
Why You Can't Build a Smartphone - joshmarinacci
http://joshondesign.com/2013/12/02/nosmartphone
======
willvarfar
I was at UIQ back when the iPhone "happened". It really was as pivotal for the
industry as he says. I quipped that the iPhone made us irrelevant and Android
made us redundant.

I was surrounded by people with strong ambition and vision, at UIQ, Symbian,
at our owners Motorola and Sony Ericsson, who wanted to build the iPhone and
knew how to build the iPhone long before the iPhone was announced and before
they knew anyone else was doing it.

We knew all about capacitive displays, finger-touch and so on. To be honest my
own vision was tainted by Flash-based UIs and the mechanics of that, but the
Flash demos I was trying to enable were fancy iPhone-like UIs. The artists had
the design ascetic that was the iPhone to a tee.

But the phone manufacturer upper management were essentially very traditional
hardware manufacturers with traditional channel relationships and techie
vision was never given much attention.

Not taking away from Apple, not saying actually I could imagine it having
turned out any different. Its simply that Apple didn't have the management
constraints. Apple created new teams to make new products. The entrenched
phone makers made existing teams punch out variants and incremental refreshes
of the same tired formulae.

I imagine it was much the same in Finland too.

The big question is, without Jobs, will Apple settle into defending what they
have - and punching out variants and incremental refreshes of it - or will
they have fresh ambitious restarts?

~~~
bobbles
Well they do have that "Special Projects" division.. I'm sure they'll be
cooking up something nice for 2014.. at least I hope so

~~~
mortenjorck
Yours is not an uncommon sentiment, but it’s not really a fair picture:
Observers often see the Apple of the past decade as releasing a category-
definer every few years (iPod, iPhone, iPad), and awaiting the next one
(iWatch! iScreen!).

Really, though, Apple's blockbusters of the 2000s are best seen as one
continuous thing: the iPod paved the way for well-designed, vertically-
integrated mobile devices (that it was a music player is almost incidental)
and the iPhone and iPad are really bookends of a single smart device
revolution.

Seen this way, Apple has had two world-changing category definers in its
history, the Mac and the iOS device. That’s one every 24 years, if we count to
the midpoint between the iPhone and iPad introductions. Will they do it again?
Maybe, but I wouldn’t expect it to be just around the corner.

~~~
seiji
Huh whatnow?

The original iPod (and modern iPods minus the Touch) don't run iOS at all. The
iPod gave Apple the time to stall until they could build what Steve wanted to
make in 1999, but the world didn't have the capacity to create yet.

These days, Apple is the forefront of both industrial design and fabrication
capacity. They aren't in the past—they are in the present and they are moving
the world along with them, not waiting for it to catch up to them anymore.

~~~
CmonDev
"they are moving the world along with them"

You tried iOS 7, didn't you? I sure hope they are not using "Apple Maps" to
move themselves and the world.

~~~
hrrsn
Apple Maps has come a long way since the iOS 6 launch. Google Maps is still
undoubtedly better, but Apple have been working hard on it.

iOS 7 is not bad. People are still afraid of change (look at what they said
about the original iPhone, now look where we are) but ultimately it was in
need of a refresh.

~~~
CmonDev
But they are not "moving the world" in any way except for hardware. iOS 7 is
derivative.

~~~
hrrsn
True, even the hardware iterations aren't exciting. Rebranding the 5 as the 5C
is disappointing.

Where Apple do lead is in software, Android is getting better for the regular
user but it's still not even close. Vertical integration works.

~~~
moron4hire
for varying definitions of "regular users" and "works"

------
Aqwis
This guy is missing the fact that in a lot of European countries, and
elsewhere in the world, carriers mean _squat_. The carrier is often simply the
provider of the SIM card you put in the phone, so carrier support is in no way
needed for a phone to succeed. You don't need to be successful in the US to be
successful.

~~~
Pxtl
Yes, but those are smaller markets.

As much as we're loathe to admit it, the USA represents the largest single
market of wealthy (in global terms) customers. That means the USA is the place
high-end consumer tech lives or dies. Other markets are more fragmented (so
they're more expensive to sell in) or less affluent. There's lots of exciting
things happening in Brazil and India, but those are lower-end spin-offs.

I'm a Canadian. Our entire consumer market is based on getting America's
sloppy seconds. I have no illusions.

~~~
tenfingers
I wouldn't say so. Without carrier restrictions, EU is much easier to sell to.
In fact, in EU, the carrier is totally worthless, and the phones they usually
bundle with contract plans are in general the lowest-end phones you can have.
Even the iPhone deals are usually meaningless, since you can have the phone
for less then a 10% difference, with the added choice of getting a better data
plan at any time you wish.

~~~
mcv
Lowest end? The Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One aren't exactly low-end, and
those are the two phones everybody is offering now. The ones you get for free
with low-end contracts are low-end, but you can get some pretty nice discounts
on high-end phones too.

At least apparent discounts. You pay for them through your contract, and if
the difference with a sim-only contract is small, that's because sim-only
contracts are way too expensive.

Carriers are big, but it is possible to get around them. Most people get a
phone with contract, but a lot of people really do go sim-only.

Fairphone is a nice example of a small Dutch organization that makes a
revolutionary new phone (not available in the US). It's very successful so
far, but also because they're not inventing their own platform; it's still
Android. But the hardware is indie, so that at least can be done. (And a major
carrier ordered a 1000 of them.)

------
hoi
Article is fine but misses a few salient points.

Appstores did exist, Docomo created the first appstore and any phones that
were released by the carrier had to comply to Docomo's requirements. Nokia
created an appstore with N-Gage, it didn't work and created a carrier
backlash.

What Apple did was to stealth in their app store. It was all due to a
strategic mistake by AT&T. Sure the Apple was a great device, but remember,
the first version was 2G with a crappy camera and an amazing UI/UX and already
seen as obsolete in developed 3G markets like Japan (I was working at Nokia in
Japan at the time).

AT&T's mistake? Unlike any previous carrier or vendor relationship, AT&T ceded
control of software updates to Apple. Apple could update the phone any way
they wanted. They already had enough market power in the US that would prevent
carrier boycott. At the time, all the carriers were trying to copy Docomo and
push out their own appstores, and this decision by AT&T killed it.

In terms of smartphones being a commodity, it already is, anything that sells
int he hundreds of millions is effectively commoditized, that doesn't prevent
new players from coming in to try and disrupt the market. This is probably the
third disruption in mobile phones, from dumbphones -> feature/early
smartphones -> current smartphones, however it may be 'too soon' as each cycle
has been around for about 10 years each.

