What Palm Holds, Eyes Behold: The Retro-Futurism of iPhone SE

Retro design is not a new occurrence. In the field of fashion and accessories, for example, cyclical emergence and re-emergence of trends is commonplace. In respects of industrial and consumer products, however, retro themes are reborn usually decades later, particularly based on niche repositioning. Re-emergence of vinyl records is an example. Re-contouring of automobiles is also another example. With the emergence of digital technologies, miniaturization and minimalist form factor have emerged as one-way development. Yet, the smart phone industry has been home to some contrarian trends. The ‘smaller the better’ principle has been reversed in the smart phones with the emergence of large screen smart phones (usually screen sizes of 4.5 to 5.5 inches) and larger screen smart phones, called phablets (usually screen sizes of 5.5 to 6.5 inches). These have not been retro cases but more of re-forming diverse design options with superior digital technologies.

Steve Jobs, the late Founder and CEO of Apple, Inc was a visionary product conceptualizer and developer.  His iPod and iPhone devices revolutionized the era of palm held devices. The real revolution of smart phones started with the emergence of the original iPhone in 2007. The first iPhone had a screen size of just 3.5 inches. Jobs resisted the trend of larger smart phones popularized by most other manufacturers, especially Samsung, even as iPhone underwent successive annual iterations. In fact, Apple stuck with the first iPhone’s 3.5 inch screen until late 2012 (launch of iPhone 5), and even then the increase was to the relatively small size of 4 inches.  After the takeover of the CEO position by Tim Cook, the screens had a real bump up to 4.7 and 5.5 inches with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus respectively in 2015, a move that received both qualitative and quantitative appreciation. As was the wont with Apple, the emergence of large screen phones saw the phase-out of the earlier smaller screen models.

iPhone SE

Apple sprang a surprise this year by bringing back its 4 inch iPhone 5 as Apple SE, signifying on the face of it one of the most dramatic retro returns of all time. The earlier perception was that it was intended as an option to address mid-range price point, especially in emerging markets such as India and China. However, the announced pricing of Rs 39,000 for the 16 GB version and Rs 49,000 for the 64 GB version defy that assumption by making SE as pricey as the larger siblings. Apple SE actually brings out certain interesting lessons. First, the profile of Apple SE packs the contemporary iPhone 6s and 6S Plus specifications in the 4 inch form factor by featuring the latest A9 chip, iOS 9.3, 12 megapixel camera, 4 K video, retina display, Siri, and features such as live photos and night shift. In terms of body materials, finishes and colour options, it matches the latest generation iPhones. Experts who reviewed Apple SE vouch for the top-of-the-line features of the phone.

At one level, Apple SE may be seen to be following what Samsung or Nokia did to date, offering different products in different form factors and at different price points. There is one important difference, however. Samsung and Nokia brought in different products with different specifications; moreover, in their case, lower positioned products had lower specifications, invariably. On the other hand, Apple SE offers the best of specifications in a retro form factor. There is nothing retro on its form factor finish either! On the other hand, it represents what Apple always represented, a combination of the top end hardware and software. The logic and rationale behind Apple SE, the first retro revival in the smart phone industry, have important considerations, which are relevant not only for smart phones and other electronic devices but also for all other products as well.

Style and substance

Ever since the launch in June 2007 of the first generation iPhone, Apple sold over 820 million iPhones of successive generations. Of these, over 60 percent belong to iPhone 5 (4 inch screen) or earlier generations (3.5 inch screen). They typically have 1.3 GHz dual core A6 or earlier generation single core processor, 1 GB RAM and below (as low as 128 MB RAM), iOS 6 or earlier versions and 8 MP or lower MP (as low as 2 MP) primary cameras as well as internal storage as low as 16GB. They compare with the latest generation iPhones, not unnaturally, sporting high end specifications like dual core 1.84 GHz processor, 2 GB RAM, iOS 9.3, and 12 MP primary camera as well as internal storage as high as 128GB. More than just specifications, it is the overall user experience that took a quantum jump over the last two iterations of iPhone, of larger screen sizes (4. 7 and 5.5 inches). The launch of iPhone SE is more than an admission that an overwhelming proportion of Apple iPhone users are still comfortable with small size iPhones that can be held conveniently in the palm.

