Mother Robot http://motherrobot.com birthing creative technology posterous.com Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:56:00 -0700 More Mobile Trends and Implications http://motherrobot.com/more-mobile-trends-and-implications http://motherrobot.com/more-mobile-trends-and-implications

Two solid additions to your mobile trends content stream (if you are done with my Mobile March presentation).

The first comes via Business Insider - the Future of Mobile. Packed with stats and charts, it presents great info on Mobile's meteoric rise, and how mobile is being used. Best addition - slides on platform/OS trends, which are often overlooked in these types of presentations. Best stat:

Time to 1 Million Users:

AOL.com - 9 Years

Facebook - 9 Months

Draw Something - 9 Days

The second from JWT Intelligence - 15 Ways Mobile Will Change Our Lives - Key takeaways from the 2012 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with examples. Wonderful to see many of the ideas crowdsourced for Mobile March present in this presentation/paper.

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/324219/red_star.png http://posterous.com/users/1bii7Iwt8tj Peter Pascale peterpascale Peter Pascale Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:50:00 -0700 Mobile March 2012 - Mobile Trends Presentation For Your Reuse http://motherrobot.com/mobile-march-2012-mobile-trends-presentation http://motherrobot.com/mobile-march-2012-mobile-trends-presentation

The annual Mobile March - trends and implications presentation I assemble is out for reuse. This was the lunchtime keynote for Mobile March 2012.

We did this last year - I say 'we' because this is a presentation born out of a brainstorm at the January Mobile Twin Cities user group. I facilitate a process where the group identifies and up-votes topics, then works for 30 minutes to discuss and brainstorm/braindump trends and implications on that topic. 

This year, I and expanded the concept to include more stories, examples, and a short section on how you might leverage trend information for mobile strategy considerations. The presentation is fun for me to curate/develop, and I enjoyed delivering it again this year. 

 

Slide Share 

Keynote

Powerpoint (no embedded videos)

PDF

 

The presentation is licensed for reuse, with mostly creative commons - attribution terms. Please feel free to give all or portions of the presentation to audiences you think would benefit. Terms of use are covered in a slide at the end of the presentation. You don't need my approval (just attribution), but I would appreciate hearing about any benefits you gain from repurposing the presentation. 

Thanks to Mobile Twin Cities participants and the Mobile March organizers.

Good luck!

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/324219/red_star.png http://posterous.com/users/1bii7Iwt8tj Peter Pascale peterpascale Peter Pascale Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:34:00 -0800 Mobile March - Twin Cities Mobile Conference http://motherrobot.com/mobile-march-twin-cities-mobile-conference http://motherrobot.com/mobile-march-twin-cities-mobile-conference

The Twin Cities plays host to an expanded Mobile March conference in March. The conference has developer and product tracks, with a commitment this year to add more intermediate and advanced technical content, and have a longer schedule. Call for presenters now open. I would expect this to be a reasonably priced event and a great way to get mobile exposure at low cost.

If you have some mobile expertise or want a milestone to force you to polish up a presentation, you can submit a proposal to present here:

http://mobilemarchtc.com/2012-speaker-application/

Event details here:

http://mobilemarchtc.com/

The event includes a friday 'demo night' which has a great MinneDemo feel, and last year brought a strong field of start-ups, and clever side-projects with no duds. I'll be doing the Mobile Trends 2012 overview, with crowdsourced input from the Mobile Twin Cities user group.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/324219/red_star.png http://posterous.com/users/1bii7Iwt8tj Peter Pascale peterpascale Peter Pascale Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:56:00 -0800 Is New New Twitter - the New New Coke? http://motherrobot.com/new-new-twitter-the-new-new-coke http://motherrobot.com/new-new-twitter-the-new-new-coke

You remember New Coke? Coca-Cola's 1985 product and marketing disaster? Twitter's recent re-refresh feels like the start of a retelling of this story.

Everything is working great! It must be time to mess with the formula!

-- probably said by some Coke / Twitter executive

I won't rehash the functional changes - that's been done best by the internet. See Daring Fireball for a great run-down of complaints about this "conceptual rethinking of Twitter". Or see your tweet stream.

