Mobile Suite

Smartphone to Wearable Mobile Suite Evolution

In this section we continue our story about the 30-year evolution to the wearable multiscreen post-PC cloud era by examining the powerful innovation cycles of 2010 and 2015:

• 2010 Smartphone Innovation Cycle
• 2015 Wearable Mobile Smart Suite Innovation Cycle

Prior innovation cycles spanning the years 1985 through 2005 are presented on the PC and post-PC Evolution page of postpcplus.com.

2010 Smartphone Innovation Cycle

The unprecedented strength of the smartphone innovation cycle of 2010 was driven by the powerful combination of a new ultra-thin, high-resolution mobile device coupled with the accelerating global success of the leading application software distribution platform. The best way to understand these powerful drivers is to answer the following key questions:

1. What was the top mobile smart device in 2010?
2. What was the game-changing Internet cloud service in 2010?

The top mobile smart device in 2010 was the Apple iPhone 4. With its impossibly-sharp high-resolution Retina display and irresistibly-thin dual-glass enclosure, the iPhone 4 provided four times the screen resolution of its predecessor in a slender package with a twenty-five percent thinner body, leading Steve Jobs to declare it, “One of the most precise and beautiful things that we’ve ever made.” (source: iPhone page of inocles.com)

The game-changing Internet cloud service in 2010 was the Apple App Store, an online digital marketplace enabling Apple iPhone and iPod Touch customers to discover and download free or paid apps spanning a wide variety of application content categories including entertainment, communication, social networking, search, navigation, education, creativity, and productivity. With more than 200,000 apps to choose from in 2010, Apple customers would typically download numerous apps to their smartphones and media players to enhance the overall utility, enjoyment, and functionality of their devices. (source: iPhone page of inocles.com)

By 2010, a fully equipped laptop PC capable of running a web browser, a productivity application suite, a modern operating system while simultaneously accessing Facebook for posting updates and sharing photos with friends, Google for searching the web and navigating the world, Amazon for shopping for nearly anything on the planet, and Apple iTunes and App Store for downloading music, movies, games, and apps over a high-speed Internet connection was quite affordable to mass-market consumers.

Accordingly, many consumers had additional resources to spend on a second personal device, and that device was more often than not the Apple iPhone, as shown in the 2010 chalkboard diagram below.

The diagram is called the 2010 Apple iPhone Mobile Smartphone Innovation Cycle within the 30-Year Evolution to the Wearable Multiscreen Post-PC Cloud Era. It is organized into three columns and four rows. The first column contains the following core dimensions: user-to-device ratio, dominant computation platform and top mobile device, primary input control paradigms, and game-changing Internet cloud services. The second and third columns display the specific values of the corresponding core dimension in the first column in graphical format and text format, respectively.

Reading the visual chalkboard from left to right and top to bottom, the core dimensions and corresponding values for the 2010 iPhone mobile smartphone innovation cycle are the following:

1. User-to-Device Ratio: One User to A Few Devices
2. Dominant Computation Platform: PC Laptop
3. Top Mobile Device: Apple iPhone
4. Primary Input Control Paradigms: Trackpad and Touch Screen
5. Game-Changing Internet Cloud Services: Apple App Store, Facebook, Google, and Amazon

In addition to the Apple App Store service, the three other leading Internet cloud services in 2010, were the Facebook social networking service, the Google search service, and the Amazon commerce service. Facebook, Google, and Amazon were able to solidify their respective positions of dominance in social media, digital search, and online electronic commerce during this period as consumer Internet users transitioned away from relatively slow 2G wireless communication standards and rapidly adopted increasingly fast 3G and 4G standards.

2015 Wearable Mobile Smart Suite Innovation Cycle

The wearable mobile smart suite innovation cycle of 2015 was driven by three fundamental forces converging at the same instant in time: mobile suites of smart devices, voice-controlled intelligent personal digital assistants, and public clouds of platform and infrastructure web services. The best way to understand these fundamental forces is to answer the following key questions:

1. What was the top wearable mobile suite in 2015?
2. What was the game-changing control paradigm in 2015?
3. What was the leading Internet service in 2015?

The top wearable mobile suite in 2015 was the Apple family of wearable and non-wearable smart mobile devices, referred to conceptually as the Apple iFamily suite. With the introduction of the Apple Watch in early 2015, Apple became the one of the first companies to offer consumers an integrated collection of independent cloud-connected wearable devices (the Apple Watch Sport, Watch, and Watch Edition) and mobile devices (the Apple iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad) that were collectively designed and individually optimized to provide a unified and seamless multiscreen experience for customers. (source: Wearable Mobile Suite page of postpcplus.com)

More importantly, Apple was the very first customer to provide multiple versions of its wearable mobile suite to customers in all three core target market segments, including the luxury premium segment, the mass-market premium segment, and the mass-market affordable segment, as depicted in the strategic product roadmap below.

The diagram is called the 2015 Temporal Slice of the Strategic Product Roadmap for the Apple Post-PC Wearable Mobile Suite of Cloud Connected Smart Devices. It is organized into four quadrants, with three active quadrants. The lower right-hand quadrant represents the 2015 Apple Wearable Mobile Suite for the luxury premium segment; it contains the Apple Watch Edition, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPad Pro. The upper right-hand quadrant represents the 2015 Apple Wearable Mobile Suite for the mass-market premium segment; it contains the Apple Watch Sport, Apple Watch, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPad Air. The upper left-hand quadrant represents the 2015 Apple Wearable Mobile Suite for the mass-market affordable segment; it contains the Apple iPod nano, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, and iPad mini.

