Expect larger screens, better images, more sensors and powerhouse performance from the next generation of mobile devices.
Want to know what your next smartphone will look like and what it will be able to do? Ask Omar Javaid. His colleagues have called him an international mobile technology visionary, synthetic thinker and trend spotter. His job, as vice president of product management for Motorola Mobility, is to define the company’s smartphones and tablets. Motorola Mobility, which has a collaboration partnership with Intel for smartphones and tablets, holds more than 17,000 cellphone patents and was acquired by Google in 2011 for $12.5 billion.
"We're seeing a blurring of the line between what a tablet is compared to a smartphone," said Omar Javaid, vice president of product management for Motorola Mobility
Motorola is hardly Javaid’s first mobile venture. Back in 1999, he launched Mobilocity, a smartphone startup company, and then spent six years with Qualcomm before joining Motorola Mobility in 2010. Recently, Javaid sat to discuss what he sees as the important trends in the smartphone and tablet space.
What is driving demand for smartphones?
If you look at the mobile market, it’s been decades in the making. Today the mobile phone market is six billion units. The market that’s growing the fastest is the smartphone business, and the opportunity there is a tremendous one. If the overall phone market is going to grow like crazy for a number of years. The interesting thing is how global it is already, and how it’s really affecting the lives of people.
What innovations are changing smartphones?
This is the year that we’re going to see smartphones really beginning to push the performance envelope … and a lot of other capabilities like better imaging. The phones themselves are becoming larger, so the trend has been towards larger displays. A number of companies have smartphones with five-inch or greater displays. We’re seeing a blurring of the line between what a tablet is compared to a smartphone. You see tablets that are under seven inches and then there are also a number of interesting accessories where they can essentially transform into laptops.
Another interesting thing is how all these other products are essentially becoming features of the smartphone. The digital camera is an example. Obviously there is still a standalone digital camera market, but if you look at the trends, it’s very clear that even shipments [of digital cameras] have kind of tapered off. If you look at Picasa, Flicker and all of these very large photo sites, these cloud services, the top number of submissions are from smartphones. And that’s growing.
How are most people using smartphones?
The most popular single application on smartphones is the Facebook app. Of their 800 million subscribers, about 350 million are regularly accessing through mobile phones. If you look at leaders in electronic commerce like the eBay’s of the world, I think what’s amazing is the amount of data people are actually using on these form factor and battery constrained devices. People are consuming more and more data. That includes web browsing, emailing and media like movies, TV, music and photography. It’s just a tremendous amount of growth.
What are some new ways people are using smartphones?
We released a product called MOTOACTV, which is centered around active living and fitness. I think about it as life logging. When you workout it’ll track things for you. We’ve coupled Moto Active with this really cool cloud service. There’s a lot of this going on right now around healthcare and active lifestyles. I think it’ll be big.
Our CEO is a visionary and I think it was a product that he really he wanted for himself. Frankly, a lot of great products start out that way. A number of us looked at that and thought, wow, that would be something that we’d really want ourselves.
What we’re seeing today are standardized, open platforms like Android that can work with certain kinds of sensors. So, for instance, with chronic conditions like diabetes there are accessories for smartphones today where you can monitor blood sugar multiple times during the day. With a device that you always have with you, you can upload these measurements, share it with caregivers, or just track it using a cloud service to help manage that chronic condition. This is only going to get better.
There are a number of other kinds of capabilities like heart rate monitoring. Those sensors have been around for a while, but they’re dropping in price, they’re getting smaller in size and they’re a lot more power efficient so you can put them in a cell phone now.
How do you spot trends?
At Motorola Mobility we’re very active in market research and consumer research. We clearly learn a lot from that. Part of being an innovative company is you have to anticipate and lead the market because consumers won’t tell you what they want if they don’t know it, right?
A lot of it’s about knowing the art of the possible and being exposed to all the different technologies out there. It takes a lot of craftsmanship to build (devices and services), so we’re trying to make the right kind of bets that are going to resonate in the market.
