Where the PC stands in a 'Post-PC' invasion

I thought I would discuss an interesting and also extremely debatable topic today. Currently, where does the traditional PC market stand and what is the outlook? Is it rainbows and flowery hills or murky and hellish depths? Or is it flat and unchanging, remaining a reliable segment of the consumer electronics market. Apple's iPad 2 event was quite some time ago, however there was one theme of the unveiling event that has implanted itself in my mind. Steve Jobs - the visionary, mentioned that we are living in the 'Post - PC' world now. The iPad is Apple's third post PC 'blockbuster', following the ubiquitous iPod and iPhone.

A lot of people will consider this nothing more than a clever marketing ploy, a healthy dose of Steve Jobs charisma and Apple's corporate sugar. After all, it would make logical sense to persuade consumers into the land of post-pc products if you, yourself are almost tyrannically in control of it. However the significance of Steve's statement go far beyond his desire to take your cash, but perhaps we do live in the post-pc world now. I know people who use their conventional PC multitudinously less because of the presence of their post-pc products.

Before one can even debate the future outlook of traditional PC's, it must be first defined what 'post-pc' really means. The prefix 'post' means 'after', so logically post-PC defines products that proceed PC's. This doesn't tell us much. What defines after? It can be argued that 'after' doesn't even have a significance in this instance as we can't be 'after' PCs if they still exist. As a general term, post-pc can be best defined as products that can capably replace our traditional personal computer. Smartphones for example, can do many things that PC does albeit in a smaller and more eye-straining way. This, in essence can be considered a post-pc product.

Having said that, to analyse why a shift in demand might be imminent we have to examine how the average consumer uses their computer. I once read a funny but staggeringly true statement: a computer without internet is like a bowl without fruit. This says a lot about how consumers use computers, it's abundantly clear that we spend the majority of our time on the internet. More than often we will word process, however often the things that we write are merely products of the things that we research. On the internet. We like to think that we use a lot of media software on our computers, but in all honesty a Facebook user would be hard-pressed to say that they spend more time doing other tasks on a computer than they are on Facebook. This is one of the reasons why PC's are getting bitten by our post-pc products, it's because tablets and smartphones browse the internet so well. It's all about user experience and pinching to zoom is significantly more efficient and fun than Ctrl +, using fingers to physically scroll a page rather than a scroll ball is appealing. And of course touching links rather than clicking is pleasingly natural.

I'm not a believer of dying technologies and dying trends. In consumer electronics, things never die, they merely evolve. And that is what I believe is going to happen to our PC. We will always have PC, but in 20 years time it may look a lot different than the one I'm typing on as I speak. There was once a time when technology was all about becoming more advance and gaining leaps and bounds in technicality. The feature-set and sophistication of an offering determined how good it was. However, now I believe we've reached an era where it's all about intuition. The aim now appears to be creating products that are natural and intuitive. But also experiences that successfully mimic the real, tangible products that they replace.

This might be hard to understand, but here's a scenario: Real magazines are so yesterday. It's all about the magazine subscription on your iPad. The flicking of the screen for page turning aims to mimic the experience of a real magazine, which dare I say will never be replaced. Ebook readers aim to do the same with the same flicking motion to turn pages and their paper like displays. This is also why I believe the stylus is up for a come back, the HTC Flyer has revealed its potential. People do not write with their fingers, people write with pens, and the Flyer successfully imitates the usefulness of taking notes and highlighting and circling important points. It's the only tablet on the market which can really act like one of man's timeless creations: pen and paper.

The unreleased Mac OS X Lion heads the PC transformation. The intuition factor of the iPad plays a huge part in the design of Lion. The advertised features are no longer about the inside workings and the intermediates, but rather it's about getting things done more naturally and easily. For example the new Airdrop feature removes the stigma of difficulty out of wireless file sharing. Sharing files shouldn't be a hard task, after all in the real world it would only require you to grab your paper, walk over to the person you want to give it to and physically hand it to them. It shouldn't be any harder than that on a computer. The concept of Airdrop succeeds in creating technologies as easy as nature, simply drag the file onto someone's name.