~~~
collyw
I always considered App stores the same as Linux repositories with a payment
option.

------
untog
Curious that the article doesn't mention the word "patents" once. That's what
stops you from even starting to build a Smartphone of your own - you'd violate
dozens of patents and be sued into oblivion. The only reason manufacturers are
able to do it now is because they all have portfolios of their own and are in
a state of cold war with everyone else.

~~~
gnaffle
Most things needed to make a smartphone is covered by FRAND patents. Software
patents are of course a problem for anyone working in the software industry,
so that's not limited to smartphones.

~~~
e12e
"Most things"? Haven't we just learned that if you make a smart phone that
looks like a smart phone (rounded rectangle, button below screen) you can (and
will) be sued?

I suppose the fact that stuff like that is the area where big legal battles
are fought, does imply that a lot of the "hard" patents (radio
spectrum/coding, noise cancellation, audio encoding etc) are indeed covered by
FRAND patents, though. It still seems to be a bit of a leap to go from there
to saying that you'd not run into patents when making a smart phone?

~~~
_Simon
No. The argument re "rounded rectangles" (actually a meme invented by people
like yourself) is about trade dress, which in the US is covered by a design
"patent", which is not the same thing as a technical patent. This is not
difficult to understand. To this day the level of denial around Samsung
blatant imitation of the iPhone is staggering.

~~~
jon-wood
> To this day the level of denial around Samsung blatant imitation of the
> iPhone is staggering.

The problem is that I can't think of any other design that a modern smartphone
would have other than "piece of glass encased in plastic/metal, with maybe a
button underneath". As far as I can see the screen _is_ the phone, and given
that constraint there isn't really anywhere else to go.

~~~
antimagic
The thing is that people had been building smartphones since before the
iPhone, and none of them looked anything like that. Buttons. Everywhere. The
fact that the iPhone form factor is now considered self-evident is a
demonstration of Apple's design strength, not of how obvious the form factor
is.

Don't forget that to make that form factor work, you need a whole software
stack that is able to replace the physical buttons adequately. You need an on-
screen keyboard capable of at least equalling a physical keyboard. You need to
have virtual buttons that are easy to use. You're going to be doing a lot of
scrolling on that tiny screen, so you're going to need some pretty good
graphics routines. To make that scrolling anything other than an awful
experience you're going to need low-latency right from the capacitive input
right through to the content actually moving on the screen. Not easy,
especially with the chip used in the original iPhone.

Think about Android. If Android had have been first to market, and they had
actually undergone the post-iPhone transformation without the iPhone being
present (because don't forget, it was originally going to be a phone with a
physical keyboard), they would have released a touch-screen phone with Android
1.0 on it. Android 1.0 was awful. Battery life was rubbish, graphics
performance was pathetic, even the keyboard was full of fail. If that had have
been the defining capacitive screen smartphone, we may have decided that
touchscreen phones were not the right direction.

It took Google, with a large chunk of the smartest engineers on the planet,
about 4 years to ge to a point where Android was truly competitive with iOS.
It took about 5 years for Microsoft to get Windows Phone to the same place.

Without the software engineering effort, the capacitive screen was not an
obvious solution. The fact that Apple invested in that effort made the
benefits obvious to everyone, but this was not the case pre-2007.

~~~
Joeri
I don't think it's fair to say the iphone form factor wasn't out there. There
was a rich variety of full-screen touch or pen phones (palm, pocket pc, some
one-off designs like the lg prada), and there were models designed with a
capacitive screen. A lot of people were trying to corner the smartphone market
by foregoing a physical keyboard. I still think palm's graffiti was a better
way of inputing complex text than any smartphone on-screen keyboard.

It's not that nobody was trying to figure out how to build a smartphone with a
big touchscreen, just that they were approaching it from the enterprise space.
Usability wasn't important because it wasn't an enterprise selling point. Pen
input was important because signature input was key for enterprise. Apple
ignored enterprise at first and designed for the consumer market, which
allowed for blasphemies like throwing out pen support. The big change was
making smartphones a consumer product instead of an enterprise product.

------
jamestomasino
There's a very strong argument here but the claim appears to rely on the
author's expansive definition of "smartphone", in which he encompasses app
stores, cloud servers and networks. Perhaps he has a point about the
difficulty of investment in taking on these well established players in the
field, but I don't feel it's entirely accurate to claim that smartphones
themselves cannot be successful.

