The key mobile trends emerging from CES 2011

At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, it’s all about mobile — and mostly about Android. Strictly speaking, that’s not true; there were also plenty of HDTVs, stereo speakers, and other home entertainment wares on display, but the main events have all been about mobile. Naturally, every demo is accompanied by breathless praise by executives of their own “groundbreaking” products — but beyond the hype, is there anything really important coming out of CES?

Yes, there are plenty of products whose chief innovation is a cosmetic change, but in fact CES 2011’s mobile parade reveals key developments for both users and businesses to track in the coming year. After the Las Vegas Convention Center empties out this weekend and everyone returns home, here’s what will continue to matter.

The post-PC era begins in earnest Last summer, I suggested that smartphones would ultimately replace desktop PCs for most users, with mobile devices being the computer you always carried, one that you would wirelessly dock to other hardware when you needed to use a large screen, keyboard, mouse, or other resources. This week, Motorola Mobility announced the Atrix, an Android smartphone expected to ship this spring, that can dock to a “dumb” laptop, essentially converting itself into a netbook.

“Consumers are increasingly using smartphones as their primary digital screens,” says Bill Ogle, chief marketing officer at Motorola Mobility. He’s right — the iPad showed the way, but this is the first concrete step from outside the world of Steve Jobs that is moving us in this direction.

We’ll see more post-PC developments this year. Google’s cloud-only Chrome OS, now in public beta through the Cr-48 “Chromebook,” is expected this summer. It may be accompanied by Research in Motion’s PlayBook, a small tablet that works on its own via Wi-Fi but also uses BlackBerrys as a 3G tether and presumably will have deeper integration with RIM’s smartphones. Then we’ll see the slew of Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” tablets meant to rival the iPad, as well as the next-gen iPad 2 widely expected this spring. Apple’s Steve Jobs has suggested an eventual merger of the Mac OS X and iOS, in what I suspect is the endpoint of his vision of the end of the traditional PC era.

All of these devices, despite their different implementations, have a common vision: People are moving away from traditional PCs and laptops to mobile hardware such as iPads, other tablets, and perhaps thin-client laptops like the Chromebooks.

This shift involves more than a change in hardware. The world of apps is also changing, moving away from the overstuffed, overly complex suites such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite to the simpler, more focused apps that were pioneered for the Apple App Store and are now being developed for other mobile platforms. Apple’s iWork apps for iPad and the Omni Group’s suite of idea-management apps for iOS devices are two examples. Apple’s decision to bring the app store to the Mac OS X, which it launched yesterday as the 10.6.6 update to Mac OS X Snow Leopard, will begin to help desktop users make this transition as well. Simple, “best of breed” apps are the new future.

4G technologies begin to slowly appear in the real world Every carrier announced 4G plans at CES, which means updating their networks to one of several faster cellular data technologies, such as HSDPA, HSPA+, and LTE. The acronyms don’t really matter — except for WiMax, a technology that only Sprint is supporting, so its longevity is in doubt — despite the blogosphere’s obsession with them. What matters is that the carriers are all investing in more bandwidth and higher speeds, which will at least keep up with the exploding demand for mobile Internet access and may at some point translate into more PC-like interactions.

But it’s critical to remember that 4G deploymets will take a good decade to complete — after all, 3G was promised a decade ago, yet huge parts of the country are not served by it. Even in major cities, so-called 2.5G EDGE networks are far too common. Expect the same halting implementation of 4G, since it costs a lot of money to upgrade the cell towers and infrastructure. Still, you’ll get 4G services in some parts of cities by 2012, and many mobile devices shipping this year will be able to take advantage of 4G networks when available. Don’t be surprised if in 2012 all new mobile devices are 4G-capable, even if most if the time they’re actually connecting to 3G and EDGE neworks.

The transition to 4G will be slow and sloppy, but it has started.

The Android onslaught begins in earnest Android smartphone sales already rival that of iPhones in the United States, with both outpacing BlackBerry. It may seem odd for me to say that the onslaught is only now beginning in earnest, but 2011 is the year that several factors hobbling Android will be removed.