Having said this, PC will never become a tablet. The sheer feeling of productivity and power of using an actual computer will never be able to be emulated in a touchy-feely device like a tablet or a smartphone. I'm not a believer in keyboard slider tablets either, or the tablets of old with the spin around displays and touch-pen input. On paper, they are superior devices but they are merely a compromise. They neither offer the pure portability of a tablet, nor do they offer the full power of a dedicated personal computer. Nobody will ever be expected to get much work done on a tablet, they are by enlarge convenience devices which allow you to quickly touch up things. They've never been intended to be the device where you can start and complete projects. Tablet's lack of keyboard is one of the main reasons for this. So what about the Asus EeePad Transformer, or Samsung Slider? Yes, you could very well add a keyboard to a tablet, but it doesn't really measure up. If you truly wanted to be productive then I'm sure most people, and I personally would just buy a portable and capable notebook. Like a Macbook Air, for instance.

It's not about the convergence of devices, and it's not about how much a certain device can do but rather how well it does them. This is the philosophy that spells out the future of any of our devices. It's not logical to build a 5 inch smartphone/tablet, as just because it can be two devices at once, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to be good at them. Personally, I don't want my phone to be 5 inches, because its large screen real estate would eat into the portability factor. A tablet will supply for my large screen appetite, and personally I don't want my tablet to have a keyboard because guess what? That's what my laptop's for.

Phone, tablet, laptop: three products that serve their purpose fully and well.

Consumers don't want compromise, obviously. Nobody wants a compromise. However many manufacturers are willing to provide just that because they believe that the more devices they can combine into one determines its quality. Rather it is how well it performs its purpose that determines how good it really is. Tablets are defining the shift in consumer technology, their sales are strong because they do some of the things that PC can do in a far more natural and intuitive way. However it can't do the thing that makes PC so essential: efficiently complete work. PC will evolve and will definitely introduce more tablet like features and develop more natural and life-like experiences. But one thing's for sure -

The PC will never become a 'Post-PC' product. The PC is here to stay.

Capturing the 'indecipherable' ladies market

Beyond stereotypical image of two women frolicking in their natural habitat

What is it that females look for in their consumer electronics? This is a puzzle that has baffled manufacturers for many years, and still no one has perfected the 'ladies' device. A brief look at the behaviours of your typical female and it's not difficult to see several traits that most of the species share: a love for fashion, shopping and social networking. And of course texting. Naturally, they are very social creatures.

Given this brief analysis of female interests, dedicated ladies electronics have generally been extremely stereotypical.  Most if not all dedicated ladies phones are jam packed with shopping applications, certain texting features, QWERTY keypads, crocodile skin aesthetics and often laden with that ghastly colour of hot pink. Perhaps throw in a free handbag in there too. None of these approaches have ever successfully completed the puzzle of consumer technology for females. I don't want to be stereotypical and say that all women are make-up obsessed, window shopping addicts, as thank god I have met many girls who are not like this. However, the general consensus is that there are many females that fit this description and a lot of consumer electronics vendors are trying to target just this. I'm going to explain why targeting females in such unimaginative ways will never work, and why targeting females at all is just an inefficient waste of time.

You might have noticed that the word indecipherable in the article title, is placed between apostrophes. This is because people assume that the ladies market is so confusing and unbreakable. We wonder if women want pink phones, or petite handbag sized netbooks. However in the end there is nothing to decipher at all. It's not as difficult as it is made out to be, there's no need to go into the deep complexities of female psychology. But rather, we just need to know one simple fact: women are just looking for a great experience. 

The fact that most women aren't as knowledgeable or interested in the tech field has forced manufacturers to blindly assume that women are to be targeted separately via alternative means. Instead of having normal products for normal people, there's suddenly a need to have modified phones for women. It's like they're not normal humans! However, piecing apart the overall market and providing tailored products for individual segments not only dilutes the value and unity of products in the lineup, but is essentially more costly. Piecing apart and spreading the target market also means spreading promotional expenditure and support expenditure. It's an inefficient way to do business. I'm not necessarily a supporter of small one product line-ups, since one product is often not enough to be able to encapsulate the entirety of the target market. However the ratio of products to consumers should always remain as small as possible. Apple has done well in this respect, though they represent an extreme in this philosophy. The iPhone is one product for all, it suits females, it suits males, it suits students and it suits business professionals.