A new phone with a bare-bones linux-like OS designed to piggy-back on existing
networks may have a small place in the market, and others like Jolla that seek
to grow toward something big may pick up fractions of a percent as well. Even
surviving a decade with a low, but consistent, share is a success (e.g., Apple
in the 80s).

Finally, there's the novelty and growth of industry to consider. The current
big players in the smartphone market are already scrambling to address the
emerging wearable revolution. The "internet of things" is right on the horizon
as well and there's no telling where the chips may land. To be fair, the
author did mention innovation as a key to potential success. We should
consider the grander implications of a constantly evolving business model and
offering in that sentiment, though. It's not just a matter of making a neat
new feature, but of the entire game changing every 5 years.

While the author makes plenty of good and valid points, I don't think the
outlook need be so bleak.

~~~
TheLegace
Exactly rather than focusing why a smartphone can't succeed, I'd like to see
how and why a phone can succeed.

If anyone thinks that the mess in the Play Store and the development
environment of Android doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth they should
really re-consider thinking that Android is going to be around forever. I
would like to ditch this platform the first moment I get. There are a lot
niches that are not addressed by market players today, and the overlap between
them can wedge a dent in the market. Google has serious weakness in hardware,
and it looks like they will never get over that hump. Can you honestly expect
them to optimize performance and battery life, if they can't even make their
own devices.

Niches like:

Open-Source/Flexible development environment

Sustainability

Emerging Markets

Actual Innovation

Disruptive technologies and emerging markets shouldn't be counted out either.
Nor should finding ways to monetize open-source. People, developers especially
are increasingly looking for open platforms/devices, that market is NEVER
going to get smaller only bigger.

Imagine actually being able to use Javascript or Python or Clojure for your
apps, or scripts. Will you actually discount a platform where you can program
without managing a thousand configuration files or worry about the
gatekeepers(Google/Apple). See these problems aren't necessarily problems in
Linux(not to say there aren't other drawbacks).

The great(maybe not?) thing about innovation is that if your to busy looking
at the technology today your going to completely miss out what is coming next.
- At least it's great if your competing.

I can't help thinking about what Jobs says, "Experts" are clueless.

>Experts—journalists, analysts, consultants, bankers, and gurus can’t “do” so
they “advise.” They can tell you what is wrong with your product, but they
cannot make a great one. [1]

[1][http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20117575-37/what-i-
learned...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20117575-37/what-i-learned-from-
steve-jobs/)

People seriously underestimate the power of a great product. Products that
don't rely on massive feature lists that mean nothing a day after buying your
device. I regret falling into this trap and wasting precious time instead of
thinking about creating a better product experience. But again this is easier
said than done.

~~~
ctdonath
_I 'd like to see how and why a phone can succeed._

There is an enormous market for a _good_ dumb phone. Or, well, idiot savant
phone: makes calls, makes calls well, and does nothing but makes calls.
Between those who just don't want a smartphone, and those who carry enough
computing power to not want yet another Cray 2 in a pocket, there's a large
niche for a phone that is just a phone, syncs contacts effortlessly,
eliminates every unnecessary/redundant call step, is just the right size &
shape, uses every available network aggressively & seamlessly, leverages every
service to save money, and has as clear & pristine a sound as makes
audiophiles drool. Instead, we have fat folders with idiotic interfaces
designed to make you spring for a smartphone just to get something thinner &
easier.

I saw Smith Corona collapse. A market for typewriters remains to this day,
decades later, untapped. Dumbphones are following the same path: a viable
market wrecked by an industry dazzled by the sometimes undesirable glitz of a
competitor.

Whither the iPhone nano? Many want it.

~~~
matthewmacleod
I don't really believe this market exists. And even if it does, I expect it's
tiny - otherwise, manufacturers would be targeting it.

~~~
pgreenwood
Last night I had dinner with my parents. They lamented that they could not
find a phone for my elderly grandmother. They just need something that just
makes and receives calls, is dead simple, has (very) large buttons, and is
loud. Where is this phone?

We have an ageing population.

~~~
some_guy_there
While this might not be the exact answer you were looking for, but people can
buy a cheap android phone and put this launcher.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.kunes.and...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.kunes.android.launcher.activity&hl=en)

------
natural219
Sorry, but you don't seem to be offering anything new here. We know there are
large capital costs for hardware businesses. We know network effects exist for
phone applications. We know UI performance is a key issue in smartphone
adoption (currently).

Maybe "It's Hard To Build A Smartphone In 2013" would be a better title. But
to suggest people will be using iPhones and Androids in the year 2050...Yikes.
I pray that future doesn't come to pass.

~~~
gbvb
The way I read this article, It is less about building new smartphone but more
about the next technology shift that is going to change the direction.
Basically, as oft repeated Ford statement goes, 'if you asked people what they
wanted, they would have said faster horse'. So, at this point, smartphone
business is settling into a faster horse business.

So, I would really expect the next big thing to be not a be an iPhone but
something utterly different. Neural implants, anyone?

~~~
hershel
The biggest problem the smartphone solved was boredom. That's the reason for
it's popularity.

At it's core ,boredom might be manipulated neurologically, so maybe you won't
feel bored and just feel content with whatever. If we're going to aggressive
means as neural implants ,this seems a more interesting option.

Another options(without opening skuls) is something that offers far better
experiences.

Maybe more immersive (up to a point we can't differentiate from real
life).maybe something that enriches our daily interactions without interfering
with them. Maybe something that help us manage emotions and brain states
optimally. Maybe something that augments fluidly our cognitive capabilities
without interfering with what we do.

