All Points North

My few days in Barcelona gave me a chance to wander around aimlessly not taking much in. However, my brain did fire a few electrical pulses. Alcohol saw to most of them, but a selection got through.

Mobile. Everything is mobile, but until a few obstacles have been overcome its going to take a while yet. The head man at Intel says that Moores Law for mobile processors is running roughly double speed. So that’s a doubling of cheese on nachos every 9 months instead of 18 or something like that. So, faster processors faster. Lovely.

Storage is continuing to get smaller and bigger at about the same rate. I saw a 64GB iNand flash chip the size of a penny, a US penny at that. Next year it’ll be twice as big and twice as small, if you follow me.

Like it or not LTE still isn’t quite ready, but it will be and speeds should be phenomenal. We are realistically within reach of being able to replace fixed line broadband connections with mobile ones. You don’t have to and I’m not suggesting they’ll actually replace fixed line broadband, more that mobile broadband will, finally actually live up to the name. Streaming a football match or TV show on an iPad will work at a quality level that your general punter can be happy with, for example. Naturally at first General Punter is going to have to pay through the nose for the privilege, but that is the way of these things.

But, because there is always a but. No one was talking about power. Lots of quad-core this and dual-core that, but very few people talking battery life. Very few people talking about battery technology at all really. I’m always suspicious when battery life is hidden with a * or completely absent. It’s because they don’t want you to know and not because no one worries about that kind of thing anymore.

I didn’t see many people touting their impressive new battery technology or performance. Perhaps it’s just me and all the companies here are working on the assumption that everybody knows that batteries are getting smaller and lasting longer. Im not so sure it is just me. Sure, lots of companies are talking about power management and algorithms that allow the phone to work smarter with less power, but until the performance of the battery matches the potential performance of the handsets and tablets themselves we’re in for a lot of battery low warnings. Most of the iPad is battery for a reason and its longevity is a large part of the device’s success.

Where’s Moore’s law when applied to batteries?

It’s my last day at the Mobile World Congress. I am tired, emotional and ready to go home. Four days surrounded by thousands of people, I know one of them.

The men in suits opposite me are having a discussion about their key takeaways. I am itching to butt in and say Chinese, but I’d never be so childish.

01. Crispy Duck Pancakes Android is rich with possibilities. There’s money to be made from that there green robot and by god there are a lot of companies trying to cling on to the made of money coat tails that Android provides. Naturally, there’s money to be had from iOS too, but in a lot of ways that’s already been divvied up. With Android there’s still a bit of a wild west feel to it all. No one is quite sure if who or where the dust will settle so there’s a variety of opinion available. What is clear is that Google is providing a bed for lots and lots of people to get in and, hopefully have a good time.

02. Spare Ribs Fact of the matter is that there’s clearly lots and lots of cash in mobile. Be that infrastructure, carriers, handsets, apps or accessories. There are 8 halls here all packed to the rafters with people spending money in the hope of making money. Some of them are actually just spending money, burning it you might say. There’s a tendency to follow the smartphone narrative because it’s a bit sexy iOS vs. Android vs. the others, but come here and you can see there are companies making big money on the dull stuff too. Wi-Fi cooling cabinets anyone? Laugh? So did I, but it’s on a massive billboard just inside the main gate.

34. Sweet and Sour Pork Balls Speaking to people here it becomes increasingly obvious that when taking about Android they mean Smartphone. Some of the vendors with tablets to hawk don’t but others do. The one thing I heard in the majority of my meetings went something like “we’re seeing major uplift with Android” When asked if they were seeing any competition to the iPad the answer was “none to very low”

56. Fried Rice Here’s a thought that flashed across my consciousness as I glazed over at a product demo. Cheap Android phones are innovating like crazy. They keep adding more and charging less. Obvious statement is obvious, but I think that poses an interesting and difficult question for Apple. How does Apple continue to add value to its premium product? Seriously, what design or technological advances can be integrated to keep the ASP high. I’m not saying they can’t more that it must be an interesting, at the very least, problem for them. The Android devices I saw didn’t have that ‘clearly not as well made as the iPhone’ feel to them that they did not so long ago.

99. Prawn Crackers My unusable quote of the show: you can do whatever the fuck you like with Android and that’s why the industry loves it. Sure, they like iOS too, but the uncertainty (perceived or not) over what Apple might do next worries them.

Check please. Despite all the Android love one of the main topics of conversation here is Apple. The buzz theme revolves around the consumerisation or corporate IT or if you prefer BYOD. Essentially what this appears to mean is that IT departments have been forced into supporting iPads because the CEO has one. A few years ago it was Blackberry now it’s iPad. One security expert told me some corporate IT bods love the iPad simply because there are orders of magnitude fewer ways to screw up an iPad than say, a Dell running Vista, less setup work to do and unlike a Dell the end user sees the iPad as something cool, more a gift from the IT gods than the unwieldy millstone of a laptop they are used to.