I know there are many people and manufacturers that would aggressively counter this philosophy, Samsung is probably the most prominent of such offenders. In my opinion Samsung's smartphone line-up is excessive. Excessive to the power of 4. Daily, there is a new review of a Samsung handset: Infuse 4G, Galaxy S II, Droid Charge and plenty more. To be brutally honest, only one or two of these have a legitimate reason for existence. The Galaxy S II is a great phone, and most of the others are just cheap copies of the same device. Evidently, Samsung is trying to break the smartphone market through pure scale. Not much effort has gone into branding or exclusivity, however the 'shove in your face' factor forms the core of Samsung's smartphone effort. They want that obnoxious Samsung logo to be so ubiquitous that when picking a smartphone, the odds are that you'll end up with a Samsung. I can't say that this plan isn't effective, because I would be lying and the ubiquity of Samsung's smartphone effort is from what I've heard proving to be effective. And Samsung's strong hardware calibre has definitely earned the respect of technology enthusiasts. However speaking as a consumer and analyser of such technologies, this strategy offers little in terms of gaining brand value and consumer respect. Only time will tell Samsung's prospects.

Back on topic (consumer electronics for females), another factor that must be considered is a product's general ease of use and tech appeal. And by tech appeal, I'm referring to a lesser focus on tech appeal. A recent article that I wrote talked much about most vendors focus on hardware superiority in the tablet space, instead of aiming to excel in user experience. If technology nerds are the target market, this strategy is gold, however for everyone else and particularly ladies this strategy is far from effective. In this regard, I could say I'm much like a female, I couldn't care less about that 'ghz' and 'dual-core' junk. If it works well and smoothly then it works for me. This is why expert studies have shown that females have a strong preference for iOS over the geeky Android. iOS's omnipresence and 'I don't need a manual' interface has ensured that a lot of consumers are aware of iOS's great user experience. Android's geeky name, general geek appeal, and tailored user experience across difference devices has added confusion and complexity into Android purchases. For example, just because the Galaxy S II is a brilliant phone, I can't be guaranteed that Xperia Arc which runs on Android too will likewise be a great phone. On the flip side, I can be certain that the white iPhone 4 will be just as good as the black iPhone 4, and iPad 2 will definitely be an improvement over iPad 1. 

All up, I have shown two effective to captivate the minds of females. Being stereotyped as pink-loving window shoppers is not one of them. In actual fact, I believe that females dislike being patronised in such a way, the need to have devices specially tailored for them is somewhat degrading and evokes the feeling of deficiency. The most efficient way to capture females is to pull them into the company's overall target market, not aim for them individually by taking them out of the target market. Once again, females are just like males, looking for a great user experience, however, minus the hardware complexities.

What do you think about selling consumer electronics to women? Is it easier or harder than it looks?

Recollecting Sony's handling of the hacker quandary: Stringer must go.

Given it's the biggest tech news going around these two weeks I thought I would comment on the PSN hacking debacle and how Sony have handled it, or not handled it. I'm not going to go into detail about the specifics and intermediates of the event as you've probably read it millions of times and are sick of the same news all over again. Overall, I would rate Sony's handling of the situation decent, but to be honest not too flash. It was largely because of the initial delayed responses and the general lack of specifics that made consumers nervous, and even angry. However, updates have been consistent and frequent which is great, and the occasional Q & A's have really assisted in keeping nervous consumers informed.

I'm not a Playstation or Qriocity customer myself, which you might say is odd given that I blog about this stuff weekly. There were many aspects of Sony's handling that I found disappointing. The fact that Kaz Hirai addressed and apologised to the public in an entirely Japanese press meeting was unacceptable. It's not modern news that Sony is a Japanese company and many of the execs speak Japanese much more fluently and understandably than they do English, however this is a worldwide problem and the least they could do is address a worldwide audience. We have seen the execs speak English at CES, which is a proud and beneficial event for an electronics corporation. However in this case of shame and mortification it is abundantly clear they've chosen to hide behind the language barrier.

Which brings me to my next point, and most important point, where was Howard Stringer? In this situation of desperation where a leader need be present to show agitated consumers who's in control. Perhaps casually lazing by a pool or a high-end game of golf with other wealthy figures. It's not a good image when a leader is present in such events like CES to promote products, yet goes missing for a fortnight when he's most needed to repair the products. Being a leader is not a title or a job. Becoming a leader is crafted by actions, and Stringer's lack of action and commitment has seen my respect bar for him drop to a new low. It was only today, two weeks after the situation began that he issued a public letter to consumers. Even this was simply an echo of what has already been said far too many times by the Sony group. Themes like 'we are sorry', 'we've been working around the clock', 'the hacking was a criminal act' were rampant in Stringer's letter, and yet the letter failed to offer any strong answers to the questions that have been haunting customers for the last 14 days. The media has been all over him for not going public since the incident began, this overdue letter is simply to seek the praise and acceptance of the media.


