Competition is not about who can tell stories and who has a louder voice, but who can do a good job in the product.
Since the Industrial Revolution, science and technology have always been regarded as the primary productive forces. In "Top of the Wave", former Google scientist Wu Jun pointed out that the rising companies in the past 100 years have been the trendsetters of the times. Sometimes they can drift forward with the waves for a decade, even if they don't do anything. At the same time, the ebb tide also means a recession for the company, and if you want to stay ahead, you must first find the direction of the next rising tide.
The direction of science and technology is changing all the time, and the giants cannot "lie flat" at the top of the wave. Especially in the advanced manufacturing industry, in order to maintain the leading position, the annual R&D investment of billions or even tens of billions of enterprises has become a basic operation. The result is a phone with more than 1,000 parts, a fingertip-sized chip with more than 20 billion transistors, and a 1-inch lens that can break through the size of a digital camera's sensor. Seventeen years after the birth of smartphones, this time the "wave" of technology seems to have reached a bottleneck, where will it roll in the future?
When the outside world commented on the "loss of innovation" of mobile phones, Chinese brands that struggled to overcome obstacles chose to move forward with resilience, and used practical results to tell onlookers that fast charging, running scores and infinite involution of pixels are not the only options in the cold winter. On this new road, the ingenious breakthrough of underlying technologies such as satellite communications, AIGC, self-developed chips, and folding screens has outlined a new trajectory of product evolution.
Not only following the wave, but also with the blessing of new technologies, smartphones are trying to break free from gravity, untie the shackles of productivity, and become a bridge to connect the world. When the gears of fate begin to turn, the technological road of smartphones is far from touching the ceiling, but has become a more imaginative track. At the same time, players on the cusp of the wave are still trying to subvert the era with technology and break the stereotype that mobile phones fall into micro-innovation.
Get through the "last mile" and become the "ticket" for the second half of the mobile phone competition
When we talk about the new technology of smartphones, what are we talking about? Looking back at 2023, perhaps the most impressive product innovation is the "sky-piercing" satellite communication.
When we talk about the new technology of smartphones, what are we talking about? Looking back at 2023, perhaps the most impressive product innovation is the "sky-piercing" satellite communication.
While we thought we were living in a world with great access to communication, there were still billions of digital "remnants" around the world. According to the ITU website, as of 2023, about one-third of the world's population – about 2.6 billion people – is still without access to the internet. In deserts, pristine forests and far-reaching seas, cumbersome satellite phones remain at the heart of communication. Many of the tragedies that occur during travel in the no-signal zone are also caused by the inability to seek help after "losing contact".
It has always been the dream of mobile phone manufacturers to be able to make calls and connect to the Internet from anywhere in the world. In 1990, Motorola set out to build a global mobile communications system called Project Iridium, hoping to use 66 low-orbit satellites to provide satellite phones, paging and data services to users anywhere on the planet. The project was terminated at a huge cost and was disbanded in 1999 after only half a year of operation.
Until the end of August 2023, Huawei launched the Mate 60 Pro, becoming the world's first mass smartphone to support satellite calls, making "satellite intercom" possible on the mobile phone. In order to ensure a stable signal connection between the phone and the satellite, the Mate60 Pro will force the use of hands-free calls to avoid signal loss due to the phone's ear stickers.
In September, "Starlink" opened up the network connection of cars, ships, planes and other means of transportation, and Musk made his debut on a private jet, completing a video speech at the summit with the help of satellite Internet. The "same experience on the plane as at home" is worth $150,000. Although the cost is still high, the first step in the attempt to commercialize satellite Internet is exciting enough.
After going 0-1, how to make satellite communication more popular and penetrate into the lives of the public has become a new topic for technology companies. The "last mile" of satellite communication is ease of use and cost. Signal is the core of satellite communication, and its quality and strength directly affect the effect of satellite communication. Therefore, it is important to enhance the signal during communication so that it can be used in more scenarios.
In 2024, OPPO will make a new attempt. On OPPO's upcoming Find X7 Ultra Satellite Communication Edition, handset/hands-free dual-mode satellite communication will be realized, and users can freely use the handset mode or hands-free mode, no longer limited by the way they use it. To this end, OPPO has developed satellite antenna pattern control technology, which can dynamically regulate the radiation pattern of the satellite antenna, so that the antenna beam is dynamically aligned with the satellite, ensuring that users can maintain a call state in both handset and hands-free attitudes.
For users, handset calls may seem like a functional upgrade, but they can be useful in emergencies. Putting your mobile phone to your ear to talk is a subconscious reaction of many people. However, when dialing a distress call on a field expedition or disaster site, a satellite call that does not support the handset will be disconnected due to the body's blocking of the signal, resulting in a loss of contact with the outside world. Even for a few seconds, such an outage can have serious consequences.
