It seems embarrassingly banal to say it, but the consumer computing market has loudly revolutionised itself over the past seven to ten years. Bulky, beige desktop PCs have been replaced with a huge mixture of smartphones, tablets, netbooks and laptops. This, however, you already knew – what is less well known is that there has followed alongside the loud revolution a quiet realisation that tech specs don’t sell well. What do I mean by that? Well, let’s start with the 2010 tablet market.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab was introduced as a direct competitor to Apple eight
months after the first iPad, and had twice the RAM, (up to) twice the storage memory, a camera (the iPad had no camera at all), a more open OS, and half the weight. Yet, of the 2010 tablet market (according to Gartner), Apple had an 83.4% share where Android had 14.3%. On paper, there should have been no competition; the iPad should have been outshone. For purchasers, the difference between the two, it would appear, is not the speed of the processor or other numbers, but something else.
Looking to the near future, there are two new tablets coming to market – the Nook (US-only) and Amazon’s new Kindle Fire. On paper, the Nook is a country mile ahead in terms of capability, but Amazon has a huge ecosystem of apps, a low price point, a prettier tablet and much better advertising. The general consensus? Amazon will win. Again, tech specs have taken a back seat.
The best example, however, is with two relatively new US adverts. One, for an (unnamed) Android tablet, proudly proclaims that “Your wife will love the dual-core Tegra 2 chipset,” and the other, for an Apple iPad 2, says, “When technology gets out of the way, everything becomes more delightful.” What’s the difference between the two? It’s tech specs. The way to a woman’s heart is not through chipsets, and advertisers are slowly starting to realise that.
The consumer market has changed dramatically and natural-language descriptions of products (where Apple has excelled) are being proven as appealing to consumers in a much more broad fashion. The cost of a MacBook Air (without a separate graphics card) is almost double the more-powerful HP, Dell and Acer offerings, but Apple are grabbing up market share and this is partly because they sell their devices on feel, not specification. The MacBook Air feels faster and smoother and, when you play on it in store, seems far more modern and cool. The same goes for the iPad and iPhone.
MG Siegler puts this change down to the fragmentation within technology in the modern world. According to him, in the days when Windows ruled every computer, the only differentiators were things like processor clock speed. Now more mundane, accessible measures like the size of a netbook or whether a tablet has 3G or a camera is more interesting to consumers. People don’t care too much how good the camera is, as long as it is good enough. People want to know how many apps a platform has and when they touch the touch-screen they want to know how responsive it is above whether it is resistive or capacitive.
And so, when you see an advert for the new quad-core smartphone you need to question if you really, really need it. In terms of technology, the hardware doesn’t matter like it did in the past. Companies need to focus on the experience, the possibilities, the feel.
This change is starting to show outside the hardware market too, have you seen the advert for Google where the proud father sets up an e-mail account for his newborn daughter and e-mails her all through her life? Google aren’t telling you about what they do technically, they’re showing you how they can improve your life. Just like Apple who live for this kind of advertising, they’ve realised most people want a product to improve their life and they won’t switch or buy based on how many ultrahertzbytes or megawattbits their new product has. Words like amazing are more powerful than words like Tegra 2, so don’t be surprised to see them brought forward a lot more in future.