IMT Special MWC, Jeff Snow bedacht met zijn team de buigbare motorola smartphone voor rond de pols (engels)

00:00 Ja, wat doet hij eigenlijk? Ja, uh ja, iets met tech. Ja, iets met tech. Iets met tech was aanwezig op het Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Hier komt de hele wereld bij elkaar om te praten over, maar vooral te kijken naar tech op de beursvloer. Wij namen daar een aantal hele leuke en interessante gesprekken op. Het gesprek met Jeff Snow, een senior productmanager die al twintig jaar voor Motorola werkt, is de eerste in deze drieluik. So, uh, I'm based in Chicago. Yeah. And, uh, I work in Motorola, uh, as a, uh, lead for software experience planning and software product management, and I also lead planning for innovation. Innovation. Yeah.

00:58 So, and that happens in a particular department, uh, within Motorola, right? It's in the product organization. Yeah. So it has special name, zero one... Ah, yes. So, uh, in Chicago, we have a innovation lab, and it's called 312 Labs. Why 312? Yeah. Well, uh, the area code of Chicago, actually, Chicago has grown, so there's many area codes, but the original area code of Chicago is 312. Okay, so that's a pretty decent name for a development, uh, uh, company. You also told me that you're, you've been with, uh, Motorola for a lot of years. Well, my, my journey with Motorola started as an intern- Yeah... uh, back 30 years ago. Yeah. So, yeah, I, I've seen, I've seen a lot through... A- and actually my, my tenure at Motorola has always been in mobile. Okay. So back when mobile was, you know, pre 3G even, uh- Yeah... yeah. Yeah.

01:50 So you experienced the first Razr. Yes. You experienced, uh, Google. Yes. With the, you know, with the, the phones you can, you could stick together with all the colors on the side and that- Yes. The Moto Mods, right? Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. It was awesome. I experienced that once too. It all sort of was really great. So you're in software development and innovation. I wanna zoom in on the in- i- uh, innovation a- as a whole. Um, wh- when we look at a smartphone nowadays, it's, it's just now it's, it's, it's a, a rectangle we call it in English, right? And there's not much innovative stuff to do, right? So we have the foldables, et cetera, et cetera. So, um, just from a, a holistic approach, do you think this, um, um, shape will ever, uh, change, like really change in, in, in, in smartphones, like 20 years from now?

02:40 Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think e- even over the last couple years we've seen foldable smartphones make a comeback, but they have foldable screens. Yeah. They're not the flip phones that we used to know, and they're, they're starting to catch on. They're catching on because in the beginning days there was some reluctance around adopting new tech and the, the phones weren't really up to par in terms of battery life, like the slab phones, and now they're at parity. And so I think people are feeling more comfortable with the robustness and feeling like there's no compromise. And I think one of the key enablers with these foldable smartphones is that they use a plastic OLED screen. And so I think what we can do with screens that can fold or, you know, bend, uh, is, you know, the sky's the limits. Yeah.

03:30 And so I think especially as you look at ecosystems where people are relying more on things on their wrist, things on their body, as well as the phone, um, I think there's plenty of opportunity to s- see how you can use such components that are critical, like a screen, and have them adapt to different lifestyles. And one of the examples of that i- that we have out on the show floor here at MWC is what we call the adaptable display proof of concept, which is, you know, fully bendable. It's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a great one. It's a, it's a kind of fashionable thing, right? It, it's, it's, it's you can wear it as a, a wristwatch or, or smartphone. You can put it on the table just to watch, like, the, the content on it. You can do lots of things of it.

04:12 Um, is this something that came out of your area of expertise or your, your department, your people and, and, and, and, and how much time does it take to get from a concept to a, to a, uh, a workable prototype? Yeah, great question. So, you know, 312 Labs is formed out of, uh, you know, engineers and designers, uh, a- who, who have built products end to end, you know, intended for commercialization. And the development life, development time for a standard product, smartphone device is, you know, somewhere around nine to 12 months. Uh, but you have to be committed at the beginning of it to which components you're gonna use and which technologies you will ship- Yeah... 'cause you have to go into mass production.

04:56 The, the, the resources now within 312 Labs, we've redeployed them with a different intent in mind, which is look out 18 to 24 months and try to deploy technologies in a fast turnaround proof of concept. Mm-hmm. Let's, let's, uh, really understand the hardware and the software and the user, uh, experience to really understand, answer questions about how ear- how soon can we commercialize such technologies. Yeah. And so the ti- the turnaround time for a product, like this adaptable display that you've seen, was really quite short. So, you know, and we, as you'll notice, it's, it doesn't have all the components that you might see in a smartphone- Mm-hmm... because we were solving for one part of the proof of concept, which is around the display- Yeah... and how we- Yeah... incorporate different components that bend.

