Convergence Devices, Zune, and the Future of Home Electronics
I’ve been reading quite a bit about mobile computing recently, mostly because of the release of Palm’s new Treo 680, a new smartphone based on Palm’s PDA operating system. The prevailing view seems to be that PDAs are dying. I’m not particularly happy to hear that, but I’m also not completely convinced, mostly because of my own views on how mobile computing is developing, in a large part spurred by a lot of what Microsoft is doing with the X-Box 360 and, more recently, the Zune.
The PDA is supposed to be dying - people don't want them, they'd rather have a smartphone. I guess that makes sense - if all I wanted was a convenient way to check my E-mail, I guess a smartphone, despite the fact that they're the size of a brick and you hold them against your head, might make sense for me. But that, in my opinion is all they're good for - I like my PDA because it's separate, it has a big screen (something that you really can't do on a smartphone, there is still a size limit because of other buttons which must be included), and because of that I can work on word processing, I can do spreadsheets and actually see enough to make sense of them, and I can check my diary while I actually talk on my cellphone. This is all good, and IMO far preferable to the mess you end up with if you try to combine devices. Essentially, if you need to do more than E-mail, I think a smartphone is, and always will be because of size restrictions, an inferior option to a PDA. But most people don't sit during their lunchbreaks typing long screeds like this one, doing their family budget on Excel, and reading eBooks (another advantage of the larger screen and lighter weight).
So what has all this to do with convergence? Well, for one thing, so called convergence devices do demonstrate that people want as many different options as possible at their fingertips. I understand that. But that’s not what I think of when I think convergence. I think about linking disparate devices together, not combining them into one unit, like my PDA and cellphone linking to provide my PDA with internet access during my lunchbreak. One of the reasons that people are getting smartphones right now is not, IMO, that they're necessarily better, but they are cheaper because of the subsidy that carriers offer on them. A $400 Treo becomes a $200 model once the carrier subsidises the phone. But the big advantage of the combined devices - that you connect to your E-mail across the cellphone network - isn't really a necessity for this function. What I'd consider true convergence is the fact that my two devices, my PDA and my phone, can happily talk to each other and I can download my E-mail anyway (without my locking myself into an expensive data plan to boot). As the price of the different devices drops to a comparable point, I'd expect that many people who'd like to do more with their smartphones and who feel that the small screen size limits their productivity will want to switch to separate devices that are better at their function. Microsoft has, in recent months, taken this a step further with the release of the first wave of UMPCs, Ultra Mobile PCs. These are essentially very small tablet PCs, without keyboards, designed to do most of the things that a PDA would do, except offering better web browsing and productivity due to the far larger screen size and the fact that they run Windows proper. I suspect this is part of an advent of most of the electronic devices in the home starting to talk to each other, and Microsoft, as far as I can tell, with most people barely noticing, are blazing a trail that may leave the current poster-boy of consumer electronics, Apple, in the dust.
Exhibit 1 is, perhaps surprisingly, the much maligned Zune. For those who don't know, the Zune is Microsoft's new music player. For reasons I can't fathom, most of the US Newspapers have chosen Apple fans to review the new device (probably because most of them are the correspondents who talk about the iPod, but it does lead to a very biased set of reviews - you only find navigation on the Zune inferior because you clearly expect it to work like an iPod and it doesn’t, I picked it up in about 5 seconds when I tried one). The Zune's defining feature is its wireless capabilities, the ability to send a song from one Zune to another. OK, even I admit that's a bit crap, but the point isn't what they're doing with the wireless capability now, but what they could do with it in the future. Because honestly, this function smacks of being an option which ought not to have been the main use of the wireless radio. I suspect that either the attempt to rush the device to market before Christmas or pressure from the record companies meant that the Zune released without the full capacity that it was supposed to. It's not that a Zune can talk to another Zune. It's that it can talk to your X-Box 360. Or your Windows computer (or your other computer? Please, Microsoft?). And there, we already have the beginnings of the convergence of all your home electronics.
That would have been the Zune's "killer app." To pacify the music industry, it would have been possible simply to stream music from the Zune rather than transfer files wholesale (the wireless speed is easily fast enough to allow this). Many people will have their 360 connected to an amplifier and speakers, and the lack of need for a dock and connectors would be hugely appealing. And Windows Media Center Edition allows you to use your PC as Digital Video Recorder, and with video downloads to the X-Box 360, there's the possibility that you could probably do the same on that device (I nominate adding the connectors to the forthcoming HD-DVD expansion it’s already out, without the connectors. Oh well). From that point, it's an easy step to then stream or copy your videos and recordings onto the Zune, allowing a pretty seamless viewing experience. The interoperability of all of these devices is really where home computing is heading (as well as being a major plus for the selling of the device - if all that had been implemented at the start, Microsoft might have made a big splash this Christmas, as it is, firmware updates post Christmas will probably provide the functionality, but too late to translate to major sales).
