Mphone is spreading across the United States in a slow and steady manner.
It will be released on Amerikan on New Year's Day and is expected to be released in Europe and Maple Leaf countries in the second quarter. From the end of the first week of sale, you can already buy it from scalpers in Maple Leaf Country. As word of mouth spreads, more and more iPhones are circulating in the Maple Leaf Country from the black market.
Unlike many countries in Europe, the passage of any bill involves the wrangling of more than a dozen countries, and the implementation of electronic payment requires lengthy approval. The Maple Leaf Country passed a bill called NBPSP at the end of 2000.
There is no strict supervision on electronic payment providers, and electronic payment channels can also provide bank-like services. NewPay's license is already in the process of being applied for. With the promotion of Wall Street financial institutions, NewPay's Maple Leaf Country license is about to be approved.
In other words, after NewPay is approved in Maple Leaf Country, consumers in Maple Leaf Country will be able to get a complete user experience when buying Mphones on the black market, instead of the emasculated experience like now.
Why is Google’s Pixel series of phones difficult to use in China? Because the Google ecosystem it relies on has been castrated in China, and it is really difficult for a completely castrated ecosystem to attract users.
"Newman, the Mphone is very innovative. I like this product very much. It is so different from other mobile phones." Jobs said.
Since the release of the Mphone, Jobs has always come to Matrix to see him whenever he has something to do, and Zhou Xin is a little tired of it.
Zhou Xin admires Steve Jobs very much, and appreciates his persistence in industrial aesthetics, innovative spirit, perfectionism, and his personal creation of the era of mobile Internet.
But this does not mean that Zhou Xin likes to meet with Jobs two or three times a week.
Zhou Xin replied: “Mphone is the carrier of applications, and the application experience is more important than the hardware.
Every detail must be pursued for perfection, from the grip feel of the hand to the positive feedback of typing, to the fineness of the screen, I have very high requirements for the details of the Mphone hardware.
But what is more demanding is software. I require them to be as concise as possible, both concise and clear, and to lower the user threshold as much as possible. "
Just now, Steve Jobs said that he likes this product very much. Zhou Xin does not doubt this because it has already borrowed the design language of the future iPhone.
And Zhou Xin is sure that Jobs must be using Mphone. As an entrepreneur who also wants to make mobile phones, he will also experience a lot of Mphone just from the perspective of understanding competing products.
However, Zhou Xin searched on Twitter and did not find Steve Jobs's Twitter account. He knew that the other party had a Twitter account, but did not go through real-name authentication.
In other words, the other party did not want to lend his fame to Mphone, and Zhou Xin knew Jobs's little thoughts well.
"Many magazines refer to Mphone as a smartphone. Newman, what do you think of the smartphone ecosystem?
Should the company rely entirely on itself to develop applications, or should it cooperate with other companies and let everyone develop applications together?
Open ports to these companies? "Jobs asked.
This is because currently, there are not many applications, and the hardware does not support too many applications on one phone.
This is just like when personal PCs first became popular in the 1980s, Macintosh computers only had spreadsheet processing software preloaded and were very popular in the market. In the 1990s, the Internet Explorer browser pre-installed on Microsoft's Windows operating system was widely criticized.
No matter how powerful a person is, it is difficult to escape the limitations of history.
The same was true for Steve Jobs. He saw that Mphone applications were all independently developed and were not licensed to other Internet companies, and there was no news of cooperation with other Internet companies.
In Jobs' view, Mphone can definitely cooperate with Yahoo, which will have a larger audience.
Therefore, he asked this question to find out whether there are any benefits to developing it entirely by himself.
Zhou Xin thought for a moment and said, “I think it’s better to develop everything myself.
This way you can keep track of the progress of each application. The memory and storage space of mobile phones are limited, and each application is very valuable. Each application consumes a lot of memory and storage space.
I prefer to be able to control all the details.
Take Weibo as an example. If other Internet companies were to do Weibo, the cooperation between me and them would not be as detailed as even the number of words in each Weibo post would be limited.
And if I do it myself, then I can control all the details, from the 140-word limit for each Weibo post, to how to adjust the page layout, to how to plan each button more reasonably.
What I'm talking about is the situation of Mphone. If it were another Internet company making applications, I would honestly not worry about it. "
Zhou Xin paused for a moment and then continued: "Why is 140 words in a Weibo so important?
Because of the limitations of the mobile phone screen, when we set the character limit, we required that each Weibo post could be read in one swipe at most. No more.
