The ever adapting technology lifestyle

Tech lifestyle has been spoiled for years through a continual process of innovation that has stemmed from the PC and radiated outward to other devices. This desktop-centric genesis grew organically from multiple fronts. You had device innovation in hardware and chipsets that led to faster, cheaper, smaller and sexier computers. This was coupled with software innovation that piggybacked from the hardware innovations to create newer, better applications and programs.

The tangential driver became the Internet, the driving force behind massive content and creative innovations which brought the browser to be the primary interface on the computer rather than installable applications. The Internet was a distractive innovative force, because the minds that could drive experiences did not have to be technical. This means that creative innovation could move at the same speed as technical innovation, and the results were brilliant and diverse.

Gaming came into greater prominence with the new benefits of online and multi-player computing. In this became the first hint that perhaps the PC wasn’t the endgame for computing, and Microsoft immediately seized upon what they thought was going to be the next big device… a gaming system that controlled the living room. They committed so heavily to this vision that they heavily funded gaming, working hard to buy into a world controlled by Sony and Nintendo.

All of these experiences were cyclical; experiences that were created drove better, faster hardware, which drove stronger developer tools, which enabled stronger experiences. For the last fifteen years we have lived in this cycle, one technology generation passing.

For nearly two decades the platform and center of innovation has been the PC. A device tethered to a desk with innovation psychologically rooted to that paradigm. The decade we are in now belongs to mobile.

But it is here where many people make a big mistake in understanding the fundamental shift that has occurred in technology. It is not that mobile devices are popular, or that technology and hardware innovation lends itself to portable devices. It is not that application developers are increasingly developing only for mobile, or that web technologies are rapidly shifting their models to accommodate smartphones.

What has changed is not the technology, but the psychology.

Technology companies frequently live in an echo chamber of their own making. The end users of their wares become distant memories, or their own arrogance leads them to believe that what they build their audience will automatically consume. They forget that their users, their consumers, are the ones that they must win the hearts and minds of.

Nowhere is this more clear than Microsoft, who is now fighting an uphill battle against several fronts to maintain… not grow… their place in the market. Next week at CES a number of companies are expected to announce Android/Windows hybrid systems, and Microsoft is expected to fight back with various incentives to hold onto their OS market. It’s a fight Microsoft has to be in, but it’s the wrong fight. So too is the Xbox; Microsoft rallied to take market share with the 360, but their new console the Xbox One is still chasing the dream of a Microsoft controlled living room. Microsoft now is in a dogfight with Sony, necessary for holding onto the video game market, but also not the fight they should be in.

Mobile is the new center of things, and it is here where the smart companies have been investing and growing for years. Microsoft is barely in a skirmish over mobile, and the more they struggle to hold onto the last generation’s business the less time and attention they have for the future.

But Microsoft isn’t alone. One could argue Google is also fighting the mobility fight poorly, in large part because of a misunderstanding of what mobile now means to people.

The reality is that in ten years the landscape of mobile may look significantly different. True, the majority of mobile users have it in their minds that Apple represents the best it can be, but this is fragile and not the point. As various manufacturers struggle to build “the next iPhone” they place themselves in a unnecessary catch up position.

What is important to understand about the change is that it’s psychologically rooted. The user (you, me, the guy down the street) thinks about their mobile device first, before their other devices. At times it’s a conscious thought, like using the mobile phone to take a photo rather than reaching for a camera with a memory card that will then need to be placed inside a PC. At times it’s an unconscious thought, like how mobile contact lists have quietly grown to include birthdays, email and social network handles. Most people are surprised when they discover that their mobile phone has far more data about their contacts and daily lives than their computer. It’s simply happened over the last several years… your phone is where you begin.

That’s the key difference: mobile is now the beginning of things. Contact lists start with a mobile device. Social networks start with a mobile device. For the first time in 2014, all statistical evidence shows that Email will start with a mobile device for a majority of the population. You will use other devices, but they are extensions of where your life begins… not the other way around.

Your heart and mind starts with your phone. It’s what you interact with and store information on. You’re far more attuned to your phone’s memory limits and capabilities than you are your PC. Your phone is what you reach for first, and it’s the device you put down last. Your home PC is rapidly becoming dumb storage, tucked away in your home for increasingly smaller uses.

The tablet device (the popular ones anyway) grew from the mobile phone, not the PC. That’s important to recognize… the iPad has been a huge success, and the Kindle Fire is the only other tablet that has any relevance in the marketplace. Both devices felt initially like bigger-screen mobile phones. Both devices built upon a platform of mobile, rather than PC. Microsoft took a different tactic, having the Surface evolve from the PC, then retrofitting in mobile-like features. It didn’t work… customers felt like they were going in reverse, and it was a jarring experience.

The new generation is now a couple years old. A small handful of existing companies have recognized the change and have adapted. The other success stories are largely brand-new companies, ones that didn’t have to shed the baggage of thinking the world revolved around the PC.

Likewise website creation and content on the internet will also change; companies must start with mobile and then branch outward, rather than creating a PC experience and adapting it to mobile using responsive design or other techniques. The flaw in solutions like responsive design is simply that it continues an outdated, archaic way of thinking that the world is rapidly moving away from. That’s not to say responsive design doesn’t have a place, but the point is that the starting point is mobile and everything else is the adaptation… not the other way around. Where website design and creation is concerned, it’s not “Mobile Too” and perhaps not even “Mobile First”. We are entering the world of “Mobile Only”.

Over this generation we will see a true emergence of connected devices and experiences. The car, the television, wearable electronics and more will clutter the marketplace, and there will be endless stories written about the innovations that will follow. But in all of these things there will be one constant thread: mobile will be the starting point for people and their information. The car’s connected experience will inherit profiles and content from the phone, tethering to it for data and access. The television will receive account information and preferences, turning television viewing into a smarter, more targeted experience.

The PC will become storage and interactions with it will largely return to its place nearly two decades ago; a specialized piece of equipment used for specific tasks not suitable for a portable tablet, television, kiosk or phone.

These aren’t bold predictions; they are actually simply observations. Look around at real people and observe how they interact with the world. Look at the data that shows internet usage and draw a curve over what has happened over the last three years. The move to mobile as the center of interaction isn’t an growing trend… it’s an increasingly accelerating spike.

The world isn’t changing; it’s changed. Those that understand that this is simply about incrementally better technology but rather a fundamental shift in how people interact with the world will be better for it.