So what's all that got to do with the humble PDA? Well, I suspect that's just the start. Bluetooth is showing the way, here - if I buy a Bluetooth keyboard, I can use it with my PDA, my phone (to type text messages), my tablet or my PC (if I want to type something from the sofa). (I want a Frogpad, badly, but suspect the next model will be the most functional, because the current one only stores one Bluetooth profile at a time.) But you can go further - why not stream the picture from your computer to your TV? Your computer's in one room, but you've got that X-Box in the living room, so you pull out the keyboard, connect, and start working on a spreadsheet from there. Suddenly need to head out? Grab the PDA. It's already synced the document you were working on, and when you switch the connection of the keyboard to your PDA, your network tells it to open that spreadsheet up and lets you keep working where you were on the couch. You can imagine how this could expand. Personally, I don't think people want their home to be controlled by computers, but what they do want is seamless integration of all the devices that they already use. I suspect the future is heading in that direction. And as people move towards that sort of convergence, where different devices work together, I think the smartphone will move out of the mainstream again - it's just too useful to have a dedicated document based device that has a larger screen, and once you have your wireless keyboard that's more common, a more convenient sized phone that doesn't have your entire life on it will probably come back into favour.
The future, surprisingly, seems to be being led by Microsoft. They're filling America's homes with devices that are designed to work together. The software isn't there yet, but the hardware is, and through easy software upgrades, they can start to bring this sort of future into focus, and probably within the next year or two. And when they pull that out of nowhere, assuming of course they're trying to do what I think they're trying to do, Apple will find themselves wannabes once again.
Edit: I've probably read 20 reviews of the Zune in the last few days. Only now when I see mp3.com's review, do I find that the Zune will integrate with the 360. Not wirelessly, unfortunately, but through a USB cable (as if people will carry around a proprietary connector with them for if they visit a friend’s house with an X-Box - wireless is a necessity for this function). Additionally, the desktop software will wirelessly send music to the 360. It's not perfect, but it is useful. And of course has received zero publicity in recent reviews. (Also, one of the big complaints about iPod, that you can’t copy your music back onto your computer, isn’t an issue with the Zune - it’s easy to do on Microsoft’s device.)
The PDA is supposed to be dying - people don't want them, they'd rather have a smartphone. I guess that makes sense - if all I wanted was a convenient way to check my E-mail, I guess a smartphone, despite the fact that they're the size of a brick and you hold them against your head, might make sense for me. But that, in my opinion is all they're good for - I like my PDA because it's separate, it has a big screen (something that you really can't do on a smartphone, there is still a size limit because of other buttons which must be included), and because of that I can work on word processing, I can do spreadsheets and actually see enough to make sense of them, and I can check my diary while I actually talk on my cellphone. This is all good, and IMO far preferable to the mess you end up with if you try to combine devices. Essentially, if you need to do more than E-mail, I think a smartphone is, and always will be because of size restrictions, an inferior option to a PDA. But most people don't sit during their lunchbreaks typing long screeds like this one, doing their family budget on Excel, and reading eBooks (another advantage of the larger screen and lighter weight).
So what has all this to do with convergence? Well, for one thing, so called convergence devices do demonstrate that people want as many different options as possible at their fingertips. I understand that. But that’s not what I think of when I think convergence. I think about linking disparate devices together, not combining them into one unit, like my PDA and cellphone linking to provide my PDA with internet access during my lunchbreak. One of the reasons that people are getting smartphones right now is not, IMO, that they're necessarily better, but they are cheaper because of the subsidy that carriers offer on them. A $400 Treo becomes a $200 model once the carrier subsidises the phone. But the big advantage of the combined devices - that you connect to your E-mail across the cellphone network - isn't really a necessity for this function. What I'd consider true convergence is the fact that my two devices, my PDA and my phone, can happily talk to each other and I can download my E-mail anyway (without my locking myself into an expensive data plan to boot). As the price of the different devices drops to a comparable point, I'd expect that many people who'd like to do more with their smartphones and who feel that the small screen size limits their productivity will want to switch to separate devices that are better at their function. Microsoft has, in recent months, taken this a step further with the release of the first wave of UMPCs, Ultra Mobile PCs. These are essentially very small tablet PCs, without keyboards, designed to do most of the things that a PDA would do, except offering better web browsing and productivity due to the far larger screen size and the fact that they run Windows proper. I suspect this is part of an advent of most of the electronic devices in the home starting to talk to each other, and Microsoft, as far as I can tell, with most people barely noticing, are blazing a trail that may leave the current poster-boy of consumer electronics, Apple, in the dust.
