Clever new toys as technology integrates more and more

It's been far too long since I've written a blog post.  Blame workload, holidays, too much crammed in (she says guiltily having read this very interesting article from the NY Times on "Busyness" ), and perhaps just a tad of digital jaded-ness.  2 weeks entirely disconnected from the digital world might just have cured me of that, even if my friends didn't believe I could do it!

So.. here's one of the first things that's tickled my digital fancy now that I'm back and reconnected...

Pebble: An ePaper watch that can be customised in both design and function to deliver not just the time but against a range of other tasks via connectivity with your phone. Fun and functional, not extortionate, and fuels my "turn data into useful things I can readily understand" soap box of the moment.  Watch: (forgive the pun)

2010: finally the year of mobile..

It was a long time coming, but 2010 was finally the year when mobile was taken seriously.  I'm not going to vouch for the accuracy of any of the facts and figures here (must be true it's on the internet, non!?!) but here's a round up video that doesn't thankfully have Fat Boy Slim's Right Here Right Now soundtrack.

Apple launches iAd

Last Thursday Steve Jobs announced a whole raft of new things Apple, a new operating system (OS 4) for iPhone and iPod touch and most notably the launch of Apple's own ad hosting and serving process, giving brands / developers greater freedom to monetise apps by easily building richer ads into them. Ads that go beyond our usual definition levels of interaction and engagement.

Here's a video (9 minutes long) that demonstrates Apple's approach. If you are short of time, skip forward to about 4 minutes in, but I'd recommend sparing the 9 minutes if you can. Steve Jobs makes lots of the points I've been making for ages, people use mobile devices differently, so you need to provide content in different ways, and understand that people will access it in different ways too.

Simple but genius App from Tesco Clubcard

Loyalty cards:

 
We all end up carrying a few of them around, or signing up for them and then not carrying them around.  I've usually got an assortment with me (usually the cardboard variety) and inevitably because they take up too much space in my wallet,  not got the more substantial plastic ones with me when I want them, as just happened to me in Waterstones book shop at lunchtime.  Dammit. But it prompted me to write this post having discovered a very handy Tesco app last Friday.

Tesco: a ubiquitous supermarket, but they have a great loyalty progamme which I imagine most UK households probably belong to.  Way back when I first joined  their loyalty programme (which must be well over 10 years ago) they gave me a plastic Tesco Clubcard loyalty card I had to carry in my wallet.

 

 Then someone got smart (or went to America where drugstore chain CVS had been using the key tag format loyalty card for years) and brought the key tag format idea over here.  Good thinking, it's not often you go to Tesco without your keys.

Or is it!?  On several occasions recently I've popped into the Tesco Express near the office, having only dashed out to grab lunch, armed only with my phone, and my wallet. So several times I've missed the opportunity to earn Clubcard points, and as we all know, points mean prizes (in Tesco's case cashback vouchers). Grrr.

But once again, Tesco have covered that base, and delivered a simple but useful iPhone app.

Brilliant.

'Cos I'm never likely to be out without either my keys or my phone, so all bases covered.  Takes up no space, and it's always on hand.

Every loyalty programme should have one.

The staff in Waterstones looked a bit baffled when I suggested it but I'm hoping they have a decent buzz monitoring programme in place and are paying attention. I'd happily give their app desktop space on my mobile.

Are you working on a brand, where such a simple app could be really useful to your consumers?

My first mobile blog post - need driven

Grrrr. I have had no network connection at work for over an hour. No web, no email, no Twitter, no access to documents I was hoping to work on, no Spotify.

Then I remembered my iTouch was in my bag. That solved music, and given the office WiFi network is distinctly patchy near my desk I have had to resort too my trusty Hero for email and Twitter. And now blogging.

Yet strangely,the Android appstore doesn't seem to boast a decent Blogger friendly app. That seems a bit odd as it is a Google platform and the Hero integrates my gmail so seamlessly that I can start writing an email on my Hero, and continue it via gmail on my laptop still with the phone in my other hand. Ace for gmail, d+ for Blogger.

Maybe I can see the point of tablets after all!

In the interim I might just have to relocate to a WiFi enabled coffee shop with my laptop, as keyboards on phones are functional but not practical for fast typing.

iPhone App downloads hit 3 billion, Google launch Nexus One handset

Apple announced earlier today that app downloads by iPhone and iTouch users have topped 3 billion. They didn't specify how many apps are now available but it's believed to be 115k+.

I rustled up a quick graph of how quickly those big milestones are being surpassed.

