9:10

How much mobile technology in our lives is enough?

How much mobile technology in our lives is "enough"? And what's an optimal mix?

I define "mobile" as any electronic device connected through a cellular radio or wifi link. 

We as technology users have a great challenge before us to choose the right physical and digital components of mobile technology. It's a daunting task to not only choose from a huge variety of global options, but then manage the overhead of maintaining and becoming proficient with them. 

In my opinion, the endless consumption of 'technology', just for the sake of it, is a losing proposition for humans. 

Which philosophies must technology companies and consumers adopt to find the right balance of value and reward and help safely guide them towards impact (and happiness)? How do we put mobile technology to work for us rather than the other way around? 

Please submit your answers here. Thank you for your thoughts on the subject.

Why I still love my iPhone

For nearly two years now I have been enjoying the most advanced and elegant mobile internet experience on the planet, otherwise known as the iPhone.

The product that took 5 years of near-secret development and 150 million dollars of cash to create, single-handedly started the mobile internet and application revolution and turned the global industry on it's head.

The iPhone was the product that I dreamed of ever since I heard David Brudnicki, a good friend and respected industry guru, give a memorable speech on the promise of the mobile web at a CTIA conference many years before. David was right all along, and the iPhone represented the vision that he and so many of us working hard to break the chains of 'mobile experience mediocrity' and OEM-MNO gridlock, yearned to work towards. 

But, then- seemingly out of nowhere, Steve Jobs, Scott Forstall, Jonathan Ive and the Apple team did what no other single mobile entity was able to do- deliver a beautiful, usable, powerful and capable smart phone. Not only was Apple able to deliver a polished, relatively bug free product- on it's first release ever- but, do it without the direct participation of a mobile operator, content developer, or platform maker. An unprecedented achievement that simply changed the rules of industry engagement forever. For anyone that toiled in the 'smartphone' industry since the beginning (circa 1999), it was truly a dream come true.

So two years in, two iPhones, $800 to Apple, about $1000 to AT&T, about $50 in apps, and hundred's of hours engaged with my touchscreen- what still warms my heart about this dream machine? I came up with ten key capabilities and features (in no particular order) that still make iPhone the best of the best in my opinion:

1. Capabilities: There is no other phone on the planet that is more capable for the masses
   • saves me time and money (which in turn makes me money)
   • makes me more organized and efficient
   • makes me smarter and better prepared
   • connects me to things, places, friends, family and colleagues 
   • entertains and inspires me to no end
2. Web browsing: Still the gold standard when it comes to viewing the 'desktop' web (flash or no flash- and that will come) on a mobile handset.
3. Usability: Flat menu system and visual/ intuitive, icon-based navigation make's this UI easy for anyone to use and master.
4. Speed: Apps start-up fast, screen transitions are smooth and the OS screams through most operations.
5. Apps: There is no easier way to get high quality applications on a smartphone  
6. Reliability: My iPhone very rarely crashes through extreme daily usage 
7. Touch screen: iPhones touch software, 'warmth and softness' of the glass and touch 'action' is still best-in-class.  
8. Industrial Design: the iPhone is iconic-  an art form in itself through it's simplicity, sleek lines, vivid screen, and exquisite build quality. 
9. Connectivity: Any great smart phone must demand to be connected at all times and make it as easy as possible to connect to a cell tower or wifi access point. The iPhone shines in this area.
10.  iTunes/ iPhoto/ Mobile Me: These three Apple apps drive the core services that so seamlessly connect my most precious media, contacts, and experiences to the iPhone. No other handset mfg. comes close in this area.

Of course, there are plenty of experience gaps in the iPhone, some serious and some trivial that need to be addressed. Knowing Apple like I do, there is no question that they will soon be rectified and I believe the 3rd generation iPhone will again set the bar for the mobile industry. 

These are great times indeed to be alive and be mobile. 

The light finally goes on at Radio Shack

How about that!

About 8 months since I suggested to friends  that Radio Shack's best strategy forward would be to become the de-facto off-the-street source or "genius bar" for a wide range of high end handsets and devices, this comes out...

Radio Shack trialing Apple-like stores

This is exactly the right move as R.S. has a large amount of existing locations near Apple stores and other electronics retailers where they could act as the brand agnostic "safe house" for trying, buying, upgrading, optimizing, tricking-out, dressing, troubleshooting, repairing and just plain having access to geeks that like helping people get the most out of their digital lifestyle and new digital devices. 

