Are you smarter than your smart phone?

I lost my Iphone at LAX a week or so ago. This is a story of what followed.

I was rushing to catch a red-eye flight to Washington D.C and during the security process the unthinkable happened. My smartphone was either misplaced or stolen. And I boarded the aircraft feeling vulnerable, exposed, frightened, and very lonely staring at the headrest in front of me in complete disbelief. Because a smart phone is not just a phone anymore. It’s your diary, your Rolodex, your appointments, your GPS, your entertainment, your alarm clock, your picture album, your flashlight, your weather guage, your computer, your beacon, and your best friend. And mine was gone. Forever. Life without my smartphone was unimaginable – or so it then seemed.

The first impact of being alone on that plane was that I slept. Right through the flight. Probably the first time in years. No emails, no angry birds, no hungry sharks, no Powerpoint, and no documents to look at. Wow. This didn’t seem so bad after all.

The next order of things was to try to retrieve it. Calling LAX at 6.00 am to find a lost phone is like using a Ouija board to contact a deceased relative. At least, the Ouija board gives you options. The lady at the LAX lost-and-found unit was very lost herself. And no one had claimed her in 15 years. That conversation was predictably short.

Now I had to find a way to “remote wipe” my phone. That takes courage. Like pulling the plug on an ailing dog. Unfortunately, I had not installed the “Mobile Me” service on my Iphone. The Apple rep had the same demeanour as the insurance rep who reminds you that you should have bought the flood insurance BEFORE the flood. However, thanks to some very bright people around me I was able to wipe it. Or at least I hope I did.

Once I reached my conference in D.C my local IT folks gave me a temporary replacement flip-phone phone, while they ordered a new Iphone for me. Wow – a flip phone is a phone that works like a phone. Not very “smart” but very effective. I was reminded of the days, 100 years ago or so it now seemed, when all you had to do to make a call was to dial the numbers and press a green button. No more browsing through contacts, using softkey pads with buttons thinner than your fingers, routed through GPS’ devices to just make a call. Plus, I used a Windows 7 phone that Microsoft had recently gifted me for trial purposes connected to a Wi Fi for all other things such as email and internet.

And Voila!! My life was back to normal in minutes. All my emails were intact. My calendars current. My contacts in order. My Facebook accessible. My twitter tweets a tweeting. My appointments buzzing. The Internet browsing. Exactly like my Iphone! And that’s because all my content was in the Cloud and very little was lost with the Iphone device. And then reality hit me!! And that’s the point of my post…………………

The smartphone is a commodity…the content on the smartphone is smart not the device. And this data is in the Cloud. Safe from all the earth people at LAX. Magically, within 2 days my loyalty shifted from the Iphone to the Windows 7 phone and Apple almost lost a customer overnight for no fault of theirs, but for my own carelesness.

Applications maketh the device and content maketh the application. The holy grail of devices is content not the device. That’s why equipment manufacturers are so keen on locking your content in. Loyalty to the device is the same a prom queen has to her prom date after an hour at the prom dance. I was willing to give up all the months of love and adulation for the Iphone in 48 hours when the Windows 7 phone essentially did the same things - and in many ways better. If it wasnt for our corporate policy to be on Iphones I would have switched in a heart beat.

There is a lesson in here for all of us. Identify your value chain carefully and build a golden fence around the “real” intellectual property. Often times it won’t be what you think it is. And thats why Netflix raised prices on DVDs because to them the DVD is just a cost. The content is the movie.

I am now reunited with a new Iphone and the Windows 7 phone is a backup again, back in my bag. I have installed Mobile Me and can track my phone remotely. But I am a little more wiser now. And a lot more smarter than my smartphone.

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