We all know that Google is working on a headset that will make computing hands-free. No one knows if Apple has anything like that under development. I suspect there is something happening in a locked-room behind a veil of secrecy in Cupertino. (If not, maybe Jony Ive could release a line of designer eyewear after he retires from Apple! May not be wearable computing but sure would be trendy.)
As one thinks more about Google’s Project Glass it becomes obvious that a headset of some sort is going to be a huge disrupting factor in mobile computing. I will go as far as to say that it is the future of mobile computing. Not putting a date to that but in a few years we all will have forgotten about how companies attempted to broaden their mobile advantage by increasing the screen size of the smartphones we pulled from our pockets. The future mobile computer will be resting on our head and visual display will take on an entirely new dynamic.
A key question is whether Apple has the determination to create a product that kills the iPhone. Today that sounds crazy but we’ve all read The Innovator’s Dilemma. Google is clearly betting on a wearable headset and it might very well propel Google past Apple at some point down the road in a way that Android on smartphones never accomplished.
In the latter part of episode 56 of The Critical Path (starting around the 57 minute mark), Horace Didiu discusses this topic with guest James Allworth of Harvard Business School Forum for Growth and Innovation. Horace advises “nurture the disruptor…the opposite to whatever sustains you.”
Allworth brings up Google’s Project Glass as potential for disrupting mobile computing (1.03 mark): “I think wearable computing. There’s definitely something there…a lot of value in getting the information on a passive basis rather than the active basis of sticking your hand in your pocket when you need to find something out.”
“We have to do a jobs to be done analysis”, according to Horace, “to understand what people hire these products for, even if they’re not able to tell you… I use the term mobile computing as the overall theme of what’s happening as versus a phone…something that helps you get things done in your life…it’s the apps taking on the job, not the phone itself…Still opportunity above where we are. That we may have reached the ultimate communicator product but we haven’t achieved the ultimate personal assistant product.”
Allworth went on to examine the functionality of icons and how data is accessed by function based on icons. He doesn’t think that approach is going to last that much longer because it does not scale. “I think there’s something about the Google Glasses. It’s going to force them to really, really crack the interface. Because if you got this thing up in your field of vision 24 hours a day , seven days a week, you’re not going to want to scroll through applications. It’s going to have to get more intelligent in thinking about what’s the bit of information you need to know right now?” That ties in directly with the context functionality that Scoble is talking about as next challenges for iOS and Android.
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