Chinese mobile phones only have craftsmanship but no craftsmanship? !

The so-called difference between craftsmanship and ingenuity has long been determined in literary and artistic concepts.

Wang Fuzhi's "Jiang Zhai Poetry Talk" emphasizes that "writing colors and using a lot of metaphors, even if the carving is done with great skill, is all craftsmanship." Shen Fu's "Six Records of a Floating Life" also talks about the art of bonsai and believes that "if the branches are coiled like pagodas, or the branches are twisted like earthworms, it will become craftsmanship.'"

Dong Qichang, a Ming Dynasty painter, was particular about incorporating Zen spirit into his paintings to create a unique style. He advocated that paintings should have "moral spirit" and exclude "craftsmanship". Only when the mind is cleansed of all worldly things can one express himself freely.

In 1910, Impressionist master Renoir wrote to his friend Monet, pointing out that the reason why artists became craftsmen was because they lacked ideals and only focused on skills, and that "the most dexterous hands have always been slaves of the mind."

This understanding became more concrete in the 2010 Japanese NHK documentary "Master Craftsmen". The true spirit of craftsmanship requires a love for the work that transcends time and a non-utilitarian cultural appeal that is higher than commercial interests.

This is like writing hermit poems, why is Tao Yuanming outstanding? Su Dongpo said, "If life is not satisfactory, I will let my hair down and row a boat tomorrow morning", but he also wrote, "I will change my carved bow to a full moon, look northwest, and shoot the wolf in the sky". Most people's so-called hermit poems are just a pretense of being frivolous about the failure of reality, and the pastoral joy is just a temporary sustenance, or even a kind of concealment. Tao Yuanming is different. His "Returning to the Countryside" wrote "I look at my house and run with joy", which is purely out of the joy in his heart.

Shen Deqian said, "Tao's poems are full of lofty sentiments, and have a profound and simple quality that cannot be matched." It is precisely because of this natural frankness and honesty that no great person can learn.

Su Dongpo also admitted that Tao Yuanming was a man who "wants to be an official, and does not consider it a dislike to seek it; he wants to be a hermit, and does not consider it noble to leave it." This is why Tao's poems are "simple but elegant, thin but rich" and have rich spiritual connotations.

Therefore, the true spirit of craftsmanship represents the obsession of igniting the inner fire and illuminating the beauty of the product, which is completely different from the deliberate pursuit of external glitz and self-promotion.

This is probably what works such as "Master Craftsmen of a Great Country" and "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City" want to convey.

However, when we look back at today's domestic mobile phones, what is the craftsmanship spirit that everyone unanimously admires? The three points made by Luo Yonghao in an interview in June 2015 can be used as a reference:

1. People who are always bothered by others and their attitude towards things that are always bothered by others

Luo Yonghao, a native of Northeast China, is very good at explaining the magic of old Beijing dialect. What he calls "Shierbi" is simply a struggle! Or a demonic disorder! It is a typical sequela of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs, who was determined to "change the world while alive", used to enjoy torturing his subordinates. His obsessions, such as making buttons so attractive that users want to lick them, left Ive speechless; he once asked engineers to redesign the wiring of the Macintosh motherboard. When the latter had a slight objection, Jobs immediately enlightened them: "A great carpenter would not use inferior materials on the back of a wardrobe!" As a result, the chassis became a work of art that could be signed.

This kind of meticulous attention to detail and its subsequent deification make those involved firmly believe that they are doing something great. This is why Apple products can exude the beauty of fashion and technology in extreme simplicity.

But behind Jobs' paranoia is his unique aesthetic and accurate grasp of trends, and the kind of peace that makes him "willing to trade all my technology for an afternoon with Socrates." This is integrated with the profitability of Apple's ecosystem and the business foresight of adhering to chip intellectual property rights.

This is the essence of Qiao's methodology, and what is the meaning of Luo Yonghao's "telling the story"? In short, it is to make others "think" that Hammer Phone is doing a great thing.

