We’re well prepared for the tech launch season, which will take place over the next few weeks as major vendors roll out the products they want us to buy during the holiday season and into next year.
But what has changed recently is that many major suppliers do not want to sell you just one product.
Instead, they want to sell you on their bigger picture – the whole way of life could be yours. Naturally, it’s a way of life enabled only by their gadgets – and the subscription services they also hope to sell you.
Recently, we’ve seen the two biggest tech giants, Apple and Amazon, try to do just that.
These competing visions also say a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of those companies — and how they see the evolving tech world over the next few years.
The first is Apple, with its new iPhone 14 and Apple Watch. For Apple, there’s little doubt that the iPhone continues to be at the center of its personal tech world, even as the Watch and AirPods become increasingly useful connectivity elements.
The smartphone in Apple’s vision is not only a useful tool but also an important companion. It can now even help if you get into a car accident or get lost in the mountains.
You could argue that these new features, which are only useful in fairly obscure situations, are a clear sign that smartphone innovation is running out. But regardless of that, Apple’s point is that a device in your pocket or maybe on your wrist, or in your ear (and possibly through your eyes) is the way to go.
Instead, Amazon is pitching its pitch based very heavily on ambient computing.
Its products – most obviously the Echo speaker (new versions of the Echo Dot and Echo Dot with Clock came out last week) but also the Astro robot, the sleep-tracking Halo Rise watch and more – not the things you wear or carry, but the devices around you in the home.
Amazon’s vision seems to be one where intelligence is embedded in things that can learn about you, understand what you want to do – and then do it for you.
Neither of these visions of the future is complete.
Apple sees the iPhone as the center of the tech world because that’s where success and revenue come from. It may dominate smartphones, but so far Apple hasn’t had much success for the smart home. Amazon has of course dominated the smart home through its Echo and Alexa ecosystems. It made its own smartphone but the project was a costly failure, which is why ambient computing in the form of a bunch of cloud-connected devices is where it sees its future. future.
There are other major differences between the two. Apple sees personal data as something its customers now mostly want to share with big tech, while many Amazon services are based on learning more about users to provide personalized services. more humanized. Doesn’t really tell the full story of the future of technology: smartphones or watches aren’t the answer in all situations, but again, there’s a long way to go before environmental computing can. can provide the same level of usefulness as being able to glance at the screen on your smartphone or on your wrist.
These visions are not mutually exclusive; actually many users can live in both worlds at the same time, using both Apple and Amazon products. But it is difficult to see how they can be reconciled. Perhaps at some point another tech company will figure out how to combine the two different worldviews, but until then, expect these competing visions to coexist, however, that is not easy.
ZDNET’s SECOND OPENING
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