The more slides a Weibo requires, then it is not a mobile application, but an inferior computer application transferred to a mobile phone. "
Zhou Xin spoke of what Jobs had in mind. As an entrepreneur with a strong desire for control, Jobs also wanted to master all the details.
Jobs thought it was too cool to run all the apps by himself. This was the model he wanted.
Jobs nodded repeatedly after hearing this: "That's true, very few Internet companies can understand what you mean.
Even with repeated communication back and forth, they still have misunderstandings about the results they want to achieve.
Since the tacit understanding in the development process takes a long time to develop, it is indeed more appropriate to lead the development of mobile applications by yourself. "
Zhou Xin said: “Yes, in my opinion, the biggest difference from previous mobile phones to Mphone is the driving method.
In the past, the point of attracting users to mobile phones was hardware, but now it is software. To put it bluntly, the main reason why Mphone can sell at a higher price than other mobile phones is the ecology.
The ecosystem formed by Weibo and Weibo together builds an ecosystem that is sufficiently attractive to users.
Therefore, the importance of mobile phone software has been raised to an unprecedented level. The more important the mobile phone software is, the more necessary it is to personally control the presentation effect of the software. "
Jobs took out a white box and handed it to Zhou Xin: "Apple's upcoming music player has a built-in decoding chip designed by Xinxin Semiconductor.
Here is a prototype for you to try.
Internally we named it iPod. "
After talking, Jobs took out another iPod and put it on the table with the Mphone: "The silver Mphone and the iPod feel like they are part of the same series.
I think Mphone can be linked with iPod and these two products can be packaged and sold together.
Provide users with the option to purchase in a package. Mphone is priced at US$599, and iPod may be priced at US$199. If users purchase these two products at the same time, they only need to pay US$699. "
Zhou Xin looked at the iPod, which was very similar to what he remembered, and said, "What a great idea. The iPod can be sold in Matrix stores, and the Mphone can also be sold in Apple's offline stores.
Mphone and iPod can also be sold on each other's official websites. We need to make full use of our respective advantages in the target group to promote iPod and Mphone. "
Zhou Xin's proficiency in reading the iPod made Jobs doubt whether Zhou Xin would carefully read every Apple board of directors document.
"In addition, Apple is discussing cooperation with NewPay. We will launch a music store based on iTunes in the future. Users can purchase songs in Apple's music store and download the songs after purchasing." Jobs said.
Originally, Apple's music store, that is, the iTunes store function, was to be launched in 2003. In 2003, the electronic payment solution was already very mature.
When using the iTunes Music Store, users only need a valid credit card with an Amerikan billing address. Apple will bind the credit card to the Apple ID. After binding, the payment can be completed directly through the Apple ID.
In countries without Apple ID, the method is to purchase Apple point cards. For example, in the early days of Neon consumers, they could only complete payment by purchasing iTunes Japan point cards.
Now that there is a mature payment tool like NewPay on the market, for Jobs and Apple, there is no need for users to bind their credit cards to Apple IDs. They only need to add the NewPay payment option to the music store.
Zhou Xin said: "No problem, NewPay already has rich experience in supporting Internet services and becoming a payment channel for Internet services. This has become a standardized process within NewPay.
We are already very proficient at this, and NewPay does not refuse all similar requests. Since its establishment, NewPay has always treated every one of our partners with a service provider mentality. "
Because of this, other electronic payment companies are no match for NewPay. When your competitors are much stronger than you and have a better service attitude than you, it will be difficult for you to defeat them.
If it were not for the purpose of avoiding being kidnapped by a certain electronic payment company and being coerced by NewPay, other electronic payment companies would not have any room for survival.
E-commerce companies such as Amazon and eBay, or Internet service providers such as Yahoo, AOL, and MySpace, are worried that NewPay is the only electronic payment option, and then being bundled with NewPay will make Musk's electronic payment channel another electronic payment channel.
Jobs looked at Zhou Xin with sharp eyes and said: "In fact, there can be more in-depth cooperation between iPod and Mphone.
For example, Mphone has built-in Apple's music store and music software, and users can share songs to Weibo.
Then the user can purchase music through the Apple Music Store on the Mphone. After purchasing the music, download the songs directly through the Mphone, and then transfer them to the iPod via Bluetooth. "
After listening, Zhou Xin discovered that Jobs had realized one of the essences of the mobile Internet - sharing. Sharing between users was the main mode of advertising in the mobile Internet era.
