The introduction of native application in iPhone and iPod touch made me wonder. With such revolutionary breakthrough in game controlling, will this device finally redefines portable game market?
In pre-iPhone era, portable game market is led by two big names, Sony PSP and Nintendo DS. Both have high resolution graphic display, but that is. There is no revolutionary improvement for their control. Players still use the same buttons used in old portable game consoles. Judging from that, even that the devices also have WiFi connection, we can safely say that both consoles are created merely for gaming.
iPhone and iPod touch came through different road path. Both devices are created not for gaming. They have superb audio visual capability but as we can see before, there is no game available for the devices. People used the device as mobile phone or as music/video player.
Together with the new iPhone SDK introduced by Apple several months ago, people saw the new prospect of the device. No less than 43 games are introduced in the first day of the AppStore. Their revolutionary touch control and tilt sensors are just perfect for portable game device. Depends on the game, the whole body of the device can act as steering wheel, as tilting table, as music instrument etc.
In my opinion, this will somehow redefine the portable game market in the future. The only advantage that PSP and DS have right now is the fact that the game industry is in their hand. They have more games and the device itself is already associated directly with game.
For Apple to catch them, it needs to introduce more games (and quality ones) to the devices. Sega with its Super Monkey Ball is a great sign for the future of the device. But more games are needed before it can take significant portable game market.
So what do you think? Will Apple redefine portable game market?
A while back ago, I posted an article from McKinsey about eight business technology to watch.
In the end of the article I appended my own principle, “Don’t be evil”. I added this since I believe that companies that try to do good think will not collapse because of what they does.
Now I want to share my new knowledge about one company that does more-than-what-customers-expect. The name of the company is Zappos. Its main business is selling shoes using Internet. If Amazon is for books, then Zappos is doing more for shoes.
Zappos is a company that really put service before anything for its customer. The tagline in its home page reflects this, “We are a service company that happens to sell”. And yes, they really show this. What they do is really selling the service. You can get good shoes in many stores but not many stores sell good service. Not only they give what you can expect from an online company, they actually give more… This is kind of attitude that is NOT really expected by its customers. But who doesn’t like nice surprise? A bunch of positive testimonials shows how such attitude is missed by many people.
Its standard service is already astonishing. 4-5 days FREE delivery. Amazon (U.S) can only promise free delivery when you don’t mind to wait for more that 1 weeks. Friendly return procedure and customers even got UPS mail tags in the delivery package for FREE return shipping. We need to look hard for such service in other companies. In my experience, even if a company guaranteed easy return procedure, customers need to pay for the return shipping. I remember that there are several exceptions, but not many.
And have you found other company that asked its customers when they don’t receive your return package? Zappos is doing that. Along with that, its friendly customer service upgraded the service and gave the customer personalized service that can only be found when you’re an important customer. I don’t think customer who bought 7 pairs shoes and returned 5 of them has ever found this kind of service somewhere else. Shame German companies! Their evil-written-in-tiny-weenie-bity-and-hard-to-understand-contract-agreement trapped many foreigners and even Germans themselves.
Which companies are still providing direct phone number in the web site and actually processing each call by an operator? Zappos puts its hotline in each page of its web site and the hotline is connected directly by human. Oh no… Apple doesn’t do this. Not Paypal, eBay, or Amazon. Heck, even U.S. General Consulate in Germany processes its interview schedule with machine. Most of the time you just have to redial several times before actually speaking with a human.
Often in a presentation, we need to show a demo to the audience. A live demo is often much more appreciated than recorded cast. But the problem with live demo is you will be forced to show the entire screen of your computer. If you want to focus the attention to a window or a point, you need to dim the rest of your screen.
Clutter Cloak is the tools for your Windows machine, whereas Doodim does the exact job for the Mac. Both are free.
If what you need is somewhat different, you may want to see Mousepose. Instead of a static rectangular area, Mousepose simulates a dark room with strong light to a certain place pointed by your mouse.
BTW, Mousepose is available as bonus if you finish the MacHeist II stage 2. It’s still running now, so you must hurry if you want one.
Introducing a new thing is not as easy as it seems. Even when the concept is actually easy, the ‘oooh…’ effect is hard to obtain. We need a good strategy to get this. For example, the For Dummies series tries to get it by positioning their readers as… well… dummies.
A production company named Common Craft knows exactly how to do this. See the following example on how they explain blog.
