-bit A7 chip is the baseline to take over TV and move the low end laptop computer world into the modern era.  

Remember, the time between the iPod and the iPhone was 6 years.  The iPod led the way to develop the iPhone.  Without the iPod, there probably never would have been an iPhone.  You can argue the iPad was an incremental improvement on the iPhone.  

So Apple is ready for their next disruption, we just have to realize we are already using it.  When the next disruption comes out, you can bet it has many of the technologies in the current phones.

Marketing Automation with Neolane

Building a capture program is something that usually is untouchable with most marketing automation tools.  We built ours in 3 days with Neolane.  Very complex offers built dynamically based on previous behavior of redemption or no redemption.  Yet another tool I am becoming quite a big fan of.