~~~
kubiiii
It solved boredom by enabling to play a game a megadrive would run.

~~~
Kliment
Yes but a megadrive did not fit in your pocket, and the game gear, while
backpackable, had awful battery life. The smartphone is successful running
game gear level games because it will do so all day, and has a setup time of
four seconds from impulse to game.

~~~
kubiiii
Plus the game gear was more a master system than a megadrive even if both
would run columns (I was wondering if ppl from the US understand what a
megadrive is since I think they call it genesis). Talking about battery life,
I had a lynx which was even worse I think.

------
Pxtl
> Challenge: you are now competing with the iPod Touch.

It disappoints me that nobody does this. Every attempted "competitor" I've
seen that stands against the iPod Touch either costs _more_ than the touch or
is reviewed as unusable garbage.

~~~
salient
Moto G 2/3 of the price? Nexus 5 for $50 more? It doesn't have to be a "music
player" of sorts, when the iPod touch is an iPhone without the phone part. So
as long as there are decent Android phones out there with the same specs,
_that 's_ the alternative. You could buy a Moto G and never use it as a phone
if you don't want to.

~~~
TillE
How's the headphone jack on those devices? I've had terrible experiences with
Android devices in that respect, including the Galaxy Nexus. Unusable in a
matter of weeks, whereas my iPods have always had rock solid connections even
after years of abuse.

~~~
Pxtl
I've a Samsung-based phone where the headset-jack (it has a mic, it's a
headset-jack not headphone-jack) has taken years of abuse and still going
strong. Jogging with an armband and using it in bed and getting snagged and
clipping it to the jogging stroller and subsequently forgetting I was tethered
when I step away.... none of that did damage.

My phone is a Samsung Focus, which came out a year before the G-Nex. I'm
surprised the G-Nex gave you so much trouble.

------
fembot__
I began reading his article hoping to have him talk a little bit more about
smartphones in emerging markets, but he barely touched on it. Africa has
arguably the fastest growing middle class in the world right now. They're also
poised to make a cultural leap far greater than that of China's in the 90s. I
read that 60% of Africans will have smartphones in 2019. The continent is
already using smart technology in innovative/cost saving ways (i.e. sending
funds via sms).

It seems to me that if I am looking to join the smartphone industry, I make
myself indispensable to Africa. I think Africans are less likely to care for
features like Siri or luxury components. My thought is that developers for
devices in that part of the world will have the freedom to think outside the
box--what will a smart phone look like on a continent with minimal financial
resources, but avid interest in quick data and communication? What do people
want from their phone when they don't have necessarily have a computer or
strong infrastructure?

------
contingencies
This guy is _so_ ex-Nokia, it's sad. He rates the latest Maemo/whatever as a
higher chance of market presence than Firefox OS. _OK, Nordsman... we
understand you are grieving for your lost mobile device business... but you
can do it in private._

Linux, via Android, commodified smartphone platforms by giving away the OS and
thus commodifying the position of mobile device hardware manufacturers. This
was coming anyway, but was a brilliantly timed commercial play by Google to
head off Apple's strength in devices. Google's allies were the carriers, who
were unhappy with Apple owning (via signup-time credit card) who they
perceived as _their_ customers.

FirefoxOS and that new Jolla thing the Nords are working on basically use
exactly the same hardware and OS platform (ie. Linux). There's no huge
investment there, the investment is in higher layers of the software stack,
and in FirefoxOS' case in marketing to different segments (the developing
world, which still has 'growth', and necessitates less competitive component
acquisition for manufacturing batches).

To say a small team can't do something similar is _plain wrong_. I'd say the
effort required is similar to launching a new Linux distribution. As long as
there is a niche you can cater to, there is no reason it won't survive and
thrive. CyanogenMod is only the beginning: cross-pollination is a good thing.

Start with preferably
[https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/](https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/) (or
otherwise
[http://source.android.com/source/downloading.html](http://source.android.com/source/downloading.html))
and _begin thy mission to conquer portable computing!_

(Edit: Added content after the initial paragraph after it was downvoted. Fair
enough, it was a bit snarky :)

~~~
davb
First paragraph snark aside, I agree.

To say that any tech market is _completely_ closed to new entrants seems
slightly ridiculous. Sure, the barriers to entry have increased - if you're
chasing mass-market appeal, a strong app platform is as important as excellent
hardware. However there will always be some niche to serve or an opportunity
to tackle bloated or less open, established competitors.

I think Josh's option is very biased and colored by operating in a certain
type of environment. Not that it's any less valuable or valid than any other,
but I disagree with him.

------
namenotrequired
* A few new Android manufacturers may join the game*

For anyone interested, Fairphone are doing so pretty successfully right now.

[http://fairphone.com/](http://fairphone.com/)

~~~
CanSpice
Fairphone's website says they've sold 25,000, and have another 8200 on the
way.

Apple sold over 9 million iPhone 5s and 5c models in the first weekend they
were for sale.

While it's impressive that an independent group is putting out a phone, their
sales are orders of magnitude away from what Apple puts out in a single
weekend. Sure, they're "joining the game", but they're not in the same league.

~~~
benjamincburns
This comparison is just silly. Look (guess) at Apple's development budget for
the iPhone. Look at Fairphone's (or again, just guess). Look at the size of
Apple. Look at the size of the Fairphone team at the Waag Society. I don't
think I need to say anything else. This is _majorly_ impressive.

~~~
namenotrequired
Of course, you're both right - it's very little compared to the market
leaders, but for a new player it's definitely impressive. Especially
considering they were all sold before they were even made.

