Re: Ugliness (was Re: 10 PACK UPDATE!!!)
On 4/25/08, Flemming Richter Mikkelsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The Freerunner will be replacing a Sony Ericsson P990i http://www.cellphonebeat.com/images/p990i_.jpg here - now THAT'S a phone which could barely be more ugly, but nevertheless it sold well on its features (and besides, ugliness is STILL only an opinion). Not to mention that phone is a piece of crap, I'm sending this mail from one now. Sure, the keyboard is cool, and so is 3G, but the fact that I can't really multitask, like run a web browser and another app at the same time, kills it. The FreeRunner shouldnt have this problem though, with 128mb of RAM. I could not agree more:) -- Please don't send me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html Join the FSF as an Associate Member at: URL:http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=5774 Free your mind - Open(moko) your phone ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Ugliness (was Re: 10 PACK UPDATE!!!)
I myself and all people I talked to think that that the black one has no style. Also the orange-white looks cool. It is not a blocker for me but would be for an average user who is not Open fan. Fancy color case is a must in the future. Stroller wrote: On 25 Apr 2008, at 16:25, Lowell Higley wrote: Nine out of ten typical consumers I show it to think it's ugly and wouldn't buy it because of looks alone. If I show it to a techie type, I get the what are the specs? question. Lesson? To the consumer, beauty is only skin deep. This is typical of the consumer, though (and of the place the mobile phone has taken in the mainstream, of reflecting the owner's personality). At the end of the day, there are a hundred mobile phone designs on the market - and for probably this reason. Substantially all mobile phones do the same thing - make receive calls - and I guess appearance is a primary differentiation. If your one consumer in ten finds the Freerunner acceptable (or even, shudder!, attractive) enough to that they'll buy it, then Freerunner surely has a far greater market interest than most mobiles! It's all a matter of taste and I'll bet there are very few phones on the market which would be _universally_ considered non-ugly. We should also remember that OpenMoko is probably not aiming at the girlie market, of consumers for whom appearance and daintiness is the primary concern. I am reminded of a girl I knew two or three years ago who was pleased with her new mobile - it was a small clamshell design with a second screen on the outside; the outer screen showed the time or, when it rang, the caller's name or number. A screen saver was available for both screens - floating pink pastel bubbles were chosen. When making calls is the only function then I do like small phones, but the aforementioned girlie phone had no features that appealed to me over any of the other clamshell designs available on the market for the past decade. The Freerunner is surely aimed to compete with phones based on Windows Moble Symbian - phones on which email, calendaring media playback are important features (it may even compete, then, with the PSP). The Freerunner will be replacing a Sony Ericsson P990i http://www.cellphonebeat.com/images/p990i_.jpg here - now THAT'S a phone which could barely be more ugly, but nevertheless it sold well on its features (and besides, ugliness is STILL only an opinion). Stroller. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Ugliness (was Re: 10 PACK UPDATE!!!)
On 26 Apr 2008, at 11:07, Federico Lorenzi wrote: On 4/25/08, Flemming Richter Mikkelsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The Freerunner will be replacing a Sony Ericsson P990i http://www.cellphonebeat.com/images/p990i_.jpg here - now THAT'S a phone which could barely be more ugly, but nevertheless it sold well on its features (and besides, ugliness is STILL only an opinion). Not to mention that phone is a piece of crap, I'm sending this mail from one now. Sure, the keyboard is cool, and so is 3G, but the fact that I can't really multitask, like run a web browser and another app at the same time, kills it. ... S I'll be selling mine once my Freerunner arrives, and the eBay listing will be saying how great my old phone is. I'll be selling it regretfully and it'll be an ideal phone for a power user. Stroller. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Ugliness (was Re: 10 PACK UPDATE!!!)
if you don't like the case, get the CAD files, create a new case and make a business out of it. regards ak ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Ugliness (was Re: 10 PACK UPDATE!!!)
