Maybe I am just repeat things people have talked about for a long time. But in my opinion, there are two eras of mobile phones. The first era is mainly hardware driven. From generation to generation, new features will be added to mobile phones most by updating to more sophisticated hardware. These new hardware updates become features which distinguish between phones. For example, one phone will support release 7 while the next generation will support release 8. In hardware-driven era, phone still needs software. But software is not at the central stage.
However, the introduce of iPhone and Android put software to the center. There comes the beginning of software-driver era of mobile phones. During this time, people put more attentions to software such as OS and app. Also, because of open source, phone software becomes accessible to virtually everyone. The start of new era also means grant shift of power in the industry. Hardware vendors’ impacts are eroding, At the same time, silicon valley also becomes the Mecca of mobile industry because of Google and Apple.
We also want to say the software era is the era for the Plebian. How many people are able to change the hardware features of his phone? Next to zero. But it turns out that almost everyone has his or her own idea about some applications, no matter it is fart or art. Apple and Google give them a chance to make it become true. As return, these two companies have literally hundreds of thousands of free-of-charge developers working for them. So the victory of iPhone and Android is also the victory of mass.
(original post published on Oct 10, 2010)
No comments:
Post a Comment