Android has done well in smartphones since Android OS 2.1 was released; that version of the Google mobile OS finally delivered a platform that could effectively compete with the iPhone’s iOS. Yes, iOS is superior, but that doesn’t matter. Android for smartphones is plenty good enough for most people, just as Windows is on the desktop. Android will do even better in 2011 as smartphone vendors make two major strategy changes:

• They’ll be more current in the Android versions they use, ending the ridiculous habit of running versions two or three generations old as many did in 2010. That’ll help reduce the open source Android’s fragmentation problem.
• They’re investing more in improved UIs and capabilities on top of the Android core. That’s good for users in the short term, as Android continues to have some rough spots relative to iOS. It’s also good in the long term because devicemakers are putting more skin into the game, which means better results for customers. HTC, Motorola, and even Dell are adding original value to their Android devices — a real change from the situation in desktop PCs where there’s no real difference among Windows systems other than the quality of their parts. A PC is just a PC, but an Android is not necessarily an Android — and that means more innovation and competition.

But the big deal in Android in 2011 is the tablet-oriented Honeycomb 3.0 version due this spring; it will be used on every one of the dozens of tablets announced this week. The first Android tablets, such as Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Dell’s Streak, have been awkward devices largely because they use a mobile OS not designed for their form factor. As such, they aren’t plausible iPad competitors. Honeycomb may change that, assuming Google has done a good job, in which case, summer 2011 will show a strong battle between iPad and Android tablets. I suspect we’ll see by year’s end the sales of Android tablets equaling those of the iPad.

Will Android tablet sales surpass iPad sales? I’m not so sure. The main difference between Android tablets and iPads is Flash, which I don’t think is that important. The main iPad feature missing from Android tablets is iTunes integration, and iTunes is emerging as a powerful platform in its own right as your media library, your app library, and your new media delivery environment (thanks to the AirPlay support in iOS 4.2 and iTunes 10.1). Believe me: Once you start “beaming” video and and music from your iOS devices to your TV or between your iTunes-equipped computer, you realize that Apple’s integrated media strategy is really compelling and useful — and there’s nothing like it outside the of the Apple universe.

Android devices may succeed as stand-alone units, but for now only the iPad works great both as a stand-alone device and as part of something bigger. Once users get a taste of AirPlay and flexible home media systems, they’ll be drawn more strongly to Apple.

It’s all about iOS and Android It’s clear that in 2011 there will be only two games in town: Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

Microsoft’s empty announcements at CES show the company has nothing substantive going on in mobile. It continues to pretend as if its crippled Windows Phone 7 has a chance of gaining serious adoption, and its newest path forward for Windows tablets — now to be enabled via the forthcoming Windows 8 support of the mobile ARM processor — is a pipe dream. The time to be a serious player in mobile is now, not two years down the line. Microsoft is AWOL when it comes to actual, innovative mobile technologies.

RIM and Hewlett-Packard are also in the game, but it’s not clear either has a chance of being more than a niche product. The BlackBerry continues to lose market share, and RIM’s message-oriented strategy rings hollower and hollower as the mobile market evolves. Yes, the BlackBerry Torch made progress in escaping the messaging-only straitjacket, but most of RIM’s customers have already moved on.

HP bought Palm and its WebOS last spring, then went silent just as Android’s surge began. Most customers have forgotten about Palm and WebOS, so no matter what HP plans to announce in February for its new smartphones and tablets, I doubt anyone will care. HP would need to push the envelope significantly beyond iOS and Android, and neither it nor Palm has shown any ability to do so in the last decade — tracking the market, not leading it. HP may find some new, niche uses for WebOS in printers and other devices, but it’s hard to imagine it will stand out in smartphones and tablets.

This article, “The key mobile trends emerging from CES 2011,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Mobile Edge blog and follow the latest developments in mobile technology at InfoWorld.com.