But since I've just labored over an Android UX presentation, I think its worth a look at the choices made for the new Android Twitter client UI in light of Android UX patterns, and a consideration of their motivations.

Ok, first I must concede Android UX is a moving target. Dashboards? That's so 2010. Action Bar and multiple-panel layouts are what the cool kids are into these days. But this isn't just fashion, its Android's UX reboot to tackle tablets, and the wide range of device formats.

Now consider a few screenshots:

Android Twitter Classic (last version before update):

Twitter

 

Android New Twitter:

Device-2011-12-10-082724

 

For comparison, iPhone Twitter:

Ios-twit

 

And finally New Twitter on the Galaxy Tab 10 Inch Tablet:

Device-2011-12-11-201426

Consistency, at the expense of standard UX and affordances of the native platform. I think consistency between apps on a platform is more important than consistency between apps from the same developer on two platforms. Few people use both iOS and Android interchangably.

This is not just for visual look.

Each mobile platform includes unique affordances for common behavior... How to navigate, how search is achieved, where high-priority actions are found, where lower-priority actions are found, how content is shared... Android UI Patterns uses Ikea's recent fail to illustrate this principle. This is largely where New Twitter falls short.

New Twitter on Android fails to utilize a few key conventions for Android UX and unfortunately borrows from iOS look and feel.

  • The Action Bar pattern is largely ignored.

Action Bar is meant to add navigation, context, and common action support to the title bar space. The new title bar isn't well utilized for these things. Even search, which it used to support no matter where you were in the app, is gone. View filtering for mentions vs. interactions is at the bottom of the app, not in the action bar. And all the potential of the Action Bar is wasted in the tablet app.

  • iOS Tab Theming is Prominent

The visual look of the tab bar is very iOS. Blue selection color, grey for unselected, highlights. This is the main interaction surface across the app so its a little jarring to see this iOS look featured prominently in an Android app.

  • No Tablet-Format Optimization

The added space and interaction options a tablet affords are not utilized, and like the Classic Twitter version, New Twitter on the tablet is the same exact app as the phone format. Unfortunate because the space is not used to better present information and support information relationships. And its just visually ugly, with lots of small text alongside expanses of empty space.

  • No Quick Actions

Quick Action is a pattern for sliding in a tray of options for a selected list item. The previous iOS and Android versions supported this with great effect - favoriting or retweeting a tweet (common actions) could be quickly accomplished by sliding or long-pressing (depending on platform) to enable the quick action bar and make the selection.

Quick Action supports fast, single-finger actions without changing the overall visual context. It's one of the useful affordances that distinguised the native app experience.

  • Search Initiation

On both the tablet and phone versions - search is initiated by clicking into a search text box. But rather than completing text entry in the text box, the UI transforms to bring the standard search overlay in from the top. The search text box is in a sense one long button. Is this the emerging trend for search? Its a little jarring and a waste of screen real-estate.

  • Inset Columns

Seriously who insets list views? People who like ugly UIs I guess. The screen is small - use it. 

Why Twitter Why?

This is a pretty bold move to eschew native affordances and enforce extreme consistency. Twitter offers a 'learn it once' reason 

The new tab menu is the same across all devices. So you get the same experience on mobile and desktop—anywhere, anytime.

This is an interesting argument, does it invalidate the consistency principle stated above? After all, people likely won't use both Android and iOS interchangably, but they do use the web and a mobile platform. Er, do they?

While I'm not the target audience, I don't. The twitter web UX is so poor compared to third-party tools that I never use it (viva Tweetdeck). But even if I did, I would want it to leverage the screen size and conventions of the platform, not lowest-common-denominator UI.

Did they just not know any better? Hardly - they have the talent and size to achieve custom interfaces for each platform. Are they tired of chasing platform differences? Perhaps. After all - they had implemented the Dashboard (actually I believe Google did that for them) and then switched to an Action Bar before dropping it. While a tedious cat and mouse game, I don't think this is it either.

I believe they are making a concious shift in their brand and monetization strategy, at the same time actively deciding to buck platform differences in favor of a web-centric, not native-centric UI. Give up native app value to best enforce this new model of Twitter. It doesn't matter the platform, you can't escape it.

