Motorola's taken a lot of shots for the way they've mismanaged their mobile phone product development. Their once dominating position in the US market has deteriorated and their once hot RAZR line never spawned an enviable or desirable successor.
Reinforcing their one-hit wonder reputation, they recently introduced an aesthetically and technically commanding phone – the Aura – priced at a stratospheric $2000. No, that's not a misprint – the Aura is actually priced at two thousand dollars.
That must be an amazing phone. To compete with the $400 iPhone and $400 Blackberry Storm, the sleek $700 Nokia N96, or even the elegant yet pointless $300 Prada phone. What the hell, you could buy all of these beautifully designed phones for less than the Aura and still have a couple of hundred dollars left over.
Understanding the competitive environment in the mobile space, you've got to believe that there has to be something more than an beautiful physical aesthetic to justify the Aura's spectacular price. But Motorola once again has demonstrated their limited understanding of design thinking – focusing on the physical design of the device rather than the overall user experience.
Consider the round screen. Sure it's novel and distinctive, but how well can it satisfy today's smartphone user who relies on their phone for email and web browsing? Imagine surfing a web page while looking thorough a 1.5 inch porthole. How annoying would that user experience become?
You'll have plenty of tie to fume because those web pages you try to view will load slowly, since the Aura doesn't work on high-speed 3G networks, only on the slower EDGE networks.
And that's not all that's missing. There's no app store, nor will there ever be, the camera is a mediocre 2MP, its user interface is unlike any other device, and moving or syncing contacts and music to the device requires multiple steps with third party software.
Once the novelty of the distinctive physical design and brilliant 300dpi screen wear off, the user is left with a pedestrian device that delivers no more functionality or delight than a flip phone costing $1900 less.
Contrast Motorola's limited design approach with Apple's and RIM's, who focused on the utility and user experience of their smartphones, in addition to the visual aesthetic. The iPhone is a delight to use, the assorted Blackberry's perform their email functions better than any competing device, and both manufacturers have seeded application developers with software development kits to ensure an endless stream of useful applications.
The Aura is simply a reminder of Motorola's inability to design a cohesive and sustainable strategy in the mobile industry, relying instead upon novelty and luck to cling to their diminishing market share.