Hot towel Now I must go home and kiss my children. Niamh who is nearly 4 has decided that I’m in a place called Barcelone (no ‘a’sound at the end) Out of the mouths of babes…

I have a confession to make. I have become accustomed to my Windows Phone 7 Phone. Much like Henry Higgins I have taken this down at heal flower girl of a phone OS and over time seen it blossom from an Eliza Dolittle of a device into a (wait for it, wait for it) Eliza Doalot with it phone. I like it, it works now.

Sadly, here at Mobile World Congress it seems that the Windows Phone is more wallflower than real contender. I suppose the low number of users and Nokia Microsoft partnership has something to do with this, but I think it’s a shame.

I’ve just seen some really nice Fujitsu Windows Phones, but I wonder if they’ll get any coverage when they launch. Perhaps it’s because I was a fan of the Mac back in the day. Maybe I have a soft sport for the three-legged horse left in the stalls.

Thing is I’m not sure if I pitched Windows Phones reviews or features they’d get picked up (consider that an open offer editors ) obviously the logic behind that is that with such a small userbase they’re can’t be many readers all that interested in them. Cart before the chicken sort of a scenario.

Microsoft appears to be getting some traction with the Smoked By Windows Phone challenge and I have say I like it. I like Ben (@benthepcguy) who kicked it all off. It’s honest and, importantly, real. I’ve met Ben he’s a man mountain of a guy, he can kill you with his pinky finger, though he probably won’t. What he’s showing is that Windows Phone is fast yes, but also what’s more important I feel, that it’s easy.

Whatever the deeper smartphone market realities I think it’s a shame that the Windows Phone platform isn’t getting the love I think it deserves. Especially given the scrum at the Nokia stand to see the Lumias.

The facts don’t work they just make things worse. I can’t make my mind up about the Nokia PureView 808 phone launched yesterday. The press is awash with stories about a 41 megapixel phone camera so it could be seen as a successful introduction. The message is out there and despite the weird bulge, Symbian OS and price all anyone’s talking about is how huge the pixel count is.

On the other hand I can’t help but think it could have been done better.

Advanced satellite imaging technology, ultra sharp images, genuinely innovative sensor jiggery pokery, all mentioned, but mostly ignored by my esteemed press colleagues who were fascinated by the 41 megapixels. Some didn’t understand it, some immediately dismissed it as a gimmick (remember Fuji and those hexagonal pixels?) some understood it and wanted to find out more. Some lucky sods got to actually use one.

But really my point is that even though there is blanket 41 megapixel coverage not all of it is positive or glowing. Some of it is a bit credulous, some of it explains the technicalities and some of it just shouts “hey look! MEGAPIXELS”

Really I think Nokia should have worked on crafting a message that concluded with journalists writing about this amazing new camera with genuinely interesting technology behind it and not a large number.

You only have to look at the pictures to see how detailed they are, this is a great camera and I think Nokia would have benefitted more if it had spent a bit more time explaining it. Rather than aim for coverage on just this one phone it could have started to build a reputation for camera phone nouse too.

Ignore the megapixels they don’t matter, the Nokia 808 PureView has the very best camera of any smartphone available. Megapixels? More than you’ll ever need. Be damned the facts. Nobody cares.

I recognise this font from somewhere…

Tablets man, they’re so, y’know, now.

The overriding feeling is that to succeed you must be in the game even if you’re not quite sure what the game is. TABLET TABLET TABLET everyone is at it. The iPad has been a great success so we must launch a tablet, but don’t whatever you do say that. Say: The tablet market has grown explosively and we are going to become part of that success, probably in q2 of 12/13. Whatever daddio you is smoking le crack. As the kids are all saying these days.

Android tablets on show? Billions. Android tablets in use? A handful. Apple stand? Zero. iPads in use? FUCKING BOAT LOADS. I can see seven iPads from where I’m sat and in the press room they outnumber netbooks and other tablets (but not laptops) by quite some margin.

A few people (one bloke I spoke to) are waiting, waiting, endlessly waiting to see how Windows 8 will upset the Apple cart (no, really. I didn’t laugh). They might. Can’t see it.

Men in suits with job titles like Group Head of Mobile Procurement EMEA wander and have impromptu meetings in the way. CEOs stroll the halls discussing strategic partnerships with other like minded CEOs. Nearly all of them have tablets, I mean iPads.

Tablets that aren’t iPads face a very steep hill climb and in any ways they’re still at the bottom trying to work out how to lace their boots. Meanwhile, the iPad is scaling the north face of the Eiger for fun.