They are an information channel and they know it. The new Discover paradigm is an attempt to exert influence on your channel experience. Reorganizing all primary UIs at once around this paradigm is an aggressive way to bake this into the brand. How long before this feels like ads or paid programming? Use Discover for a few seconds and I think you'll know the answer.

For now I'll use the non-core client apps - while they exist. But in the future, we may find these shut out, shut down, or perhaps in the case of Tweetdeck (now owned by Twitter) offered at a premium. 

New Coke?

But the most significant result of 'new Coke' -- by far," Mr. Goizueta said, [Coca-Cola executive] "was that it sent an incredibly powerful signal ... a signal that we really were ready to do whatever was necessary to build value for the owners of our business.

-- reference

I think Twitter is signalling the same message. We'll give up app excellence to promote a new model. Can a groundswell of opinion reverse course? Not this time. This is more like the New New Coke - a second change to the formula with the lessons learned from the last time.

Will platform differentiation return? I don't think so. At least not until their new Discover model and brand sinks in. Even then, I'm guessing with their core apps they will take a bold stance to eschew platform nuances and native affordances. 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/324219/red_star.png http://posterous.com/users/1bii7Iwt8tj Peter Pascale peterpascale Peter Pascale Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:03:00 -0700 WebOS - the OS Everyone Loved But No One Used - We Hardly Knew Ye http://motherrobot.com/webos-the-os-everyone-loved-but-no-one-used-w http://motherrobot.com/webos-the-os-everyone-loved-but-no-one-used-w

It was disappointing to see WebOS go without a fight, but looking back I think it jumped the shark a long time ago.

HP offered a company I work for generous support for getting started with WebOS in the enterprise. Multiple business units participated in a walkthrough of the platform in late fall 2010. HP provided free devices, books, DVD references, and a willingness to come in and provide free WebOS training. No strings attached, just try the platform... see what you think...

Even with the offer of free phones, we could not get any interest from developers. The references and phones gathered dust on my shelf.

I think the watershed moment is when Palm lost its two lead developer relations guys:

http://www.precentral.net/ben-galbraith-and-dion-almaer-leave-palm

Its unfortunate, because it is a compelling OS. But I think it was going to be impossible to crack market share without devices and top-shelf dev relations.

Pivotal, who won Palm's 'hot app' contest with its WebOS Twitter client, called it quits - saying WebOS market share didn't justify the headache of keeping up with Twitter API changes:

http://www.webosroundup.com/2011/05/tweed-developer-throws-in-the-towel/

So they developed the best app for a key social media platform on the OS, and it's still not worth it? Ouch!

Even an innovative mobile OS needs developers, apps, and devices to succeed. Why are we surprised?

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/324219/red_star.png http://posterous.com/users/1bii7Iwt8tj Peter Pascale peterpascale Peter Pascale Thu, 28 Jul 2011 06:38:00 -0700 Next Aug.MN - Tuesday August 2nd http://motherrobot.com/next-augmn-tuesday-august-2nd http://motherrobot.com/next-augmn-tuesday-august-2nd

The Android User Group of Minnesota (AUG.MN) will meet next tuesday, August 2nd, at 6:00 pm at Code 42 Software in Minneapolis. 

 

Location:

Code 42 Software - 
one main st se, #400 
minneapolis, mn 55414 

Map: http://bit.ly/k1fN4v 

At the initial Android User Group, we challenged attendees to identify goals for the group, and activities to meet those goals. The group is 
motivated to be a ‘doing, learning, and contributing’ group, and one of the top suggestions for getting the group engaged was to jointly develop a set of Android programming exercises, called Katas. 

For more information on Katas, this summary provides background and how we'll approach the activity: 

For the meeting agenda:

- We'll have a brief discussion around Android News, possibly do a short developer tip/how-to,

- Have a Git and GitHub primer that should get you the basics of this popular version control system,

- Solve the Kata exercise in a simple Android app in small groups,

- Gather feedback on the Kata process. 