Think about the up-sell and cross-sell capabilities for technology, service, application and lifestyle brands in a un-geek-ified Radio Shack store experience. It could be the ultimate "honey, take your time in Nordstrom's- I'll be at Radio Shack learning how to configure my Mobile Me service" time warp for guys in Malls. No more pacing around in circles in the women's shoe department or sitting in those lonely benches in the center aisle of the Mall. It's not like you can just walk up to a Genius Bar at the Apple Store- that's a pipe dream. You are lucky if you can get in within 3 days - after making an online reservation at an exact time (that you better not be even one minute late for).  The new R.S. will need a better system that allows folks to just walk up and ask any kind of tech question about their handsets (with a time limit of course as some geeks can be rather chatty) especially when the customer looks like Eva Longoria. 

I look forward to seeing this unravel and wish Radio Shack the best. I used to be a frequent customer about 10-12 years ago.  I can honestly say that my need for a couple extra 22 ohm resistors or 18 awg. copper wire has waned over the past decade. 

Radio Shack, if you are reading this- look me up because I have all kinds of ideas how you could get me and millions of others back in the stores with money to spend.

Browser Wars again?

Skyfire Gets $13 Million To Fight Mobile Browser Wars

Om Malik, Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 3:00 AM PT 

The New York Times, earlier this week pointed out that browser wars had erupted again with Mozilla Corp’s Firefox, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari looking to one-up each other. While that certainly is true, the browser wars on the desktop are not as interesting as the sudden explosion of interest in the browsers on mobile devices. With billions of devices sold every year there is a big demand for mobile browsers. The market is an emergent one, with no real winners.

WebKit-based browsers on S60 and Apple’s iPhone are strong contenders. In addition, Mozilla is looking to develop mobile browser for phones that are based on Linux OS, as CEO John Lilly said in a chat with us earlier this month. They are all fighting it out with Opera of Norway. I have Opera Mini on my Blackberry Curve and I love it.

However, all these players should watch out for Skyfire, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that went into private beta earlier this year. The company is about to announce that it has raised $13 million in Series B funding from Lightspeed Ventures previously investors, Trinity Ventures and Matrix Partners. The company has raised $17.8 million thus far.

What makes Skyfire so special? It has a mobile browser that can render regular web pages almost perfectly like the way you expect to see them on your desktop. Only Apple’s iPhone version of Safari has that kind of ability. However, Skyfire’s server centric approach allows it to render Flash-based content such as YouTube videos on mobile devices. That makes this browser really useful. While Skyfire works only on Windows Mobile platform, the company is hard at work on a Symbian version. I have seen an early stage demo and it works very well. When I saw this browser for the first time, my initial reaction was: Microsoft should buy this company and replace their lousy Mobile IE with this much nicer product. It would instantly make HTC devices usable.

On a more macro level, everyone in the mobile ecosystem - from handset makers to mobile carriers - is interested in a mobile browser, that can render web pages for view on the handset without writing special versions of the web content. Apple’s iPhone showed that a good browser (married to easy to use experience) can raise demand for data services. With Voice-related revenues peaking, mobile carriers are increasingly banking on demand for mobile data services to make money, as we have noted previously. According to UBS Research analysis, wireless data services “now account for 21% of total service revenues for the major carriers, up from 16% a year ago.”

In a recent report, mobile market research firm, M:Metrics pointed out that among smartphone users in the United States, mobile browsing has increased 89% year over year, and pageviews have increased 127 percent. More importantly, the time people are spending on non iPhone mobile phones based web browsers is increasing as well. Mobile advertising start-up, AdMob had come to similar conclusions when it analyzed the data it collected from its ad-network.

Against such a backdrop, it is not difficult to see why VCs want to take a flyer on a company like Skyfire. Sure it has its risks including fighting with deep pocketed incumbents, but the upside is big as well. As I said, it is early days in the mobile browser wars.

I must have this!

The new Blackberry Bold

It's going to make a nice little (workhorse) companion device to my 3G iPhone this year.

Can't wait to get my mitts on it. What a screen. RIM still needs frog design's help but it appears they have made some nifty improvements to ID and UI of this device. I will know for sure within minutes of using it and my first phone call will go to my friends at RIM to schedule our next meeting in Waterloo!

Mobile World Congress 2008 is in the books

It's been a couple days since flying back from Barcelona and my jet lag has now subsided enough to allow my brain to fully synthesize the Mobile World Congress experience. I don't want to talk too much about the myriad of products I saw and fondled but rather try to paint the picture of how the trip was valuable to me in my current role at frog design.

For some trends from Mobile World Congress and reviews of some of the hits and misses, I recommend checking out the following links:

MEX
engadget
gigaom
fierce wireless
mobhappy

I am a business development director at frog design and my job is to sell frog's range of strategic-creative design consulting services and through that, concurrently create substantial revenues for frog and substantial creative and product equity for our clients. Until our clients products and services launch into the public domain, frog's work is largely under wraps and bridled within the minds of project teams. Ultimately, we are measured by the level of delight end users experience when using our clients products and services.

