::: nBlog :::
This year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona presented many new pieces of equipment with some kind of connectivity. Even my favorite spime example, a connected toothbrush – was taken a shot at by Braun’s Oral-B.
There were also plenty of Home Automation solutions, many of which were pleasing to the eye, both the hardware and the accompanying .. yes, Android or Apple App.
The press seems to think that adding a Bluetooth 4.0 chip and subcontracting an app from your favorite coder bodyshop makes anything magically part of the Internet of Things and thus cool.
From a spimey perspective this is counterproductive, as the App is considered a non-essential add-on to the manufacturer’s highest end products. The App becomes quickly outdated due to new Android, iOS or hardware versions and your data may be lost. In addition, any data you interchange with your customers gets scrutinized by the guards of those respective companies.
Moreover, if and when your connected service becomes popular and you’d like to charge a small yearly fee, these nice service providers immediately take 30% of your revenue. Forever. When my air conditioner’s spime automatically orders me new filters based on detected dust and humidity, does the airco manufacturer want to give a 30% premium to someone else?
Apps may be nice now, but when their users and developers get a hint of sustainability and economical thinking, they’ll quickly realize that the current app focus is both wasteful and non-evolutionary. The Internet of Things and the subsequent Spime World may use apps, but only as interfaces to the real spime.
//Pasi
