FIRST VIDEO CALL

It was just 10 years back when Steve Jobs was on stage and he announced to the world about the possibility of doing a video call on an iphone 4 through FaceTime. 

He then went and demonstrated it by doing a live call. 

Today, 10 years later, a video call just seems like a part of our normal lives and we take it for granted. It has just been here for a decade. That is the power and speed of technology. 

A decade down the line, we might reflect on something else that would become a part of our normal lives. But for now, enjoy this video from the archives that will show you how the vision of a man brought revolution in the lives of all.

Video Credit: CNET

2019: TOP 100 BRANDS

The annual list of the top 100 brands by Interbrand is out. As expected, #technology and electronic companies occupy more than half of the top 10 spots. 

While the usual suspects are all there, there are quite a few surprises this year: 1. #Facebook has dropped out of the Top 10 for the first time, since it first entered the Top 10 ranks!
2. There are three new entrants to the list: LinkedIn, Uber and Dell Technologies 
3. The Walt Disney Company enters the Top 10 for the first time since its 96 year history!
4. When compared to 2001, the year this list was published for the first time, only 31 brands remain in the Top 100!
5. There is only one #FMCG in the Top 10.
6. #Apple at first rank is valued at $ 234 Bn. while Prada at 100th rank is valued at $ 4.8 Bn.

There are some key lessons here: 

1. A success today is no guarantee of success tomorrow, unless you show results consistently. 

2. Persistence pays, as seen for Disney.

3. Entering into this list is the first step to the door of growth and brand equity. Staying there is an annual challenge.

NEVER OFFLINE!

When the Apple watch was launched in 2015, the #Time magazine had a very eye-catching cover on their digital edition with statistics that said that 50 million Americans are never offline. Wearable #technology was expected to boom across markets and the numbers expected to rise with every decade. Since then, many other big and small companies have joined the bandwagon with their own versions of #digital watches. But wearables also ask you to give up control. Your phone starts telling you what you should and shouldn’t eat and how far you should run. It gets in between you and your body and mediates that relationship. Wearables also make your physical self visible to the virtual world in the form of information, just like any other device. 

I am wondering, by 2020, how would the numbers look like globally for people who are never offline.

Are you one of them?

GALAXY NOTE 10: TAKING MOBILE TO THE NEXT LEVEL

The battle for market dominance in the #mobile business continues between #Samsung and #Apple, and with each launch, the intensity heats up further. Yesterday, Samsung introduced its new range of #Galaxy Note 10 and 10+ phones. As expected,the phone comes packed with a host of new features. Some of the interesting ones that caught my eye are:

1. The ability of the S Pen to turn writing into text and save as a PDF or a Word file so that notes can be sent directly after a meeting. 
2. Touch free gesture control from the S Pen, allowing you to even take photos, zoom in or out, change the mode and much more. 
3. Optimized gaming experience customized to each gamer. 
4. Camera that adjusts the blur in videos. 
5. 3D Scanner and Augmented Reality to make your videos even more interactive and engaging. 
6. One Terabyte of memory space, equal to a laptop. 
7. Collaboration between Samsung and #Microsoft to allow a seamless experience and integration between the phone and computer. In fact, Satya Nadella himself came on stage yesterday at the Samsung event to announce this collaboration. 

Your move Apple?

Check out the complete video below to know all the details. 

Video Credit: Samsung YouTube Channel

                  #technology #future #kunalviews #connected #devices #phones #innovation

TODAY AT APPLE

When you are #Apple, you are not in the business of selling products, you are in the business of selling an experience. The question is that once you have opened hundreds of stores all around the world, how do you keep generating footfalls continuously, not only from your existing customers but also from your potential customers? By offering them new experiences in the retail stores! 'Today at Apple' is a series of creative and educational programs that take place at the Apple stores, designed to inspire customers to learn new skills and take their passions further. Launched in 2017, this simple yet effective activation strategy ensures that people keep coming back to the stores to learn, to play and to form a stronger emotional bond with Apple, which is the ultimate goal of every brand. This case study won the Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix at #CannesLions last year.

                                    #activation #brand #marketing #retail #strategy #Cannes

STEVE JOBS - RIP

It is a very awkward feeling when you wake up to the news of the death of a person you admire. You want to tell yourself that this doesn’t seem to be true. You switch channels to confirm the veracity of the news. Today morning, something similar happened to me when I heard the news channels flashing the message ‘Steve Jobs dies’. I immediately tuned in to some of the international channels to see what people are saying across the world on such shocking news.

I discovered more about him than what I knew. Steve Jobs had 332 patents to his name so while we may know about only 10 - 12 of these, he had worked on a number of other ideas. Even the stair case design in the Apple headquarters was designed by Steve Jobs and he had a patent on that design. That was the genius that Steve Jobs was.

The first product of Steve Jobs that I experienced was the Ipod. This was years back but it made me marvel at the style and design of the product. It just changed the way we heard our music – no buttons, no CDs, cool earphones. I read about the man behind this product and discovered a lot about Steve Jobs. He had founded Apple along with Steve Wozniak. The Apple ads of 1984 clearly belong in the cult category. Steve was asked to leave the company that he had founded after a few years but that did not stop him in doing some amazing work with Pixar and no one could miss out on his caliber and hence Apple got him back to take charge.

With the launch of the iPhone, Steve Jobs changed the game and gave consumers an experience that they had not experienced before. No other company can claim to have a product for which people stay up through the night across the world to see the launch and then line up outside stores to be the first ones to get their hands on that product. When one thought that this is the best that is possible, Steve would surprise everyone by coming out with the next level of the iPhone and during his reign, Apple gave us iPhone 1, 2 , 3 and 4.

As if all of this was not enough, Steve Jobs amazed the world with the launch of iPad that made everyone sit and notice and a tablet revolution was born. Another product that caught my attention due to its sleek design and style and I also became one of the iPad owners.

Steve Jobs had said once ‘It is not the job of the consumer to know what he wants’ – a statement that would have been poo poohed by regular marketers but Steve was different and he proved his statement by giving products that consumers would never be able to ask for.

Some of his other famous quotes were:

• ‘Stay hungry, stay foolish’
• "Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”
• “We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them.”

The greatness of Steve Jobs comes across even when even rivals talk great things about him. Bill Gates tweeted– ‘Steve Jobs was a brilliant person and it was an insanely great honour to work with him’. Google has a link on their home page for Steve Jobs that takes you directly to the website of Apple, whose home page is a dedication to Steve Jobs.

While the online world is abuzz with tributes to Steve Jobs, I really thought that these two statements sum up the mood of all:

• ‘Steve Jobs logged into the world in 1955 and logged out in 2011 but human kind will never be able to delete him’
• ‘Some great people are remembered for a decade. A person like Steve Jobs will be remembered for centuries to come’ –  Rajiv Makhni

Steve Jobs was a man who was far away from thousands of us, a man we had never met personally but had heard and read so much about him that we always felt that we knew him personally as he understood what all of us wanted, he knew what it was to come out with a product that would make lives cool for people across the world.

Once again, I would like to thank Steve Jobs on behalf of each and every one who has been touched by his genius and I hope that your soul rests in peace as you have done outstanding work in this world, which lot of people will look upto and get inspired. 

RIP Steve