background preloader

DesignPatterns4MobileandStrategy

Facebook Twitter

Haier introduces Zing, a waterproof smartphone with Alibaba's Aliyun OS. What It'll Take For Tablets to Replace PCs. What Microsoft Can Learn From Android's Mistakes. Mobile devices: Five predictions for 2012 | Mobile. It's been a whirlwind year for the mobile-devices business, and next year promises to be even more exciting. Just as 2011 saw the rise in dominance of Android, Apple basically opening fire on every Android device through lawsuits, and a flood of tablets and 4G devices, 2012 should see similar shake-ups in the industry.

Below are five predictions for what will happen next year. Some are based on recent conversations with industry sources, others rely on where the market trends are heading, while a few are speculation and wishful thinking. One thing's for sure: the industry will continue to be as chaotic as it has ever been--and maybe more so--making it a lot of fun to cover. So without further ado, here are my bold predictions for next year. Research in Motion gets taken out So, if we're dealing with predictions for next year, why not start with the boldest? Ultimately, I say, RIM gets acquired, especially given how ridiculously cheap the company has gotten. So what does this mean? Hitpad Fights Facebook Information Overload. Until now, iPad app Hitpad has concentrated on presenting the latest news in an easy-to-digest way.

Now its developers have taken the same approach to Facebook. Once you’ve connected your Facebook account to the updated app, you’ll be able to switch between two channels from the top of the interface – ‘Hot Topics’ (the news content the app has always provided) and ‘Facebook’, which presents content shared on the social network by your friends and the Pages you’re subscribed to in a fresh way.

Links, videos, photos and statuses each have a separate column, and you can expand any piece of content for a closer look, allowing you to ‘like’ and comment from within the app. You can also post new status messages, making it a simple but effective way of interacting with Facebook. I really like what Hitpad is doing and for the most part it works well. ➤Hitpad. ESPN: A Mobile Example to Emulate. Melinda Krueger | December 2, 2011 | 1 Comment When both my young niece and my not-so-young husband enthusiastically praised ESPN's push notifications in the same week, I took notice.

These are regular people, a teacher and an architect, not marketers or techies. I already knew from my son, a super fan, that of the myriad sports publishers, ESPN is the alpha and omega. So I was delighted to learn that ESPN would be presenting at the Mobile Marketing Association Forum in LA. The more I learned about ESPN's approach to mobile, the more I felt it really got it right. ESPN's commitment to providing a superior user experience reminds me of one of the great successes of email marketing: DailyCandy.

ESPN projects its commitment to quality across mobile sites, apps, and notifications. If you compare ESPN.com on a tablet and smartphone, you'll see an excellent example of responsive design, created in HTML5. Android Design Preview simplifies app mockups, developers' lives (video) Knowing Your Demographics: Who Should Mobile Devs Be Building For? There have been a lot of stats thrown at developers this week. The Pew Internet and American Life Project said that 50% of all U.S. adults have apps on their cellphones either coming from downloads or pre-loads by the carriers. Nielsen says that 43% of all U.S. adults have smartphones and that 62% of adults aged 25-44 have smartphones.

This all brings us to a question all mobile developers should be asking themselves: Who are you developing for? Coders have a habit of focusing on functionality. They see that something can be done in the environment they are working in and then go about connecting the codes, SDKs and APIs to create a dynamic app. Developers, coders and hackers often are not business savvy. Thinking of coming out with an app aimed at teens on the go? The smartphone sweet spot, and by extrapolation, the target for mobile developers looking to make money, is the adult market of college educated, urban and suburban males. Flash who? Adobe gets serious about mobile, cloud & HTML5.

For nearly 30 years, Adobe Systems has made the lion’s share of its revenue by selling multimedia and creativity software for desktop computers. But that focus on the desktop has grown increasingly out of touch in recent years, as the larger technology landscape has shifted toward heavier usage of mobile devices and software-as-a-service applications hosted in the cloud. Well, it seems like Adobe finally got the memo about the world entering a post-PC era. In a series of announcements at its MAX 2011 conference Monday, Adobe revealed a new focus on cloud technology and a much stronger mobile strategy, showing that it is more serious than ever about addressing today’s dominant tech industry trends.

The announcements, in a nutshell: A bunch of new mobile apps Adobe unveiled “Touch Apps,” a family of six apps made for Android tablets and the iPad. The new moves are very smart, but Adobe should not spend too much time on self-congratulation just yet.