8th December 2011
Post
Any product going against entrenched competition needs “The Awesome” - that one set of features that make it head and shoulders above them.
Driving back from a gig last night, I was talking with friend Mike (former Apple engineer) about the webphone. We discussed what would be “The Awesome” of a new phone platform, a feature that would make a new product stand out. I use the term “feature” loosely because it doesn’t necessarily have to mean the product, but can also mean its pricing, support, and distribution.
The iPhone wasn’t the first phone to surf the web, play music and make calls, but its combination of style, design and usability appealed immediately to peoples vision of what a phone should do. Up until the iPhone, you had to figure it out on your own or worse, read a manual (note to self: no manuals).
Maybe the feature is distribution? Instead of going to a carrier phone store, or Best Buy, be helped by logo-polo-shirted sales people hard selling every conceivable ancillary service, you just go to Target and buy a phone (if it’s clad in a Missoni pattern, so much the better). If so, a lot of attention to the startup and provisioning process needs to be done (and no manuals).
Again - you can go to Target today and buy a Boost or Virgin Mobile phone today, but my experience with getting the phone on the network and getting productive with it leaves a lot of room for innovation. Focusing on the distribution of a phone isn’t going to win any awards on the tech blogs or with the “speeds and feeds” phone enthusiasts but maybe that’s the point.
