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What’s after the iPhone?
Friday, October 23, 2009
2 billion applications have been downloaded for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and the iPhone has achieved about 1% of the global market for mobile phones. These are great achievements, and it’s easy to see why the iPhone has become so popular. Compared to its predecessors it’s revolutionary, a clear advance, and it’s transforming the market for mobile devices.
The future doesn’t necessarily belong to Apple and the iPhone, though. While the device has changed attitudes, and massively increased the use of the mobile Internet, it could well be the other devices that have followed in its path that end up dominant.
I’m sure Apple will continue to innovate, but the iPhone is now into an incremental improvement phase, and I’m particularly interested in where Google’s Android phones go for the next phase of innovation.
The iPhone is available in 1 size. It’s made by 1 company, who absolutely control what you can and can’t put onto it. It doesn’t fit in a shirt pocket, and I know people who carry a bag now just because they own an iPhone. Long-term, can one company with one device really compete with what Google are putting together?
First of all, we have many manufacturers today making Google phones. HTC dominate, but there are a host of manufacturers following behind. All the UK networks can offer you one, and they’re in all different shapes and sizes. The iPhone is £950 SIM free, if you were daft enough to buy one. You can get a Google phone for £200 nowadays, that will fit in your back pocket if you don’t want to carry a bag. And it has GPS, and it has thousands of applications, and all that. It isn’t locked down like an iPhone, either.
Of course Palm are coming along with their Pre as well, and Windows Mobile will update soon. But I think the main beneficiary of the iPhone long term will be Google and the Android. In the long-term, I think the attitude change because of the iPhone will be a lot bigger than its market share ever gets.
Gerrard Street Lanterns
Monday, September 28, 2009
I just happened to be in the right place at the right time with this shot of the paper lanterns in London’s Chinatown.
Google out-done
Monday, September 7, 2009
How come, when I type “search” into Google, the number 1 result is this?
Interested in becoming an information architect?
Monday, August 24, 2009
Before the Internet, I used to do something called effective GUI design, which was all about designing Windows applications for the people that were going to use them. Since going online in 2000 I’ve been working with people who sometimes call themselves information architects, sometimes user experience consultants or usability consultants, one guy I interviewed even called himself a cognitive ergonomist!
Essentially the information architect role at Pod1 starts at the beginning of a project, understanding the user, their needs and propensities, what requirements there are for the website (and other channels like mobile) from a functional perspective. They help to create the brilliant ideas behind the website, and to describe all this in personas and user journeys: essentially descriptions of typical users and stories about how they interact with the website. There are all sorts of clever extensions to this involving research with users, testing ideas on them and so on, but this is the core. Later in the project they create the site map, the wireframes and a big part of the specification for a project. They help during the design process, and often help to test what we’ve built with real users.
I’ve gone to the trouble of writing this article because we’re growing our IA team, and we want to hire someone who wants to learn IA. Ideally they’ll have some relevant experience, or a qualification like an Information Science degree, but we’re interested in speaking to anyone who’s analytical, has lots of ideas about websites and their users and is looking to take their career in a new and exciting direction. If you’re interested, send your CV and a covering note to iwanttowork@pod1.com
Getting inside a person’s head
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
I was shown yet another rambling, boring example of someone’s twitterings this morning, and it showed me a lot more than I needed to know about how the author’s mind worked.
What was a lot more interesting was visiting this exhibition at the weekend, where artists have created spaces that evoke what their minds feel like to them. A lot more satisfying and engaging. I loved the parcel-tape cave system created by Thomas Hirschhorn.
Or you can go back to Twitter, for a quick fix of rather less substance.
How much for the parking meter?
Monday, August 17, 2009
Spotted near my house. The local charity shop seems to be trying to sell something that isn’t strictly theirs!
Bokodes – invisible bar codes you can read at a distance
Monday, July 27, 2009
Example Bokode from MIT
MIT has released details of a new bar code technology that can be read from a distance by ordinary cameras or camera phones, yet is almost invisible to the naked eye. We’re all used to bar codes appearing on products, and 3d bar codes that can be read by phones have been around for a few years, but the new technology has lots of potential. Imagine pointing your camera phone at a product in a shop window and getting price comparison information about it instantly from the Internet. The inventors are saying we could tag buildings, so that Google Street View cameras could retrieve data about locations at the same time as taking their photos.
More worryingly, imagine we all have one of these on our person somewhere: on Red Dwarf it would’ve been on your forehead. Now CCTV can read the tag, get your name, social security number and your date of birth. The audit trails would be invaluable to spooks everywhere.
I’m more excited about the business potential than the possible bad uses. It looks like another technology that could help the physical and digital worlds converge.
iphones (and everyone else on O2) lose data connection
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
According to this article (and several frustrated colleagues) O2’s packet data network is down. This means lots of iphone owners are sans-Internet. I’m wondering if they will experience the same lack of direction the Borg felt when they lost contact with each other. Will they have to start making decisions without their iphones? How will that work?
How dangerous are mobile phones?
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
While I was reading this story earlier about a mother who left her child near an open window for a few seconds while she went to get her mobile phone, it occurred to me that I read a lot of stories nowadays along similar lines. It seems we’re prepared to take all sorts of wild reckless risks so that we can have and use our phones: far greater risks than for other objects. Whether they’re irradiating us or not, it seems they have a great capacity to put us in harm’s way.
The inability of humans to control short-term impulses like this is well recognised in gamblers, for example, but it seems the phone has a very powerful grasp on us. Perhaps the people who are suggesting we should switch them off more often, leave them at home and so on have a good point?