Apple iPhone SE is a phone that, no doubt, brings back reminiscences and nostalgia to early Apple users but more importantly, is a phone that encourages them to upgrade to newer and smoother user feel. This, coupled with the Apple recent philosophy that the average expected life of iPhone is only 3 years, is indicative of a larger strategy of Apple to hold its loyal base fully secured to itself. That the earlier 5S chassis is as elegant today as it was a few years ago is proof that deployment of design and manufacture of high elegance leads to sustainable product strategies, almost on the lines hypothesized by this author in a blog post of 2009. Reference may be made to author’s blog post, “Style is Substance: Management of Product Design and Manufacture’, Strategy Musings, August 8, 2009, http://cbrao2008.blogspot.in/2009/08/style-is-substance-management-of.html.  In sum, iPhone SE represents a coherent product initiative with demand management at its core. More importantly, it has implications applicable across all products.

Demand management

The demand for a product is driven as much by product innovation as by customer population. Demand for any product has two basic components, namely incremental demand and replacement demand. Both may arise from own customer base and competitor customer base. Incremental demand happens when a product-naïve customer (example, someone who never owned a smart phone or an automobile) buys such a product. Incremental demand also happens when an existing user of the product buys the same product or its variant from the same company for use by other members of his or her family, or his or her friends.  Replacement demand happens when the user of an existing product desires to upgrade the current product with the purchase of a new product.  Four grids are possible: Incremental Demand from Product naïve or Existing Customer (IDEC), Incremental Demand from Competitor Customer (IDCC), Replacement Demand from Existing Customer (RDEC) and Replacement Demand from Competitor Customer (RDCC).

Apple, as one knows, is extremely strong in IDEC and RDEC segments. iPhone SE helps the company consolidate its hold in these two segments. Importantly, given the superior technology it has deployed in the compact smart phone segment, it has enhanced its chances of weaning customers from the competitors’ fold. The new phone is the first open admission that demand need not, and will not, necessarily migrate to different product segments just because of a market leader’s phase-in and phase-out policy. As the user base exponentially grows, a broad-based product strategy is vital for comprehensive and effective demand management. Even then, it is still less than what a mighty designer and manufacturer like Apple could do to address all of the potential customer universe. For example, iPhone SE still sports the rather primitive 1.2 MP front camera for selfies when the current trend is for 5 to 16 MP front cameras to please the selfie enthusiasts.  

Retro-futurism

A firm which has an integrated approach to product development and manufacture as well as product positioning and marketing would have an exceptional ability to drive growth. Apple iPhone SE, whether so intended or not by Tim Cook and his team, provides us a platform, which the author would like to christen as retro-futurism to develop such an integrated strategy. Retro-futurism must have the following essential features: (i) A product should be developed with a state of elegance that could enable it to qualify itself as a new product even years later, (ii) Recalling a retro design has to be more than for emotional or reminiscence reasons; it should bring the latest technologies within the restored contours, (iii) The higher the size of the industry market base (and its growth rate), the greater is the potential for retro-futuristic products, (iv) Retro-futurism is not about using old dies, moulds or chassis for cheap products but is more about creating superior products with re-optimized cost and technology balance, and (v) importantly, Retro-futurism should never be mere refurbishment; it must be on reinventing a contemporaneously relevant old.  

For Indian companies, Apple SE represents a new but relevant paradigm of retro-futurism. Several Indian companies and products can benefit from retro-futurism. Tata Motors had a uniquely Indian truck called Semi Forward Cowl (SFC) truck. Retro-futurism would be an ideal application for SFC truck, which is still an attractive truck, to be refitted with modern engine and gear box options as well as digitised systems to bring it up to date. The Western world, not so much used to the Indian ceiling fan concept, can be a great new market for ceiling fans provided continuously variable and noise free operation can be ensured by the Indian manufacturers. Indian jewelery houses can revitalize the royal ornamental designs with modern gold and diamond finishes, and discover new global markets. With Mann ki Baat being the communication medium for the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the good old radio can take a new ubiquitous digital avatar. The dialing telephone could become a new cellular communication system with all the capabilities of a new age smart phone built in. The possibilities for retro-futurism could be endless but the key is to make every product, as the legendary Steve Jobs did, with the best of design and manufacture that could last successive generations too.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on April 18, 2016   

Sensor Measurement And Response Technology Devices (SMART Devices): The New Art and Science of Living

The cellular phone, first popularized around two decades ago has undergone a metamorphosis ‎that was unbelievable, even a decade ago. It is now more than just a phone that enables mobile connectivity and talking. It has become a camera, an organizer, a social media platform, an application provider and so much more. As a result, such a generation of cellular phones began to be called smart phones as contrasted with basic or feature phones. Each month, a new smart phone is announced which scales new dimensions in these features, as well as in terms of the visible display technologies and the embedded processing technologies. It is predicted that the smart phone would evolve into a personal assistant of sorts, and an integral part of one's personality. 

