It isn’t a problem with Apple (ticker: AAPL), and it isn’t limited to the world of Apple phones and computers. It’s a problem affecting the entire mobile industry, with the proliferation of gadgets that connect to apps on smartphones and tablets.
That expanding constellation of devices, often referred to as the Internet of Things, or IoT, is so beset with complexity that it just doesn’t work for the average consumer.
THE PROBLEM WILL BE FAMILIAR to anyone who has purchased a digital camera, or any of hundreds of other “connected” electronics: You take your spiffy new device out of its packaging and turn it on, and an arcane process begins to connect that gadget to an app on your smartphone or tablet.
Once you’ve got it all working the first time, the next several days, weeks, or months of owning the thing will be spent just trying to make sure it keeps working. Frequent “timeouts,” when your phone loses track of the new device, mean you will waste your time trying to nurse back to health that connection between the device and the phone, over and over again.
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MAKING THE SITUATION WORSE is that IoT crosses the boundaries of different vendors, including chip makers such as Qorvo; the smartphone makers they serve, such as Apple; other operating-system makers such as Alphabet ’s (GOOGL) Google, whose Android software dominates smartphone unit sales; and then the individual device makers. “Computing systems are getting so complex that the value to be extracted from them requires all these systems to work together,” says Links.
Some of the companies involved, like Apple and Google, are enemies, and they aren’t keen on standards in the industry that could threaten their fiefdoms.
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AN ANALOGY CAN BE MADE to WiFi wireless networking, which was birthed in 1991 but didn’t take off broadly until Steve Jobs put it into Apple’s iBook laptops in 1999, says Links.
Looking at the current mess of IoT, and understanding how badly it needs to be simplified and how the industry ignores the plight of the average individual, it’s hard not to pine for a Jobs-like epiphany.
“Steve was a brilliant person,” says Links. “Not so much for being an inventor, but rather his genius was in seeing that the market was ready for a new technology, and making sure it all worked flawlessly.”
But, says Mathias with a sigh, “we don’t have too many people like Jobs in the industry these days.”
See more at: barrons.com
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