05:48 Uh, and so we didn't, we weren't concerned so much with things like camera, for instance. So that allows us to say, "Focus on what are we trying to prove out," and then see how we commercialize it. So I can see this as a studied subject, something, "Okay, we're going to do this and see how this turns out and, and, and how people react to it so we can learn from it and then maybe, maybe use it in other projects or, or, uh, other, other things." W- because last year we had the rollable one, which I-I adored. I, I miss that one over here because it was, it was really smooth and it was, you know, as I, I hold it, I did held it in my hands, and it was a, a working smartphone, was like really great. But that...

06:26 Is this something-- I don't see it here, of course, it's still accessories, but is this something that also helped develop, uh, developing this, uh, prototype with the, the adaptable sc- display? Yes, it did actually. The, the, the rollable display was a predecessor to this adaptable display that we built in, uh, both using plastic OLED screens, just in different ways, and actually different software experiences adapting to, you know, h- the form and how you would, how you would apply that device. Yeah. So and now I'm curious, so how, how this is work? So you're kind of, uh, sp- uh, you throw spaghetti to the wall and see what sticks, guys, because you are developing, like, new concepts. How does this start?

07:03 Is there's an idea from the organization or an idea from the market or, you know, people are asking for this and that and, and then you're going to think about how as Motorola or as, as, as the lab can we do, can we do this? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, we're actually... The way we structure it, we don't try to, uh, narrow innovation ideas too much. We, we say, "Here's some broad areas that we have interest in-" Yeah... "and, and in the long game where we see things being, you know, opportunity for innovation." And one area is new form factors, which the rollable and adaptable display fall into. And so, you know, we look at new form factors, but we also look at another category which is innovative materials, um, and mechanical components.

07:47 And so we try to bring ideas together and give, give the engineers freedom to, you know, look out and see, not even in the mobile space, but in adjacent industries, you know, areas that we can pull in. And so, um, you know, not, not too much direction in the beginning. Just it starts with an idea, and then we say, "That's a good one. Let's keep going with it." Okay. And so, so I guess you have guys who are very good in, in thinking how this technically will work. They can make drawings. So how's the, the, the, the, the mechanical process? Do you have factories, like, abroad that, that will pr-produce, like, your first- You know, uh, m- in, in this example of the adaptable display is a good one because, um, you know,

08:30 there, there's no such thing as, uh, segmented batteries for instance, or a PCB that's segmented, right? Yeah. Uh, and so we, we, we need to do that and iterate on that before the final product. So we don't, we don't send things overseas to produce. We, we produce low quantities, but locally. Yeah. Uh, and then- Okay... yeah, and so we get that all done in the 312 labs in Chicago. Okay, that's cool. So you, you can do things really quick and just look over their shoulder to see if that is happening what you want, right? Exactly. Right. Okay, cool. So, um, um, is there... D- did you have any, like, positive surprises with this prototype? So you made it and it came out of the lab, and maybe you gave it to, to, two wonderful women also in the room and said, you know, "Play with it."

09:15 And did they come with, like, crazy thoughts, "Ah, I didn't think about that. You can do..." Maybe, maybe they use it as a cooking w- a cooking clock, you know, for the eggs. Uh-huh. Uh, is there anything that you learned from putting it out there, out of the labs into the real world? Yeah. You know, I, for example, one thing. So we, we used, we used a display that we, we had available and it's a, it's a shape of a standard smartphone. Yeah. And it's, you know, 6.9 inch screen. And, uh, you know, we were looking at different ways to apply this device. It could be, you know, standing on your tabletop. It could be a standard smartphone, or it could wrap around your wrist or maybe even, you know, wrap around a bike- Yeah... handlebar. Yeah. Uh, when, you know, when we started in, in many of these,

10:02 uh, proof of concepts that we build, we actually test with real users. It's not just us sitting here thinking about did it, did it do what we wanted it to do. We actually put it in the hands of users and say, "What do you think about this for these different scenarios?" And- Okay, cool... and, uh, especially one of the things we took away from this was that standard display size that we use isn't really perfect for the wrist. Mm-hmm. You know, if you think about the next generation smartwatch. Yeah. Right? The... One of the limitations of smartwatches is it's great, they're connected. You can pay with them, but the screen is fairly limited, right? And it's because of the size- Yeah... and the shape- Yeah... for the most part.

