Tag Archives: ipad

Apple Announces Name Change to App-le

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Apple Announces Name Change to App-le

First Apple changed its name from Apple Computer to Apple to better reflect a business focus that was extending beyond computers to music players, smartphones, digital music sales, and more.

And last week Apple announced a flurry of new products including:

  • iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s plus
  • All new Apple TV
  • iPad Pro
  • watchOS 2
  • iOS9

What was clear from the announcements is that Apple’s view the future of computing and entertainment is an App-centric one.

First Apple created Apps for the iPod. Anyone remember the iPod? Apple barely does. They still make iPods, but they’ve been dropped from the main menu on Apple’s web site and relegated to the text links at the bottom of the page. Then they create Apps for the iPhone and the iPad and the watch. And this past week Apple announced their App-centric vision for the future of television.

What is this vision?

It’s pretty simple really. Want to watch major league baseball (MLB) on your television, buy the MLB app. Want to watch HBO, buy the app. Cartoon Network? Get the app. You get the idea.

Why does Apple have this vision?

This App-centric vision of entertainment grows their ecosystem and enables Apple to make money not only from hardware sales, but also from commissions in the sale of all of these Apps. And as people buy more apps, they lock themselves further into Apple’s hardware, by design.

Apple’s App-centric vision for the future of television is good for creators of popular, quality content like HBO, the National Football League (NFL), Premier League Football, CNN, BBC, and for movie-centric aggregators (Netflix, Amazon). The evolving App-centric approach to television also has the benefit to the content creators of enabling them to build Apps that yes play full-screen video (what people expect), but also to integrate information, commerce and social elements into their Applications as they see fit. The downside is that content creators will lose the perceived safety that cable network bundling offers.

But the smartest, best run content creators are more likely to gradually embrace this App-centric possible future, and as a result Apple’s App-centric television future is likely to be a disaster for cable companies and other television-centric aggregators (Hulu, Sling). Why would you need an intermediary like a cable company when you can go straight to the source?

Cable companies could however try to beat Apple to the App Store model and potentially also beat them to the Spotify model for television if they move quickly. But are speed and courage what cable companies are known for?

YouTube and Facebook could also be big winners in Apple’s App-centric television future as both sites could become the home for a treasure trove of free sample shows, a place for people to discover new content to subscribe to. Facebook has made a big push into video the past few years, making this potential area of growth possible for them.

Apple missed the App-centric transition in music, and they had to go out and overpay for Beats to try and catch up to Spotify and others. They’ve also missed the early days of the App-centric transition in paid video apps as well, with Netflix enjoying the early success. They don’t want to get completely left behind, so they are making their big push towards an App-centric television future. The only question is how?

Will Apple look to create a subscription service like Netflix or Spotify as their App, or focus on promoting content creator Apps (NFL, CNN, etc.) through an App Store, both, or something completely different?

No matter which direction Apple chooses, it’s clear that with Apple it is all about the apps. So will Apple change its name to App-le? Probably not. But, they’ve made it very

clear that their vision for the future is an App-centric one. Will they be able to realize it?

Image credit: mashable.com

This article originally appeared on Linkedin


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Is there a market for Smartwatches? Can Apple create one?

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Stikkee 3 - Apple Watch

Okay, it’s been a week since the Apple Watch was announced, and do you know what the world’s most popular wearable is likely to be for 2014/2015?

It’s not the iWatch, but the iPhone 6, which is breaking the pre-sales records of the iPhone 5.

No, it’s not an iWatch. Don’t you dare call it that!

We’re Apple and we’ve decided that it’s far too sophisticated and exclusive to be an iWatch.

Oh, and we’ve also decided that you must own at least an iPhone 5 to be privileged enough to wear an Apple Watch.

Okay, so instantly Apple has reduced the potential market size for the Apple Watch from 6 Billion people to about 100 million people (based on statisticbrain’s numbers).