But really one of this matters. Who wins? Nobody cares other than the heavily invested companies exhibiting here and one that isn’t, but is the subject of many of the conversations taking place regardless.

One final observation. You know what all these people with iPads are doing here? Working. They aren’t walking the halls watching The Kings Speech or kicking back with a book, they are getting shit done. Stick that in your only for consumption agenda backhaul and smoke it.

Standing room only at ZTE. I therefore am sat on the floor at the back. It’s a new era, for whom I do not know for what I am similarly in the dark. People continue to stream in there is no more room. I need to trump.

2011 was challenging for everyone in mobile phone communications industry. <blink> Looks at Apple financials </blink> ZTE 300%up in Europe, 100% up in the US. ZTE Blade sold 8 million. Skate 2 million. Since 2010 and 2011 respectively.

ZTE Windows Phone, quad-core, dual-core, tablets. Mifavor UI. One man makes a break for it, the temperature rises.

Applause. Short video. Oh wait, now I get it. The ZTE Era is a phone. Looks like a stock Android phone by which I mean it looks like an iPhone 3G that’s slightly flatter. BUT NOT TOO MUCH. APPLE LAWYERS STAND DOWN.

Mr Fan Jiongyi. I’ll just leave that there hanging like the bad smell I just made. ZTE 4th biggest mobile phone vendor in the world. ZTE Orbit Windows phone 7 phone has an accelerator and other specifications.

Now a video of an interface. Everyone sits, stands and sweats trying to look interested. Uncomfortable faces.

NFC. BINGO!!!!!! Unique and new experience with apps that utilise NFC. NFC is the future and it’s the now only you can’t really use it properly yet, but soon and in the future. One more breaks for the door.

ZTE tablets, wireless channel, um, 7? 11? Oh wait, no he means sales channel. Carry on. LTE BINGO!!!!!! bit like NFC but with different letters. ZTE LTE devices will be very hot next year says Mr Fan Jiongyi. I imagine they will given the nuclear reactor needed to power them for that 37 minute battery life. Actual performance may vary, nuclear reactor optional.

ZTE is keen. I think that’s the message. Questions? Who trumped? Honestly? I’m far too old to be sat on the floor at the back of a press conference when I have access to the VIP networking lounge. Still, nice products. No prices as yet. What is that smell?

The men in suits stand on a mezzanine level above all, watching the associated press and analysts jockey for position below. Now, more than last year and more than the year before that and, encouragingly much more than the year before that the press corps has an increasing number of women in it too. However, the higher-ups in this press conference are actually higher up and, sadly still mostly male. I wonder what can be done about this as a man from Finland with 2 DSLR cameras and three recording devices tramples on my toes to get to the remaining seat and just as I am about to have that eureka moment that solves sexism and inequality at the highest levels of corporate IT the lights go down and my solution is lost to mankind.

Nokia is playing catchup whilst still being in front a situation that flummoxes me. They watched and waited as the iPhone and Android grew and grew and grew. The burning platform memo will go down as corporate genius if Nokia survives to play a part in the smartphone landscape.

If Nokia withers and dies it won’t be new, companies have taken market leading positions and pissed them away before now and in that case the burning platform memo will be heralded simply as too little too late.

Today, though is not about the long term situation or the past. We’re are gathered here all 300 ish of us to hear about a product. Products live in the moment they only serve as indicators much after they have been discontinued. Yeah, you can say that the original iPhone or PlayStation or IBM PC played big parts in the companies that made them, but at the time they were on sale they were only potential.

Beachheads. The word stuck out like a sore thumb. Utah, Omaha, Juno and Gold were beachheads. The old Empire needed a beachhead and the help of the Americans to drive the foe back. Apt.

[INSERT BOG STANDARD CORPORATE PRODUCT INTRODUCTION] ASHA 202, 203 and and 302. Phones. Emerging market phones. With touch screens. They work. They do things. [BOG STANDARD CORPORATE PRODUCT INTRODUCTION ENDS]

Nokia Lumia 900, more, better, etc. Skype for Windows Phone thunder stolen by Twitter. China. China. China. 7x27a just rolls off the tongue. Everyone is excited.

Nokia Lumia 610 – applause from the overflow lounge. Engraved phone for Microsoft executive who can no doubt afford to buy 610 of them. Signature Nokia Experiences. €480 in Q2. (cheaper on network).

OMG. Nokia 808 PureView – applause from the overflow lounge – 41 Megapixel sensor. WTF? 7 pixels to rulethem all. Not WP7 pixels mind you. Looks? Ridiculous.

New. Things. Nokia changing? Who knows, ask again in two years.

To finish we have some buzzword bingo. Apps. Groupon. Developers. Monetize.

As it turns out the men above us were under Mary and Jo in front of us and, just like that inequality and sexism in the (phone) tech industry was fixed.