This blog post proposes a different take on the smart phones. The smart phone is no longer a phone plus a few other things. Neither is it a micro-computer‎  with speech supporting capabilities. The technologies deployed in the current smart phone designs have the potential to lead to generic and customized smart devices that can make human lives become smarter. The key to this transformational development would be the embedded smart technologies that have a very specific objective. The  future generation would be powered and managed by Sensor Measurement and Response Technologies, with a well deserved acronym of SMART. All devices of the future would be Smart Devices.

 

Measure and Respond 

The ‎key to human life is measurement and response. The body, for example, has a way of measuring the hunger level and triggering the hunger satisfying behavior. Once food is accessed and ingested, it has also a way of measuring the satisfaction level and controlling the eating cycle. There are innumerable, in fact infinite, ways of measurement and response that happen in any living being, let alone the more evolved human being. The biological features and capabilities of the body, genetically given and experientially developed, control the sharpness of the measurement and response mechanism in individuals. This innate capability differentiates people, more particularly in trades such as driving, piloting, constructing, designing, fabricating and so on. 

The measure and respond cycle essentially gets performed through the five basic sensory faculties of an individual, these being hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling. All developments of nature and inventions of technology are pivoted on the five sensory aspects of human life. All aspects of market development and customer satisfaction are also pivoted on these five basic faculties. Even the qualitative emotional aspects are governed by the measurement and response cycle of human awareness. The hypothesis, therefore, is that the ability of an individual to have a fulfilling life can be substantially increased if a new generation of Smart Devices that can serve as the ultimate companions of human beings are developed.  

Existing and Emerging Examples 

The advent of electronics has revolutionized the measure and respond capabilities as well as the interface between the man and the machine on one hand and the man and the environment on the other.‎ Take the example of automobile: the man-machine measurement and response interface remained confined to accelerator and brake or the overall driving controls. With the advent of electronics, the measure and respond mechanism has extended to a whole series of activities ranging from the micro-mixing of fuel in the engine to the electronic management of driving. Similarly many other industrial activities have benefited from the finer measure and respond technologies, from automated assembly and inspection to computational design and  analytical instrumentation. 

The development of robots is another fine example of electronics creating a mechanical mimic of human measurement and response system. ‎Yet, it is only an example of a mimic, albeit faster, safer and sharper, of human movements. Robotics substitutes human endeavor and adds value to an industrial system rather than add value to the human being. Smart Devices, as envisaged in this blog post, would, on the other hand, would make the human being a better human being by virtue of aiding the measure and respond capabilities of the human being. A few examples of how Smart Devices can help enhance human life are considered below. 

Smart Vision 

Vision is one of the most important aspects of measure and respond cycle. Vision is prone to deterioration with age. Medical science has responded to this by providing glasses that compensate for the vision loss and by correcting, through lasix and other surgeries, the mechanisms of eye. A Smart Vision device can make a whole difference to this paradigm by continuously measuring the power required for an individual with reference to the objects that are to be seen or read, thus obviating the need for fixed corrections. A dynamic management of vision where by the  sensors set the tone for visual acuity can help the aged and disabled see and be aware of challenges and pathways in human mobility.

The ultimate Smart Vision Device would be an Artificial Eye. It would be path-breaking if the smart device can videograph on a continuous basis, size up the things it sees against the archived benchmarks and converts the interpretations into verbal advices through a speech assistant that is embedded in the device. The device should provide for adding new benchmarks by the caretakers. Such a device can be a boon for the blind and visually challenged people. From a lifestyle perspective, advancements in sensor technologies could help people see even beyond what the naked eye can see while from a healthcare perspective they could help targeted and precision surgery even more feasible than it is today. It remains to be seen whether the wearable computers like Google Glass would morph into artificial eyes of sorts. 