My focus, since starting at frog in 2007, has been on the mobile industry because it's where the bulk of my recent experience has been and an area that I feel is ripe for the design practice at frog to make a real difference innovating products and services for mobile and handheld device end users. At the end of the day, I am a very enthusiastic pro-sumer of mobile technology, content and services. What I love most about my job is that I can directly help effect change or progress in an industry that produces products that I use everyday and help improve my life.

So for the past 2 years (at frog) and past 5 overall, I have been attending the Mobile World Congress (previously known as 3GSM) to rub elbows with the mobile elite. Up until 2005, the event was held in Cannes, France and then after outgrowing that quaint little city, moved into the vast confines of Barcelona. I am not typically a huge fan of trade shows. Over the majority of my professional career (that spans 14 years now) I have one way or the other, wether as an exhibitor or attendee, taken part in all the major technology shows including Comdex, CES, CeBit, CTIA, and 3GSM. I even attended a wireless trade show covering the Caribbean market in St Maarten. I miss that one alot! Even when in exotic locations, it's often very tiring and mentally consuming to spend day after day at a booth talking to people of all types while trying to keep your focus in a near carnival-like atmosphere.

Mobile Word Congress is a slightly different atmosphere than most shows in the mobile or consumer electronics industry. It's grown quite a bit since the Cannes days and now has an attendance of 55,000 people from all over the globe. It's held at the Fira de Barcelona in the Montjuic neighborhood. The grounds are quite scenic with a bull fighting arena and a majestic museum of art flanking the 7 event halls. So overall, the show is fairly well organized with plenty of restaurants and resting spots on location and some trendy hotels and cafes nearby for taking breaks with clients. Just one gripe- please make the keynote and panel sessions free to all. It's a shame that those are so ridiculously priced and closed to a vast minority of attendees.

This year, there were 4 frogs that traveled for the event. Our SVP's of Operations and Client Services (my boss) and our VP of Technology joined me. The conference started on Monday and ended on Thursday. I decided to head out a few days earlier to unwind a bit and get my head right for the show. The strategy paid off well. Last year, I arrived on Monday morning and went right into meetings from the airport. Not a very good way to start a hectic week and I recommend at least 1 full day to relax before the big week.

My goals for attending Mobile World Congress are pretty straightforward and fall into two categories: meet with current clients and meet new potential clients. There is probably not a better forum on earth to meet the movers and the shakers in the industry than at MWC. Ideally, a full schedule of meetings is set well before arriving at the show. We had great meetings with mobile operators, handset makers, platform developers, integrators and content providers. A who's who of mobile brands wanted to know how frog design could help them achieve their goals. And I strived to deliver one overarching message- DESIGN MATTERS in the development of successful mobile products and services.

There is also an inherent value in just being present at MWC. I got a business card from a VP at a tier 1 smart-phone manufacturer- a client I am currently pursuing- in a cab line! I met many interesting folks at some of company hosted cocktail parties. I met people at restaurants, cafes and in the narrow winding streets of Barri Gotic. It was pretty easy to pick out the MWC'ers. Just look for large packs of men wearing black suits and of course staring at the tiny screens of their handsets- they were everywhere. I felt it was necessary for frog design to have a yearly presence at MWC to demonstrate to the industry that we take the industry seriously and are investing heavily to resource it.

I think over the past two years, we have significantly elevated frog's profile within the industry. I am hearing our prospective clients say that they are impressed with our level of commitment and number of resources we have working on mobile. This will only continue to build as we have some incredibly high profile projects underway now that will surely result in major market events when they are launched over the next 6-12 months. This will only add to frog's stellar reputation as a leading provider of human-centered user interface, application, website and industrial design to the mobile and devices industry. It's happening and that means that business development people like me are pretty darn busy right now keeping up with all the requests and determining which opportunities are right for frog.

Alas, now is the most important part of MWC... the all important follow up. At the show, there is invariably alot of talk- some of it serious, much of it fleeting. On the serious side, it's key to be able to quickly get to the heart of potential opportunities with clients and keep the momentum going strong. Now it's time to talk about specific ways that frog can answer upcoming RFP's or meet with executives considering new initiatives. It's time for me to go back to the studios and talk to GM's and Creative Directors about potential opportunity areas (I have list of about 12 from MWC). Now that MWC is out of the way and with CTIA around the corner, potential clients are ready to roll out their 2008 initiatives and projects. frog has to be ready and resourced to take them on and execute well. That will be an important part of what I do and determine how successful I will be this year.

Onward and upward.