~~~
mcv
The power of crowdfunding! That is really the major game changer that hasn't
been taken into account yet.

------
delicious
I once read a lovely article online (which I've never been able to find again,
I think it was by a founder of tripod?), recounting the early days of search
engines. He was thinking of starting one, but the market was already filled...
then came another search engine, and _now_ there really was no room for
another one... this iterated over several engines til he finally got to
google. And added: _now_ it's really filled...

Of course, today google still rules, yet they act incredibly threatened by
facebook; and niche engines like duckduckgo are making inroads.

Is this true for smartphones? All we can really say is that he (and I) can't
think of a way to enter... but that doesn't mean there is no way.

    
    
      Just as I wouldn’t suggest anyone build a new line of PCs or cars
    

Like electric cars...

------
zmmmmm
Seems to me it's easier than ever before to build a "smartphone": Android has
everything you need and is open to everyone. What's hard is to build a smart
phone _operating system_. And in some ways (not all!) that's a good thing -
you need a pretty big justification to reinvent a giant wheel. If you have
one, great. If not, do your innovation on top of Android.

~~~
qznc
Agreed.

I am still waiting for the Facebook Phone. They already have a fully
customized Android Home Screen. The biggest problem is probably that Facebook
has no experience in selling physical products.

Anybody could slap together an Android customization. On the other hand, what
is the point? If you do not profit from selling the hardware (like Samsung) or
the software (like Google), then why sell a smartphone? Maybe Salesforce could
sell enterprise smartphones bundled with their software.

------
justin66
Mr. Ondesign (can I call you Josh?), your website sure does use a lot of CPU
when it's in the foreground. What is the deal there exactly?

~~~
lotyrin
Animated spinning ... things... rectangles? Around the planet logo. Rendered
into a canvas without any throttling.

~~~
joshmarinacci
Hmm. I could have sworn I was using requestAnimationFrame.

~~~
lotyrin
Maybe. If you are, then you're doing so at 60fps at least, when this scene
seems like it'd be fine slower than that.

------
thaumasiotes
From the article:

> Small to medium businesses will use apps on standard devices like iPads

I used to get lunch at a Specialty's sandwich place in SF. You could place
your order at the counter (to a human, who would mess it up) or use their iPad
app at the self-service counter (this got the order right every time). The
iPad app worked well, but it was a source of bemusement to me that the self-
service counter was just a counter with a row of iPads mounted on it. I once
hit the home button on one, to see what would happen, and was taken to the
home screen. I feel like for business use you might want more of an ability to
lock the device down.

~~~
tajddin
You can lock down iPads via the Ease of Access feature. Apple uses it to
lockdown iPads in their stores, for example. The restaurant didn't have them
properly configured, although it is an oddly termed feature in the settings.

------
fingerprinter
_cough_ Ubuntu _cough_

In all seriousness, if he means smartphone from a hardware perspective, I
might actually agree. The startup costs there are crazy high.

But, if he means software, no. Ubuntu is doing it and doing it very, very
well. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it. All Android using hardware
manufacturers are crazy to continue with Android now that Google owns
Motorola. Look at the Moto X. Nothing can compete with it and no one will be
able to in the future.

Samsung and the rest should very actively be looking to remove Android from
their handsets as quickly as possible. Ubuntu is by far the best choice.

~~~
joshmarinacci
Ubuntu is doing it well? How many phones have they sold? What is their
installed base? What % of marketshare?

~~~
fingerprinter
It's this type of comment that really disappoints me about HN these days.

Ubuntu just released V1 of their phone in October. Anyone who knows phone
manufacturers and carriers knows how long they soak something in their labs.

Ubuntu has all the pieces in place to be an awesome option. Plus, they have
their carrier advisory group with some great names showing their is some
carrier interest.

Ubuntu has a company behind it and an owner who seems to want to compete in
this market and has very deep pockets. Ubuntu itself has pedigree and history
as well as working with hardware manufacturers and chip companies.

I mean, if your only metric of what is possible based on what is current
numbers, Android would never had made it out of the gate, or should have
folded after the Nexus One or even their next phone (can't remember the name),
both of which were TERRIBLE and sold poorly.

~~~
ac29
Canonical released a phone in October? I think you're mistaken.

~~~
ewzimm
Canonical released v1 of their phone OS for developers in October.

------
Aloha
This should be called "Why You Can't Build a Smartphone Ecosystem"

Building the phone itself is easier, license the software from google, develop
some cool hardware, build and sell it.

Admittedly, selling it is probably the hardest part, hard to innovate on
features, you can innovate in packaging, price, assembly place, any number of
other things.

If you have a big enough bucket of money, you could build a new ecosystem, it
wont be easy though. Even without the bucket of money you could build a new
ecosystem - but you might only capture 2-5% of the market.

~~~
AsymetricCom
Another far-out option is building a solution not dependent on the carriers,
which have already captured the IP space. There is no more internet, it's all
just "telecom" now. That's the first mistake people make when starting an
"internet" business. Business is reliant on communication and your
communication is reliant on telecom. It's pretty much the same landscape as
before the internet existed.

------
gcb0
The article is kinda paradoxal...

> the iphone changed the game

> no device can enter the market without carrier help.

The iphone was successful exactly because it sold to rich people before, with
no carrier help. in fact, in the beginning the carriers would throw anything
at you to move you from an iphone. In fact, the reason you have to pay a
"smarphone fee" until recently was because AT&T greedily charged a mandatory
$30 extra for "iphone data" if you ever wanted a subsided iphone.

~~~
paulftw
iphone started without carrier support, maybe. (There was some sort of an at&t
deal, i dunno, doesn't matter) But the point is that was then, we now live in
a different world. Apple gave invented the smartphone market as we know it.
Nowadays market is mature - it's nearly impossible to disrupt it.

