From Smart to Super

The mobile growth story in India should really be looked at as a course of multidimensional evolution. When this evolution started, it was mainly aimed at addressing and overcoming the great challenge of staying connected. This was very effectively accomplished in record time. ‘From no connectivity to wireless connectivity’ was the earlier push that created a big bang in the Indian telecom market. Over a period of 10 odd years, a better quality of service evolved that encompassed changes such as voice clarity , quicker delivery of text messages & emails. This was an important but basic step.

Today, voice is almost passé. The mandate of the common mobile user nowadays is loud and clear – Social Networking, Instant Messaging, Entertainment and multimedia content and, perhaps, a bit of email. A good way to look at this is to consider that even if voice calling was free, you probably wouldn’t call your friend multiple times a day. On the other hand, data services are a window to a whole lot of content that the user wants through the day. The great thing here is that the mobile phone is not only something that is personal but, added to that, if it can perform well enough to meet most of your immediate requirements, then you don’t need to fire up your PC or laptop to surf the internet or see the latest cricket scores. There has also been a distinct change in consumption patterns. A lot  less people are watching long TV shows, while a lot more want  to “snack” on 3 minute videos off the net, which they don’t mind watching on their small screen. It is no wonder then that, almost across all social classes, the mobile phone has become the ubiquitous & personal media & communication device!

While the consumption preference   seems to be inclined towards going the way of data over voice, it is being complemented by the advent of smart phones. This is leading to people quickly upgrading and replacing their feature phones with new touch screen-enabled multimedia-playing, 3G-compatible smart phones. But, this shift in the Indian mobile user’s buying behavior, towards better features like, enriched multimedia experience and entertainment comes with a big drawback. Although Smart phones are better compared to feature phones they are more complex to use and come nowhere near the easy usage characteristics of the trust old feature phones.

Therefore, the conundrum is a toss-up between features vs. ease of use / convenience.

Mobile Devices & handset manufacturers have already taken note of this big poser and are already spending many dollars on “uncomplicating” the smartphone without compromising on features and speed. They are coming out with what the industry is beginning to call the Superphone. I believe this will be another game changer in the industry.

Google coined the term “superphone” when they launched their Nexus One. The company described the device as optimized from a silicon perspective, a hardware perspective and a software perspective. What we must however remember is that the end users are least interested in the silicon, hardware and software application inside the phone. What they want is a phone that is powerful, yet easy and convenient to use.

So, if we were to sum up what mainly appeals to the mobile user in general terms, it is: a superphone that has deeper access to hardware capabilities, where the hardware is a step above what you would  see in a smartphone; screens that are larger, in excess of four inches, in some cases; there is an  impressive camera, generally between five and eight mega pixels, that lends itself to high-quality photo and video capturing; has multiple microphones with noise cancellation for better sound, both for calls and video recording. In other words, the multimedia capabilities are well placed in this generation of mobile phone. The software applications that drive the enhanced hardware connect the various features seamlessly and are highly intuitive to bring you a unified super experience. For example, the camera takes a high res picture, then offers tools to help you modify the picture as per your needs, then out pops an interface that helps you share the modified picture with your social network via email, Twitter, Facebook, etc., and also connects you to that particular application for you to further interact with your network. Not too bad for something that fits in your pocket.

The scenario in India is not too far behind the West as some Indian brands are becoming very active on this front. After all, the Indian mobile market in the top 20 cities of India is considered to be action packed and mature. Although the users are drawn to features offered by the mobile device, ultimately how these features are presented to them could be the key differentiator. Can they put together this bundle of magic in an uncomplicated package with enhanced but easy user experience?

That is the million dollar question.

What stops the 3G & 4G Lifestyle?

To an average mobile user, perhaps even a mobile user who is well-aware of the latest mobile technologies, I would venture to say that roll out of technologies such as 3G, 4G, LTE and even 5G will only be a piece of news! Because, these technologies, while they provide a fantastic realm of faster, cheaper and stronger mobile usage, do nothing much to the user, because the end user is more interested in what is happening on the mobile phone, and would rather not be bothered about what is going on in the big background of the mobile network, unless it fails!

Rather, the user is more interested in what new & interesting things that their shiny new feature phone or smart phone can provide. In fact, the very reason for the rise in the smartphone sales in India nowadays is primarily because the user:

• Wants to climb the social and aspirational ladders to own something that the “high rollers” have, or even because they come under a sort of peer pressure like "my friend or colleague has one so I should get one, too"
• Has heard about the wonderful things that one could experience with the smartphone such as streaming video & multimedia content, mobile internet browsing, and so on, in an interesting and exciting way.

However, having got the new device, the user soon finds out that it is not that great because you have a lot of “irritants” such as:

• Tedious process to access even the native apps
• Search takes more time than to read an update! For example – Having to go through multiple clicks just to get a quick update on the latest cricket score.
• If you want to know about trends and stuff, it is more time consuming & frustrating to look for them. There are no intelligent, profile-based recommendations, or pushed content.
• Typing URLs, even the short ones is time consuming & annoying.
• There are no intuitive or adaptive content that you expect out of a smart device
• Typing for say, 3 minutes to look at a 1 minute video clip, etc.

All these just seem too complex and so inconvenient that you get frustrated using the mobile device. And the funny thing is that data speeds or any other “back end” technology is not the problem. There is a humungous amount of content available out there covering differing geographies, cultures, languages, topics, serious to humorous, and these are the latest and trending content as well. The user knows that he can get to all this, but let us not forget that the DNA of the user is – instant gratification, “snack” type consumption pattern, fast moving from topic to topic of content, etc. In essence, everything has to be quick, like, “I want to be entertained, I want to know what is going on in the world & in my group, I want it now but I don’t want to spend any time or effort looking for it”.

So, even the most sophisticated smartphone becomes a kind of a passive, multimedia, touch screen phone; even to the educated, smart and savvy user because they have to put in effort and time to get all the goodies. The other argument is “why call it a smartphone when all it does is provide mobile browsing, multimedia & gaming capabilities & expects the user to do all the work!” Well, that’s it, isn’t it? The smartphone is not smart; it is only high tech and pretty. And worse, it expects the user to make the effort & be intelligent and adaptive. Now, that isn’t very smart! That is the real problem!

If we were to take the television ecosystem as an example of success at the user end, then there are many reasons for this. While TV in India has graduated from the black & white and "Krishi Dharshan" days of yore, thanks to cable and its proliferation, the TV companies realized very quickly that content sells. Of course, it also helped that newer technologies of TV sets like plasma, LCD, LED, HDTV, Digital broadcast, etc., coupled with interesting accessories like the Home Theater Systems made TV viewing much more entertaining and exciting. However, the most interesting thing to happen (or rather something that didn't change!) was that at the user end, the operation of the TV. It has remained as simple as it has always been! That is to say, while the TV set & the back-end technologies have become very advanced and high-tech, for the end user, operating all this has remained exactly the same as operating an old CRT tube-based TV. Now that is what I call smart! In fact, one could extend this to so many things in life such as automobiles, IVR systems, Airplanes, etc., where the technological improvement has increased user comfort while reducing the effort required by the user, to consume whatever is being served.

Therefore, IMO, the biggest challenge that mobile technology faces today, is not the technology itself, but the delivery - whether it is convenient, smart and easy or complex and cumbersome!