When OPPO breaks the shackles, satellite communication technology will also enter a new upgrade, and promote the popularization of this function. This year, this kind of "can be without, but can't be without" function in the hearts of users, or will become the "ticket" of the second half of the competition in smartphones. At this time, grasping the technological opportunity is the key to winning the first battle in 2024. By continuously improving the cost performance and improving the technical level, this kind of forward development can ultimately promote the popularization of the mainland satellite communication industry to a great extent.
Technological innovation can also solve many "last mile" like communication. For example, in the popular international travel scene in recent years, there are still many inconveniences caused by poor information. In the past, users generally relied on social platforms for guides, and could only search for destinations in turn, and summarize information based on the content posted by major travel bloggers, making pre-trip planning very repetitive and cumbersome. Many "J people" are accurate to the minute, and they have to start planning months ago.
But in a foreign country, if you can make it possible to make services find people, rather than people looking for services, everything is much simpler. The mobile phone can access the local network signal by itself, so that users can quickly understand the one-stop service commonly used by the locals to eat, drink, play, stay and travel, smooth out the network information gap in different areas, and realize the travel experience of "you can be very authentic when you arrive at the place". This kind of "silky going abroad" has become a local experience with one click, from the "International Getaway" package of services launched by OPPO.
Combined with the Pantanal's ubiquitous service capabilities, OPPO has opened up the "last mile" of intelligent services, allowing desktop service cards to achieve smart and sensitive travel prompts, allowing high-end users to complete the CityWalk anytime and anywhere. To solve the underlying logic of micro-innovation in the field of mobile phones, it is to return the product to the needs of real users like OPPO, and truly help users solve the confused choices in actual use scenarios. When science and technology continue to create beauty, it is inseparable from the focus on "people".
Access to the fast lane of technology to meet the "race point" of large models
In addition to communication technology, the technology that will make the world "boil" in 2023 is the large model. The emergence of generative AI applications such as ChatGPT has officially unlocked the shackles of productivity and opened our eyes to the possibilities of technological leaps. How can such a high-tech potential technology be deeply integrated with smartphones?
The potential of AI models is undoubted, and they will have a disruptive impact on the interaction mode and service delivery of various smart devices, and the smartphone industry will inevitably be involved in this large model competition. For major manufacturers, this is a key battle for future development, and it is also a tough battle that cannot afford to lose.
For mobile phones, the imagination space of AIGC technology is huge. It will bring another killer application (5G to 6G) after WeChat for SMS (3G to 4G) and short video for long video (4G to 5G), and it will also be the dawn of technology to help smartphones complete leapfrog innovation.
Mobile phone manufacturers, which have hundreds of millions of end users, are natural large-scale model entrances, and can also accelerate the popularization of large-scale models with a large number of users.
For mobile phones, large models can greatly improve the terminal interaction experience, and realize "natural conversations" with users through voice assistants. At the same time, the large model creativity can assist users in completing creative work. Ordinary copywriting, form making, etc., can be safely handed over to the mobile phone. At the same time, by using the comprehension ability of large models, smartphones can provide personalized services for thousands of people, completing the transformation that becomes more familiar with the more they are used.
How does this new technology land? The answer is the end-to-end model. Because general large models are usually deployed in the cloud, in the form of web pages or individual applications, they cannot be fully embedded in mobile phones, and there are also problems such as cloud privacy threats. At the end of 2023, major mobile phones will offer self-developed large models one after another.
Among them, Huawei chose to focus on industrial scenarios and launched the Pangu model. Xiaomi attaches more importance to lightweight and local deployment, and released the Xiaomi MiLM-6B with "Xiao Ai" as the core. The construction of the vivo blue heart model with 5 matrices focuses on comprehensive application, and models of different scales can be applied to different scenarios.
With the official landing and functional upgrade of the large model this year, the first year of the large model of smart phones has officially arrived. It has been verified that only the intelligent scheduling that can achieve "device-cloud collaboration" can obtain the dual advantages of "fast on the device side" and "strong on the cloud side".
Through the local model "dedicated mode", mobile phone manufacturers provide a more accurate application experience. In November 2023, OPPO released the latest Andean large model AndesGPT, and the Find X7 series truly realized the landing of the device-side large model on the mobile phone, completing the industry's first mobile phone with 7 billion parameters of the AI large model applied on the device side.
Large scale is only the foundation, and what really needs "volume" is based on large model capabilities. The OPPO Find X7 series is equipped with the largest upgrade in history, and it also allows the AI intelligence experience of large models to enter the daily life of users for the first time from the production end. The 7 billion-level device-side large model can enable AndesGPT to achieve more functions. In the scenario where users just need a text content summary, the upper limit can reach 14,000 words, and a common journal article can be easily entered, which is 3.5 times ahead of the ability of the competitor model.
