iPhone 5- Five cool things it could have

while every one is waiting to see new iPhone from Apple, I start to wonder what new things Apple can bring in to keep the freshness and uniqueness of his products. Now that Apple has taken over the smartphone market and is a leader by long distance, it would be foolish to assume for Apple to take this position for granted. Not so long ago, Nokia was the leader in phone and Blackberry redefined the smartphone market, both are struggling, if not for survival but for investor's confidence in their position in the market.

Now that Apple design, the software iOS and other features like touch screen , multi touch and Swipe are quite known and common and loosing the freshness, more like becoming standard for phones and tablets, what more Apple can bring to table?

iPhone 4S has attempted to redefine the personal assistance with SIRI, which is cool but not always useful as you don't want to be using this in public, else everyone will hear you. However, this makes it using your phone while driving or working so much better.. you don't have to touch the phone...
anyway, below I list some of my thoughts on what features I would like to see in iPhone, either the next iPhone 5 or sometime in future...
1. Dual SIM- I think Apple will do well to bring Dual SIM feature in iPhone too. Many people have 2 phones , one because they always had or work related and other is iPhone. if Apple can bring dual SIM feature, people will actually drop the other phone and keep iPhone. And other SIM should not be locked, they can keep the slot free but only works when the locked SIM is there as well , this will protect the interest of service providers as well.
2- Apple TV- Lot of TV channels are free to Air and Apple can do well to create the App to receive the free to air TV stations of whatever country you are in. Trust me, People have lot of time to kill even in today's world and they are on iPhone anyway. also they will never miss the favorite TV shows or Sport on the go.
3- Apple Money- Apple can develop App to allow people to pay for everyday shopping from their iPhone at all Major stores without using their credit cards. load the money in the App from Bank account and use it as credit card. Retailers can use iPad at checkout and app will send the receipt to iPhone which user accepts and makes the payment from Apple Money. Take the Credit card business out of the equation. Any points earned from this transaction can be used towards iTunes purchases.
4- Apple Projector- A small lens on the phone to throw the image on the phone to any wall/screen for larger viewing. people can play games in group watching the images on the wall as well as use to show keynote presentations to clients/office workers.
5- New Apple home screen- The familiarj site of iPhone home screen with multiple App icons is nice but it get crowded once you have over 40-50 Apps, you don't always remember the location and keep swiping left and right. Allow each page a short tab and show horizontal bar on left/right to jump directly to the page , people can arrange Apps on pages like Games, Office, etc, very much the same way how App Store categories are managed.

well, Apple may have some better ideas to bring to iPhone 5, and I look forward to be surprised, if it has any of the above features as well, It will make life more comfortable for me.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A TV Ad shows the way for retailers...

Recently I had seen a new TV advert in Indian channel and it has caught my eye. This Ad is about a major telecommunication comapny "Idea". There are some details in the Advert which catches the way Indian middle class does shopping even today. Let me explain the Ad first...There is this Indian middle class couple which is looking at washing machines in store and approached by this salesman (played by Idea Brand Ambassdor \'Abhisekh Bachhan\') , just before he approaches the couple, wife instructs the husband to be quiet, how many times we have seen that around us... and then some key elements of Indian shopping, asking for discount on Retail price..and when the response is negative, asking to keep it aside with intent to come back.. this is so common and expected that India middle class consumer will go around at least 3 shops before finding the right price, especially for white goods, big electrical items where the choices are too many and hardly any differentiation.. nothing new so far.. what happens after that is eye catching, salesman, takes out the phone, scans the bar code and do the internet search to find the prices around the areas.. now , apart from the technology part, there are some messages for Indian retailers..
1. Knowing the fact that Indian shopper is driven by price for commodity items, Retailer should train their sales staff to be consultant to shopper , even if it means some of the shoppers go somewhere else to buy, but they will remember the experience. they will come back for something else, knowing that they will get good advise, most times they will end up buying from you..as they did in the ad..
2. Enable sales staff with market information, what are the competitors prices? they may be few Rs cheaper but if your sales staff knows this, you can throw in extra (e.g. free warranty etc) to still make it appealing.

I have seen many supermarket in UK benchmarking their prices against the Giant Tesco, all products matching Tesco prices are tagged accordingly. it save the customer 2 things, time to search himself and also the peace of mind that he will not be missing lowest prices..

Steve Jobs- A Man who made a dent in Universe

While using my iPhone 4S and iPad2, I can't help but think about the first impact Steve Jobs made for me, it wasn't the iPhone or any other products Apple made but it was the man himself. It was in 2006 when I received transcript of his famous Stanford "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" speech as forward mail from some friends. While reading it, one of his point about 'Connecting Dots' made immediate sense to me. He also had 3 stories of his life in that speech, about dropping out of college when he didn't see the value, being fired from Apple and then coming back were inspirational and proved his point about 'staying hungry' and keep looking for what you want to do.

