Let’s spend a moment with that number. First note that it includes the download of paid and free applications. The research group Gigaom has calculated that approximately ¾’s of the applications downloaded from the store are free applications (please, visit that link for a beautiful visualization of this information). Still, the results of people paying for a quarter of those applications is nothing to dismiss. In December of 2009, the quarter of the downloads from the App store that were paid for accounted for $250 Million in revenues of which 30% goes to Apple and 70% goes to the developers.
Also, it’s important to note that not all of those downloads took place on iPhones. Many purchases were made via the iPod Touch, which also runs the iPhone software. This tends to lend some credence to the possibility that the upcoming Apple tablet will run iPhone software, or at least have access to the Apple App store. It’s in Apple’s best interest to make sure that as many devices of their devices as possible can buy from the store.
Given the relative “newness” of the Blackberry/RIM, Android/Google, and Microsoft App stores, it shouldn’t surprise us that Apple is so far ahead. We can expect that as those stores mature, and as the number of devices that can access these stores increase, Apple’s share of the download market will decrease.
The greater point in all of this is that users see smartphones as a platform for apps and that they are willing to routinely download and even pay for apps, if the installation process is “one click” easy. Those apps in turn, are expanding people’s expectations about what a smartphone can do. And as we have seen expectations are often carried over to similar product categories – especially if the products are in similar price ranges. Just as people have come to expect that eReaders have touchscreens, similar expectations may develop around downloading and running apps. Take for example the Amazon’s announcement of a Kindle Software Development Kit. Also note that such a move isn’t just about keeping up with the ApplesJones, it’s also the hope of developing their own app store (you know, it’s not like Amazon has experience handling eCommerce).
The Smartphone Mobile OS
As people expect more and more from their phone, the line between the smartphone category and the portable computer category will begin to blur. Based on products shown or rumored at CES, it’s clear that said blurring has already begun. Smartphone OS’s have begun to “invade” other devices. Google’s Android OS has made its way onto netbooks and eReaders. And while Microsoft currently has different operating systems for mobile phones (Windows Phone) and other mobile devices (Windows CE), there is much speculation that these will eventually fold into the same platform. Finally,as mentioned above, in addition to driving the iPod Touch, there is much speculation that the upcoming Apple iSlate will also run the iPhone OS.
Beyond including access to apps, there are a number of reasons why Mobile OS’s are on the rise:
They are (in theory) designed to run efficiently on lower powered processors. While the capabilities of mobile CPUs continue to increase, they still lag far behind their traditional computer brethren. So mobile OS’s have to do more with less and while balancing functionality with heat discharge and power consumption (you don’t want to have to recharge your device more than once a day).
Touch (either finger or stylus) is the primary interface device. Unlike traditional OSes which focus on mouse and keyboard, these platforms were designed from the ground up to be touch first and keyboard second.
Telephony and mobile networking is built into the OS. Since they are designed to work as (smart)phones they have to be able to connect to a mobile phone network. This means that when a manufacturer chooses to implement a given mobile OS they know that they have the software capability for mobile networking.
And in addition to telephony, there are a number of other “bonus” features enabled by the OS including support for built in cameras, accelerometers (motion sensors), magnetometer (digital compass), and GPS.
Where manufacturer/developer choice comes in
For manufacturers, choosing one of these OS’s means that you don’t have to program your own custom OS for your device. However there are a range of decisions and, in some cases, restrictions that influence the decision of which OS to use.
Of the major OS’s: Apple Iphone, Google Android, Microsoft Phone, RIM Blackberry, and Nokia/Sony Ericsson/Samsung Symbian – only Android and Windows Phone are licensed so that any manufacturer can incorporate them into their devices.
Apple, Nokia, RIM, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung tightly control their respective OS’s, placing them on devices that they manufacture. The advantage to this, from a manufacturer’s standpoint, is that they can tightly control the hardware that the platforms run on. The argument for this control is that it provides users with the best possible base experience: You never have to worry about encountering iPhone software on a device with a slow processor.
Microsoft and Google take a different approach. By allowing anyone (or at least anyone who is willing to pay the development licensing fee in Microsoft’s case) to develop hardware for their platforms, the hope is to capture the market through volume. The recent proliferation of Android devices is a great example of this. It’s hard to say “no” to a free OS that provides all the advantages listed above.