Related stories
Blurring Lines between Tablets and Smartphones
Expect larger screens, better images, more sensors and powerhouse performance from the next generation of mobile devices.
Want to know what your next smartphone will look like and what it will be able to do? Ask Omar Javaid. His colleagues have called him an international mobile technology visionary, synthetic thinker and trend spotter. His job, as vice president of product management for Motorola Mobility, is to define the company’s smartphones and tablets. Motorola Mobility, which has a collaboration partnership with Intel for smartphones and tablets, holds more than 17,000 cellphone patents and was acquired by Google in 2011 for $12.5 billion.
"We're seeing a blurring of the line between what a tablet is compared to a smartphone," said Omar Javaid, vice president of product management for Motorola Mobility
Motorola is hardly Javaid’s first mobile venture. Back in 1999, he launched Mobilocity, a smartphone startup company, and then spent six years with Qualcomm before joining Motorola Mobility in 2010. Recently, Javaid sat to discuss what he sees as the important trends in the smartphone and tablet space.
What is driving demand for smartphones?
If you look at the mobile market, it’s been decades in the making. Today the mobile phone market is six billion units. The market that’s growing the fastest is the smartphone business, and the opportunity there is a tremendous one. If the overall phone market is going to grow like crazy for a number of years. The interesting thing is how global it is already, and how it’s really affecting the lives of people.
What innovations are changing smartphones?
This is the year that we’re going to see smartphones really beginning to push the performance envelope … and a lot of other capabilities like better imaging. The phones themselves are becoming larger, so the trend has been towards larger displays. A number of companies have smartphones with five-inch or greater displays. We’re seeing a blurring of the line between what a tablet is compared to a smartphone. You see tablets that are under seven inches and then there are also a number of interesting accessories where they can essentially transform into laptops.
Another interesting thing is how all these other products are essentially becoming features of the smartphone. The digital camera is an example. Obviously there is still a standalone digital camera market, but if you look at the trends, it’s very clear that even shipments [of digital cameras] have kind of tapered off. If you look at Picasa, Flicker and all of these very large photo sites, these cloud services, the top number of submissions are from smartphones. And that’s growing.
How are most people using smartphones?
The most popular single application on smartphones is the Facebook app. Of their 800 million subscribers, about 350 million are regularly accessing through mobile phones. If you look at leaders in electronic commerce like the eBay’s of the world, I think what’s amazing is the amount of data people are actually using on these form factor and battery constrained devices. People are consuming more and more data. That includes web browsing, emailing and media like movies, TV, music and photography. It’s just a tremendous amount of growth.
What are some new ways people are using smartphones?
We released a product called MOTOACTV, which is centered around active living and fitness. I think about it as life logging. When you workout it’ll track things for you. We’ve coupled Moto Active with this really cool cloud service. There’s a lot of this going on right now around healthcare and active lifestyles. I think it’ll be big.
Our CEO is a visionary and I think it was a product that he really he wanted for himself. Frankly, a lot of great products start out that way. A number of us looked at that and thought, wow, that would be something that we’d really want ourselves.
What we’re seeing today are standardized, open platforms like Android that can work with certain kinds of sensors. So, for instance, with chronic conditions like diabetes there are accessories for smartphones today where you can monitor blood sugar multiple times during the day. With a device that you always have with you, you can upload these measurements, share it with caregivers, or just track it using a cloud service to help manage that chronic condition. This is only going to get better.
There are a number of other kinds of capabilities like heart rate monitoring. Those sensors have been around for a while, but they’re dropping in price, they’re getting smaller in size and they’re a lot more power efficient so you can put them in a cell phone now.
How do you spot trends?
At Motorola Mobility we’re very active in market research and consumer research. We clearly learn a lot from that. Part of being an innovative company is you have to anticipate and lead the market because consumers won’t tell you what they want if they don’t know it, right?
A lot of it’s about knowing the art of the possible and being exposed to all the different technologies out there. It takes a lot of craftsmanship to build (devices and services), so we’re trying to make the right kind of bets that are going to resonate in the market.
Related stories
Follow Intel Free Press