Now, layer on top of this the fact that in a YPulse survey of millenials, only 32% stated that they wear a watch regularly.

$96 million of smartwatches were sold between October and July according to CNet at an average price of $189 (and dropping fast) – often bundled with a phone – and with Samsung wrapping up 78% of the market. If you do the math, that’s just over 500,000 units, less than 1% of the likely iPhone 5 sales over the same period.

The Apple Watch starts at $349.

But wait, we’re not done yet.

Consider that Samsung has become a faster, nimbler innovator in some ways than Apple and are shipping a new version of their smartwatch next month, up to six months before the Apple Watch is expected to be available – oh, and you’ll be able to use their new watch to make phone calls and run lots of wellness apps (including some from Nike). Plus Samsung will probably launch an even more capable version shortly after the Apple Watch starts shipping.

Apple’s already playing catchup in the smartphone market and they haven’t even shipped their first unit.

So if Apple is entering a small market with a declining average unit price against a more nimble competitor, what rabbit do they have up their sleeve to grow the market and increase their stock price?

What will make the Apple Watch a must have?

The iPod was a must have because it allowed you to carry your entire music library around with you after easily organizing it on your PC and syncing it to the iPod. After that you could then easily navigate thousands of songs on the device with the handy click wheel.

The iPhone was a must have because it became the world’s most widely adopted personal, wearable computer. The iPhone disrupted the balance of power in the mobile phone industry and allowed device makers to start offering whatever applications they wanted (unencumbered by the carriers). The iPhone also disrupted the digital camera market, the Flip (super portable, simple video cameras), and the dedicated GPS market.

Other wearables are on the decline.

iPod sales in Q4 2013 were down 52% from Q4 2012.

Google Glasses got a lot of buzz early on, but interest has fizzled.

Fitbits and Nike Fuelbands have lost their luster and momentum.

Even the iPad, which became a must have after Apple solved the Value Translation riddle and properly highlighted its benefits as a more relaxing and accessible computing device, has seen sales fall the past two quarters as the large screen phones have started to become big enough to begin decreasing the need for a separate tablet. If you’re keeping score the iPad disrupted the gaming industry and challenged people to think deeply about their computing device preferences.

Now back to the Apple Watch…

Can a smartwatch really unseat the mother of all wearables, the smartphone?

In an era of declining interest in watches, can Apple change people’s behavior and lead a resurgence in watch wearing?

These are all very tough questions, but they are not tough challenges that Apple hasn’t faced before.

It’s easy to forget that the iPod didn’t become a runaway success until two years after its launch (with the launch of the PC version of iTunes), and that it took a year for Apple to really ramp up sales of the iPhone (after the launch of the App Store), or that Apple got killed in the press after the announcement of the iPad but figured out how to translate its value by the time they started shipping it.

So, is Apple up to the challenge this time?

After their recent string of game-changing innovations the pressure is on!

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How to Design Like Apple

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Steve Jobs was a notorious perfectionist. Apple engineers and designers went through hundreds of revisions on every prototype that made it into his hands. But Jobs’ maniacal obsession paid off. No gadget on the market is as instantly recognizable nor as coveted as the latest iteration of an Apple product. The company’s dedication to sleek design and intuitive, user-friendly technology has made each iPad, iPhone and Macbook launch an enormous success.

And how did Jobs and Apple do it? The company follows a set of simple but strict rules to ensure that every product meets Jobs’ standards for clean and flawless design. First, design must complement and improve the product’s usability, never detract from it. And of course, Apple’s sleek and uncomplicated aesthetic must be reflected by every component of the product, no matter how small.

Apple’s design philosophy sounds simple, but putting it into practice is more difficult. Check out Online MBA’s latest video to see Apple’s philosophy boiled down into five principles that any designer or brandmaker can leverage in their own work.