Hi there, I fixed your top-posting problem for you. You can see the correct posting order at the bottom of this message. On 26 Apr 2008, at 12:44, Schmidt András wrote: Stroller wrote: On 25 Apr 2008, at 16:25, Lowell Higley wrote: Nine out of ten typical consumers I show it to think it's ugly and wouldn't buy it because of looks alone. If I show it to a techie type, I get the what are the specs? question. Lesson? To the consumer, beauty is only skin deep. ... At the end of the day, there are a hundred mobile phone designs on the market - and for probably this reason. Substantially all mobile phones do the same thing - make receive calls - and I guess appearance is a primary differentiation. If your one consumer in ten finds the Freerunner acceptable (or even, shudder!, attractive) enough to that they'll buy it, then Freerunner surely has a far greater market interest than most mobiles! It's all a matter of taste and I'll bet there are very few phones on the market which would be _universally_ considered non-ugly. I myself and all people I talked to think that that the black one has no style. Also the orange-white looks cool. It is not a blocker for me but would be for an average user who is not Open fan. Fancy color case is a must in the future. Perhaps I didn't make my point very clearly. You are an individual, and there are about 6,500,000,000 other individuals just like you, except with slightly differing tastes. If you take all the other phones on the market then yourself and all people you talk to will also think that almost all of them have no style. This is the nature of individual taste. For each every person there's a mobile phone (painter, musician, design of rug) that is just perfect, and I doubt if yourself and all people you talk to will universally agree on all these things. I, personally, think the stealth Freerunner looks GREAT, but I don't think that's the most important factor. Yes, the majority of mainstream consumers care only about the appearance, but even if 5% of consumers buy according to features then that is a MASSIVE worldwide market. I am pretty sure that FIC didn't get an amateur to design the Freerunner's case. They didn't get a twelve year-old to design it, and they didn't buy an electronics enclosure off-the-shelf from Radio Shack http://www.polycase.com/images/cache/qs-group-category-0-0.jpg. So please don't be offended but saying I don't like it and neither do my friends is totally irrelevant - come back when you've interviewed a hundred different people and they've scored the Freerunner (alongside several other phones) in a range of 1 - 10 on size, colour, design attractiveness, comfort-to-hold and so on. You need to establish with each respondent why they chose their last phone - was price a factor? features? You can probably rule out everyone who got their phone free from their mobile supplier, because the Freerunner's market is those who are prepared to pay a premium for the features they want in a phone. Now interview another 100 people, those who are prepared to pay a premium for the features they want in a smart- or business-phone - do they find the Freerunner attractive or ugly? Do they care? Not wanting to uncover a mound of sleeping proverbial here, but the Freerunner's lack of a camera is probably far more important to the Freerunner's buyers. And since we can't change the colour of the first 1,000 or 10,000 Freerunners, bitching about the colour might as well go the same place as the I want a camera thread - dead buried. Stroller. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
RE: Ugliness (was Re: 10 PACK UPDATE!!!)
I just don't care about the case. The black is cool, and the black/silver that I've seen in various photos looks pretty slick, but on balance, I'm buying a openmoko phone because it's a phone that I can do cool things with. That's why I'm buying it, not because it looks amazing so I can pop it out at a club as some sort of post adolescent pre mating ritual display of shiny objects to attract the opposite sex. If I wanted to do that, I'd get an iPhone. Also, I'd go to clubs. -- Cheers, David Murrell ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Ugliness (was Re: 10 PACK UPDATE!!!)
Schmidt András wrote: I myself and all people I talked to think that that the black one has no style. Also the orange-white looks cool. I don't agree... Imho the black one is more professional... I loved the Black/silver before but now I think that the full-black version is the best. The orange-white (or any *-white) version imho looks like a kids toy! -- Treviño's World - Life and Linux http://www.3v1n0.net/ ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Ugliness (was Re: 10 PACK UPDATE!!!)
