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Phone, GPS, directions, small downloadable apps, games, built in camera, buy tickets to local events from the device, find the closet "X" to where I am standing, texting, "find my friends" ... all of it.
We even built WORKING POCs for it. Field tested them too.
The company we did this for (I won't name them), decided not to pursue it. That company, which was well known, is now out of business.
The problem Jobs refers to is well known to those who have run focus groups focused on innovation.
Most focus groups are run by people who are trying to SELL an idea already under consideration. They are usually run by MARKETING and SALES teams.
Rather than present YOUR ideas to the various groups you test, you describe a set of problems, and they you let the groups try to solve them with minimal assistance from your focus group staff.
To do this well, you need to select groups based on very selective demographic criteria, because if you don't, you get a group that is too diverse, and then you get the MUSHY MIDDLE effect Jobs describes. Ideas that resonate with specific sub demographics get pushed out.
By selected on very narrow demographics, you bring together people who are likely to agree on something much more innovative.
If you do this with multiple groups selected on different demographics, you can compare across the groups and then find the CORE elements of a solution, and then also see elements that resonate with specific groups ... which allows you to select which markets you want to target.
Lots of development folks think like Jobs does ... "the only good ideas are MY ideas".
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