The concept of and strategic focus on the development, manufacture, and delivery of a seamlessly integrated wearable mobile suite should not be underestimated by vendors competing for market share within the post-PC wearable mobile space, as Apple has made and will continue to make it increasingly difficult for any single vendor to operate profitably without offering customers a compelling and comprehensive wearable mobile suite.

To drive home this key point, we encourage any and all existing or potential Apple competitors to closely examine the evolution of Apple wearable mobile smart suites over the past three years, as presented for the first time in the strategic roadmap diagram below.

The diagram is called the Multidimensional Strategic Product Roadmap for the Apple Post-PC Wearable Mobile Suite of Cloud Connected Smart Devices from 2013 to 2015. It is a three-dimensional diagram organized into three temporal slices with four quadrants each, for a total of twelve quadrants, with nine active quadrants. The rearmost slice shows the 2013 Apple Mobile Suite; the next slice shows the 2014 Apple Mobile Suite; and the last foremost slice shows the 2015 Apple Wearable Mobile Suite.

The quadrants within each of the 2013, 2014, and 2015 temporal slices represent strategic target market segments, including luxury premium, mass-market premium, and mass-market affordable segments. The key takeaway from this diagram is that Apple is raising the bar for itself and all competitors by systematically increasing the device density, device quality, and device scope within each of the three strategic market segments. To be absolutely clear on this point, by examining the strategic product roamap above, one can readily see that there was one small iPhone, the iPhone 5c, and one small iPad, the iPad mini, in the mass-market premium segment in 2013 and now in that same segment in 2015, there is one large iPhone, the iPhone 6s, one extra-large iPhone, the iPhone 6 Plus, one large iPad, the iPad Air, and two Apple Watches, the Apple Watch Sport (not shown) and Apple Watch.

The game-changing control paradigm in 2015 was the voice-controlled intelligent personal digital assistant, as represented by Apple Siri, Google Now, and Microsoft Cortana, Amazon Alexa, and Facebook M. In 2015 these virtual personal assistants provided users with the ability to answer questions, perform simple tasks, and access web services from any cloud-connected post-PC smart device, including smart glasses, bands, watches, players, phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and televisions. Over the next five years, we expect this new interaction paradigm between users and their personalized intelligent, or cognitive, digital assistants to fundamentally change the way we utilize our mobile suite of cloud-connected smart devices.

Specifically, wearable devices will enable our cognitive digital assistants to: 1) Sense what we sense, 2) Instantly provide us with useful knowledge from the Internet, 3) Immediately act on our decisions, and 4) Suggest things to do, places to go, goods to buy, and people to see, as illustrated in the cognitive interaction diagram above.

The leading Internet cloud service in 2015 was Amazon Web Services, a set of public cloud infrastructure and platform services enabling business, large and small, to quickly provision and dynamically scale hardware and software resources utilizing a pay-as-you-go pricing model. The new model freed business from having to procure, install, support, and maintain hardware (storage, servers, and networking equipment) and software (operating systems, database servers, and application servers) resources within their own on-premises data centers. Instead, businesses could employ Amazon Web Services (AWS) to handle all of these tasks and free up IT resources to focus on developing strategic business applications.

By 2015 a fully equipped laptop PC capable of running a browser, a productivity suite, an operating system while simultaneously accessing Facebook, Google, and Amazon was not uppermost in the minds of most mass-market consumers in developed countries. Instead, they directed their resources toward assembling a suite of smart mobile devices, and more often than not that suite was the Apple suite of cloud-connected wearable and non-wearable smart mobile devices, as shown in the 2015 chalkboard diagram below.

The diagram is called the 2015 Apple iFamily Wearable Mobile Smart Suite Innovation Cycle within the 30-Year Evolution to the Wearable Multiscreen Post-PC Cloud Era. It is organized into three columns and four rows. The first column contains the following core dimensions: user-to-device ratio, top mobile suite, game-changing input control paradigms, and leading Internet cloud services. The second and third columns display the specific values of the corresponding core dimension in the first column in graphical format and text format, respectively.

Reading the visual chalkboard from left to right and top to bottom, the core dimensions and corresponding values for the 2015 iFamily mobile smart suite innovation cycle are the following:

1. User-to-Device Ratio: One User to Many Devices
2. Top Mobile Suite: Apple Mobile Suite
3. Game-Changing Input Control Paradigms: Voice Agents and Touch Screens
4. Leading Internet Cloud Services: Amazon Web Services, WhatsApp, Netflix, and YouTube

In addition to Amazon Web Services, the three other leading Internet cloud services in 2015, were the Facebook WhatsApp mobile messaging service, the Netflix streaming media service, and the Google YouTube digital video sharing service. Facebook, Netflix, and Google were able to solidify their respective positions of dominance in social messaging, digital content streaming, and digital video sharing during this period as widespread adoption of 4G wireless communication standards enabled consumers to spend a preponderance of their time consuming digital content and services, such as Netfix movies, YouTube videos, and WhatsApp messages, directly from their cloud-connected smart mobile devices.