Nüvifone: Garmin's products are not just for navigation any more

I've been meaning to write for a while now about Garmin's new iPhone competitor, the nuvifone. Gizmodo reminded me about that today by posting the above Garmin marketing video.

The video tries to show how hip and cool is could be to combine navigation and communication in one device without the panache of the iPhone commercials. As concept ads go, it's really not bad. While they try to hit far too many points in a single video (tip to Garmin: next time try making a single point in each video. See the iPhone ads for examples), Garmin is actually emphasizing user benefits instead of just features in their marketing. Garmin gets it; consumers have to be excited about the device for it to succeed.

But I find myself agreeing with John Gruber who noted the sniff of vapor in Garmin's Web marketing materials. The screen shots in the nuviphone media gallery sport far more PhotoShop skill than anything real, since I find it unlikely the nuviphone is going to sport a 793x1400 pixel screen. And unlike the iPhone, no one has actually seen one of these devices in operation. I'm hoping some of my colleagues will see one at 3GSM in Barcelona next week, but I'm willing to bet Garmin will be showing mockups instead of operating phones behind glass as Apple did at its January 2007 launch.

But all that said, I have to agree with one of the commenters on Gizmodo: isn't it interesting that significant mobile device innovation is coming from manufacturers who aren't traditional cell phone makers?

Notes From Anywhere

Welcome to Anywhere™. That's the theme we at Yankee Group are currently using to describe our research into how we will communicate with anyone, anywhere, and on any device. It's a vision, not a reality yet. But it is this vision that shapes how we look at the technology landscape today -- and it informs the changes we see on the horizon. My name is Carl Howe, and my day job is Director, Enterprise Software Research, at Yankee Group on the 27th floor of the Prudential Tower in Boston. Read my bio if you want more background, but I spent the first 18 years of my career in Internet research and development, while I've been a professional technology and marketing analyst the last 10 years or so. I spent the last three years or so writing a blog over at Blackfriars Marketing, where my business partner Joe continues helping technology and other companies communicate better. But nowadays, I spend a lot of time in Anywhere. I commute a couple hours a day, and I travel all over the world, both for business and pleasure. I use a Macintosh PowerBook at work in a PC-focused environment, and I do the same from the gaggle of computers in my house. I read my email, check traffic, and browse the Web on my iPhone pretty much everywhere I go. I work in Anywhere just as much as I work at work. This blog is my unedited personal journal as I move around my personal Anywhere world. It's not an official publication of Yankee Group nor does it reflect the official positions of my employer, but it will include my viewpoints and counterpoints on some of those topics and positions. The blog will allow me to put out opinions on events in the news long before Yankee Group formulates an official view or publishes an analysis -- that means we're not always going to agree. Take it all as one person's opinion, not a corporate position. To those of you who come here after reading my work at Blackfriars Marketing, you'll find many of the topics I write about familiar, but I hope you will see a somewhat more mobile focus. All that said, I reserve the right to go off-topic periodically; this is a blog, after all. But best of all, this blog, unlike my Blackfriars one, should be able to support features that many people have requested over the years like in-line comments and perhaps some widgets. I'll know more as I get into it. So if you like this new focus, update your newsreaders and bookmarks because this is where I intend to spend my blogging time from now on. I hope you enjoy my notes from Anywhere.