2. Always have one more point than others

In Luo Yonghao's words, if others can achieve 80 points, Hammer Phone can achieve 90 points, and we still want to go a step further. It sounds very pretentious, but the logic behind it is a joke that people have told many times:

Two people encountered a lion in the jungle. One of them quickly changed into running shoes. His companion asked in surprise, "Can you outrun a lion?" The man replied, "I just need to outrun you!"

The Hammer phone uses a magnifying glass to mark the details in the advertising image, and adds a tongue-twisting copy: obsessed with useful details, obsessed with useless details, obsessed with details that may not even be discovered to be useful or useless.

Why be so obsessed when you know it is useless?

It's nothing more than making the public feel that "I am a little more crazy than others", because since old Rockefeller's "Only the Paranoid Can Succeed", paranoia has become a positive word.

Doing meaningless things to the extreme is still meaningless!

3. Regardless of cost

In April 2014, Luo Yonghao emphasized on Weibo that "due to the unrestrained and stringent requirements on technology and components, our production costs have continued to rise." This sentence is simply the mobile version of Tongrentang's ancestral precepts. As for the efficacy of the medicine, it is similar to the classic photo of Luo Yonghao fiddling with things at a small table.

The reason why high configuration and low price have become the standard way for domestic mobile phones to show off is, firstly, that it can create the impression that "I am more honest", and secondly, the domestic industrial environment provides supporting factories that can be exploited. This is the same as the fact that next to a house with the word "demolition" written on it, you can always find a stall offering "huge price cuts".

Lei Jun expressed the same idea more directly:

1. Craftsmanship will be my epitaph.

2. The spirit of craftsmanship is to make even the invisible parts exquisite.

3. The spirit of craftsmanship is to ensure efficiency and experience.

Others, such as Meizu, claim that "12 years of craftsmanship can finally be passed on!" Vivo claims to redefine the spirit of craftsmanship, OPPO wants to pursue the ultimate beauty, and Zhu Fanghao, who has already resigned, also once vowed to help 360 make high-quality mobile phones. After Coolpad shouted about the spirit of craftsmanship for a long time, it happily played an ecological counter-attack with LeTV.

Why does everyone go all out when it comes to craftsmanship?

It’s nothing more than the iPhone setting a good example, followed closely by Samsung. Domestic mobile phones can only add configurations and compete on parameters. Only those who can enhance themselves with the spirit of craftsmanship will have room for brand upgrading and earning premiums.

Every time Xiaomi launches a new product, Lei Jun always remembers the last sentence: So what is our price? Then the shocking number on the big screen is drowned out by the cheers of the audience.

The connotation conveyed here is actually the joke that car enthusiasts have played out many times: If you want to drive a Porsche in this life, you can only rely on Zotye.

So what about Huawei, which has already been deified?

Huawei, which relies on Ren Zhengfei's speeches and internal documents to govern its company, also highly respects the spirit of craftsmanship. Internally, there is constant circulation of buzzwords such as "Japanese craftsman spirit, focusing on one thing throughout one's life."

Huawei, which won the China Quality Award, has always emphasized two words:

One is stupid. As Ren Zhengfei said, "Huawei is the most typical Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump can be described in one word: stupid! The spirit of Forrest Gump is determination of goal, focus and perseverance, silent dedication, and hard work! Huawei is Forrest Gump. We identify the direction, move towards the goal, work stupidly, make stupid efforts, and invest stupidly.

The second is slowness, or perseverance. On June 1, 2016, Ren Zhengfei said 230 words in 48 seconds on the news broadcast: It is not easy for a person to accomplish one thing in his lifetime. Why? China has 1.3 billion people. We grind tofu well, and your companies grow bean sprouts well. If each of us 1.3 billion people does one thing well, we will be the great motherland!

It sounds like it has something to do with the spirit of craftsmanship, but when you think about it carefully, it seems to be true and false.

Because many Chinese companies are doing the same thing. Liu Chuanzhi's Lenovo has long had a mold-based mechanism for cultivating talents. In terms of management genes, there is no essential difference between it and Huawei. It is easy for Yang Yuanqing to take the blame, but Huawei's good fortune is mainly due to the continuous replacement of basic communication equipment, while Lenovo can only face the shrinking PC market.