~~~
gcb0
apple is for a long time ridding the frivolous upgrade market. I bet if it
wasn't so easy to sell your phone on the grey market (for it to be consumed on
the grey market overseas) nobody would be justifying upgrading to the latest
number or "s" every year.

That is a fragile market as the market nokia had before. which everyone
assumes to be "nearly impossible to disrupt" as you put it.

------
kosei
I think many of the author's points are valid, but I do still believe that
companies like Blackberry and Nokia can build Android or Windows Mobile phones
successfully, as they won't have to deal with a) user inertia from changing to
a new OS or b) developing entirely new UI and operating systems.

As far as I can tell, there won't really be any new carriers or any new
operating systems, but that doesn't preclude competition in the hardware
space.

~~~
hrrsn
I hope Blackberry and Nokia can produce some decent phones in the future.
Android has come a long way, but Windows Phone is still pretty awful (more
importantly, Nokia are never going to produce an Android with Microsoft as an
owner). I used a HTC G1 and Motorola Milestone (1.6 and 2.something) as well
as a Galaxy S3 (on 4.something) - back at 1.6 it was nothing special, the S3
on 4.x was hugely improved and a joy to use. If I wasn't so heavily vested in
iOS it would be a worthy contender. Windows Phone on the other hand I can't
say so much for. Most of the people I've spoken to that are non tech-literate
don't have favourable experiences. A family member (electrician by trade) had
a high-end Nokia Lumia for a year and didn't have a whole lot to say about it,
until he took it in for repair and they gave him an iPhone 4S. He couldn't
stop talking about how much better he found it to use, and thus as soon as
they demanded it back he switched to an iPhone. Until these manufactures
delight the user in the same way that the iPhone does, or differentiate
themselves enough, there's little hope.

------
erikb
I believe that smartphones are actually a slice of the embedded systems
development market, the same as desktop computers. They are probably the most
profitable slice, but that is exactly why the biggest players in the market
pay top budget to compete about the shares. Because of that understanding of
mine, I think you don't really get into the "smartphone market" as a start-up,
but you get into the embedded systems market. And that is quite possible. You
just need to find a slice of the market that is not so highly competed in and
you can enter there, e.g., producing small Linux computers for public
transportation companies with different, very specific tasks, or building
remote controls for model airplanes/quadrocopters. There you get all the know-
how of building your own computers, working on your own operating system,
finding suppliers and when you are really, really good, you might even come up
with a platform of some sort that you can get other developers on to make Apps
for, just in the business-to-business area instead of the tough endcustomer
market.

------
avmich
With a bit of tongue-in-cheek...

1\. Data networks

It's an open question of using WiFi as the universal carrier - we're not at
that point yet; but it's not a question of using existing GSM networks. It's
going to be hard for carriers to deny, after some point, minutes to paying
customers.

2\. The cost of entry - OS, cloud store, apps

This happened time and again. Remember when Linux has appeared on the stage?
Seen porting projects, like Wine, PetrOS, Mono? Realize that Android was built
not from scratch, at least concerning interfaces? Second time is almost always
cheaper - and in our times, by a wide margin.

3\. Access to hardware components - need good hardware...

No. I don't care much if the phone is 5 mm or 2 mm thick, 100 g or 250 g heavy
- just like a word processor user doesn't care if letter appears on the screen
in 10 ms or 90 ms after he hit the keyboard. At some point it becomes
irrelevant, and competition shifts elsewhere. See Firefox phone as another
example.

4\. Retreat to the low end

Yes, you see it. The fact that the product is a commodity doesn't mean it
doesn't exist.

5\. A disruptive UI

It was surely a pain to switch from sleeky Nokia UI to strange future of
IPhone, no? How about Sugar, from One Laptop Per Child project, which was done
anew?

6\. Be realistic?

I certainly see a point in what you're saying; but don't you see the power of
fashion - ones all important things are by default? As soon as changes become
unimportant, returns dwindling and defaults good enough, attention goes to
other things - a similar thing happened in automotive world, where a lot of
customers buy not the functionality, but trendiness.

~~~
Aloha
femtocells (wifi size cells) are virtually never cost effective, not enough
density to support the infrastructure.

a combination Microcells and picocells, however might be doable, you use mesh
networking to tie the picocells to to each other, and back to the microcell,
ideally its a slow speed low power network, around 900 mhz, providing a access
method for text messaging, and push notifications (sub 100kbps, think of it as
a faster control channel), Data could be mesh even between handsets, passing
(some) data thru to the nearest base. A higher speed network used for more
intensive data use situations that goes directly to the nearest micro or
picocell, For voice calls or in rural areas, you could default to the regular
BTS.

------
gwu78
I don't want a "smartphone". I want a handheld computer, the size of a
"smartphone", with a cool form factor like a "smartphone". But, it needs to
have Ethernet ports, USB ports, SD card slots, CF card slot, etc. An RS232
serial port would be nice too. I want versatility: inputs and outputs. I do
not need to connect to any cellular networks. I do not want a closed source
baseband operating system, SIM cards, etc. I want an open source bootloader,
like U-boot. And I don't want to be forced to run Linux. It has to run BSD,
too. So, I don't need to build a "smartphone". I only need to build a handheld
computer.

~~~
dllthomas
I want a handheld terminal for a belt-mounted computer. A belt can easily
support quite a bit more battery, for hard core computation, longer-range
transmitting, and GPS.

