Mobile (d)evolution?
Ericsson announced their results so far this year and their stock dropped quite a bit because the market was expecting more. I heard an interview with Carl-Henric Svanberg where he explained the main reason why the results aren’t as good as they used to be. He claimed that people simply aren’t buying as many mobile phones now as they did in the 90s because everyone already has a phone today. This might sound as a very good reason, it can even make sense unless you dig a little deeper into the current situation.
The truth isn’t quite as simple as just saying that people no longer have the need to buy a new phone. The statement in itself is true, I’m not arguing that, but with this fact in mind you as a company have to address the issue and this is the point where it gets interesting.
A quick search on the big mobile phone producers websites will let you see pictures and information about most of their newest phones as well as some of the older models. What strikes me as quite strange is the lack of innovation in these phones. In essence, Ericssons newest mobile phone is the same phone they released 2 years ago. It looks pretty much the same way, the hardware has been slightly upgraded and the user interface has been remodeled with new icons. Ericsson isn’t the only company where things look like this. You’ll notice the exact same trend with Nokia or any other large mobile phone producer. In fact, I dare to say, without having looked at them all, that Apples iPhone is the only innovative mobile phone in 5 years, maybe even more. That’s one phone amongst the hundreds that has been released over the past years.
Sony Ericsson has been using the same idea for a long time now. They have their 4-axis stick, or sometimes a square button which you can push in four different places, the phone profiles look pretty much the same and the user interface, horrible as it is, haven’t changed much in years. The same goes for Nokia, actually, I could cut and paste the above text to describe Nokias phones. Not even Samsungs new “touch” buttons impress me because they are still nothing but buttons.
Sure, they are giving us more juice in the phones. Nowadays we have a 5 MP camera and several gigabytes or memory. Some phones have built in WLAN and GPS. The list goes on, they are indeed upgrading the phones all the time, supplying us with more and improved features for every release. The mobile phone isn’t just a phone anymore, it’s a slimmed laptop. But what difference does the 3 or 5 MP camera do when the phones lack the ability do supply you with a usable interface because this is really what I’m talking about.
Navigating in the menus of a Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung or whatever other brand there is is always the same tedious chore. They all look alike and function alike. And they all share the same short comings. You can compare this to the one phone I previously mentioned as innovative: Apples iPhone. Here’s a user interface that’s usable. It’s innovative and simple, you’ll learn how to use it in a matter of minutes. Of course it’s far from perfect but perfection isn’t something anyone should strive for because once you get there you’ve reached the top with nowhere to go but down and what fun is that?
I’d like to make a comparison here to really highlight the issue and my point here: Mobile Phone User Interfaces and the WWW. I work with the web on a daily basis and I am especially fond of building User Interfaces that doesn’t only look good but also usable.
If we go back 5 years and look at where the web was at the time and compare that to where the web is today and where it is going you’ll see a rapid evolution towards rich applications with the user in focus. You no longer build your websites to inform your customers, users or whoever might visit your site. You build your website to give them an experience they want to come back to, again and again and when you really compare today’s web with the one we had a few years ago the change is stunning. Or at least the potential is.
The same comparison on the mobile phone market isn’t quite as exiting. It takes about one minute to see that the User Interface in today’s mobile phones are the same as a couple of years ago. They have improved the graphics, given us a few more options so that we can configure the new hardware but in essence it’s the same UI. And it sucks.
I wonder how long it will take companies such as Sony Ericsson to realize that the problem with decreasing sales doesn’t lie with the fact that people no longer have the need to purchase a new phone. No, it’s because the new phones are the same as their old phone. It’s simply not worth the money to spend on such small updates because they are simply not exiting enough. Apple managed to create a great hype around the iPhone and it wasn’t the hardware that did that. It was the UI. It was the feeling of something new, something cool, an experience in your pocket. Unless the others catch on soon they’re going to be in for some dark years on the market.
