Fantastically, Brilliantly, Insanely Amazing

by Kevin Roberts

One thing about the January 27th launch of the Apple iPad clashing with President Obama's first State of the Union address was that they both focused on Jobs.

And check out the awesome enthusiasm Steve Jobs and his team have for their new baby in this video!





A lot of hype and hyped-up criticism have accompanied the launch of the iPad. Nothing new there. Apple attracted lots of criticism with the launch of the iPod in 2001 (total sales: 220 million) and the iPhone in 2007 (total sales: 34 million). They centered on a perceived lack of functionality. So it's not surprising to hear gripes that iPad doesn't support HDMI or Flash graphics, or have a built-in camera.

The critics have missed the point. The iPad is not a netbook or scaled-down laptop. In fact, it is only a distant relative to the traditional PC or Mac. Instead, its lineage is the DVD player, the VCR, the television set, the radio, the newspaper, the telephone, the telegraph. It is not a workhorse loaded up with functions and hardware. It is a platform for story-telling, interactive, personal and immediate.

The story of human technology is the relentless advance in the direction of greater utility, connectivity, immediacy, affordability and flexibility. The iPad represents a quantum leap in that direction.

We want to communicate with each other, cheaply and easily. We want information where and when we need it. We want to be entertained and to entertain ourselves. We want to get closer to the people and the things we love. The iPad promises to do that. Technology that fails to serve that purpose is just a gadget, suitable for little more than collecting dust.

There's an interesting blog post in the NY Times predicting that the iPad will become an irresistible toy for children because kids will love the tactile nature of the device (they love to jab at things!), 'painting' software allows for mess-free splatter, it's an ideal distraction for car trips, and the screen offers endless story opportunities. I couldn't agree more, but the author could go even further: They are pretty compelling reasons for adults to get their hands on an iPad, too.

Related Articles:

• Radical Innovation of Meaning


• Apple's Hidden Disruptive Innovation


• Insights to Drive Apple iPad Success


• Will Apple Introduce the Innovation Expected From Google?

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Kevin Roberts is the CEO worldwide of The Lovemarks Company, Saatchi & Saatchi. For more information on Kevin, please go to www.saatchikevin.com. To see this blog at its original source, please go to www.krconnect.blogspot.com.

Cisco Announces $250,000 iPrize Competition v2.0

by Braden Kelley

Cisco has announced its second Cisco iPrize Competition. At stake is a $250,000 Grand Prize that will be awarded after eight selected finalists have the opportunity to present their innovation idea to Cisco's selection commitee using Cisco Telepresence.

The first Cisco iPrize was awarded to an idea focused on reducing the energy consumption in the electrical grid. This idea is currently undergoing development in Cisco. But the winners are back at it again and have entered an idea in Cisco iPrize v2.0.

I had the opportunity to do a video interview with Sharon Wong, Director of Business Development in Cisco's Emerging Technology Group about the competition:

Interview with Sharon Wong about Cisco iPrize from Braden Kelley on Vimeo.

In this open, global competition entrepreneurs submit proposals and collaborate to create the seed idea for Cisco's next billion-dollar business.

You have until April 30, 2010 to submit your idea. Idea submissions should fall in one of four categories:

1. The Future of Work: New solutions that accelerate and change the way we do business


2. The Connected Life: Technological inspirations that dramatically improve living conditions and disseminate culture


3. New Ways to Learn: Next-generation solutions that transform when, where, and how people learn.


4. The Future of Entertainment: New solutions that change how people play together

Below on the left you'll find a video of Marthin De Beer announcing the Cisco iPrize Competition and on the right you can watch Guido Jouret speak about some of Cisco's views on what makes a big idea:



You can submit an idea by yourself or you can work together as a team. Once ideas are submitted, iPrize community members can vote for the best ideas, and otherwise engage with the community of people who have submitted ideas. For complete rules and other information, please check out the Cisco iPrize Questions and Answers.


