Recently I have been reading gadget blogs a lot, and it would seem that I am not the only one who likes to do this. This week, all the gadget blogs,along with the rest of the world, have been screaming, in among their regular stuff about incomprehensible boxes: iPhone iPhone iPhone. Which is understandable. Either the iPhone is a truly remarkable thing, or the hype surrounding this unremarkable thing is all the more remarkable.
Now hats off to Apple and all that, especially for keeping it all so secret for so long, although, they do rather seem to have screwed up the calling it the iPhone side of things. But the iPhone, for all its various innovatory features, is just another mobile phone with some add-ons. It is the embodiment of the claim that mobile phones are destined to swallow up all the other mobile objects people like to travel around with, such as music machines and digital cameras (the camera is the only iPhone add-on that really gets my attention), but this notion has been rattling around for some years now. The iPhone looks like being a smash hit precisely because so many people already understand why they want one.
However, of all the things I have read about on the gadget blogs this week, this item was the one that I found the most striking. This, for me, has the look and feel of a life changer:
In a patent filing Google has revealed that it is looking into entering the physical advertising industry. The patent filing itself alludes to placing adverts on billboards, with the primary innovation being that they’re interactive and connected to the internet – what, you didn’t really believe that Google would go in for static ads did you? The system apparently works by only advertising products that are available and in stock within stores in the local area. Stores will be able to buy advertising on these local electronic billboards through a similar system to how AdSense currently works: by logging into a computer and buying them. One of the key positive developments – at least for busy consumers — is that once stock of the product has run out, the advertised project on display automatically switches onto the next one that’s in stock. This whole project relies greatly on there being adequate infrastructure for Google to make a return (which obviously isn’t a problem when it comes to the internet), so this patent is far from an assurance that you’ll be seeing “Ads by Goooooogle” reminding you to pick up some milk from your local 7-Eleven any time soon.
Now once again, this is something that the sort of people who saw this coming saw coming. But, to me, when adverts change moment by moment in a semi-intelligent way, perhaps even in response to their understanding of who is in the area that they are pointing at, then that will be a very different world to the one I have become used to. It will look different and it will feel different. I got a small pre-echo of that look and that feeling recently when I first saw adverts on London tube escalators that changed from moment to moment. But that is just using flat screen technology to ring the changes with the posters, like they also do with mechanical rollers at bus stops or with bright lights at Piccadilly Circus, or in those adverts with long horizontal rotating Toblerone bars built into them, or with those big, single rotating Toblerone bars next to football games on the telly. What this Google notions signifies, I suppose, is that from now on, every billboard will start to behave like a giant computer screen.
And not just any old computer screen. I mean, suppose you put a camera in the billboard, and get someone – anyone in the world, anywhere in the world – to watch who is looking at the advert, and tell that person to change the advert accordingly. Add a microphone, so the bloke looking at the advert can bellow questions and complaints at the advert. And suppose the guy looking out of the advert can then fling up answers, perhaps funny answers. A whole new kind of virtuoso high achiever suddenly springs to life, like those eighties people in red braces who used to scream down the giant predecessors of the iPhone, and presumably still do, into little stick things next to their faces, or like the many new stars who are presumably even now being born on the world many new TV shopping channels.
Maybe I especially noticed this development because I like to wander about photo-ing architecture, and maybe, on my future wanderings, I will not like it very much. But it will be a whole new world, if only because it will, unlike, now, with those ever tinier mobile phones, be so very, very visible.
As one of engadget’s commenters says:
AHHHH 404 ERRORS IN REAL LIFE!!
Quickly followed, no doubt, with a big “BUGGER” from the operator, greeted with a round of applause. On second thoughts, it might all be rather good fun.
Ok, looks amazing, will support OSX, will support iTunes, will support Safari (the one browser that doesn’t support Samizdata very well, please note), all of which begs the main questions, thus:
1) Given Apple’s prior record on product launch (iPod nano screen failures and Apple’s refusal to even consider refund or replacement) what is the handset’s durability like and especially the screen?
2) What is the network aerial competence – will the phone work in a basement flat in London, for example where many, like the Motorola RAZR, don’t?
3) What about 3G and 3G2 support? Note to diehard UK Mac journalists that WiFi is NOT, repeat NOT 3G/G2 phone technology, despite what Apple UK says.
