{"id":342161,"date":"2017-05-29T02:29:10","date_gmt":"2017-05-28T18:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1496711"},"modified":"2017-05-29T02:29:10","modified_gmt":"2017-05-28T18:29:10","slug":"the-difference-between-smartphone-gimmick-and-game-changer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/the-difference-between-smartphone-gimmick-and-game-changer\/","title":{"rendered":"The difference between smartphone gimmick and game changer"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s hard to find a legitimately bad flagship phone these days. Sure, one peeks its head out from time to time, but on a whole most phones are pretty good. The screens, the cameras, the internals. There are always a few bits that could use improving (see: battery and durability), but the gulf between good and bad isn\u2019t any near where it once was.<\/p>\n

And for the past several generations, most flagship devices even more or less look the same. Sure, the fingerprint reader\/home button gets moved around here or there, but most casual observers probably couldn\u2019t pick a non-iPhone\/Galaxy out of a lineup. Perhaps it\u2019s a matter of copied intellectual property, or maybe there really is an ideal form factor for a pocket-sized communication device that\u2019s mostly screen.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s tough to distinguish yourself when you\u2019re not a top-tier smartphone company \u2013 a qualifier that, in the States at least, seems to apply to pretty much everyone who isn\u2019t a Samsung or Apple<\/a>. Given how cut throat the overcrowded industry can be when you\u2019re not in the two top (and, let\u2019s be honest, even if you are<\/a>), it\u2019s no surprise that the many companies seem to be looking increasingly toward distinguishing factors.<\/p>\n

Gimmicks aren\u2019t bad in and of themselves. After all, once it hits mainstream acceptance, it\u2019s not really a gimmick anymore. It\u2019s a standard feature. Take waterproofing. When a handful of manufacturers started dipping their phones in aquariums at trade shows, it initially seemed like a cry for attention. But we kind of all secretly wanted\u00a0one. A few years later, it\u2019s a no-brainer for flagships because it\u2019s not just about going snorkeling, it\u2019s about getting caught in a downpour and, yes, accidentally dunking the thing in the toilet.<\/p>\n

Sometimes a bag full of dry rice just isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

The flipside of that is the Alcatel\u2019s A5 LED<\/a>. It\u2019s the phone equivalent of those L.A. Lights shoes from the 90s, with heels that flashed every time they hit\u00a0the ground. It\u2019s a hail Mary pass of sorts and a tacit acknowledgement that maybe smartphones aren\u2019t much more than big, expensive toys.<\/p>\n

A good gimmick, on the other hand, is one that actually brings something to the experience of owning a phone. It\u2019s a rare moment of thinking outside the box that, if pulled off successfully, can actually be a cause to rethink things. LG\u2019s own numbers have stumbled a bit, but that\u2019s not for lack of interesting ideas. The company was among the first to introduce a dual-lens camera (the V20<\/a>) and to offer a taller form-factor (G6<\/a>), both of which are becoming standard features in flagships.<\/p>\n

Of course, those handsets are also great examples of how a good gimmick alone isn\u2019t enough to make a phone a success. An even more obvious example comes in the form of the G5<\/a>. The handset was released at what seemed the height of interest in modular phones. But the result was downright disastrous, with the phone shouldering much of the blame of the company\u2019s resulting financial straits. That didn\u2019t, however, mean that modularity is doomed to failure. Announced not all that long after the G5, Motorola\/Lenovo\u2019s Moto Z line<\/a> has been a marked success for the company. It\u2019s already announced millions sold \u2013 an accomplishment for a line many simply wrote off at launch.<\/p>\n

The differences between the execution of the phones is pretty stark. For starters, the Z is a solid piece of hardware, an object lesson in that fact that you can\u2019t rest on gimmick alone. The magnetic power system is also the best modular execution to date. And then there\u2019s the fact that the phone launched with multiple useful mods. Like a game console needs games, a modularity phone without mods is a pretty usefulness proposition.<\/p>\n

Of course, singular success for Motorola does not translate to a game changer in this case. Other companies are likely flirting more with the idea of modularity, but it\u2019s not like several other companies rushed out to launch their own modular solution in the past year.<\/p>\n

The jury is still out on the HTC U11<\/a>. Even more so, really, as the phone hasn\u2019t even hit the market. For now, though, Edge Sense seems like little more than a gimmick. The actual functionality it brings to the handset is limited at best. The company has promised more uses for the squeezable sides moving forward, but the ability to launch apps isn\u2019t the sort of compelling feature that drives users to buy phones.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with a gimmick, so long as it isn\u2019t a gimmick for its own sake. To be successful, it needs to be\u00a0a meaningful feature that adds useful\u00a0functionality to a device, executed in a way that doesn\u2019t detract from the rest of the phone experience. And it\u2019s important not to be myopic. Manufacturers can\u2019t rest on its laurels and skimp on the rest of the hardware and software.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, you might as well be selling light up sneakers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" It’s hard to find a legitimately bad flagship phone these days. Sure, one peeks its head out from time to time, but on a whole most phones are pretty good. The screens, the cameras, the internals. There are always a few bits that could use improving (see: battery and durability), but the gulf between good and bad isn’t any near where it once was. And for the past several… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-342161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}