We need 5-6 folks with a laptop running the Eclipse/Android SDK, who are willing to set up a free GitHub account ahead of time and bring their laptop for the small group to use. Please volunteer and contact Brad and Peter for prep instructions. It should be pretty simple. 

Thanks to Code 42 for hosting, and Pearson VUE who has agreed to sponsor beverages and snacks. 

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/324219/red_star.png http://posterous.com/users/1bii7Iwt8tj Peter Pascale peterpascale Peter Pascale Sun, 20 Mar 2011 11:12:00 -0700 Mobile Revolution - Mobile March 2011 Presentation Available http://motherrobot.com/mobile-revolution-mobile-march-2011-presentat http://motherrobot.com/mobile-revolution-mobile-march-2011-presentat

Slides are available in multiple formats for the Mobile Revolution talk. See an overview and an encouragement to reuse here:

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/324219/red_star.png http://posterous.com/users/1bii7Iwt8tj Peter Pascale peterpascale Peter Pascale Fri, 18 Feb 2011 23:18:00 -0800 Apple Subscription Brouhaha http://motherrobot.com/apple-subscription-brouhaha http://motherrobot.com/apple-subscription-brouhaha
A run-down of the recent brouhaha regarding Apple's new terms of service governing in-app subscriptions.

The original press release - "when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share". Highlights - doesn't differ from the 30/70 split of apps, publishers have to offer the same or lower price in-app. Publishers can still offer web subscription, just not exclusively. Subscription must be supported in the app, and no hand-off to mobile-web app for external subscription is allowed.

Music royalties leave no wiggle room for supporting 30%, and no way to recoup that with higher subscription costs in-app.

"Very glad we went with HTML5 for the new Basecamp mobile site. Being a sharecropper is a bitch."

Compelling argument for the idea that 30% is actually 100% of the value of the mobile app.

In the end - another reason for going the mobile web route.

I'm not a lawyer, but it has been hard to see anti-trust potential in Apple's move. The best argument for anti-trust is in this piece. Apple offers a competing product (iBooks) that uses private APIs - something that will get your app banned if you try to do. I'm left wondering if something will become of that angle.

But it's not clear if there is anything there.

"In the end, Apple envisions a world in which people don't consume any kind of digital media without its help," - Mr McQuivey.

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]]> Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:20:00 -0800 Mobile Trend Topics http://motherrobot.com/mobile-trend-topics http://motherrobot.com/mobile-trend-topics
A few 'curated links' from my recent mobile trends research. The Read It Later analysis is particularly interesting.

Read It Later asks ‘is mobile affecting when we read?’ and answers with a data-driven ‘yes’ based on their crunching of ‘100 million articles saved by Read It Later users across all major web and mobile platforms.’ Complete with graphs suggesting among other things that the iPad isn’t quite a mobile device.

Facebook mobile use continues to expand (explode?). 150 million Facebook users in 2010, more than double the 65 million of 2009. But more important - each of those 150 million mobile users create twice the activity of desktop users.

Facebook could potentially be accessible on any GSM phone in the world, with the Facebook for SIM card infrastructure. No web browser or data plan required - the application supports all the text-based portions of Facebook transmitting over SMS. Interesting development indeed, not only for its novel use of SMS as remoting protocol, but because it expands the reach of Facebook as ‘second internet’.

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]]> Thu, 27 Jan 2011 09:20:22 -0800 Mobile March - One Day Mobile Tech - Business Event http://motherrobot.com/mobile-march-one-day-mobile-tech-business-eve http://motherrobot.com/mobile-march-one-day-mobile-tech-business-eve

Mobile March is happening again this year.

"Mobile March is a day long event dedicated to exploring the latest in mobile technology and trends. The name Mobile March not only denotes the month in which it takes place, it also emphasizes the ongoing advancement and growth of mobile technology and the related lifestyle.


Mobile March offers two tracks of learning; Mobile Development and Mobile Business. By offering content that appeals to mobile developers, business people, and users we also hope to facilitate a greater understanding between the constituencies that make mobile happen.  Whether you make money with mobile or just use it to stay connected, we invite you to join us for Mobile March."