On one hand, this flexibility means that these OS, in Microsoft’s case Windows CE, find their way into a wide range of devices including eReaders and tablets. However, there are potential dangers to this strategy. Microsoft attributes part of the problems that they have had with their Mobile OS to inconsistent user experiences due to variation screen sizes and processor power across devices:
Our fragmentation issue is primarily around screen resolutions and assuming a minimum CPU and storage. So it has been a little bit challenging, because that choice, that flexibility, that freedom that people have to build any kind of device and use any kind of device: touch, non-touch, keyboard, soft key, has required a little bit extra effort in some cases for developers to target apps that run across a wide array of devices…” ~ Microsoft’s Greg Sullivan, Senior Marketing Manager
For app developers, there are different costs to be weighed. If developers choose to program for Android, it means learning a new OS. Microsoft, on the other hand, markets their OS by highlighting the advantage that programming for the OS is very similar to writing a standard Windows program, which helps keep costs down. Apple makes a similar claim about the Cocoa programming language for the iPhone – if you can program a Mac, you can program an iPhone.
Obviously market share and platform popularity influence choice as well. But, returning to the beginning of the article, distribution through App stores may be the biggest factor. By signing on with Apple, for example, a developer knows that if they can get their application into the iTunes App store, then they have the greatest audience exposure and a “turn key” infrastructure for getting paid.
The question that we’ll tackle next is how Smartphone Apps are changing our expectations about what programs (and computers) can do.
Those words were spoken by Mark, my friend and martial arts instructor, in the middle of a workout last night. While I’ve been studying with Mark for more than a decade, its been difficult for me to give it the time it deserves over the last few years. Since I’ve been at Cornell, I’m lucky if I get in one workout a week.
Still this wasn’t the comment I was expecting. Out of shape? Sure. Rusty? Definitely. Looking like I can’t punch my way out of wet paper bag? Harsh, but unfortunately close to the truth. But comfortable? WTF? None of what I’m doing currently feels comfortable.
“Sifu, exactly what do you mean by comfortable?” I asked.
“It’s your stance…”
“What about it?”
“It’s all wrong. Your sitting on your back leg, you hips are shifted forward… you look comfortable.”
Oh… its that bad.
Losing one’s stance is a cardinal sin in the martial arts. Instructors drill into students that even in the most dynamic of martial arts, everything starts and returns to stance. Many incorrectly interpret this to mean that a stance as a static position, or worse, a moment of respite. Instead, one’s stance needs to exemplify dynamic stillness, allowing one the freedom of movement and action, of initiation, of response. If you don’t have stance, then you’ve lost the basis of everything that you do. Put simply, if your stance is crap, chances are everything else is too.
“Sorry Sifu. Can you help me find my stance again?”
And he did. It took a little while. Part of the problem is that I was “mashing up” the stances of different arts I’ve studied over the years. But part of the problem was a misunderstanding on my part.
“Sifu, I thought part of the process of making the stance your own is to get comfortable in it.”
“Ah… no. Your stance should be familiar, but never comfortable.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about that since last night. It seems like one of those lessons that goes far beyond the martial arts. In my work at Cornell, and elsewhere, I often get down on myself because it feels like I’m fighting too hard to make things work. I often ask myself why isn’t this easier? But as with my stance, I need to abandon hopes (or promises) of comfort. After all, all comfort and ease provide is a false sense of security. It seems to me that familiarity is a better ideal to pursue.
Now, familiarity isn’t necessary a panacea. And it’s clear that one can get comfortably familiar with the wrong thing, see the beginning of this. But familiarity tethered to the “now” through work, if not discomfort — that seems like a particularly productive mode of being (in the world).
Last week, I began an exploration of the technologies and trends that are influencing the future of reading with a discussion of the GMS mobile telephony standard which numerous devices use to enable “ubiquitous” mobile internet access. Today, we’ll take the next step and being to talk about smartphones.
Smartphones (Part I)
While there is no universal definition of a smartphone, the general agreement is that in addition to telephony, smartphones integrate a number of features that traditionally were only found on Personal Computers. Smartphone examples include the Apple iPhone, the Blackberry Storm, the Google Nexus One (Android), the HTC HD (Windows Phone), and the Motorola (an)Droid.
Early smartphones, running RIM’s Blackberry and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, established the “base” feature set for these devices: telephony + the schedule and contact management features of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) + (enterprise) email management +ability to develop/run 3rd party software. At this point, at least in the US, these smartphones were marketed as business level devices. While Blackberry (or ‘Crackberry’) developed a certain cultural cache, it was with the introduction of the Apple iPhone in 2007 that smartphones transitioned into the mainstream.
(note: While the “hows” and “whys” of that move are important to understanding the future of eReading, we’ll have to put them aside for the moment. I promise that I’ll get back to them in a future post. For the moment, let’s just accept that the iPhone was/is a game changer, and one that helps us to understand the current direction of smartphones.)
The success of the iPhone moved the baseline expectations about how smartphones and their related services should work:
Smartphone = Cool
As mentioned above, the iPhone firmly established smartphones as a consumer product, and more importantly, a status symbol. The iPhone and other smartphones began to make the rounds in popular culture and discussions began to take place about the importance of having a smartphone to “fully engage” with the world around you. And rather than being pushed to the back of their catalogs, cell phone providers began to focus their marketing campaigns around these devices.
