Digital Daily » industrial design

Dude, Your Phone Is Dull

John Paczkowski — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:35:10 +0000

Antipathy toward a Dell smartphone is building and the device hasn’t even exited the rumor stage yet. When last we discussed the Dellephone, wireless network operators had reportedly been unimpressed, criticizing it as dull compared with current and upcoming handsets. Now comes further criticism in the form of a client note from Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi Jr., who believes that Dell (DELL) will announce a smartphone in the next six months but will most likely bungle it.

According to Sacconaghi, the smartphone market isn’t a natural fit for Dell, which could see its efforts hamstrung by its historically lousy industrial design sensibility and lack of software development experience and wireless technology, not to mention unenthusiastic carriers hesitant to add a Dell phone to their lineups.

“We believe Dell’s foray into the smartphone market is risky and its success uncertain,” Sacconaghi writes. “In our view, the biggest risks are that (1) Dell invests a disproportionate amount in the initiative…; (2) the high margins earned on smartphones today collapse by the time Dell establishes itself in the market…; (3) it causes too much management distraction…; (4) the business simply fails.”

(4) the business simply fails.

A harsh prediction–especially when we don’t even know if the business will ever exist. Clearly, Sacconaghi doesn’t have much faith in Dell’s ability to execute on an initiative like this. And why should he? Dell’s track record in adjacent electronics businesses is littered with the corpses of PDAs, MP3 players and TVs.

DOJ Checking Out Google Books Settlement

John Paczkowski — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:00:25 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Dell's Health Improving After Employeectomy

John Paczkowski — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:18:03 +0000

Dell delivered its fiscal third-quarter results after market close Thursday, and they were about as exciting as the company’s industrial design. It reported a five percent drop in earnings thanks to what company officials euphemistically describe as “a challenging demand environment.” That said, Dell’s (DELL) net income was $727 million, or 37 cents a share. And that was better than the 31 cents a share the Street had been expecting. Odd, though, to see earnings-per-share like that, given such lousy revenues. Clearly, Dell’s aggressive cost-cutting measures are having a restorative effect on the company’s bottom line. Whether that will persist amid continued weak consumer and enterprise spending remains to be seen.

Apple Notebook Event: Jobs on Touchscreen Notebooks

John Paczkowski — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:11:41 +0000

In a short video, senior Apple designer Jon Ives and other members of Apple’s industrial design team explain the new unibody enclosure. Machining enables a level of precision unheard of in the industry, says Ives. In many ways, these notebooks are more beautiful on the inside than they are on the outside.

There’s a lot of emphasis at this unveiling on environmental concerns, reducing the footprint for manufacturing the new notebooks.

Says Ives: “We’ve refined every detail in service of the user.”

Steve Jobs announces that it’s time for Q&A, but with a caveat. No questions about the economy, he says, or Apple’s financial performance because there will be an earnings report next week. And no questions about “my health,” he adds, as a new slide appears on the big screen above him showing his blood pressure.

As the audience laughs, Jobs welcomes Apple COO Tim Cook and Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, to the stage to take questions from the audience.

Apple (AAPL) does not have an exclusive on the new Nvidia chip, but it will be first to market. “And we’re buying a lot of chips.”

Why no Blu-ray? “Blu-ray is just a bag of hurts,” says Jobs. Apple is waiting things out before “passing that cost burden on to consumers.”

Jobs expects the redesigns to trigger a refresh cycle in both the MacBook and MacBook Pro.

Someone asks why there are no matte screens. Answer: “The vast majority of our customers prefer a glossy finish.”

The 17-inch MacBook Pro is still available, but it has not been refreshed like the other models.

Final question: “Do touchscreens make sense on laptops?” Jobs’s reply: “We’ve experimented with them, but they don’t make a lot of sense to us.”

So no tablet.

And with that, the event is over.