$40 gets you access to a day of tech and business sessions, lunch, free invite to the Mobile 3-D event the night before (Dinner, Demos, Drinks), and a chance to hear yours truly present on mobile trends over lunch Saturday. The mobile trends presentation draws from the group brainstorm activity at the January Mobile TC meeting (http://mobiletwincities.com/).A great value!

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]]> Tue, 04 Jan 2011 08:55:35 -0800 January Mobile TC - Interactive Mobile Trends Session http://motherrobot.com/january-mobile-tc-interactive-mobile-trends-s http://motherrobot.com/january-mobile-tc-interactive-mobile-trends-s Passionate (or interested) in mobile technology and where it’s going? Join us at the January Mobile Twin Cities user group to participate in a lively mobile trends brainstorm intended to document what we see in mobile globally and locally.

 

We’re going to kick-it old school, back to the days when user groups got together to hack or work on projects together. The goal is to collaboratively and creatively craft a mobile trends overview - original content assembled by our group for use by the group and others. We'll use the process described below, publish the outcomes on the mobile TC site, and in the process get interacting on mobile trends that interest us. Food (sandwiches and snacks) and drinks will be provided by Pearson VUE.

 

Ron Lancaster and Peter Pascale will facilitate, assemble the work and get in on the site available for others.

 

Feel free to arrive with thoughts, stats, interesting links on a topic of interest if you want, but prep is not required. We want your thoughts and collaboration. We'll prioritize a set of possible trends to work on, determine interest, and break up into small groups by topic. Each group will have a set of time to explore these questions, and report a summary back to the group.

 

Questions:

- Summarize the current state and trends for the topic

- Identify data that supports or describes the trend

- Document applications that illustrate the trend

- Brainstorm several 'what-if' scenarios regarding the trends possible impact on computing and personal life. What are some of the (possibly far-out and wild) implications of the trend?

 

We'll be flexible, depending on the group and topic, you may want to focus more on one of the questions than others.

 

Possible Mobile Trend Topics:

- Device Capabilities (device integration, new sensors, price points, tablet formats, commerce, locational)

- Social Networking

- Video/Media Consumption

- Marketing and Commerce

- Gaming and Augmented Reality

- Success Stories


Details:

January 18th @ 7:00
usual location of Refactr ( http://refactr.com ). A map can be found here: http://is.gd/k1GtE
Please complete the registration form here so we purchase the right amount of food.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/324219/red_star.png http://posterous.com/users/1bii7Iwt8tj Peter Pascale peterpascale Peter Pascale Fri, 10 Dec 2010 07:47:00 -0800 Hands-On Android Presentation - Updated Slides http://motherrobot.com/hands-on-android-presentation-updated-slides http://motherrobot.com/hands-on-android-presentation-updated-slides

PT 2010 TechSummit - Android Hands-On-Final.pdf Download this file

Final slides from my Pearson Tech Summit 2010 Hands-On Android Development talk. I will be presenting an updated version January 10th, 2011 at the Twin Cities Java User Group. Response at Pearson Tech was very positive and I got solid feedback on how to improve the code walkthrough portions. Expect an update for TC-JUG.

Links and references related to the presentation:

Tim Bray's 'What Android Is' - Succint - best summary I've seen.

Fantastic Infographic on the Mobile Developer's Journey

Android Developer Experience - good and bad - from Accomplished Developers with Popular Products:
TweetDeck
Whereoscope

Android Platform Versions Deployed - Updated by Google


Android Market Map - Updated by Me

Android Developer Support

Barnes and Noble Color Nook Android SDK:

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]]> Wed, 17 Nov 2010 05:21:27 -0800 Mobile Trends - Research Reference Links for ICE Poster http://motherrobot.com/mobile-trends-research-reference-links-for-ic http://motherrobot.com/mobile-trends-research-reference-links-for-ic These are links and additional references I used when developing my Mobile Computing Trends for Certification and Testing poster session for ICE (Institute for Credentialing Excellence - www.credentialingexcellence.org).