I believe that this lack of commitment shows us that Stringer is certainly not the right person to head Sony. It's time that Stringer left the helm. It's time for a new face for Sony, one that represents light and potential for the corporation. Stringer's charisma fooled me, he is definitely not the man for the job.


Stringer's need to leave isn't solely because of the hacker outbreak, but this incident represents a possible breaking point. Now I realise that he's a funny and painfully charming man with not enough knowledge in consumer electronics and consumer behaviour to really drive Sony forward. When Stringer took the top job in 2005, he brought along with him several goals with which he wanted to achieve by the end of his tenure. Most notably, the one he wanted to achieve was breaking down 'silo walls'. He wanted the company to integrate its technologies, to work together on projects instead of separately, and to create a unified product line. So far that hasn't happened. I understand that company turnarounds of such magnitude require time but 6 years is simply too long. He turned Sony into a shallow corporation, throwing big parties, huge events and flashy marketing campaigns for products that would never live up to the hype. Walkman X for example was launched in a decorated train carriage, however Walkman X wasn't even able to create a ripple in the MP3 market. The PS3 is now fighting for top spot, when its predecessor the PS2 had an almost impassable lead. And besides all this, the corporation's media subsidiaries Sony Pictures and Sony Music still aren't creating any worthy synergy with the hardware that the company sells.

Sony's inability to provide competitive products in a competitive market has been troubling. The inability to create a unified platform despite their bounty of resources is disappointing. And more importantly, their inability to recapture the spirit of the old days is the biggest problem of them all. The PSN predicament is the bubble burst for Stringer. Stringer had the right idea, however didn't go about them effectively. Under Stringer, the company has created products and attempted to integrate them later, however products need to be created with the sole purpose of integration in mind.

Is Kaz Hirai the right man for the job then? I thought so, however I think Kaz Hirai's reputation has been jeopardised by Stringer's ineptitude. In my opinion, a young fresh mind is what the company needs to feed its innovation appetite once again. A young fresh mind, or a beginners mind. Beginners minds are great because they aren't hampered by difficult past experiences, their minds aren't infected by 'oh, we tried that, this won't work'. Like infants, they are curious and creative, and their thoughts are ocassionally out of line with deemed reality, yet can often lead to ridiculously innovative ideas. The best products aren't created through thorough market research, however purely from a sense of the consumers desires. Additionally, I believe that it would be preferable to have someone who can't be associated with such mishaps like this hacker debacle.

Perhaps it's a good thing that the hacking has happened, its allowed Sony to rethink what's gone wrong and possibly make for a restructuring of the company's board. Stringer is a good man no doubt, however his lack of commitment and passion for the Sony group has been clearly evident this fortnight, and this is the last thing Sony needs.

What are your thoughts on Stringer?

Imperfect technologies: The two faces of dual-screen.

I think that the concept of multiple screen devices falls along with the stylus in the box of brilliant concepts that have never quite been executed to the point of perfection. Both of these technologies are applicable to tablet devices and mobile computing, the stylus used to be the primary input method for PDA's and old mobile contraptions of the like. As for dual-screen, off the top of my head I can only think of one iconic device or trend that has utilised this idea, an that is the Nintendo DS.

The success of Apple often forces us to believe that Apple's way and concepts are the only truly effective ways to do things. For example manufacturers have believed that since the iPad has been such a phenomenal success, therefore large touch screen devices are what they should be making. However, it's simply because there is nothing better in the market currently. It's great to know this since it means that certain ideas such as the stylus and dual-screen are not dead, however simply need to be implemented in a way that is not outdated or just a burden as such. In this article I will be talking about the advantages and disadvantages of dual screen and how I believe it can be successfully implemented. Hence the two faces.

To be honest, I don't think I have seen a successful application of dual-screen ever, apart from the Nintendo DS handheld. And being a small gaming device, it's hard to apply the same ideas that have contributed to the DS's success to tablet devices and mobile computing. The Acer Iconia Touchbook isn't a terrible attempt, however there are many of the same issues that have plauged dual-screen devices in the past present. And once again, its limitations and annoyances, most particularly the touch-screen keyboard don't make up for its increased screen real estate. Also, that obnoxious gap between the two displays that has been haunting the dual screen concept for a long time, has still not been taken care of or put to good use.

A rather obvious and large advantage of the two screens is basically more display estate for essentially the same size given their ability to fold up. One of the limitations - not quite a limitation but on a relative scale when compared with dual screen devices - of tablets is simply the fact that a 10 inch form factor will only permit at most a 10 inch display. Whereas on dual screen devices, it can be double that.