~~~
ewzimm
A belt with integrated batteries throughout and a micro USB cable would be so
useful, and the batteries could easily be integrated fashionably. I don't know
why anyone doesn't make that. You could charge your phone in your pocket

------
mmahemoff
"I owned a string of PalmOS devices during this period. Their ‘app store’ was
literally boxes of software in a store which you had to install from your
computer. No different than 1980s PCs."

That's not really true. Mobile devices around that time were designed as
peripherals of the PC, so you could download apps to PC and install them by
cable-syncing. Palm apps were just .PRC files.

It really wasn't too complicated and was a far sight from buying shrink-
wrapped software in a physical store. It's just a shame that Palm, MS, and
other platforms left this stuff to third-party websites instead of making it a
more seamless experience for users and a more profitable one for them.

~~~
r00fus
I'd say that downloading software on my original iPhone was probably the 2nd
most OMG moment of owning the device (the first being the capacitive IPS
display that made the icons seem painted-on). Seeing an app download over a 2G
cell connection and be usable in 2 minutes - that was amazing. No clickwrap
installer, no license keys, no entering payment details. It foretold the doom
of non-AppStore software sales in a wonderful zen moment.

------
ThinkBeat
I understand where the author is coming from but I disagree completely.

Imagine trying to build a smartphone 15 years ago, that would be really hard.
You need a decent screen you need a good cpu etc.

All of that is off the shelf now. Anyone can buy it and its cheap. (esp in
volume)

In a market in China (I dont remember the name) there are vendors upon vendors
who sell all sorts of electrical parts, gadgets etc. You can literally walk
down the isles and pick the parts you want in your new smartphone.

So hardware wise, now is a good time. Sure you wont get as polished as the big
players right away, but prototypes or a limited set sure.

Now software. There is quite a bit of software that will run on the arm board.
With all the hacking on the android platform (sadly a lot more than on the
Windows or Apples phones), you can (if you want) at least create a very
customized different Android based OS if you want. (would make updates a
bitch).

But you can also get some version of linux working and I am sure some other
strange os.

But there has never been a time when it was easier to get some dev boards, and
start writing the next mobile OS.

Its something you can get started on at home now for less than $1000.

As far as the cloud services and integration that has never been nearly as
easy. We have all sorts of providers with stable and "open" APIs.

Providers like MS azure provides a full stack. Database, Data storage, device
sync, messaging, computation etc. and they are not the only ones.

I cant think of how much building and setting up all that cloud stuff would
have cost in itself. Its out there now, and if you are tesing and writing your
app, or have it deployed with low values its very cheap. Sure you wont have
your own Music store right away (but licensing is the biggest issue there) but
you can piggy back Amazon mp3.

So we have good access to cheap hardware. We have development tools, boards
and compilers. We have excellent possibilities cloud sync, integration, etc.
We have open source operating systems we can hack at, learn from and
understand how things work.

As others have pointed out the future is probably pure data phones. That is a
great market to attack right now. Forget the 1984 "phone" part and the nobody
really uses anymore SMS.

~~~
gnaffle
But that's the thing though, companies like Apple pretty much ignore the whole
"phone" and SMS thing, Apple has even shot the operators in the back with
iMessage.

You're right that it's easy to make a phone nowadays with off the shelf
components, like the article mentions that's exactly what the chinese/asian
OEMS are doing now. The question is whether you will be able to make something
that can compete with Apple / Google / Samsung. Even HTC is having a hard time
doing that with some pretty decent phones.

~~~
ThinkBeat
That is very true.

I do feel that the best phones out there today as far as sales maybe the
iPhone and the Samsung S4? Will in 5 (?) 10 (?), be like the first iPod, big
clunky and obsolete.

And the huge phone makers of yesteryear: Nokia, Blackberry etc are now small.
I can easily see in a 10 years period a a new player entering the market with
success. (if they can keep from being bought by the big 3). Facebooks phone
partnerships so far have sucked. Maybe they will find something better. Maybe
it will be someone else. Or maybe no one will :(

I am still hoping for a new PC os :o

~~~
victorhooi
What's wrong with the existing PC OSes? =).

In the free/open space, we already have fifty billion variants - Linux, the
various BSDs (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD), GNU Hurd, ReactOS, OpenSolaris, Haiku
etc.)...

Do you want more? I mean, I get the whole diversity thing, but after a while,
I suspect you get diminishing returns...

~~~
ThinkBeat
I didn't actually know that GNU Herd was stable yet so that is actually cool I
will install that later on (VM)

We do have a lot of great Unix inspired operating systems and they are doing
an amazing job. I count OS/X in that category too, though its debatable.

Then we have Windows, the big giant. I would really like to see them do a
Windows NT Squired, NT NT, a new generation that can break compatibility.

Haiku I am a little excited about. I remember how cool the BoBoxes were many
years ago when I saw a demo. How far ahead of Windows it was back in those
days.

Dont forget about LoseTheOS/Temple. I dont care what people say about the
genius who made it. Its a crowning achievement. It is exciting because it
isnt, and was never intended to be a be all do all OS for everyone. It has a
purpose.

I would like to see more in Plan9.

------
joshmarinacci
I'm the original author. You can probably guess this from the blog, but
smartphones don't interest me anymore. I loved my time at Palm, but I'm
working on new things now. Stuff that needs good innovation right now:

* Internet of Things, esp. on the usability side.

* 3D printing. making it more useful and accessible.

* Changing how we teach math and science. I can't stress this enough.

* Improving programming. We still do it like it's the 1970s.