Bloggers share their preferences for products through various forms such as short videos, pictures, and long videos, and then promote them to consumers.
Sharing is the essence, and its surface manifestation is to add song links on Weibo so that users can click to purchase.
Zhou Xin thought that the other party should have thought of it from receiving coupons. Since it can jump to and from the mobile browser, other built-in applications can also jump to and from Weibo.
Zhou Xin said: “I think such cooperation is feasible.
There are just some problems, that is, the download speed is limited. The current 2G network download speed of Mphone is more than ten kb, and a song can be as little as a few MB. According to the record CD format, a song is 60MB. This download speed too slow.
After the Mphone completes the download, it will be even slower to synchronize it to the iPod through the Bluetooth function.
It completely fails to reflect the efficiency advantage. "
Jobs said: "I have thought about this problem. For the user, he does not need to stare at the Mphone at all times. He can download songs while walking, and then transfer them via Bluetooth when he reaches the place.
The Bluetooth transmission rate is 128KB per second. We have adopted a new encoding method. The song files purchased in the Apple Music Store will be smaller than the music files in traditional formats, about 3 to 5 MB.
If it is 3 to 5 MB, the download speed is only 300 seconds to 500 seconds. For users, five to ten minutes is not a long time.
Plus the Bluetooth transmission time will not exceed 10 minutes. "
A large part of the reason why Jobs had such an idea was that Silicon Valley's thinking on products had changed.
To be precise, since Zhou Xin came to Silicon Valley to start things, people have become more and more systematic in their thinking about Internet products.
In the past, people's systematization of Internet products was just a simple stacking, such as stacking portals, email systems, search engines, blogs, etc. together, and there was a lack of correlation between them.
After Zhou Xin perfectly combined quora and NewPay, Internet practitioners realized that there can be a connection between products.
After the release of Mphone this year, the linkage with WeChat has further given Internet companies new ideas. They have begun to have the concept of product matrix. Internet products should be able to have a positive impact on each other and enrich the experience through linkage.
Jobs's thinking on the cooperation between Mphone and iPod is also the product of this trend of thought.
Jobs continued: "If it's just a price discount, you can enjoy a $50 or $100 discount on the iPod and Mphone. In my opinion, the effect of this promotion is relatively limited.
On the contrary, if a software association can be formed, like the same, then this combination will be more attractive to users.
For Mphone, Mphone does not have a music player function, and IPod can very well become a supplementary part of Mphone. "
Zhou Xin thought thoughtfully after listening to this. This is also a path and a feasible path.
Before Apple launched the iPhone, Matrix and the IPod could be a cooperative relationship. Even if Apple launched the iPhone in the future, he himself would be Apple's major shareholder and the relationship could also be a cooperative relationship.
It's just that the level of cooperation is gradually decreasing, not deepening.
Zhou Xin said: “I think it’s feasible, but one thing is that Apple’s music store needs a rating system for each song.
That is to say, after users purchase a song, they can rate and write reviews for the song in the Apple Music Store on Mphone, similar to the rating system of Riot Games.
This can give the user a better experience. If the song he spends money to purchase does not satisfy him, he can at least have the right to evaluate it. "
Jobs nodded: "Okay, I've thought about it before."
Zhou Xin said: "The specific cooperation depends on the memory of the Mphone. It takes time for Apple to develop applications, and the iPod has not yet been launched on the market.
We need to decide when to launch the Apple Music Store on Mphone based on the user's memory and storage usage.
If the memory situation of this generation is not optimistic, the Apple Music Store will become a built-in application on the next generation of Mphone. "
When Jobs was actively seeking cooperation with Matrix, other electronic payment companies were wailing.
Because they found that the gap between their products and NewPay is not getting smaller and smaller over time, but getting bigger and bigger.
The electronic payment software launched by Amazon and eBay is difficult to cooperate with retailers because the online shopping platforms themselves are competing for the offline shopping market. As a direct competition, retailers are not able to accept this kind of funding. Behavior.
Not to mention that there are not many users of Amazon Pay and eBay Pay. They have no point of attracting retailers at all.
For other electronic payment companies that do not have an e-commerce company behind them, such as Musk's and Square, it is also difficult for them to negotiate.
Because when talking to retailers, you need to have hardware equipment and a payment method.
QR code is just a way of offline payment. It is a solution jointly provided by Mphone and NewPay. In fact, there is more than one solution.
