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So, yeah. Yesterday's Dilbert was as follows:
For my blind friends: Pointy-Haired Boss and Dilbert talking.
Panel 1
PHB: There's room in the market for a device that's bigger than a phone but smaller than a tablet.
Panel 2
Dilbert: So you want me to design something that is a bad tablet and an even worse phone?
Panel 3
PHB: To my mind, it's a market niche.
Dilbert: Maybe you should get your mind out of your niche.
See, the thing here is that the PHB is 100% right, and Dilbert is 100% wrong. Because I'm that market niche. And you might be, too.
I've loved my Dell Streak since it came out, and my next phone will be a Galaxy Note. These are the huge phones that are a bit larger than a reporters' notebook, and which have been ridiculed in the press as a terribly silly idea. But they're really not.
Here's the question you want to ask yourself: how often do I actually hold my phone up to my face? Seriously. How much time do you spend using your smartphone as a telephone, rather than web-browsing, reading books, texting, emailing, or playing games? Of the time that you spend using your phone as a phone, what percentage of the time do you use Bluetooth of some form, or some form of headphones and microphone?
Of the time that you spend talking on your phone as a phone, how LONG are the conversations on the phone in which you actually hold the phone up to your face?
For me, I can go months without holding the phone up to my face for more than half a minute at a time. But I don't go an hour without doing the other things.
So designing a phone to be easy to use by holding it up to my head? Really not a priority for me.
However, I also can't fit a tablet in my pocket. A tablet isn't immediately accessible for the dozens of times a day I want to just use my phone. Besides, a tablet can't access a data network, other than through WiFi. So, if I want to browse the web most places I go, I'd need a phone to tether my tablet to, anyway. Which I would basically use for tethering, and very occasional talking-on-the-phone -- something I don't do much, but would like to have the ABILITY to do on a moment's notice.
So my ideal device would be small enough to fit in my pocket, but as large as possible within that constraint. And it would be all screen. And it would be able to access a data network, and be used for phone calls through Bluetooth or a headset, and, in a pinch, to be able to be used by holding it up to my face, if I really had to.
That's the Streak, which Dell discontinued. And that's the Galaxy Note.
And I think that usage patterns, long-term, are going to go in this direction. I mean, who TALKS on the phone anymore? Besides, we're all aging, and, as we age, the ability to have larger things to see and larger things to type on -- very, very beneficial.
So, is it a niche market? Yeah, at the moment. But I really think that, as people start thinking about how they actually use their phones, it's going to get more popular.
For my blind friends: Pointy-Haired Boss and Dilbert talking.
Panel 1
PHB: There's room in the market for a device that's bigger than a phone but smaller than a tablet.
Panel 2
Dilbert: So you want me to design something that is a bad tablet and an even worse phone?
Panel 3
PHB: To my mind, it's a market niche.
Dilbert: Maybe you should get your mind out of your niche.
See, the thing here is that the PHB is 100% right, and Dilbert is 100% wrong. Because I'm that market niche. And you might be, too.
I've loved my Dell Streak since it came out, and my next phone will be a Galaxy Note. These are the huge phones that are a bit larger than a reporters' notebook, and which have been ridiculed in the press as a terribly silly idea. But they're really not.
Here's the question you want to ask yourself: how often do I actually hold my phone up to my face? Seriously. How much time do you spend using your smartphone as a telephone, rather than web-browsing, reading books, texting, emailing, or playing games? Of the time that you spend using your phone as a phone, what percentage of the time do you use Bluetooth of some form, or some form of headphones and microphone?
Of the time that you spend talking on your phone as a phone, how LONG are the conversations on the phone in which you actually hold the phone up to your face?
For me, I can go months without holding the phone up to my face for more than half a minute at a time. But I don't go an hour without doing the other things.
So designing a phone to be easy to use by holding it up to my head? Really not a priority for me.
However, I also can't fit a tablet in my pocket. A tablet isn't immediately accessible for the dozens of times a day I want to just use my phone. Besides, a tablet can't access a data network, other than through WiFi. So, if I want to browse the web most places I go, I'd need a phone to tether my tablet to, anyway. Which I would basically use for tethering, and very occasional talking-on-the-phone -- something I don't do much, but would like to have the ABILITY to do on a moment's notice.
So my ideal device would be small enough to fit in my pocket, but as large as possible within that constraint. And it would be all screen. And it would be able to access a data network, and be used for phone calls through Bluetooth or a headset, and, in a pinch, to be able to be used by holding it up to my face, if I really had to.
That's the Streak, which Dell discontinued. And that's the Galaxy Note.
And I think that usage patterns, long-term, are going to go in this direction. I mean, who TALKS on the phone anymore? Besides, we're all aging, and, as we age, the ability to have larger things to see and larger things to type on -- very, very beneficial.
So, is it a niche market? Yeah, at the moment. But I really think that, as people start thinking about how they actually use their phones, it's going to get more popular.