A GUEST POST from my friends at OnlineMBA.com


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Apple Touches on a Potential Innovation Integration

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Apple Touches on a Potential Innovation Integration

Recently Apple announced its intention to acquire Authentec, a biometric authentication company. Apple was in a real hurry to complete the acquisition and it makes you wonder whether Authentec’s fingerprint authentication technology will make it into the home button of the iPhone 5 and possibly the iPad Mini in the coming months.

If Apple were to integrate the Authentec technology into the home button on the iPhone 5, the iPad Mini, and eventually the iPad 4, then it would not only create a handy way to make the devices easily personalized for multiple users of the same device (or just a simple password-free login for a single user), but purportedly the technology also has the ability to recognize multiple fingers (allowing for the home button to potentially achieve multiple functions), and to serve as authentication for mobile payments (most likely via NFC – Near Field Communications).

That would mean that Apple would add a lot of new functionality with the integration of this tiny piece of hardware, several software updates, and another tiny piece of hardware for NFC. But more importantly, these tiny pieces of hardware and software could make the computing experience more personal, and more naturally personalized as you move around the environment into different applications.

I know it is only a replacement for what could or can be done with a password, but I would love to be able to have apps like Netflix personalized based on whose finger was used.

This could become a great example of flexible design and innovating for the future present if they launch the iPhone 5 with these technologies. That would show that they started the design process with this as only a possibility but decided AFTER the technology looked ready to actually integrate it into the shipping product, and remained flexible enough to integrate the component near the end of the design process – something that is very hard to do, but very powerful.

Are all of these potential innovations ranging from the minor (login) to the transformative (speeding up mobile payment adoption) likely to make the cut for the iPhone 5?

I guess we will wait and see what happens on September 12th.

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Veracity Required for Innovation Success

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Veracity Required for Innovation SuccessA recent post by Jeffrey Phillips titled Velocity is the Only Innovation Outcome That Matters sparked respectful disagreement inside me.

I believe that when it comes to innovation, veracity is more important than velocity. Let’s look at the definition of the word veracity from our friends over at Merriam-Webster:

Veracity

1: devotion to the truth : truthfulness
2: power of conveying or perceiving truth

In my opinion it is more valuable to spend time on identifying the right customer insight and the right way to communicate with customers about the solution which you create to serve the insight, than it is to spend the same amount of time inventing faster or launching faster.

In fact your innovation velocity can exceed your innovation veracity as shown in this article.

And many a company has fallen foul of going too fast and thinking an invention will become an innovation when they are ready to launch it, including Microsoft with the Windows Tablet and Apple with the Newton, only to find that customers were not ready to adopt it as an innovation until years later.

Velocity is definitely important, but more isn’t necessarily better. Many times the competitor with a lesser innovation velocity but greater innovation veracity has ended up winning. Look at Apple and the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, etc.

It’s also more important to look for the barriers to adoption than it is to look for the barriers to creation. Innovation is all about value and this is why it is so important to pay just as much attention to value access and value translation, as you do to value creation, because it takes doing all three really well with a solution with real innovation veracity to find innovation success.

Fail to identify a solution with real innovation veracity and you are likely to miss potential elements of optimal value creation, you will likely struggle to make its value accessible, and there is a greater likelihood that you will fail to properly translate the value of the solution for your customers.

So, taken another way, the search for innovation success is a search for truth. You must therefore unlock the inner truths of your intended customers (think unmet needs or jobs-to-be-done), you must search in areas that your intended customers will feel are true for your brand, and areas that feel true to employees given the company’s mission and values. When your pursuit of innovation centers around truth and when you commit to a focused effort to increase your innovation capability – and to pursue Innovation Excellence – then and only then do you have your best chance at innovation success.

What innovation truths are you searching for?

How much innovation veracity can you create?


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Innovation Requires Diagonal Thinking

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Innovation Requires Diagonal ThinkingThe outcome of a back and forth of a dialog on Twitter with Scramray E. Pinkus generated a lovely quote worth sharing:

“Innovating is like thinking diagonally. A perfect combination of both linear and lateral.”

