One of the bigger stories from last week’s CES was the Ultrabook. Whether or not you agree with the oft-repeated dialog that Ultrabooks are merely Macbook Air copies — and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – you probably feel it’s a good thing that the PC makers are trying hard to make better products.  Although I’m all for sharp design, lower weight, instant on etc, my own personal belief is that the PC world is somewhat missing the point with the current emphasis of the Ultrabook. The big picture isn’t about competing with Macs, it’s about the mass transition to mobile and how that affects the PC industry as a whole.

So, what’s my issue?  I think that the least important difference between notebooks and today’s mobile devices is weight, design, and instant on. Those are all things that the PC industry should have been working on anyway.  Even touch, which isn’t in evidence in the current crop of Ultrabooks but shows up in the roadmap, isn’t such as big of a factor given the rich interface of the PC.  No, to me the biggest issue is around connectivity and the constant availability of the network.

Think about it. Your smartphone is constantly available to add value, whether it’s in your hand or nestled in your pocket or bag.  Obviously it can announce a caller, but just as important it can perform background tasks such as syncing email, and it can alert you with reminders and notifications from the network.  Your notebook, on the other hand, undergoes a digital frontal lobotomy and sinks into a network isolation chamber as soon as you close the lid or move away from a WiFi connection.  Bridging the gap between the PC of today and the mobile world is much more about remaining useful, and relevant while we’re, well, mobile.

I want my next notebook to rest, but not sleep, and to be able to get me on the network automatically. It’s clear that most people don’t want to buy a cellular plan for their PC, but how about utilizing the enormous public WiFi network that’s already ubiquitous? That way I won’t be connected 100% of the time, but often enough as I walk down the street, grab a coffee, sit in the lobby of my hotel or hang out in the airport.  With a network connection my notebook can meet a smartphone halfway.  That’s an exciting step function into the mobile world and a compelling vision for all manner of devices which otherwise wouldn’t enjoy full time cellular connectivity.  That’s the Ultrabook I want to see!

Black Friday has come and gone.  As usual, the yearly craziness ensues such as all night shopping sprees, near-riots at retailers, and sadly, the occasional assault for merchandise or in this year’s case, pepper spray attacks.  Now, the craziness will only continue as Chanukah and Christmas are upon us.

Here at Devicescape we took it upon ourselves to analyze Wi-Fi usage and trends that emerged across our network during this year’s Black Friday frenzy. Since our virtual Wi-Fi network is made up of publically accessible Wi-Fi hotspots found around the world in places such as cafes, department stores, restaurants, hotels and airports to random shops that offer Wi-Fi as an amenity to their customers, we are able to track activity and connections within these available Wi-Fi network environments.

What did we find?

The obvious insight was that because of our millions of users, connections to in-store Wi-Fi spiked dramatically versus the week before.

While the rise in connectivity is interesting, what gets my attention are the stores that offer some type of Wi-Fi service.  Stores like Macy’s, Nordstrom’s and Barnes and Nobles bubbled up to the top of our network location list.

So is it a surprise that these stores offer this kind of value add to their customers?

For the average consumer, it probably is a surprise. But when you think about it some more, it shouldn’t be.  Most stores already have the infrastructure to handle Wi-Fi which is most likely for their internal business needs.  Think about it.  When you see sales or stock associates with wireless handheld scanners, headsets, etc., that should be a clear sign that the technical infrastructure is in place.  All it takes is a decision by someone within corporate to “flip a switch” and turn on the guest Wi-Fi.

What is the benefit to the retailer and the consumer if in-store Wi-Fi is switched on?

For the retailer, it’s a few things.  Aside from business efficiencies, it keeps customers in the stores.  How many times have you walked in a large department store only to find that it’s a black hole where you get no cell service, email or data?  Connecting to the Wi-Fi alleviates this and keeps consumers shopping in their walls without having to leave to check their phone for messages and such.  The future value will eventually be in mobile advertising and incentives.  I wouldn’t be surprised if sometime in the near-term, it will be common place for a retailer to text a shopper walking through their doors with a coupon or promotional offering due to triggering the in-store Wi-Fi with their phone.

The benefit to consumers will be basic connectivity.  The ability to communicate through whatever means as well as the ability to web browse on their phone would be an added value.  Consumers can engage in product comparisons, price checking and potentially sharing deals via social media.

Below are a few retailers that popped up in our network location list whose in-store connectivity spiked on Black Friday:

• Macy’s in store Wi-Fi usage increased over 500% on Black Friday
• Nordstrom saw a 175% jump in connectivity
• Staples in-store connectivity grew 58%
• Barnes & Noble in-store Wi-Fi connections grew by 50%

A couple other interesting facts were that Home Depot displayed no significant change in connectivity even though they were promoting Black Friday deals.  Separately, Best Buy showed up for the first time in our network which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.  Shoppers trying to satiate their electronics fix would make Best Buy an obvious retailer to visit.

What does all this mean?  Aside from the simple fact that our millions of users aren’t always shopping online, these increases show the impact of overall foot traffic at these various large retailers.  More importantly, it shows that Wi-Fi isn’t just some coffee shop value add, it’s available almost everywhere we go as consumers.  Don’t be surprised if you head to your local mall and you automatically connect to a store’s Wi-Fi network.  For you it means continuous call and data connectivity.  For the retailer, it means customer retention and more sales.  For the wireless operator, it means they better get their affairs in order when it comes to offload strategy because the potential in costs savings is theirs for the taking if they leverage all of the available Wi-Fi at their disposal.  The major retailers that showed up on our network locations list is a clear indicator that it’s pervasive and more common than we tend to believe.    This list, as well as the connections that support it, will only continue to grow.