100% more screen Previous devices relied on tactile hardware (keys) as interface devices. The iPhone was among the first smartphones to sacrifice physical buttons in order to maximize screen space; fast forward just a few years and it’s difficult to find anything but virtual controls on the vast majority of smartphones.
The effect of the larger screen went beyond simply how it changed the UI – Apple could have made the entire phone smaller and still maximized the screen size. Drawing upon the visual media strengths of the iPod platform, Apple cemented the notion that smartphones were also portable media playback devices. This meant (and this is important for the future of reading) that people would accept carrying larger than average “phone” if it served other purposes. As with monitors, “widescreen” had come to phones and manufactures began to increase the size of their devices. Today cellphone screens carry resolutions like WVGA (854×480) and WUGA (~400×240).
Touch me, touch me, touch me The Apple iPhone OS was arguably the first smart phone to be developed from the ground up with “touch” (or rather the finger) as the primary interface device. Prior to that, the expectation was that a physical keypad/board was typically the basis of interaction. “Touch control” was added, not through fingers, but through the use of a stylus (a future post will tackle touchscreen technology, so again, let’s leave the “hows” and “why’s” of touch alone for the moment). So not only was touch arguably an afterthought, but the assumption was that you’d only use a single touch point at a time. The iPhone brought the concept of multitouch to the mainstream (ie. Adding “pinch” and “stretch” to the interface).
The effect of touch control is also felt outside of the smartphone market. Fair or not, thanks to the iPhone (and the iPod touch), touchscreen is now imagined as the standard interface for hi-tech portable devices that are primarily screen. I cannot count the number of times I’ve seen someone pick up a Kindle and attempt to manipulate the contents of a book by touching the screen only to be disappointed to find out that you need to use the hardware buttons.
The App Store Model
3rd party smartphone Apps existed long before the iPhone, but there few centralized repositories of applications, and none allowed for “one-touch” installation of applications. In fact, you were often required to tether your smartphone to a computer in order to add new software. Apple’s iTunes App Store changed all of that, enabling users to easily browse and manage applications via their phones. Perhaps more importantly, Apple built a business model around its App Store, taking a piece of every software purchase. Not surprisingly, the creators of the competing OS’s have followed Apple’s example and created their own App Stores.
The result of the proliferations of App Store’s is two-fold. First, it has firmly established for customers and developers alike that smartphones are software platforms and are to be judged on how they can be extended through software. This leads us to a second point, the success or failure of a particular OS is now intimately tied to not only the experience of the OS, but also the recruitment of application developers.I suspect that, like touchscreens, this expectation of expandability will spread to all other smartphone-like devices – including eReaders. More importantly, it is through these App Stores (and apps) that reading came to smartphones. Despite Steve Job’s claim that “people don’t read anymore,” reading apps like Lexical’s Stanza, the New York Times eReader, and Amazon’s Kindle software have been a great success on the iPhone. People familiar with the history of technology will see this as another example of how the use of technologies are shaped by multiple parties beyond the manufacturer, in this case users and third party developers.
Now, where does the larger screen, touch control and the apps take us in regards to eReading? I’ll tackle that tomorrow.
Chris Anderson, Margaret Atwood, Katherine Hayles & more are at RIT in June for "The Future of Reading" Conference – #
Woot! I got a local instance of PHP & WordPress running on my laptop! I finally have a testing environment! #
@ivanmironchuk I've run 2.9 for a while. My problem was not having a robust template design/testing environ. Redesign here I come. in reply to ivanmironchuk#
![[App Store]](http://www.waking-dream.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/app_store.jpg "app_store")
![[The Apple Iphone 3GS gets a Phone. by flickr user Ninja M.]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3339/3574350862_49d337b167_m.jpg)
![[Iphone on TV]](http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/images/4/2009/01/worstweek.jpg)
Previous devices relied on tactile hardware (keys) as interface devices. The iPhone was among the first smartphones to sacrifice physical buttons in order to maximize screen space; fast forward just a few years and it’s difficult to find anything but virtual controls on the vast majority of smartphones.
![[Multi Touch Illustration from zatznotfunny . com]](http://www.zatznotfunny.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/multi-touch-iphone.jpg)
The Apple iPhone OS was arguably the first smart phone to be developed from the ground up with “touch” (or rather the finger) as the primary interface device. Prior to that, the expectation was that a physical keypad/board was typically the basis of interaction. “Touch control” was added, not through fingers, but through the use of a stylus (a future post will tackle touchscreen technology, so again, let’s leave the “hows” and “why’s” of touch alone for the moment). So not only was touch arguably an afterthought, but the assumption was that you’d only use a single touch point at a time. The iPhone brought the concept of multitouch to the mainstream (ie. Adding “pinch” and “stretch” to the interface).