4) My iPod Nano is advertised as having an average battery life of 24 hours which I have never yet achieved – normal usage gives me less than 10 hours playback time. What does this bode for a device that combines mobile phone and Video iPod and is advertised as 5 hours talk/video/SMS and 16 hours music playback?
All of which is irrelevant in my case anyway – I always buy the latest Mac product, like a moth to a firestorm, and I undoubtedly will buy the iPhone and then spend some time blogging about how useless it is ….
The iPhone,
First thought – the 8GB one is 600 bucks!
Jesus Christ! 600 dollars Americano. It’ll be 400 quid here.
This is madness. Morgans are knocking out Lavod MP3 players with 20Gig drives for 93 quid! Given the tendancy of phones to bust, get stolen, tumble down drains, get wet and catch fire…
Touch screen on a mobile device that will live in a pocket with keys and loose change after the iPod Nano screen fiasco?
Internet connectivity – yeah, right, whatever. It’s not like that’s never been done before on a phone and it is generally excrable and expensive and kinda pointless seeing as a WiFi laptop and the nearest Starbucks are invariably in reach of all the young high-disposable income urbanites who would appear to be the iPhone’s target demographic.
Oh, and the 2 MP camera underwhelms totally.
Perhaps Apple are riding for a long overdue fall.
Smart Billboards.
They’ll almost certainly be used to advertise loss-leaders. I like the idea but I’m sure they’ll result in a few amusing affrays when hordes turn up at Tesco because they’ve seen they’re knocking out plasma TVs for a tenner and then discover there are only five at that price. As to the possibility of targeting individuals – well that will be bizarre and bloody annoying. Imagine if they hooked into the NHS database (assuming that ever works)… “Nick, you no longer have to suffer the embarrassment of genital warts…” Or they might be really smart and incorporate some of the advances in computer vision. What if they could identify just from how someone was dressed what demographic category (so beloved of the ad-men) you fit in. So when a Chav walks past they get told about the latest Burberry sale. Or not, perhaps.
I do not have genital warts.
I can’t wait till someone hacks into one of these…
Billboard porn.
Awesome.
Yes, that’s what I was thinking, just wait until the Billboard Liberation Front and other adbusters subscribers gets hold of them. Don’t expect porn so much as your typical anti-capitalist/anti-war Clichés (that is, assuming we haven’t given up trying to fight radical Islam by the time these are put into wide use).
Incredible! A ubiquitous display screen with a camera and microphone built in… what amazing things you could do with that? Book publishers with a sense of humour could advertise the latest reprint of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four by putting up big pictures of Big Brother in every public place, and with the camera and a bit of tracking software, have BB’s eyes follow you around the street! And it could exhort you with various newspeak slogans like “smoking double plus bad!” and “five-a-day!” and so on for a laugh!
And if anyone said anything disrespectful of the advertised product, the camera and microphone would alert marketing central who would put up a witty rebuttal. And then revoke your store loyalty card credits on the grounds of disloyalty…
You’re right, it is an amazing and potentially world-changing idea. But as you say, some chap back in 1948 who saw it all coming, saw it coming.
The “smart” billboard idea was depicted in the film, Minority Report.
In that example, as in Nick’s, there was some kind of database cross-ref going on, and the billboards “recognized” passersby. Very creepy.
I can’t wait for the first instance of someone’s nanny-cam being hacked and routed to a billboard.
iPhone: you can’t really do a feature count on Apple products to compare them to their competitors – the integration and elegance of the user interface is what makes or breaks them. Judging by Jobs’ MacWorld presentation, the iPhone looks a winner. I myself won’t buy it ’til the 2nd or 3rd generation, and then only if they release an API for the platform.
Ads: Google text ads I don’t mind, but the thought of seeing animated flash ads everywhere will probably drive me out of any urban area.
What I really want is a Nokia with a slightly better MP3 player, so I don’t need my Ipod any more and I can finally ditch this stupid Mac.
So you’re driving down the road, or doing something that requires close attention. Just the fact the billboard changes, or has moving images – – can anyone say lawsuit (against the advertising company)?
At one time we had a drive-in theater near a major highway (US Rte 9 & Garden State Parkway) showing x-rated movies. There were occasional accidents – –
We aren’t going to be forced to interact with these ads now, are we?
No sir, I am not amused…not amused at all…
In Thailand, the advertising on billboards have been replaced by computer screens in these 3-4 years. These gadgets are very popular in advertising agency business. If you drive along the street you will see advertising on computer screens along the way you drive!