What’s happening in the Mobile world ?

How many of you have ever owned Nokia’s brick phone or that awesome BlackBerry that you company gave you ? I guess at one point you did enjoy those phones. So what happened now. Where are Nokia phones ? How many of you still own a BlackBerry ?

First iPhone happened then Android and then future of mobile changed for ever. Since the release of the first iPhone people have blindly followed the craze of Apple products. No doubt they look and work great but I wont say they are the best of them all. I am not an Android fan and neither BB or Windows. I believe in healthy competition. There should always be alternatives. After 4yrs of enjoying the success of iPhone consumer got bored of it and left wanting more out of their device. Android successfully took the lead in market share last year after the release of Samsung Galaxy S 3.

Until last summer I used to see everyone carrying an iPhone. In bus, metro, train, groceries or hospitals everybody were hooked to iDevices. But recently I have seen that trend fading out. I am seeing more Galaxy S3 phones on the street. This made me wonder what happened to iPhone ? I found that some people are bored of their iPhone and they want something different. It is exactly like buying any other consumer product. User eventually gets overwhelmed by one product and starts looking for something else.

At the end of last year we saw the launch of new Windows 8 products, tablets and phones. It received mix reviews. Mostly people were frustrated by its Metro interface on tablet and PCs  but most of them welcomed the Windows 8 on phones. We are still not sure where the Windows 8 product stands. Consumers are not very enthusiastic about it. As a mobile application developer I would love to have one of the Windows 8 tablet or a phone but I am not sure I really want it.

BlackBerry was the most used phone in the world pre-iPhone era. It enjoyed both enterprise and commercial success. People loved the intuitive use of a full qwerty keyword and BBM (BlackBerry Messanger). But RIM (now BlackBerry) had a big fall on their face since iPhone and Android took over the market. Their shares have fallen and their attempt to enter tablet market was a big disappointment. BlackBerry 10 was released last week with a promise to change the mobile world. I was eager to see what the new device from RIM has to offer. Will it even match the performance of iPhone or Android ? Even though BB10 made it extremely late in the market there is still some hope for BlackBerry to survive.

With the launch of new product most of the company sees some rise in their stocks. But it was opposite for BB. The stocks actually went downs (afte rising up during the hype period). The new user-interface and user-experience are extremely great. The BB10 touch phone uses the same processor Snapdragon S4 as Galaxy S3 (international edition). Even though everything looks great about it, it is not an iPhone killer. Yet !!

BlackBerry has only one chance to prove that they are in the game. It seems they bought some time for themselves with the new release. With BlackBerry 10 RIM is giving Windows tough competition. They both will be fighting for the 3rd place in the mobile market. Windows 8 has nearly 40,000 apps right now but BB leads with 90,000 apps. Its tough to say what will happen next. If BlackBerry fails to deliver this time they should purely focus on their BlackBerry Enterprise service or else its the end of the beloved Canadian company.

There are few more new players entering the market. Ubuntu is releasing its own OS for the mobile phones. Huawei and ZTE, though being there for long time, have recently been able to catch up with the mobilel market and are suppose to give prove challengers in the Asian market.

Some say Apple’s innovation died with Steve Jobs but some are still huge fan of iDevices and think Apple still rules the mobile world. Apple will have to keep their innovation and creative machine running in order to stay at the top position. Android is already ruling with its huge market share. And BlackBerry has re-entered the market with a solid device. Now lets see how the mobile market turns around.

From here onwards people will always be confused on what phone to select. Almost every phones are on the same level and offers decent performance. Mobile world is getting bigger and bigger. More phones and tablets are coming into market killing PCs and Laptops. There are more choices than what we need. Technology here is solving problems that do not exist. We want better apps not another iPhone killer. We want better support better service. Do not release ten different model release one and improve it. Motorola, LG, Nokia and HTC still need to deliver that one phone that can compete with Apple, Samsung and BB.

 

Self-Checkout Chaos

It was saturday night, I went to the groceries to pick up some chips, drinks and dessert. I was hopping my trip to be in-n-out in 5min. I was in good mood, smiling roaming around the ailes and checking out interesting people 😉 I got my items and headed to the counter. Two out of six counters were open and I always wonder when are all the counter ever open. Then I thought to give a shot to self-checkout.

I am not a big fan of self-checkout. There is no human interaction there unless you mess up something or want bags for your items. But still I has only three cases so I thought it will be super quick. But to my dismay I was obstructed by two interesting people who must have spent at least 20min there.

First of all self-checkout should not be for old people. They just spend hours there trying to figure out what to do next. Second people with hundred items should not be allowed. They not only spend hours scanning their items but also filling them in their bag. Unless they are done filling their bags no other person and move on.

So one person ahead of me shopped like its the end of the world (or may be she has big family, no idea). She took 15min to finish scanning her items. After she finished I thought good its my turn now. But oh no scumbag machine had a scumbag plan. Unless the person before you removes all the items from the counter the second person cannot proceed. So I had to wait for another 10 min for her to finish loading her items in her cart.

 On the other self-checkout machine a weird looking guy was scanning his items but could not hear the machine shouting “please remove the items” as he keep scanning the same thing again and again. A lady from the counter had to shout at the person to hold back and let the machine rewind.

So basically my pleasant journey to the grocery quickly turned out into a frustrating one. But never the less it is always fun to see interesting memes online and in knowing that you are not the only one 🙂

Happy shopping everyone !!