Exhibit 1 is, perhaps surprisingly, the much maligned Zune. For those who don't know, the Zune is Microsoft's new music player. For reasons I can't fathom, most of the US Newspapers have chosen Apple fans to review the new device (probably because most of them are the correspondents who talk about the iPod, but it does lead to a very biased set of reviews - you only find navigation on the Zune inferior because you clearly expect it to work like an iPod and it doesn’t, I picked it up in about 5 seconds when I tried one). The Zune's defining feature is its wireless capabilities, the ability to send a song from one Zune to another. OK, even I admit that's a bit crap, but the point isn't what they're doing with the wireless capability now, but what they could do with it in the future. Because honestly, this function smacks of being an option which ought not to have been the main use of the wireless radio. I suspect that either the attempt to rush the device to market before Christmas or pressure from the record companies meant that the Zune released without the full capacity that it was supposed to. It's not that a Zune can talk to another Zune. It's that it can talk to your X-Box 360. Or your Windows computer (or your other computer? Please, Microsoft?). And there, we already have the beginnings of the convergence of all your home electronics.
That would have been the Zune's "killer app." To pacify the music industry, it would have been possible simply to stream music from the Zune rather than transfer files wholesale (the wireless speed is easily fast enough to allow this). Many people will have their 360 connected to an amplifier and speakers, and the lack of need for a dock and connectors would be hugely appealing. And Windows Media Center Edition allows you to use your PC as Digital Video Recorder, and with video downloads to the X-Box 360, there's the possibility that you could probably do the same on that device (I nominate adding the connectors to the forthcoming HD-DVD expansion it’s already out, without the connectors. Oh well). From that point, it's an easy step to then stream or copy your videos and recordings onto the Zune, allowing a pretty seamless viewing experience. The interoperability of all of these devices is really where home computing is heading (as well as being a major plus for the selling of the device - if all that had been implemented at the start, Microsoft might have made a big splash this Christmas, as it is, firmware updates post Christmas will probably provide the functionality, but too late to translate to major sales).
So what's all that got to do with the humble PDA? Well, I suspect that's just the start. Bluetooth is showing the way, here - if I buy a Bluetooth keyboard, I can use it with my PDA, my phone (to type text messages), my tablet or my PC (if I want to type something from the sofa). (I want a Frogpad, badly, but suspect the next model will be the most functional, because the current one only stores one Bluetooth profile at a time.) But you can go further - why not stream the picture from your computer to your TV? Your computer's in one room, but you've got that X-Box in the living room, so you pull out the keyboard, connect, and start working on a spreadsheet from there. Suddenly need to head out? Grab the PDA. It's already synced the document you were working on, and when you switch the connection of the keyboard to your PDA, your network tells it to open that spreadsheet up and lets you keep working where you were on the couch. You can imagine how this could expand. Personally, I don't think people want their home to be controlled by computers, but what they do want is seamless integration of all the devices that they already use. I suspect the future is heading in that direction. And as people move towards that sort of convergence, where different devices work together, I think the smartphone will move out of the mainstream again - it's just too useful to have a dedicated document based device that has a larger screen, and once you have your wireless keyboard that's more common, a more convenient sized phone that doesn't have your entire life on it will probably come back into favour.
The future, surprisingly, seems to be being led by Microsoft. They're filling America's homes with devices that are designed to work together. The software isn't there yet, but the hardware is, and through easy software upgrades, they can start to bring this sort of future into focus, and probably within the next year or two. And when they pull that out of nowhere, assuming of course they're trying to do what I think they're trying to do, Apple will find themselves wannabes once again.
Edit: I've probably read 20 reviews of the Zune in the last few days. Only now when I see mp3.com's review, do I find that the Zune will integrate with the 360. Not wirelessly, unfortunately, but through a USB cable (as if people will carry around a proprietary connector with them for if they visit a friend’s house with an X-Box - wireless is a necessity for this function). Additionally, the desktop software will wirelessly send music to the 360. It's not perfect, but it is useful. And of course has received zero publicity in recent reviews. (Also, one of the big complaints about iPod, that you can’t copy your music back onto your computer, isn’t an issue with the Zune - it’s easy to do on Microsoft’s device.)