the onda

As we move towards the era of "appliance computing" with iPhones and Kindles and Droids and Nooks, one downside that people rarely talk about is that we are losing visibility into the components that make up our devices. This trend is not helped by the way OEM/ODM contracts are cut, where Asian manufacturers often make on-the-line component changes because someone else's WIFI chip seems to be cheaper for that quarter.

Ever notice for instance how Apple never talks about the CPU in the iPhone? Sure, the 3GS brought marketing claims around "50-100% faster" but we were never told that the ARM core had changed on that the clock had gone up by 50%.

An even better example of how this trend can bite you in the butt is what has recently happened to the Kindle. A true believer from day one, I helped to make the Kindle Amazon's #1 product this Christmas by giving it as a present. However, one of the folks I gave it to wanted to use it in rural New Hampshire, a place where my own Kindle 2 had previously worked flawlessly. Assuming this bode well for its "Whispernet" 3G service up there, I didn't think that Amazon might itself switch service providers (from Sprint to AT&T) without announcing it anywhere, thereby rendering the "same" model (Kindle 2) totally useless where previous units had worked flawlessly.

At the end of the first season of Mad Men, the good folks at Sterling Cooper get the Kodak carousel slide projector as a product to pitch. One of the copywriters extolling the virtues of Kodak as a technology-led compare (this is 1960) says "they are so proud of their technology, they even mention R&D in their ads!" thus giving you the feeling that this was the start of technology as a selling proposition.

Consumers aren't stupid, and in a day and age where the web makes the space available for marketing copy of infinite length, we might want to get back to a little more R&D and a little less "wow," "amazing," and "boom" on the side of the box.