– Scramray E. Pinkus (@Easelton)

The conversation sprung out of a tweet I posted that postulated that when people use technology (iPads, smartphones, laptops, etc.) and television as child minders, that they are actually promoting linear thinking in their children at the expense of the lateral thinking that our society so desperately needs. We need strong lateral thinking to compliment the dominant linear thinking out there, so that together they can drive the social innovation the world needs to fix this mess we’ve made.

What do you think?

Technology as child minder, positive or negative effects on the innovative capacity of our children?

One of my proof points is this article from The Washington Post.

Any other proof points out there?

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Personal Innovation – Star Shining Example

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Personal Innovation - Star Shining ExampleI came across a queue reduction application for the iPhone and iPod Touch four years ago that was intriguing. At the time it looked like the application wasn’t quite finished or certified for use yet by Apple and Starbucks, but from what I gathered at the time it was meant to work something like this:

  1. User comes in range of a Starbucks WiFi Hotspot
  2. Application recognizes the Starbucks WiFi Hotspot or user initiates application
  3. Application engages the user interface portion of the application
  4. Application makes a connection
  5. Application prompts user to order a Starbucks beverage
  6. Application user interface facilitates the selection and transmission of the drink order (including a list of saved favorites to speed the process)
  7. Application connects to the user’s iTunes account
  8. Application deducts funds from the user’s iTunes account
  9. Application creates a visual barcode with the information necessary to register payment
  10. User places iPhone or iPod Touch with visual barcode under a reader at the pickup counter
  11. User collects their beverage

The visual barcode (semacode) and scanner portion of the system could be made unnecessary (or relegated to backup system status), by instead transmitting a payment confirmation to Starbuck’s on-site systems directly via the WiFi connection. In the backup scenario, the visual barcode would serve as an electronic receipt to show proof of payment in case the systems in the store doesn’t receive the systematic payment immediately.

Imagine the convenience of getting a block or two from your favorite Starbucks, connecting, clicking ‘The Usual’ and proceeding directly to the drink pickup counter instead of waiting in line to order and pay.

Of course there is no reason why companies like McDonald’s or Cinemark couldn’t create similar applications to eliminate some of the queueing from our lives. If people could order this easily with their phones then businesses could reduce staffing or reallocate resources from order taking and payment processing to more value-added activities like preparing food or beverage orders.

Apps like this could be extended to the Web through the introduction of a store number field or store locator mini-application or pulldown at the beginning of the application sequence. This would allow you to order out of range of the in-store WiFi over your cellular network or from your home or office internet connection.

Less time spent waiting in lines?

Oh what a beautiful world.

But, as I looked to refresh this article from 2008 and bring it to the Innovation Excellence readers I checked back and it turned out that the creator, Phil Lu, is a designer and created this as a mockup not as real app. This is a great example of shining your star and engaging in personal innovation. Just look at all of the coverage he got of his design and visioning skills for this prototype back in 2008 when I first wrote this article.

If you missed my previous personal innovation article on shining your star, it is here.

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‘Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire’ on Kindle

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Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire on KindleStoking Your Innovation Bonfire – A Roadmap to a Sustainable Culture of Ingenuity and Purpose is now available for Amazon Kindle both in the United States and in the United Kingdom.

Enjoy the book on your iPad, Kindle, Nook, iPhone, Android, PC, or Mac before it is widely available. If you buy the electronic version of the book from either Barnes & Noble or Amazon, you can download their readers for almost all of today’s major computing platforms.

The book will be available in hardcover October 5, 2010 from online retailers in the United States, and a week later it will be available in book stores and other electronic retailers outside the United States (UK, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and more).

If you’re curious about the book, you can look inside it on Amazon, or use Google Preview on the publisher’s web site, or watch on Monday, September 20, 2010 for a link to a free sample chapter from the book to be posted on http://innovationbonfire.com.

Getting a copy of the book is a great way to support the blog and keep it free.

Click here to pre-order the book

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