Mois : janvier 2011

In my former VP Home devices life I have been exposed to lots of hardware products and never had an unpacking experience matching or even reaching the one of Apple products.

Until today when I received a JamBox by Jawbone (thanks to Rafik Jallad). Unpacking and finding stylish dual USB cords (12″ and 60″), a compact lightweight charger, a smart magnetic carrying case, an a flat 3.5mm stereo cord was a pure bliss. Everything was neatly labeled and carefully arranged under the main device. Quality and attention to detail were shining everywhere.

The JamBox itself is very well crafted, the product feels solid and soft with an incredibly firm/smooth standing on any surface, turning such surface into an extension for the loudspeakers. User experience is obvious, with the JamBox « speaking » its status, battery level, and various settings when needed.

Yet the main surprise came at setup (pairing with an iDevice is a no brainer), when I actually started to listen. This box is packed with decibels, in an extraordinarily wide frequency range for such a small, battery powered thing. I’ll test it further especially as an audio conferencing tool as it also sports a microphone.

I must add that the online registration process + firmware update are equally dumb simple and very well executed from a UI standpoint. Beyond simple registration, the incentive of customizing the device in a very minimalistic yet fun way (you can choose the voice that will « speak » to you about your Jambox whereabouts) creates a (significantly) higher customer engagement and allows Jawbone to operate as a « platform », holding the two ends of a value chain. One may object that in their case the « big » end is the device and that the server side is minimalistic, yet this is a chain and allows direct customer relationship.