Stroller wrote: Hi there, I fixed your top-posting problem for you. You can see the correct posting order at the bottom of this message. On 26 Apr 2008, at 12:44, Schmidt András wrote: Stroller wrote: On 25 Apr 2008, at 16:25, Lowell Higley wrote: Nine out of ten typical consumers I show it to think it's ugly and wouldn't buy it because of looks alone. If I show it to a techie type, I get the what are the specs? question. Lesson? To the consumer, beauty is only skin deep. ... At the end of the day, there are a hundred mobile phone designs on the market - and for probably this reason. Substantially all mobile phones do the same thing - make receive calls - and I guess appearance is a primary differentiation. If your one consumer in ten finds the Freerunner acceptable (or even, shudder!, attractive) enough to that they'll buy it, then Freerunner surely has a far greater market interest than most mobiles! It's all a matter of taste and I'll bet there are very few phones on the market which would be _universally_ considered non-ugly. I myself and all people I talked to think that that the black one has no style. Also the orange-white looks cool. It is not a blocker for me but would be for an average user who is not Open fan. Fancy color case is a must in the future. Perhaps I didn't make my point very clearly. You are an individual, and there are about 6,500,000,000 other individuals just like you, except with slightly differing tastes. If you take all the other phones on the market then yourself and all people you talk to will also think that almost all of them have no style. This is the nature of individual taste. For each every person there's a mobile phone (painter, musician, design of rug) that is just perfect, and I doubt if yourself and all people you talk to will universally agree on all these things. I, personally, think the stealth Freerunner looks GREAT, but I don't think that's the most important factor. Yes, the majority of mainstream consumers care only about the appearance, but even if 5% of consumers buy according to features then that is a MASSIVE worldwide market. I am pretty sure that FIC didn't get an amateur to design the Freerunner's case. They didn't get a twelve year-old to design it, and they didn't buy an electronics enclosure off-the-shelf from Radio Shack http://www.polycase.com/images/cache/qs-group-category-0-0.jpg. So please don't be offended but saying I don't like it and neither do my friends is totally irrelevant - come back when you've interviewed a hundred different people and they've scored the Freerunner (alongside several other phones) in a range of 1 - 10 on size, colour, design attractiveness, comfort-to-hold and so on. You need to establish with each respondent why they chose their last phone - was price a factor? features? You can probably rule out everyone who got their phone free from their mobile supplier, because the Freerunner's market is those who are prepared to pay a premium for the features they want in a phone. Now interview another 100 people, those who are prepared to pay a premium for the features they want in a smart- or business-phone - do they find the Freerunner attractive or ugly? Do they care? Not wanting to uncover a mound of sleeping proverbial here, but the Freerunner's lack of a camera is probably far more important to the Freerunner's buyers. And since we can't change the colour of the first 1,000 or 10,000 Freerunners, bitching about the colour might as well go the same place as the I want a camera thread - dead buried. Stroller. Please don't feel offended. I have tried to emphasise that it is just (some friends' and) my opinion. I did not state that Openmoko is wrong. I like the business model that individual companies can provide different color and shaped cases. What I stated is that to sell a mass of phones some fancy cases will have to be on the market. Buying a replacement case will not be a problem for users that was the business model for many phones and it worked. I myself prefer hacking software so I will not create any but may buy one if I find the one I like for sale. Regards Schmidt András ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Ugliness (was Re: 10 PACK UPDATE!!!)
