There’s a new smartphone manufacturer on the block and their name is Wonder. Wonder is backed by a number of famous names such as Nolan Bushnell (the Atari founder) and Kevin Spacey, who you might remember from House of Cards. This startup business has a great ambition; to challenge and disrupt the smartphone industry. Wonder’s plans include creating a great smartphone for gamers, to “build an object so futuristic, it becomes a style icon, starting conversations wherever users go.” This fantastic plan might sound like the marketing department has enjoyed too many cappuccinos but there are some big names behind the new company – and for the time being, scant hard information on how, exactly, Wonder will achieve their lofty objective.
There is substance behind Wonder, however. The team consists of thirty individuals including Tyler Carper, formerly of HTC and Cyanogen. Tyler has explained how he loves innovating to disrupt an industry. He also added that Wonder’s new product is a part of the biggest consumer market opportunity in the world, which alludes to mobile gaming again. Unfortunately, aside from a vague article in Forbes whereby Wonder skirted with the idea of having virtual reality aspirations, it is unclear what Wonder’s product will be. It could be a smartphone that easily pairs up with a mobile virtual reality headset, but we have already seen this technology before so it’s unclear what technological innovations could be introduced to the market here. Of course, the best innovations the world has seen in the last hundred years or so were typically not imagined before they were realised, so let’s not discount Wonder just yet.
However, Wonder does face logistic and business barriers. We’ve already seen how a disruptive smartphone manufacturer struggles to build sales despite significant consumer interest in the shape of OnePlus. Indeed, from some perspectives, OnePlus had to build a more conventional device in order to achieve what could be mainstream success in the shape of the OnePlus 3. The smartphone industry is especially cut throat, with each of the manufacturers borrowing ideas from one another, which means the best ideas are quickly adopted by the industry. Take for example Palm’s “Synergy” concept of combining accounts on a device, Apple’s high resolution “Retina” display of 2010, HTC’s front facing dual stereo speakers and more recently, Lenovo’s Moto Mods. Each of these ideas has been neatly incorporated into many current flagship models. Wonder’s difficulty might be that it can build and sell something innovative, but it might not be able to build enough of the device in order to establish a foothold in the smartphone market before another manufacturer picks up the idea, modifies it, and incorporates it into their own devices. Wonder’s product might fall by the wayside – let’s hope it doesn’t – but perhaps their ideas will live on. For more information as and when Wonder release their device, be sure to visit the source below.