At the press conference, Liu Zuohu, the chief product of OPPO, actually demonstrated the new function for the audience - "AI large model voice summary". As one of the first batch of car owners who booked the Ideal Mega, Liu Zuohu had some communication with Li Xiang, CEO of Li Auto, a few days ago. This powerful AI model experience is also the first time it has appeared on a mobile phone.
When the large model is fully implemented on the mobile phone, the new Xiaobu has a total of more than 100 capabilities, which can help users in different dimensions such as office efficiency, life services, and Xi education. When Zhu Haizhou, OPPO's software product manager, appeared on the stage, he demonstrated Xiaobu's AI capabilities in life scenarios. Including the son's question, the wife taking pictures, and the phone call with the mother, it shows the characteristics of the new Xiaobu that can naturally answer from the perspective of different age groups, and gives the majority of users who like to take pictures a "reassuring" AIGC elimination function.
This new "AIGC Elimination" function can not only eliminate the main body of the image, but also bring many functions such as real-world redrawing. Users can quickly eliminate image defects as long as they can easily circle them. With the blessing of AI capabilities, the mobile phone has a more natural and traceless native retouching function, allowing P-pictures to bid farewell to the "cutout feeling".
For a long time, we had a vision of smartphones evolving into all-around super assistants. Now, with the empowerment of the large model, this vision has finally been realized, and at the same time, it has brought all-round upgrades such as images, operations, and cultural pictures. Through its excellent technology integration capabilities, OPPO not only makes the enhancement of mobile phone AI performance no longer limited to the improvement of hardware, but also achieves a real technological leap through the deep integration and optimization of software and hardware.
Benevolent innovation, a new solution in the downward era
When the public thinks that smartphones are dull and boring, domestic manufacturers are immersed in innovation, regardless of the cost, for the truly "amazing" technology investment. These technologies for good can not only feed back products, but also empower the industry, inspire and promote the common progress of the whole industry.
In terms of imaging, the longboard of Chinese mobile phones, 2023 also has many breakthroughs. The 1-inch outsole has become the standard configuration of imaging flagships, optical technology has been continuously upgraded, and the addition of ISPs has pushed AI computational photography to new heights. In the "involution", OPPO found that it was not a long-term road to just focus on the accumulation of optical hardware. The image of the new era should not simply compete with hardware, but with who has more "ideas".
To this end, OPPO has developed a super light and shadow image system, which has driven the development of the industry's integration of software and hardware in computing light and shadow through a high degree of integration with the Dimensity 9300 chip, and has entered a new stage of delicate computing intermediate. Based on the super light and shadow image engine, for the first time, MediaTek and Dolby jointly realized the shooting and display of Android full-focal length Dolby Vision, which has also become another key milestone in the industry's progress towards the HDR era.
Thousands of sails and hundreds of boats have always been the norm in the development of China's smartphones, and they are also the driving force for all players on this track. On the upward journey, their pattern has expanded to the world. In the third quarter of 2023, OPPO overtook Samsung with a market share of 18.3% in the Southeast Asian mobile phone market and topped the list. In this brand, we see the possibility of wrestling with Samsung in the Southeast Asian market.
Domestically, OPPO has also grown into a brand that has the ability to "challenge" Apple. In the first half of 2023, OPPO phones accounted for the third largest market share of high-end smartphones above $600 in China, behind Apple and Huawei. As OPPO continues to rise, the high-end flagship mobile phone market has entered the era of multiple choices, giving domestic brands one more choice in addition to Huawei.
In the direction of scientific and technological innovation, OPPO chooses to do good, using technology as a means to think about products based on user needs. "Science and technology for people, for the good of the world" is OPPO's innovative concept, and it is also the sublimation of user-centered products. The new technologies unveiled in the Find X7 series, such as Ear Satellite Communication and AndesGPT, have made the company's scientific and technological strength visible to everyone. In a group interview during the press conference, Liu Zuohu revealed that OPPO has concentrated all AI-related resources and established an AI center as an important means to obtain core competitiveness in the future. It is precisely because there are more and more brands like OPPO that the mobile phone is really dragged out of the "quagmire" of micro-innovation.
Competition is not about who can tell stories better and who has a louder voice, but who can do a better job of the product. In the stock era, "harmony and difference" is the correct way to solve the problem. OPPO, which is innovative for good, and Huawei, which is competitive and emphasizing being far ahead, are both business cards representing China's scientific and technological strength. With its unique product innovation ideas, OPPO has brought enterprises in various industries to adhere to their duties and move forward with a smile in the context of the economic slowdown.