Morgan Stanley Internet Trends:
www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/pdfs/MS_Internet_Trends_060710.pdf
 

Apple 2010 iPhone Sales Estimates:
blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/11/02/apple-can-sell-100m-iphones-48m-ipads-in-2011-analyst-says/?mod=yahoobarrons

 

Smartphone as Percentage of Market:
www.asymco.com/2010/11/03/what-do-you-have-to-believe-for-an-android-dominated-future/
www.asymco.com/2010/08/19/talk-of-mobile-dominance-is-bunk/

 

Mobile Metrics - Including Usage and Social Networking Trends
www.comscore.com

 

SMS Usage - Nielson, as reported by MediaPost
www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=137796&nid=119801

 

Mobile Social Networking
mashable.com/2010/03/03/comscore-mobile-stats/
mobithinking.com/blog/mobile-net-stats

 

No Dominant Platform (Except of Course the Web)
venturebeat.com/2010/11/08/the-iphone-app-is-the-flash-homepage-of-2010/
www.readwriteweb.com/biz/2010/10/forrester-most-companies-still.php
www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/no-excuses-for-non-mobilized-websites-report-10479/

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/324219/red_star.png http://posterous.com/users/1bii7Iwt8tj Peter Pascale peterpascale Peter Pascale Sat, 06 Nov 2010 09:12:00 -0700 Android Market Map - Circa November 2010 http://motherrobot.com/android-market-map-circa-november-2010 http://motherrobot.com/android-market-map-circa-november-2010

World_android_market

Purple = Paid and Free App Support

Blue = Paid App Support (I'm looking at you Ireland)

Red = Free App Support

Made (and also available interactively) at GeoCommons: http://geocommons.com/maps/35036, using Google's current listing. I'll update this as the market support is updated.

GeoCommons, an online GIS, was a breeze to use once I figured out the basic workflow for creating datasets. Worth checking out.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/324219/red_star.png http://posterous.com/users/1bii7Iwt8tj Peter Pascale peterpascale Peter Pascale Fri, 22 Oct 2010 09:44:31 -0700 Mobile Twin Cities: Android Hands-On Slides http://motherrobot.com/mobile-twin-cities-android-hands-on-slides http://motherrobot.com/mobile-twin-cities-android-hands-on-slides
Android Hands-On.pdf Download this file

Slides from my recent Mobile Twin Cities - Android Hands-On presentation. I will be updating these (and posting an update) in late November. Also, Tweed will become a Google open source project in the near future, so all examples from the demo will be visible and available online. When I complete this I'll note via the usual channels (mailing list, twitter, this blog, etc.).

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]]> Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:53:00 -0700 Creative Design Opportunity for Mobile Application Developers http://motherrobot.com/creative-design-opportunity-for-mobile-applic http://motherrobot.com/creative-design-opportunity-for-mobile-applic
I'm looking for a few mobile development folks who need help with graphic and creative design. You need to be willing to serve as 'clients' for design students in exchange for getting design concepts and artwork for mobile software.

I've been working this idea with a friend who is an MCAD (Minneapolis College of Art and Design) professor. Developers would present a real-world problem and overall concept, setting goals and parameters like a real client. The students get project and client experience, the chance to take a concept and bring several design options to life, and ultimately a portfolio-building experience.

Either one-on-one (developer-to-student) or class assignments would be possible, but we're leaning towards a class experience. Details to be worked out - but for the class experience it may be desirable to have a few projects for the students to choose from. 

We're trying to get a few interested developers together to discuss how this could work - what projects are a good fit? determining if your project is suitable? how to engage the students? and what developers should expect in terms of results, and requirements for their time?

A few things to consider:

- Compensation is not expected, but it would be suitable to give credit to designers on a product 'about' or home page if you release a product with any aspect of their design. 

- Projects should offer a creative design component. If you have the entire concept graphically nailed down and you simply want graphics preparation labor, its not a good fit. If however you have a general concept for the UI, but want a creative design that hangs together and creates a consistent brand and design for the product - its a good fit.

- We'll likely be willing to consider products already released, as long as you are interested in seeing an updated concept and graphical look for the product, and aren't just looking for feedback on the current design. Bonus points if you are actively interested in refreshing the product.