Just looking at the Consumer BG, Huawei's craftsmanship still relies on the simple and rough execution from traditional industries, which is wrapped and supported by tightly organized and extremely detailed processes, not to mention that Huawei also has quality control experience in large-scale mass production of electronic equipment that its domestic counterparts do not have.

For Huawei, the cool technology that it tinkers with from time to time, the scary payroll, and the speeches by Ren Zhengfei that are occasionally circulated are not as important as this stable and strict management system that once nearly caused a vice president to get divorced.

But this really cannot be called craftsmanship; it is just a management philosophy of organizational alienation.

If Huawei continues down this path, it will only become another Samsung, not Apple. Because in practice, Huawei, like most domestic mobile phones, cannot avoid showing off the counterfeit and mutated craftsmanship:

1. Simple problems become complicated

The Weibo and press conferences of mobile phone giants are full of "sweet troubles" such as reluctantly purchasing expensive components and having to accept low yield rates. Without breakthroughs in core technology, of course they come up with gimmicks in various ways.

When Yu Chengdong talked about the fact that the price of Huawei P9 was close to that of iPhone, he was quite "heartbroken" and said, "Cooperation with Leica is too expensive and the cost pressure is too great." However, with many manufacturers using photography as an important selling point, the high profile of P9 did not have enough capital, but instead triggered a photo show of many mobile phones.

Since T1, Hammer has been tossing around with self-abuse such as glass fiber reinforced resin metal frame one-piece molding. Technical terms such as Xiaomi's austenitic 304 steel and Meizu's 6061T6 aluminum alloy have also been flying all over the place, triggering too much mutual criticism. But how much practical value do these subtle differences in feel and the efforts made for them have?

2. The fan effect is far greater than practical attributes

Domestic mobile phones are keen on these complex and non-practical processes, not mainly to strengthen the differentiation from competitors, but to force fans to show off something to talk about.

The materials of mobile phones originally have their own advantages and disadvantages, but once they are used, they are absolute. The reason why all kinds of materials such as ceramics, bamboo, leather, and alloys, as well as new technologies whose practicality is questionable, are everywhere is because they are used to show off. OnePlus phones have previously shown off their "soft and smooth like jade" touch. I'm afraid that at the next press conference, the phone will smoke, but don't suspect that it is Samsung Note7. Didn't Li Yishan have a famous saying "The warm sun in Lantian makes jade smoke"? It's time to use this joke!

3. The tendency to choose unproven technologies is growing

Apple pioneered the smartphone, but Jobs was extremely conservative in technology at the time. He refused to use a large screen just for the smoothness of one-handed operation. He opposed NFC in the hope of replacing it with a more secure Passbook. This was not short-sightedness but rather a commitment to the ultimate experience.

Apple and Samsung both have huge technological reserves, but they will not be used commercially without strict verification. The ones that really have the urge to abuse are often domestic mobile phones. In order to prove their craftsmanship, increase their sense of innovation, and overwhelm their competitors, domestic mobile phones are increasingly inclined to adopt some unverified technologies. Although this increases risks, it also has rich rewards.

This trend has been very obvious since the beginning of Xiaomi MIX, and domestic manufacturers will inevitably follow suit. The risks of doing so are obvious. The frequency of hardware updates is accelerating, and solution providers can follow up within a week, but the motherboard, circuit, and process cannot be improved simultaneously. Of course, there are huge risks in mass production.

But for many manufacturers, this risk is worth it, because the reputation benefits of being the first to try out new products far outweigh the risks, and even if there are problems, it is easy to get preferential treatment under the banner of innovation.

Of course, true craftsmanship does exist, but it mostly exists in ever-changing press conferences, shocking copywriting, ubiquitous public relations, and PPTs that are becoming increasingly expressive, always declaring to the public, "I'm not pretending, I'm really awesome."

It’s really a spirit, everyone has their own expression.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.