For example, Confinity, developed by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, supports transfer payments between handheld computers. This is also a solution, but this solution is not very friendly.
Because there are only a few businesses with handheld computers.
For other small electronic payment manufacturers without a big tree behind them, it is too difficult and almost impossible for them to expand offline electronic payment channels.
With the launch of Mphone, NewPay has also shown a trend of sweeping the world and dominating the electronic payment track.
Musk specially invited Peter Thiel to have dinner with him to get his advice.
Musk and Peter Thiel know each other, and if they didn’t know the original space-time Confinity, they wouldn’t have merged with them into PayPal.
“Peter, congratulations. When I had dinner with a vice president of Goldman Sachs recently, I heard him tell me that Wall Street’s valuation of NewPay has exceeded US$50 billion.
If it were before the Nasdaq bubble burst, NewPay would have been valued at more than $100 billion.
Confinity made the right choice when it was acquired by NewPay. "Musk said.
Peter Thiel is secretly proud because his shareholding in NewPay is close to 1%. Based on a valuation of US$50 billion, this means that his NewPay shares are worth US$500 million.
And he knows that if he is willing to take action, there are companies willing to acquire NewPay shares at a higher premium.
The shareholder representatives behind NewPay alone have expressed this intention to him more than once.
Peter Thiel replied: "Mainly because Newman has far greater insight into products than ordinary people.
When we still don't know how to promote electronic payment, Newman has found a large number of payment scenarios to promote the promotion of NewPay.
Compared with Newman, I only need to manage the business well, which is the least difficult thing in the process of starting a business. "
After Peter Thiel finished speaking, Musk smiled bitterly inwardly. It was precisely because the competitor he faced was not Peter Thiel, but Newman, that he had no confidence at all.
If NewPay is Peter Thiel's company, then Musk is confident that he can give it a try, even if NewPay takes the initiative.
As for Newman, Musk is rarely confident. To be precise, he was full of confidence at the beginning. As two years passed, he became less and less confident.
When you are established in the market, the other party already has more than one million users. When you have one million users, the other party's users have exceeded 20 million.
When you go to the Internet companies that the other party has cooperated with to discuss cooperation one by one and want a share of the pie, the other party has already opened up offline payment channels and even made a piece of hardware to promote electronic payment.
According to Musk, a large part of the purpose of Mphone is to promote NewPay.
The dynamic change of things is the key to making Musk lose confidence.
"Yes, Newman is the undisputed first person in the product field, with an imagination that is difficult for us to understand." Musk said.
Now Silicon Valley no longer calls Zhou Xin insightful, because insight alone cannot achieve these things. They think it is imagination, imagination that is wild and can be implemented perfectly.
No matter how insightful I am, I would never have imagined that an instant messaging tool would send out coupons and then use the coupons through mobile electronic payment.
Peter Thiel said: "I sometimes think back to when Newman and I first met.
At that time, Confinity had just been established, and NewPay was only an electronic payment software serving the Riot Games store. I think by that time, Newman should already have a complete blueprint for how electronic payments will develop in the future.
From online to offline, from computer payment to mobile payment, Newman didn't hesitate at all. He told us directly that this would be fine.
He never discusses with us whether we should choose method A or method B. He always tells us with confidence that this is the right thing to do.
Before starting Confinity, my experience of teaching at Yale gave me the opportunity to chat with many entrepreneurs, most of whom were Yale students.
The problem they generally respond to is that starting a business is like walking in a fog. It is difficult to know which direction to go in. You will not step into traps or encounter wild beasts, but you will be able to pick sweet fruits.
In the more than two years I have been working at NewPay, I have never felt like I was in a fog. Newman is our compass. "
After hearing this, Musk looked envious, and then said helplessly, “With NewPay at the forefront, there is no fog-like feeling in the development process.
Because we just need to follow the path NewPay has taken.
The problem is that NewPay has picked all the fruits, leaving only leaves and branches, and has not enjoyed any latecomer advantages in the field of electronic payments.
This is both fortunate and unfortunate. "
Peter Thiel said: “If you think about it from another perspective, it is already the second largest electronic payment company in terms of market share.
This means you are doing a good job. "
Musk shook his head: "No, NewPay is valued at more than $50 billion, and the valuation of NewPay is not even $500 million."
It’s still 6k today. It’s no longer easy to get more than 6k part-time. Please call me a diligent crow!
(End of chapter)