- We'll discuss suitable scope at the planning session so you get a sense for the inputs you will need to bring to the process.

We're targeting early evening or late afternoon in the next week or so for a planning meet-up. If you or someone you know is interested, please don't hesitate to contact us at motherrobot at gmail. If for some reason interest is really high, we'll find a fair way to identify the best fit projects.

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]]> Fri, 08 Oct 2010 21:39:00 -0700 How to Deliver on Mobile http://motherrobot.com/how-to-deliver-on-mobile http://motherrobot.com/how-to-deliver-on-mobile
How do you think about delivering mobile? If you live in North America chances are you think about native mobile apps - first for iPhone, and now Android. Think a little more, and you'll realize both of these platforms, as well as the new Blackberry 6 OS share the powerful WebKit browser - so in addition to native apps, you think about mobile web apps leveraging WebKit capabilities.

WebKit is a web page rendering engine supporting basic browser features. It's used in Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome browser, as well as the above mentioned mobile platforms - and is even available in an experimental browser on the latest Kindle. Powerful and fast, its mobile implementations support feature-rich web UI rendering making for a very usable mobile browsing experience. 

The screenshot below shows how Apple's iPhone 4 Browser renders a drop-down - it is stylistically more consistent with the iPhone's native OS widget than a typical desktop widget. Android's implementation, while not as pretty, is also stylistically consistent with how the native android drop-down widget looks and functions.

Img_0002-2

So, with all the platforms out there with WebKit browsers providing reasonably consistent UIs, and with mobile internet usage expected to surpass desktop internet usage within five years, why bother with native apps? why not just develop web apps targeted for WebKit capabilities?

It not an unreasonable position. The web's high frequency of engagement make this a great starting point. Having a mobile website is an advantage over competitors who don't (an advantage available on many devices and platforms). Companies simply won't be able to NOT have a mobile web presence, if not now, the near future.

But consider three points for expanding from this WebKit-focused thinking:

1) What Market(s) are You Serving... and is WebKit Low Enough?

WebKit and mobile web apps are a good lowest common denominator. But are they low enough? See Bryan Reiger's excellent Rethinking the Mobile Web to challenge your thinking. This is a Presentation-Zen lesson worth reviewing even if you care little about the topic - one of the best slide decks I've seen in years. 

He makes the case that mobile web developers shouldn't be targeting WebKit, because a major portion of the world's population uses devices more constrained that typical smartphones. These devices run other browsers - a mobile Opera or Nokia browser. See China, India, and Africa browser stats. 

If your business expects to succeed globally and wants to serve these markets, a WebKit-only focus won't cut it. He offers practical technical options for this 'lower-common-denominator' mobile web development. It's feature -degradation all over again, but in mobile web and not desktop web apps.

2) Native Features - Native Futures

Web vs. Native has raged back and forth. And if being told to go lowest-common denominator isn't enough of an extreme - how about higher - higher than WebKit and the Web? Adam Blum, technologist and CTO of Rhomobile does just that in his 'Future Directions in Mobile Development'. 

The talk can be a little heavy handed - after all his company makes a cross-platform mobile development tool - write once, run on any of the leading smartphones. Of course he wants you to write native apps over web apps. But he makes a compelling case for where he sees smartphones heading, increasingly into territory web apps won't be able to follow. He pursues a number of angles, but the most compelling is the capabilities - sensors plus device software and processing capabilities - available on the device that won't be available or practical for use in web apps. 

Do you need to take advantage of advanced capabilities of the device? As users become accustomed to locational awareness and event-based processing (think - "Your friend is at the Starbucks you just passed…") they are simply going to expect a more engaging and personalized experience. Which leads to my last point:

3) Engagement Model 

It's likely that the best way to create an engaging experience could require the tangible (and intangible) capabilities of a native app. First, don't overlook the branding aspects of the Native App. But also accept it's possible that certain applications will be more functional, and 'sticky' for users as native apps. This is more about the 'what' than 'how' - what do you want to deliver? It's quite likely that the crazy, catchy application that will set your customers buzzing warrants a native app, and I believe we're only going to see this increase.

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