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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Will Apple Introduce the Innovation Expected from Google?

by Braden Kelley

Some great conversations have sprung up around my previous articles on the rumored Apple Tablet (iSlate). In the past I focused on what innovation Apple's potential tablet device might offer and whether or not Apple is likely to make the rumored first year sales projection of 10 million units.

A recent comment from "Marketing Department" brought up the topic of subsidies and whether or not Apple might be on the verge of introducing another business model innovation. So, in this article we'll dig a little deeper into that possibility.

When Apple launched the iPod, they introduced the iTunes business model innovation which turned the music industry on ear, quickly followed by the television and movie industries. Then Apple launched the iPhone and introduced the App Store business model innovation and introduced a new way for people to purchase software that the competition quickly rushed to copy. Now, what could Apple create with a Tablet device?

Well, obviously the App Store and iTunes will be present on this new device, and the iTunes Store will likely be extended to cover books, newspapers, and magazines. An extension of the iTunes Store is more of an incremental innovation. So what disruptive business model innovation could Apple do that would catch the competition off-balance?

Well, in my mind, Apple could very well launch the business model innovation that I expected to come with Google's Nexus One smartphone (but didn't) - shifting the subsidy model.

Currently, when a customer buys the Google Nexus One or the Apple iPhone, the mobile service provider subsidizes the cost of the device by about $325 in exchange for a 2-year contract from the customer. This ties the customer to the carrier for two years (and usually longer). I was expecting the Nexus One launch to include an unlocked phone that Google themselves subsidized in one way or another. One way could have been to pay the customer to use the phone on whatever carrier they wished by depositing money every month in a Google Checkout account based on ad views. This did not happen.

But Apple could take this idea one step further. Not only are they moving into the advertising game with some of their recent acquisitions, but they already have the incredible reach and product offerings provided by the iTunes Store and the App Store. While several people expect any Apple Tablet (iSlate) to have a retail price of $800-$1,000, a mobile carrier subsidy might bring it down into the $500-700 range. Might not Apple then be willing to subsidize it even further based on expected future media and content sales to push the price down into the $300-500 range and make it cost competitive with netbooks and the Amazon Kindle?

After all, Apple makes money (or could make money) in a number of different ways after the device purchase:

1. Applications (Downloads, In-App Advertising, In-App Purchases)
2. Media (Music, Movies, Television)
3. Books and Textbooks
4. Subscriptions (Music Streaming, Movie Downloads, Newspapers, Magazines, TV)
5. Advertising (TBD)
6. MobileMe

You could look at this very much like HP and their ink cartridge business. But how much of a subsidy could Apple offer?

Well, some limited data I found indicates that from this particular data set that the average iTunes transaction is $7 and an average of three transactions per month are made. That would equate to about $21 per month or $250 per year. So, what if you add in games, applications, and other content?

To keep the calculations easy let's say that the $250 becomes $500 when other kinds of content are added in, and using Apple's 30% revenue share, that would give an estimate of $150 per year per user. Yes, I know this is highly simplified, and from a small dataset, but we're just imagining possibilities not doing financial forecasts.

From this point, you could go two ways, look at this as a customer lock-in possibility for Apple and a potential perpetuity, or look at a fixed device life. Again, because this is only illustrative let's simplify and say that over four years Apple might expect (using this data) to earn $600 in revenue per device (excluding advertising revenue) and if Apple decided to dedicate 25% of this revenue to a subsidy, they could allocate $150 to bring down the cost of the device and the rest to go towards costs and profits. Throw in some advertising revenue for good measure, and maybe it makes sense for Apple to subsidize this new device by the $200 that might be necessary to bring the price to customer down into the $300-$500 sweet spot.

But how much of this revenue is incremental revenue? Will the device be an incremental purchase (an additional device people buy), or will it replace a Macbook, iMac, iPhone, or iPod purchase? Would it really make sense to do this?

