Oh god. I literally never thought this day would come (at least until iPad Mark II). Having watched the beautifully produced Flipboard video, I have found myself wanting an iPad! Flipboard is a social application which aggregates all of your social networking data into a digital magazine format. The execution looks sublime, with Facebook, Twitter, flickr and other feeds that are relevant to you, smoothly integrated into what looks like a wonderful user experience. One of my truly favourite examples to date of the convergence of mobile and social. Take a look for yourself.
Google appinventor allows the average joe to create their own Android App, without the need for any design or coding skills! As this rather lame but simple example video shows you, the functionality may be limited, but there will be ways of creating and delivering applications that anyone and everyone can use! Just as the Apple application process tightens up, Google open theirs up even more! Great move
There is a lot of excitement surrounding HTML5 right now. As web designers and developers test themselves with what is hotly tipped to completely change the way we digest web content, mobile developers are coming to the realisation that this could be the future of mobile content delivery. In an age when the ‘app’ has dominated, HTML5 has demonstrated it can achieve just as much, if not more, as a native application. When the key message to marketers has been to ensure the broadest target audience can access their content, surely HTML5 is the way to offer this ubiquity?
Not quite.
You see, although HTML5 is demonstrating it can deliver a superb level of design and interactivity, especially with the recent Youtube mobile site, HTML5 relies heavily on the hardware and their respective browsers. You see, HTML5 will not just work on any mobile browser. Go run the HTML5 test on your mobile browser and see what happens. iPhone users using Safari will probably see quite a high score, however should they be using Opera Mini, they will not be pleased with the result.
Once again, this is another example of the mobile industry working at different speeds, and trying to oust each other. If you think developing an HTML5 mobile site is going to resolve the financial issues associated with developing cross platform mobile apps, you are very wrong. HTML5 is, without a shadow of a doubt, going to make the ‘WAP v APP’ argument a helluva lot more complicated, but in the mean time, don’t be blinded by the hype. When browser quality improves across the board, and network speeds and coverage improves, HTML5 will be a genuine consideration. In the mean time, its just a taste of whats to come.
Not quite the big boom back into blogging I had hoped (that post is still under way…) but I saw this and had to share it with you all. A few years ago, before the iPhone and the big app movement, 20:20London did an amazing integrated campaign for the PSP game Gangs of London. Leveraging the multiple communications channels available through mobile, and exploiting a citizens natural craving for an alternate reality, they were able to completely immerse the average joe into a world that could only otherwise be found by playing the game by using SMS, recorded voice and some fancy image recognition technology.
Foursquare offers a more recent and relevant example of turning life into a game, but this latest concept takes the biscuit. Watch the video and get excited. I certainly did! If this isn’t an example of understanding a human beings inherent need for entertainment, anchored with incentivisation, to exploit what is a traditionally mundane activity, I don’t know what is!