I had heard about Mac in 90s but never had seen one. India was not a market for Apple then. This was the time when IT boom had just started and PCs are only seen in IT companies. Pentium II and III were advanced technology and Windows 97 was major OS upgrade on Windows 95. Email was still Hotmail and Internet connection was through dial up only with max speed of 56Kbps (128kbps was fast!!). You were required to go to Internet cafe around the street corner for 20 Rs per Hr to check mails and do some chatting with friends or strangers. Mobile phones were new in India and even incoming calls were charged.

The thing which stuck for me about Apple was that it's incompatible with Windows. I thought , who would use Apple then. This was the time when every one was using windows, so what's the use of Apple Mac then?

There were few people coming form US who knew about Apple , they told me 3 things about Apple Mac. First, Its Amazing. Second, Once you used Mac, you will hate windows and Third, it's expensive. I was really looking forward to get my hands on Mac some day.

Apple was going great guns in 2000s, I heard about iTunes and iPod's but to me they were US things. One of my colleague who came back from US in 2007 always had his iPod on, he didn't have any music system in his car

because he will just have his iPod with earphones. It was the first time I tried track wheel of iPod, this was something different. And then he said , I have 1000 songs in my iPod. Wow.
Still , I didn't feel like that I have to have it, and it was not available in India. I believe that any gadget should be multipurpose. iPod was just for music and I had my MP3 player.

Also, I have had a chance to see iPhone by then, from someone who got this in UK. India was still dominated by Nokia, and Blackberry was status symbol of busy people. But there was something simple about iPhone which was very appealing. but then it was US/UK thing then. and I was happy with Java phones which were available in India, it was more about looks of phones. Internet on phone was still dream in India then. I had heard about App Store with 100,000s of apps but what's the use without Internet to use them, can't even download??

First time I sat up and took notice when I heard about iPad, that was neat and I was thinking why no one has thought of this before. Everyone was so focused on Toshiba and Think Pads Laptop for professional use only and this iPad came from no where.

By then, I had moved to Sweden and connectivity infrastructure was on different level here. 100Mbps internet connections at home, you can watch online movies as its being played on DVD on laptop, was something of different league here. I thought, I can use iPad here but it was leap of faith for me. Do I really need it? what is the use? there is no USB slots, It doesn't allow flash videos and no cameras and can't really use it for work/office purpose, which is what I use laptop for. and I am not big fan of typing on glass with one finger, more of keyboard person , this went on for few months...

Then I started following the news of Apple, store running out of iPad's, people lining up for 2 days to get it first. everyone is talking about their iPad and all shops are lined up with accessories for iPad.

what is this thing?

And then I got to play with it for some time some where and decided, I should have it, its neat and there is more to iPad then just worry about what's not there. Then I saw one cover for iPad which had keyboard attached to it. That's it.I decided to get iPad2 which was announced already with Cameras and new processor. Yes, that will be nice. It took me a while to decide to get only wi-fi model and it has to be black.

 I booked it and I remember I was happy when I picked it up after 2 weeks.

Since then, I had no idea how we lived without it.  its so convenient, always on. and every function is just one touch away. Laptop feels like burden now, who will bother switching it on!!! leave it for work only.

And then came the news of Steve Jobs' death, it was sad. I didn't know much about him, not read or seen him much on TV because he was mainly in US. And then his biography was released, I was quick to get it, it was huge and I was looking forward to know more about the man who impressed me few years ago.

It took a while to finish this book, but it was very insightful. Some of the incidents in the book were well known, like asking John Scully if wants to change the world or just keep selling sugar water (which was Pepsi !!) Most of the book about the Man who was visionary , arrogant to the core, charming, absolute disregard to mediocrity and genius at same time. One of the things which again stuck with me when he said, "People don't know what they want till we show it to them", this was when he asked team to launch iPhone. some call this arrogance, some call this confidence. it's fine line anyway..

Apple made products for Steve Jobs and sold to the world, and people lined up to buy it.

He changed reality just by his will power, nothing was impossible and actually was not.

He took perfection to the way it should be, The most beautiful parts of his products are the ones no one will ever see because they are inside.

Simplicity to the core, Once you have used Apple products, even sliced bread will look complex.

Of course, Apple is not only Steve, there is another Steve who created first Mac and there are more people and many have contributed to the success story of Apple, whether they got their due or not, its for them to decide.

The thing about Apple products is that Steve made himself responsible for end to end user experience of his products, not just creating bits and pieces for commercial purposes. what this approach did to Microsoft and Nokia, you know already..

whenever Apple launched new product, the question was not why? but How? How did they do it?

It's not just about the way a computer, music player and store, a phone with internet or tablet PC was launched, they all existed before but it's about the way it was made simple that people had no reason to even try anything other than Apple.

I think Apple has not only dented the Universe, it has put it beyond repair. it will never be same again....