10:41 But if you could get something that could wrap around your wrist that gives you more real estate- For sure... then all of a sudden it could really replace your smartphone in many more occasions. And so what we learned is that as for most people, it's, it's a bit wide at least. And so I think, you know, then that got us thinking about how else would we conceive of a display, you know, if we built it from scratch to, to be wrist-worn. So y- you said replacing the smartphone. Is this the holy grail of every Jeff in every company doing this stuff to think of something that, you know, makes the, the smartphone, uh, you know, not important anymore? Yeah. I, I don't think... My view is that, um, in the future people have many connected devices. You know, we see that with just phones and smartwatches today. Uh, we, we can bring connectivity to many other devices and, um,

11:35 you know, I think everybody's still gonna need a smartphone. Yeah. That's, that's not gonna go away for quite a while. And, and but they may not need to use a smartphone for everything. So today you might think of the s- smartphone as more of a Swiss Army knife. Yeah. Uh, in the future, maybe it's more, "This is my go-to device when I'm on the go for consumption and connectivity," but, you know, there are other devices that I might use for other occasions. Okay, cool. So you also mentioned software, which is, like, there's more emphasis on software at the moment because, you know, with all the developments in, in AI and, and, and whatever. So, how hard is that to, one, keep up with the developments now? L- last, you know, you know, G- ChatGPT and OpenAI, it's like, it's like-Bonkers how fast it goes. And how do you keep

12:26 the bad stuff out of the door and the good stuff in? Because, you know, there's so much happening that maybe some people around you say, Jeff, put it in the phone because we can't sell it like this. How do you manage this kind of gatekeeping? Yeah, no, it's actually a really exciting time in the industry. And, you know, I've been in the industry for 30 years, as you know now. But it's, you know, it's actually exciting a lot of people, you know, and a lot of my peers because things are moving so fast, very fast. And the opportunities to harness those types of capabilities into a better user experience through the phone are like there's tons of potential. Yeah. And but things are changing all the time.

13:12 And you want to keep up because, you know, things become better and more efficient. And especially as you think about bringing that into the smartphone, efficiency is imperative for things that you want to process locally. Yeah. Can you see it happen? We are talking here about future things that, you know, that the smartphone becomes like a smartphone as a service type of thing so that you have this a screen and a battery and that everything is in the cloud. Because then as a company, you can adapt to the developments much faster. Is this something you can imagine happening like cloud computing, et cetera? Yeah, you know, I mean, if you think about the smartphone today, almost everything that you're interacting with is processed in the cloud. So, you know, I think the thing that's holding that back is the OSs, right?

14:04 And the ecosystems around the app stores for those devices are, you know, really creating the necessity of things being stored locally, right? Otherwise, a lot of the apps are just, you know, calling APIs to the cloud. Okay, cool. So we've been talking about all the futuristic stuff. And I have two more questions for you. Because as you told us, you're already along with Motorola. So first, I want to know what was your most favorite Motorola phone? You know, was it the Razr? No, actually, I would have to say my most favorite phone was a product that we did that was really in the China market. And many consumers may not recall it because it was really focused on the China market. But it was way ahead of its time. It was called Ming. Never heard of it.

14:55 And so this was a touchscreen tablet phone that we sold millions of in China. And we were number one share position in China way before Razr, way before iPhone, way before smartphones. And it was running Linux. So it was way ahead of its time in terms of user interface, operating system. It's just, you know, and it was a very successful product at the time. Oh, it was crazy times. And then the last question, and that's the hardest one. So try to take me to the future. So on how will it be in like 30 years? You got to think about that. In your position, you need to think about the future. Are we more like ambient computing? Is AI really going to be that big? How do you see that? Oh, I don't think, I think there's almost infinite potential with what AI can do. And you mentioned ambient computing.

15:51 I think now, you know, headworn technology is making quite a lot of advancements. And it's just, you know, the comfort isn't quite there. The price points aren't quite there. But the technologies are, they're getting there, right? Now, what's needed is how do you make those headworn displays really useful? And I think having AI and having the capability of, you know, surfacing the content you need and being able to interact with it is super exciting. I think, I don't think that's 30 years away. I think that's within 10 years for sure. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay, cool. Well, Jeff, thank you very much. I think you have a wonderful job at a wonderful brand. Thank you for your time. No problem. Thank you.

16:33 Iets met Tech wordt gemaakt door Ruud Karis en Dimitri Vleugel. De productie is in handen van Klets.media. Heb je tips of wil je reageren? Ga dan naar Instagram of mail naar [email protected].