But with the imminent official launch today of the Google "iPhone beater", the Nexus One, plus the aggressive marketing efforts for the Motorola Droid I saw whilst I was in California over Christmas I reckon the Android platform should be an interesting one to watch this year.  There's more to apps than Apple, and if you are ignoring BlackBerry, Android and the other platforms you are missing tricks.

New finds from the App-mosphere

The App economy is booming.

Apple report over $200m worth of sales a month. According to a presentation I found on SlideShare from Appsfire the average iPhone contains $80 worth of apps. 59p here and there is small change in the grand scheme of the price of a packet of peanuts in the pub but I can see how the totals soon rack up.

I'm already beginning to wonder whether there'll soon be apps that auto-position themselves on screen 1 or the last screen of your apps pages? Prime retail estate turf wars? Premier positions for the apps you use most frequently / are likely to use more regularly?

UPDATE Thurs 10th Sept 09: I was a day ahead of myself there, yesterday Apple announced a raft of improvements to organising your apps easily.

The Android marketplace now has over 10,000 apps available and is growing healthily. T-mobile's PAYG Android Pulse handset due for release in October can only help demand.

Creating a good app, irrespective of the platform it's destined for, doesn't require the brain of Einstein. You need all the usual ingredients of good content: make it useful, or fun as good starting points. If you are a brand looking to enter the app-mosphere then work out how your brand equity /territories can be creatively applied. Nor do you always have to spend hours wracking your brains and start from scratch. There's a HEAP of apps available (some free, some paid for) that can provide inspiration or in some cases white label versions for quick and easy customisation.

Have a search around uQuery for iPhone apps or Androlib for Android apps.

Be inspired. (Or just plain freaked out or appalled depending on what you searched for / find). It's not hard to deliver something valuable with a little bit of research and creativity applied. Failing which, listen to the crowd for insight on what consumers think of iPhone apps over at Appolicious. Social networking meets e-pinions meets appstore meets delicious. It's got a way to go to be really useful / comprehensive but it's a starting point in seeing progression and improvement in the dynamics of the app-economy where volume based Top XX lists have so far been the clearest indicators of success/ signposting.

Spotify App for iPhone now available

At last! Premium Spotify subscribers can get Spotify on their iPhone or Android-powered mobiles

Apps, apps everywhere

Last night one of the London free evening papers devoted almost a whole page to talking about mobile apps, profiling a few people who had developed successful iPhone apps.
With over 65k apps to choose from and over a billion downloads it's a buzzing business to be involved with.
Today, The Guardian published a really interesting article on mobile apps, now and looking forward, that I would recommend reading.

Yes, there are over 40m iPhones in the world (as at the end of April so with the iPhone 3GS release since then you can easily add a healthy amount more), but I think it's really important that we don't all get carried away by the iPhone. I don't dispute for a moment that they are great bits of kit, but let's not forget that the penetration of other devices that also support apps & have apps stores of their own (like the BlackBerry or the Nokia N series) is far far greater. If you are thinking of developing an app, work out which platforms you should not just could be developing it for.

You might get more buzz from developing an iPhone app (which may be no bad thing depending on your objectives) but you might get more consumer exposure and engagement from opting for one of the others. Or do both. Just remember that you can't control the timelines on Apple approving your app once you've submitted it so don't make it too time sensitive.

I really hope that iTunes approve the Spotify app. Yes it's a potential threat to paying for and downloading music but at the same time with estimated margins on paid-for apps at 30% they stand to make revenue from a different stream, which they can either take a part of or not, as undoubtedly there'll be some clever person out there that figures out a work-around.

Apps present exciting opportunities for those that have great ideas and understand that they have to deliver something valuable to the consumer to be really considered successful. I'd much rather create an app that perhaps fewer people downloaded but then used repeatedly or regularly than one that had enormous download figures for a week, was used once and then deleted for not delivering or being engaging.

My favourite app, which works on a wide range of regular (rather than just smart) phones too is the London Underground tubemap. A one off download for something I use time after time and is always on hand whereever I am going because my phone is never far away. Great.

I am still a little bemused by AudioBoo though, an iPhone app / site that enables you to capture and share sound clips, that seems to have been getting a growing groundswell of interest and following since it first popped up on my radar a few months ago.

Audioblogging apparently. Isn't that what pod-casts are for?? Maybe I am missing the point, in what seems to me to be a world increasingly turning to multi-media and visual based content. There'a a eclectic selection of sound clips varying from William Shatner on Sarah Palin's retirement from US politics yesterday, to the sounds of steam trains. All I can say is go and explore for yourself.