~~~
collyw
Did they not do it on punch cards in the 70's? I think things have improved in
the ten years or so I have been in the industry. Java was the hot language in
those days, because you could write it once and run it anywhere.

------
tehwalrus
> _Carriers request features, change specs, and pick winners._

I'm not sure this is true outside of America, where we have less of a carrier
mono/duopoly. Certainly here in the UK - carriers are required to unlock
phones if you ask nicely, >6 months after purchase, and most smartphones can
be bought unlocked (I've bought my last 3 smartphones this way.)

------
mathattack
I think the point of carrier relevance is importance. Somehow Apple still
seems to capture much of the volume.

I have to believe there is still room for disruption at the bottom of the
market. Someone could devise a very cheap way to just deliver texts. Or a safe
simple network for kids, that they would somehow stick with.

Just when firms seem most invincible, they are also most at risk.

------
ChuckMcM
Now that it is officially not possible I am sure it will happen :-)

I agree that it would be exceptionally hard to build a smartphone to the same
design formula of the iPhone or Android, as an exemplar we have Microsoft who
as spent billions on it and has yet to succeed.

However, you might have said the same thing before Apple entered into the game
and you would have been right. Had Apple tried to build a Blackberry or Nokia
equivalent slab phone they would have had a hard slog. They went back to first
principles, imagined a new kind of "phone" and rolled it out.

So the next smartphone isn't going to look like an iPhone or a Galaxy S4, but
it might look like Google glass, or like a pebble watch an earphone and a
wallet sized thing you carry in your backpack. Or a communicator badge you
clip on your chest. But agree it won't be a clone of the iPhone.

------
headgasket
I disagree. Apple is in a serious lull innovation wise. Google has won the
eyeballs of the majority, and their ad business is not an innovation driver.
MS is stuck in a deadly dance trying to isolate developers from themselves
and/or direct hardware access with their closed source Apis and CLR.

I think firefoxos has a serious chance of pulling a ... Er... Firefox circa
2002 if the threat does not force the hand of their financial
supporters.(google)

Thanks to google, there is a ref platform now, it's mostly a software problem;
necessity is the mother of invention. With apple blocking anything remotely
menacing off their app store(coinbase? Seriously? Who does that?) and android
being a boring spying endpoint, cool hardware like the nexus 5 could get an
new skin with a cool cloudphone thingamajigger.

------
jahagirdar
I disagree with the article. I am still waiting for the device which can be a
complete replacement for my laptop. That means

* Ability to "dock" to get a keyboard+mouse+monitor Interface.

* True multi-tasking (The music should not stop just because I switched apps)

* A full fledged command line terminal (xterm).

* support for ssh, Perl, python, ruby, C/C++ etc.

This device may not start out as a phone, May be it will be a raspberry type
hobby device with a computer on chip running linux which will "grow" to
acquire a pluggable phone module, a touch screen and a docking station.

Still waiting for it.

~~~
Andrex
The latter three are covered by Android, and the first was covered by the
Motorola Atrix (which bombed) and the upcoming Ubuntu phone.

------
moron4hire
I agree with the basic premise that a typical hardware company is not ever
going to have the management style necessary to beat the iPhone or Android.
But I don't agree that the current horses in the race are invincible.

Who is to say that cellphone networks will even be relevant in 10 years? What
if city-wide, state-wide, country-wide WiFi were to be developed? Such a
public works project would blow the market completely open. And in emerging
markets, mesh-WiFi might be the _only_ way to get data to everyone.

------
swframe
My bet is a device like google glasses (or contact lens) with a sleek headset
that has mind controllable sensors. I don't want to type, or talk to control
it. I just think of calling my friend and the phones dials, and I see her
image. I am willing to carry the computing unit in my pocket so the glasses
can remain light.

I bet that it is 5 years away. If it is like the cellphone, it won't be google
that builds it because there is just too much technology that is not yet
ready/affordable.

------
hooctawnfonix
This is an interesting perspective but it also fails to imagine a shift in
paradigm. The way I see it and the way the article acknowledges it to some
extent, you can't build a new smartphone with the existing paradigm where
carriers have control. What happens if the communication infrastructure that
they control gets disrupted is anybody's guess. But maybe by then what we call
a smartphone isn't called a smartphone anymore...

------
hankcharles
The one possible exception to the rule outlined in this piece is probably
Xiaomi. They have successfully cornered a really meaningful market,
specifically middle class Chinese that is responsible for a big push in
revenue. I believe their phones currently run on Android, but with a very
strong revenue stream and probably government support where they need it, in
time I wouldn't be surprised if they round out their own platform.

------
biftek
I've been thinking this for a while, but I have a feeling there is a decently
large market (at least enough to sustain a small company and team) for really
nice "dumb" phones.

No data; just text, and talk (and in my vision a really nice camera) with the
ability to sync/backup contacts etc.

------
enscr
I agree you can't just build a smartphone. Heck, even building a dumb phone
from scratch is a monumental task, let alone being successful with it. What
was Apple thinking... Oh wait, they redefined the rules of the game. So that's
what you do to shut up the naysayers.

------
wdewind
Please, especially if you are going to write a blog about design, do NOT use
an animating logo that sticks with the page as you scroll. It makes it
impossible to read the content without being constantly distracted.

------
busterbooth
Let's just build a Wine-like linux variant that can run ios apps

------
z3bra
Microsoft loves this kind of guy!!