The gap or hinge between the two displays is often viewed as a hindrance to dual screen contraptions, and if nothing is done to help put them to good use then it really is one of the most infuriating limitations technology has ever seen. However, since nothing can be done to get rid of it, the logical way is to find some way in which it can actually assist us. Much the same way that Sony should have hired George Hotz to help build security measures into the Playstation products. Nonetheless, I believe that the gap can be useful, because it provides a physical or mental boundary between certain tasks. Come to think of it, its potential in multitasking productivity is quite vast. Any of you Windows 7 users will know how handy that quick snap split screen feature really is, I myself didn't know how much I needed this nifty functionality until I got my hands on Windows 7.

Dual screen contraptions can work in much the same way. Perhaps you want to download some PDF's while sending an email to your boss, or play a game with the capability of not having your fat thumb on the persons face that you're trying to shoot. Perhaps you want to IMDB a certain movie on one display, while watching it on the other display. Maybe something much more simple, like working on your files on one display while organising it on the other. All of these inevitably increase productivity significantly.

Apple's success has created the assumption that tablets are all about 99 cent apps, having fun, making movies and playing music and not about productivity as such. You could argue that the iPad does have many apps available that sufficiently do productive tasks, however Apple doesn't market it this way therefore obviously doesn't intend the iPad to be this. However the fact is that consumers actually do want to get work done on tablets. The desire to do productive work on tablets is evident because many consumers are struggling to make the pick between a low end notebook or a tablet, obviously because they want the tablet form factor but the productive capabilities of the notebook.

Dual-screen lends a lot in terms of its practicality in doing productive tasks. The last in my pack of useful functions: 'organising files while working on them' is actually quite an important one, and one that I believe will be of great use to consumers. Most of the other examples are somewhat obvious, however this one's potency will be often underestimated. By organising files, I don't mean specifically that, however it represents an umbrella word for sorting things out, putting things together and accessing things easily.

Perchance you're just gathering some information for a particular assignment, just snippets of a webpage, and an image or two. Instead of arduously undergoing a tedious copy and paste process, flicking snippets and images onto the other display for collection or accumulation is an increasingly more appealing way to get work done. Another example would be using one display as a Windows Explorer / Mac Finder kind of thing, and the other for previewing files or working on them, this would allow constant and easy access to content.

Think about the iPad, it doesn't offer the same ease of use in multi-tasking as this dual screen approach would. Working side by side is essentially impossible, and using two windows or applications at once requires constantly flipping between the two, which is hardly productive. An apt dual screen approach should be able to eradicate such restrictions.

Many people when thinking of dual screen devices form this image in their head of someone holding one like a book, however dual-screens versatility in itself is potentially a huge selling point. Hold it like a book, use it like a notebook, game on one like a DS: it's all possible with two screens. Obviously some uses will be impractical if the size of the device does not permit, for example DS-like gaming on two 10-inch displays in somewhat preposterous. However as was seen in the Sony S2 dual-screen tablet promo video, a demonstration was shown depicting the bottom screen being used for game controls, whilst the top obviously for the game visuals. This is great for gamers since there is nothing worse then having fingers in the way of gameplay.

Dual-screen isn't the only way in which true productivity can be achieved on a tablet or mobile device, however it's definitely a step in the right direction. Despite its strong benefits there are many things that can really hamper the dual-screen experience, and most of these crimes have been committed already.

Simply having two screens for the sake of having two screens is extremely distasteful. The gap between the screen has no use when dual-screen is implemented in this manner, and only makes the user progressively more frustrated that there is gaping black line running through their Youtube video or webpage. In extreme cases the frustration can escalate to a point where the user snaps the device in two hoping to end up with two singular screen devices. Also, if no OS optimisation is made to take advantage of the two screens, then again it is simply wasted.

Perhaps one day dual-screen will finally be able to reach its full potential. With current available software and operating systems, none of them are built specifically optimised to take advantage of dual screens. Android I suppose can be customised, but I have mentioned before that customisation can only go so far. In the end, the double screen concept needs truly capable software to back it up, otherwise it's just like a beautiful glass with no Coke inside. Manufacturers moreover need to not be afraid to go against Apple's flow, I said this in one of my older articles regarding the 'sea of sameness', but the key really is 'don't sell what a consumer is buying, sell what a consumer wants'. Does the consumer really want what they're buying? They think so but their preferences can only go as far as what they see available. The iPad is the only thing that's truly appealing, perhaps a really great dual-screen tablet with an optimised OS is what consumers want even more.