Smart Communication

A human being is in perpetual need of communication. The process of communication has been predominantly felt and experienced in terms of talking and hearing. The cell phone has been the medium of such modern communication. Even the so called smart phone has, however, probably seen only the beginning of a communication revolution. While it has, no doubt, brought about the era of anytime and anyplace communication between individuals what probably remains to be achieved is a more holistic communication between the man and the environment.‎ The incorporation of the measure and respond cycle in the smart phone capabilities would lead to the new generation of such smart holistic communication devices.  

Today's devices incorporate sensor recognition of gestures and choice of information through exercise of specific applications. Tomorrow's smart communication devices would help in communication with broader environment as a matter of continuous experience rather than as sporadic choice. The individual would set his or her expectations of the environment and his desired response, letting ‎the smart device guide him live through the times. An example would be a device system that would have a base station at home, an operating station in office and a mobile station on person. These three device units would be in constant communication with each other to a set calendar of events and activities for the individual. 

Smart Health

Smart devices, backed by the next generation of medical sensor and response, would be the next game changer for human life. Integrated with advancements in genetics and diagnostics, smart health devices would be a new generation of touch and diagnosis health care apparatus that could guide us to good health and responsible living; in fact, there are already some which measure calorie burn, heart rate and so on. Extending further, the recently introduced smart watches would evolve into pulse reading and blood pressure measuring instruments. Nanotechnology would help conduct several diagnostic tests that now require samples of blood in a simpler through cutaneous access. Together, there would offer potential to guide individuals, especially diabetic and hypertensive patients, to achieve more cautious and controlled living. 

Smart devices, like the pacemakers which set right an irregular heart rhythm, can help provide stability to the aged. The ability to judge time and motion gets impaired with age. Smart sensors can, much like the driver-less cars under test, can put the aged in an error-proof autopilot mode. Depending on which faculty is relatively less or more impaired for an individual, smart devices can cover up for the more impaired one and translate the corrective action to reinforce the better one. Smart devices can alert the others in the system if the individuals are so impaired that they cannot benefit by themselves with the suggestions from the devices. In several ways, the smart health devices can act as a daily support to safe conduct of people. 

Smart Others 

There could be several other applications for smart devices. With enhancements in analytical technology, they can guide the restaurants and guests alike on the nutrition content of the food items. ‎They can understand the moods of the individual owners and provide talk and music therapy sessions that can positively influence the psychological well-being of the individuals. They can interpret information from chosen applications and play real time alerts. For example, when natural calamities strike, rather than individuals seek alerts, the devices can beam out alerts, and advise on pathways, once the starting point and destination of a traveler are known. 

In the field of education, smart devices can be encyclopedias on the go. They can also be creators of crosswords, puzzles and teasers that are customized and calibrated for the intelligence quotient  ‎of an individual based on testing, a priori, of an individual. With appropriate tests, they can also serve as providers of psychological tests of individuals as they grapple with new situations. As each smart device will be typically owned by an individual, the consistency or variability of the individually can be evaluated longitudinally by the device and feedback provided to the individual. 

Smart Chips 

The real challenge in the Smart Device development as outlined above is the need to obviate the interface with the computer. While some of the functionalities mentioned above are getting established in devices, they would need to be networked to the computer for meaningful archival and trending. What would be transformational is a direct interface between the Smart Device and the individual. This would require development of Smart Chips for this kind of Smart Devices with several cores of very high storage and processing power each. Potentially, there would be the need for a Smart Bionic Chip that would communicate with the human brain, in interlock with the Smart Device. A decade into the future, all of these could be realities. 

The thesis of the blog post has been that in contrast to robotics which mimics human movements and efforts with much better capabilities in some cases, the new Smart Device saga must emphasize value adding and reinforcing normal human endeavors, with a special focus on safety, efficiency and health. That way, life would be more purposeful and fulfilling. The key would be development of bionic chips that could work in harmony with human life. These would be a natural extension of human life, programmed to spontaneous and continuous reinforcement and improvement. The chips that measure and respond on behalf of the individual would multiply his or her safe, healthy and productive behaviors manifold, helping him or her age gracefully with surety.  

Posted by Dr CB Rao on November 2, 2013