Technology Isn’t About Technology

I was sitting at home this weekend watching some of the football games, and had the opportunity to watch both Apple ( primarily iPad, but the same is true of iPhone ) and Android ( various devices ) commercials.  It made me think of a recent conversation with Anders about this subject

The contrast is both obvious and telling.  Apple focuses on what you can do with their device.  Watch videos, take pictures, have fun with your friends, video chat with your daughter from a hotel room, play games, and other things that people do every day ( or at least want to ).  By contrast, Android commercials almost universally talk about how fast the device is, have weird robots moving things around, and have a green guy floating through the air.  They splash quotes about how fast the device is.  Fast at what?  And compared to what?  Only people that like to argue about specs care about how fast something is.  Most people just want something easy to use.

Android is talking to the nerds, and Apple is talking to my 10-year-old daughter.

But, you may say, Android is outpacing the iPhone in terms of new market share, new devices, and other interesting metrics.  Yes, that’s true.  But which phone would you rather have if you had the choice?  The iPhone and iPad are almost universally the device of choice ( not scientifically proven ) for those that have the choice of both device and service provider.  Android largely succeeded ( to their credit ) by filling a void that Apple’s exclusive AT&T relationship created.  No one I know would have purchased an Android device if the iPhone had been available on Verizon from the beginning.

I have both devices.  I have the Nexus S, which is a really nice device, and an iPhone which I could not live without.  I think Google and the service providers are missing a huge opportunity by focusing on obscure technical jargon that no one cares about.  Show us someone driving in a car with turn by turn directions.  That’s a feature that the iPhone does not have that  people use every day.  That would get people excited.  Show us true multi-tasking in action and why that matters to the every day user.  Make the out of the box experience as good as the iPhone.  Create something as good as iTunes to manage the device.

But please, stop talking about how fast the processor is on the phone.