As part of our continuing goal to improve Easy WiFi we’re running a survey.   If you’re a user of the Easy WiFi app on your device, or the web portal at easywifi.com, this is a good chance to tell us what you think!

The survey is brief and should take 5 minutes or less to complete.  We’ll post the results here in early March, but you can be assured we’ll take your input to heart.

Click here to access the survey!

Many thanks in advance,

Dave

The Easy Wi-Fi multi network application (white icon) is temporarily unavailable in the Apple App Store.    It will be restored on or around October 20th.

So, why is it unavailable?  Well, we’re working on a big new release, version 4.  Due to the odd behavior of the App Store we can’t have the old version available while we also have a newer version with restricted availability.  We’re not quite ready for prime time on the new app so we want to get it out to our partners and friends who will check it out and give us great suggestions.  This forces us to halt broad availability and control access via Apple’s “promo codes.”

Sorry for the delay.  Meantime you could use another version of Easy Wi-Fi (they’re all extensible to any hotspot provider).

What does version 4 contain?  Well, it’s a secret!  But we’re quite excited as it adds a revolutionary capability that many of you have asked for.  Here’s a graphic from the app to tickle your imagination.  Can you guess?

Want to be among the select reviewers of the new app?  Send us an email request.  We have 10 promo codes available and we’ll allocate them based on the inventiveness of your guess on what’s in version 4 and the sincerity of your plea

Having a user base in excess of one million enthusiastic members gives us a great opportunity to query the habits, desires, and problems facing Wi-Fi users today.  With that in mind, we’ve decided to conduct regular surveys of our membership, where we can ask insightful questions of this leading-edge community.  We plan to conduct the survey quarterly, and publish the results in a piece of original research that we call “The Devicescape Wi-Fi Report”.  Catchy huh?

We conducted our first survey in January and have now published the first Devicescape Wi-Fi report for Q1, 2009.  Some of the things we learned were quite surprising, while others simply confirmed what we already knew.  Here’s a sample of what we learned:

• Most users want Muni Wi-Fi and (surprise!) they’d be willing to pay for it like a utility
• Most users prefer Wi-Fi to 3G and want it built into all phones and bundled with cellular plans
• People like iPhone Wi-Fi best while on the road (no surprise!)

Now that the first one is done, we’re working hard on the Q2 report.  We plan on probing more deeply and hope to invite our friends in the industry to participate through crafting good questions and help promote Wi-Fi issues exposed in the report.  Anyone can make use of the Report, provided that they refer back to Devicescape and don’t sell the data.

If you’re interested in reading more, check out the Devicescape Wi-Fi report at devicescape.com/wifi_report …and do get in touch if you’re interested in participating in future reports.

Wanted to keep you all posted that we’re working hard on an official release of Devicescape for Apple’s App Store.  All being well this will make it out there in the very near future.  The exact acceptance process and timeline is a little bit unclear.

I’m very excited about the new application as it’s much improved, with plenty of handy new features which improve usability.  The team here has done a very nice job.  The current limitations of Apple’s SDK don’t allow us to work in the background so you need to start the application and hit “login”.  Still, that’s a lot nicer than wrangling with Safari and tedious login pages.

Many thanks to the hundreds of thousands of you with the current “hacked” version, for your enthusiasm and patience.   Watch this space!

Sorry I didn’t get an announcement up for this ahead of time, but we presented Devicescape last night at November’s SF New “Mobile” Tech, at the Mighty last night.

I’d like to extend our thanks to Myles for organising the event, despite being no more than a few days away from becoming a father, and also to all the folks in the audience who already had Devicescape installed on their iPhones, iPod touches, Nokia phones, tablets and other mobile devices. It was amazing to see people hold up iPhones/iPods with the Devicescape UI open when I asked how many had Wi-Fi enabled mobile devices!

Also want to mention my co-presenters for the night:

• Veeker 2.0: Rodger Raderman, Co-Founder
• Mosio: Noel Chandler, Co-Founder
• Pazap: Dominic Son, Founder
• Waterfall Mobile: Matthew Silk, EVP

It was great to see so many folks embracing mobile, something that Devicescape is committed to making simpler for people to use everyday, everywhere.

Although this version doesn’t contain Wi-Fi (so it is less interesting for Devicescape members), the mass market version due out later this year will include Wi-Fi support.

The platform, based on the open source community project called OpenMoko. OpenMoko is a very complete Linux based environment for mobile phones, and while the Neo is the reference there is also work to get it running on other mobile phone platforms.

Devicescape users who are attending the Linux World 2007 show in San Francisco can add the show’s free hotspot network to their ‘My WiFi’ list to have their devices connect automatically.

No need to see that captive portal just to sync your email, or to make that VoIP call home. I’ve tested it on my laptop (running Linux of course since this is Linux World), and my Nokia N95 mobile. Check out my history below, and please leave a comment if you use the service while you’re at the show.

While a lot of the blogging today has been around the Apple announcements this morning, I wanted to post something about the Linux World show, happening this week in San Francisco. I’m sitting at the edge of the show floor right now, having completed a first pass across the floor, and I thought I’d share the things that caught my attention.

(more…)