An article by Joshua Topolsky in the Washington Post (“Software — Not Hardware — Is the Star of the Show”) raises some interesting points about the intersection of devices and software.
My sense he is both right and wrong – and he misses a key part in all of this - the networks.
It clearly is true that hardware is less center stage than it used to be but I think this more about the “old” hardware meaning desk top PCs and even increasingly lap tops. Those well-established devices are far less relevant than they were in the past and things like CPU speeds are less important too because it is so cheap to put lots of horsepower into machines and because, as Sanjay Udani on my staff says, “hardware has become so good that for the most part it has made itself invisible . . . you only notice it when it crashes.”
But mobile devices are still relevant and differentiated in people’s minds, perhaps in part because they are so much more “personal” to each individual than a PC which quite often is shared with others in a household. It’s probably also due to the fact that tablets and smartphones are relatively new, not as well established. It remains possible for new players to play up new features in a new smartphone than it is with the many hundreds of PCs out there which as a class of devices have been out there for decades in one form or another.
Further, PCs often are purchased and kept for a number of years. Not true with smartphones by and large although that may change as the devices become more and more like PCs. But generally people do update their mobile devices fairly regularly and that makes them think about their devices and the newest features more often.
I’d also argue that as time has gone on with computing devices, they have simply become more integrated, seamless, easy to use machines. Increasingly it is about the experience you have with devices not about the software or the devices themselves. Think about how hard it was in many cases years ago to install new software, configure it, and use it. Same with the PC itself which quite often could have driver configuration problems, incompatible software and the like. You had to think about the machines because they demanded so much of you to keep them running. That is not true with today’s mobile devices – smartphones and tablets.
It may be that software will remain the “star of the show” given the apps age we live in today. Apps are specialized and do certain things well but little else. So it is easier to differentiate apps and make new ones that gain attention.
But this is where Topolsky misses the boat. Mobile devices were also always connected devices unlike PCs which started out as standalone devices. So communicating and connecting was always a part of the mobile experience. As the server technologies became more robust and as capacity on mobile networks increased, doing things “in the cloud” became more possible and this too helps to differentiate the experience of using mobile devices from older established PCs.
Many apps include location based features that make them run and can add value or features. This too is a major difference in today’s computing world. So the entire experience – from network connections to how seamlessly a device integrates new apps – as opposed to each individual piece will matter more as time goes on. As the new Apple Siri software shows, the cloud, which Siri relies on and other apps will too for processing power, matters a lot too in this experience.
It could be argued that “invisibility” as Topolsky puts it means that the devices are improved and more reliable, hence less noticeable. But ultimately people want an experience that enhances their lives and makes things easier. All of the players in the internet ecosystem – device makers, software developers, apps makers, network providers – have an important role in making this experience as positive as possible. “No one company can do it alone” as our now-CEO Lowell McAdam said at CES earlier this year.