乔布斯如何看待移动领域的未来

“它是这个世界上最酷的%^@&*#$手机！”

这是我最初对iPhone手机唯一的了解——实际上，在2007年iPhone发布之前，我从没有亲眼见过这款手机。幸运的是，告诉我这句话的人应该最了解它。他就是史蒂夫·乔布斯。

第一次与史蒂夫见面时，我在一家名为Adventis的咨询公司工作。我是移动领域的专家，受邀为苹果公司即将发布的iPhone手机制定商业框架。

我们的工作不是生产或者营销iPhone手机，而是围绕iPhone手机设计移动业务。正如你所期待的那样，乔布斯非常有信心让运营商按照他想要的价格做他希望做的事情。他清楚自己掌握了一款出色的产品，并且拒绝实施任何与之前所有产品大同小异的计划。

从很多方面来说，乔布斯对于移动业务的信心，以及我们关于iPhone手机的对话，为我现在如何看待移动领域奠定了基础。当时没有人知道iPhone手机会带来怎样的影响，但乔布斯大胆的想象力及其强大的力量，让我们相信这款手机将是一款革命性产品。

在我看来，iPhone成功的关键在于，乔布斯将平台向所有开发者开放。这样一来，他成功创造出了我们后来所说的“魔法胶水”，通过软件将用户和内容（品牌与应用开发者）联系在一起。iTunes是iPod成功的秘诀。我们当时不断尝试，试图找到iPhone的成功秘诀，但乔布斯心中早已有了答案——应用。他向我展示了当你大胆设想用户-品牌关系时，你将挖掘出多么巨大的潜力。

2008年春，App Store刚一上线，我就着手开发自己的应用：一款开支跟踪器。它并没有成功，但我很快意识到，通过了解和解决应用开发者所面临的问题，我可以发挥更大的作用，于是我就开始专注于这一领域。

正是在这种想法的推动下，我创建了现在的公司Localytics。Localytics的目标是帮助内容生产商，通过应用软件联系终端用户。在移动应用领域的初期，没有人知道这些应用的内部在发生什么。因此，我们最初以分析和用户数据为重点，之后致力于通过推送通知和应用内通信等方法，吸引用户参与。分析与营销为内容制造商和品牌提供了工具，使他们得以了解新软件如何帮助他们与用户互动。如此一来，双方的体验都得到了大幅改善。我们认为，它们是“魔法胶水”中的连接点。

当然，从一开始，我们看到移动应用成为主流，我们也看到苹果一直在不断创新用户与品牌的关系——最近的尝试是Apple TV和Apple Music。

通过这些，我学会了一件事：对于移动领域的未来，你必须敢于大胆设想。最重要的是，你需要设法将内容和品牌制造商与利益相关者联系起来，用超出预期的软件体验取悦用户。

展望移动领域的未来，我相信这些软件体验只会变得更有吸引力、更加个性化。对于应用来说，软件体验将变得更加重要。虽然移动应用盛行一时，但我们的研究发现，我们正面临着一场参与危机。一款应用可能有数千次的下载量，但其中有25%的人仅使用过一次。

用户不再喜欢与应用之间一成不变的关系。他们希望个性化的体验，希望应用的内容能够满足他们独特的偏好、需求和地理位置。他们知道你掌握了他们的数据，只要你尊重和保护他们的隐私，他们会愿意让你使用这些数据来创建更好的体验。问题在于，公司在满足这些预期的时候不敢大胆设想——面对移动领域的机遇，他们依旧在沿用老办法吸引客户。

我们很难预测移动领域的未来。富有远见的乔布斯，对于未来有着非凡的理解。不过，最初与他的那番对话，让我得以一窥他所设想的未来，只要我们有走出窠臼的勇气，便能让未来变成现实。

本文作者拉吉·阿加沃尔是Localytics公司CEO。

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

审校：任文科

“This is the coolest %^@&*#$ phone in the world!”

That was all I knew – I’d never actually placed my hands on the iPhone ahead of its launch in 2007. Fortunately, that sentence was said to me by a source that likely knew best: Steve Jobs.

When Steve and I first met, I was working for a consulting firm named Adventis. I was a specialist in the mobile space and was brought in by Apple to help work on the business framework for the upcoming iPhone.

Our job wasn’t to build the iPhone or market it, but rather build the mobile business around it. As you would expect, Jobs was bullish on getting the carriers to do what he wanted, at the price he wanted. He knew he had an amazing product and refused to move ahead with any plan that wasn’t totally different from everything that came before it.

In many ways, Jobs’ bullishness about mobile and our early conversations about the iPhone were foundational to the way I think about mobile. None of us ever knew what an impact the iPhone would ever have – but he had the vision to think big and the force of strength to make us believe something was revolutionary.

To me, what made the iPhone into a success was when Jobs made the platform accessible to any developer. In doing so, he created what we later referred to as the “magic glue” that connected people to content (brands and app developers) through software. iTunes was the formula that made the iPod a success, and we were constantly trying to figure out what it would be for the iPhone. But Jobs knew – it was apps. He showed me the potential of what happens when you think big about the people – brand relationship.

As soon as the App Store launched in Spring of 2008, I began making my own apps, starting with an expense tracker. They didn’t go anywhere but I quickly realized that I could be of more use understanding and fixing the problems that app developers were facing, and focused on that instead.

That seed of an idea was the genesis for Localytics, my current company. At Localytics, our goal was to help content producers connect to their end users via the new software of apps. In the early days of the app space, no one understood what was happening inside those apps. That’s what led us to first focus on analytics and user data and then on the methods for engaging users with push notifications and in-app messaging. Analytics and marketing were vehicles for content producers and brands to understand how well this new software was helping them engage with users. It made the experience better for both parties. To us, they were the connecting dots in the “magic glue.”

Of course, since those early days we’ve seen apps take over and we’ve seen Apple look to recreate that relationship between people and brands again and again – most recently with Apple TV and Apple Music.

All of this taught me one thing: you have to be audacious about where mobile can go. Most importantly, you need to find ways to connect the content and brand producers to stakeholders and delight them with software experiences that go far beyond what they could have ever expected.

As we look forward to the future of mobile, I believe that those experiences will become only more engaging and personalized. For apps, it’s more important than ever. Despite their massive popularity, our own research has shown that we have an engagement crisis. Apps may get thousands of downloads, but 25 percent of them are only used once.

Users are no longer happy with cookie-cutter relationships with their apps. They want personalized experiences and app content that maps to their preferences, needs and locations. They know you have data on them, and as long as you respect and protect their privacy, they are OK with letting you use it to create a better experience. The problem is businesses are not thinking big when it comes to meeting those expectations – they’re applying the old way of engaging customers to the mobile opportunity.

It’s tough to say what the future of mobile will hold. Jobs was a visionary with an exceptional understanding of what would come next. Nevertheless, those early conversations with him gave me early insight into what could be, if only we are bold enough to go out there and make it happen.

Raj Aggarwal is the CEO of Localytics.