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 5:58 AM, Stroller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So please don't be offended but saying I don't like it and neither do my friends is totally irrelevant - come back when you've interviewed a hundred different people and they've scored the Freerunner (alongside several other phones) in a range of 1 - 10 on size, colour, design attractiveness, comfort-to-hold and so on. You need to establish with each respondent why they chose their last phone - was price a factor? features? You can probably rule out everyone who got their phone free from their mobile supplier, because the Freerunner's market is those who are prepared to pay a premium for the features they want in a phone. Now interview another 100 people, those who are prepared to pay a premium for the features they want in a smart- or business-phone - do they find the Freerunner attractive or ugly? Do they care? I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with you so I'll just dump my thoughts and you decide.. I have spent the majority of my adult life in hi-tech, and much of that in product marketing. My specialty has been taking engineering driven projects and turning them into actual market driven products. I have come into multi-million dollar projects and bet the engineering team a month's salary that they would sell less than x products. Why? Because they had NO clue what the customers wanted. They just built what THEY wanted. Each time I made that bet, I won. No, I never collected the money but my point was made. When I see a product I like and it doesn't seem to have marketing polish I do a little informal research. I ask various people what they think. These people aren't my friends. Ok, some of them are but not many. No, it isn't a full focus group but I have learned over the years as a professional marketer than I can get a pretty good idea of how a product would sell based on the feedback I get from my little research projects. Just informal chats with people on their likes and dislikes. There was a statement someone made earlier about us techie types forcing complex phones with unwanted features down people's throats. VERY true statement. Unfortunately, the FreeRunner Consumer Edition will have to fight products like the iPhone head to head. Consumers see the bling of the iPhone and have very high expectations, all based on cosmetcis and the wow factor. To make matters even worse, if you can't get the FCE (FreeRunner Consumer Edition) into the phone shops (Orange, TMobile, etc.) it will never sell big numbers. In Europe I think there is a better chance of that happening. In the US, the carriers LOVE their closed, crippled phones. The deck is stacked against Openmoko ever making inroads as a major Treo, Blackberry or iPhone alternative. Maybe this niche market it perfect for them? To me, FreeRunner has the smell of being an engineering driven project. Shawn has put a lot of effort in making it marketing driven but I don't see the conclusive results. (Forgive me Shawn) I do acknowledge at this point that we are NOT targeting consumers. That's ok. But if we all want this product to REALLY succeed, we have to at some point. Who knows, perhaps Shawn has a business case that involves just the niche market of hobbiests and developers such as ourselves. At one point I asked on this list how the design was derived. I received no response from the core team but did get a heresay response that a company approached FIC to make a prototype, which they did. That company then decided not to go forward, Shawn got a hold of the prototype and Openmoko was born. If that story is true, I don't see any overt marketing involved there on FIC's part. Marketing is much more than holding focus groups and creating sales copy. There is competitive analysis, business cases, marketing requirements, negotiating with engineering over the final product, schedule.. and the list goes on. My point is, as I look at things and put the picture together, I see no strong marketing presence in the FreeRunner. Where's the MRD? Where's the focus group? Where's the business case? I'm not saying this to throw dirt on the Openmoko project, just to point out that there is a LOT of work involved on the part of marketing. Most of it we never see and perhaps we shouldn't. Let's look at this another way.. I have spent most of my professional life in Silicon Valley... Home of Apple, Netscape, Google, and Yahoo, Between 1998 and 2001, I received invites almost weekly to interview with some new startup. Sometimes I would accept and go talk to them. In two years, I probably interviewed with 15 companies. I would always insist on talking with the Director of Engineering (or whatever his title was) prior to talking offer, etc. I would always ask the same question. Why do you want to hire a Marketing Manager? The first 14 companies responded with something like Because our venture funding says we have to. If I pressed the issue it would come out
RE: Ugliness (was Re: 10 PACK UPDATE!!!)
Hi David, Thanks for the laugh... clare (who has an orange and white phone, and loves the feel of it.. *and* the hole in the case so it can be tied to me. But I bought it because it is a little linux computer.) On Sun, 27 Apr 2008, David Murrell wrote: I just don't care about the case. The black is cool, and the black/silver that I've seen in various photos looks pretty slick, but on balance, I'm buying a openmoko phone because it's a phone that I can do cool things with. That's why I'm buying it, not because it looks amazing so I can pop it out at a club as some sort of post adolescent pre mating ritual display of shiny objects to attract the opposite sex. If I wanted to do that, I'd get an iPhone. Also, I'd go to clubs. -- Cheers, David Murrell ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Ugliness (was Re: 10 PACK UPDATE!!!)
The Freerunner will be replacing a Sony Ericsson P990i http://www.cellphonebeat.com/images/p990i_.jpg here - now THAT'S a phone which could barely be more ugly, but nevertheless it sold well on its features (and besides, ugliness is STILL only an opinion). I could not agree more:) -- Please don't send me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html Join the FSF as an Associate Member at: URL:http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=5774 Free your mind - Open(moko) your phone ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