Hopefully these quick and crude calculations have helped you to see why Apple might consider launching their own subsidy with their rumored tablet device (iSlate, iPad, iCanvas, iTablet, Macbook Slate, etc.) and why they might not. It will be rather interesting to see what they do...


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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Apple Tablet Sneak Preview

by Braden Kelley

Following on from my article on what innovation an Apple Tablet might offer and Idris Mootee's article on Apple's 3D efforts for gaming, I bring you a video sneak preview of some of the innovation an Apple tablet might offer.

This isn't of course exactly what an Apple tablet (or iSlate) might look like, but it gives you an idea of one application type that an Apple device might offer, and it shows the further disruption coming to the book, magazine, newspaper, and television industries.





You can see in the video that in such a device, even more so than on the traditional web, that magazine publishers now need to have video, and merge or partner with people that produce video on the same topic. ESPN is particularly well-positioned for this type of new content consumption environment because they already have a print magazine, a web property, and content from several television channels that they can bring together into a seamless experience. It is ironic that Sports Illustrated is helping people imagine a world that ESPN is more likely to dominate than they are.

Such device capabilities will also raise the bar for what it means to publish a book, as the potential to incorporate images, video, slide shows, and mini-applications more easily will offer the opportunity for authors to better address visual and kinesthetic learners than ever before.

You can also see the possibilities to design such a device to extend television and gaming experiences beyond the main screen and make television more interactive than ever before.

At the same time, if Apple launches such a tablet device, it will still bring with it the ability to play music, video, and games in the same ways that people do today with their iPod Touch, iPhone, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, or portable DVD player. And, if they find the right screen, Apple will likely offer the first compelling portable High-Definition (HD) entertainment experience.

With the right technology, as you see in the video, an Apple Tablet may be able to offer every single type of entertainment in a convenient way in a single, portable device (including web browsing with a mobile broadband connection).

Final thought: With such a device, there is also no reason why you couldn't get location-based services with text, audio, and video content at museums, theaters, sporting venues, theme parks, and more - to enhance any physical world experience in new ways.

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Watch Out Nintendo

Apple Is Pushing The Limits Of "Interactivity" And Going 3D

by Idris Mootee

Apple is going to push the limits of "interactivity" and planning to go 3D. Using a camera to detect a user's position and overlay it onto an any on-screen object, giving the impression of a "reflection" and creating a more immerse experience. Apple's latest technology would address that through the use of a camera or appropriate "sensing mechanism."

Apple is filing a patent on this innovation. The technology is capable of defining the visual properties of different types of surfaces and decide on how well it would reflect light. Using this, images of the user and their environment could be recreated on the screen with effects added. "Using the detected position of the user, the electronic device may use any suitable approach to transform the perspective of three-dimensional objects displayed on the display," the application reads. "For example, the electronic device may use a parallax transform by which three-dimensional objects displayed on the screen may be modified to give the user the impression of viewing the object from a different perspective."

"To further enhance the user's experience, the detected environment may be reflected differently along curved surfaces of a displayed object (e.g. as if the user were actually moving around the displayed object and seeing his reflection based on his position and the portion of the object reflecting the image." It's a kind of a virtual reality, crossing over the real world with a digitally created one, but giving the visual perception that an object is real.

This provide game developers new ways to use their imagination to come up with new games that cross the two worlds. It is a direct challenge to Wii. Nintendo has a lot to worry about. Gaming will go 3D very soon. The Blu-ray Disc Association released its finalized 3D specifications. 3D playback will be "display agnostic," meaning that the format will be compatible across "any compatible 3D display." What exactly a "compatible 3D display" is still an unknown, but I believe we need to get a new TV to watch 3D. PS3 is probably ahead in the game.


Editor's note: Will Apple incorporate this kind of technology into the rumored Apple tablet?

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Idris Mootee is the CEO of idea couture, a strategic innovation and experience design firm. He is the author of four books, tens of published articles, and a frequent speaker at business conferences and executive retreats.