Interesting little introduction yesterday for the iPhone 4, I thought.

Steve Jobs launched a product beset by tales of worker suicide with a broken presentation.

Putting behind the stories of poorly paid workers at the Foxconn iPhone factory commiting suicide, Steve leapt forth, struggled through demo-itis (it had to happen at some point), and gave us a product slightly and subtly better than the last one.

Over the last few months, people have been getting wise to the iPhone hype. As Tommi Ahonen outlined last month, the continuing strong figures from Symbian and RIM have pegged the iPhone to the same market share for a while now, with Android being the real success story over the last year. Also I am noticing that a few more voices are piping up and saying that there really is more to the mobile phone world than the Apple PR monster.

So can we gloat a bit about our prediction that last year’s lacklustre iPhone developments would be swallowed up in a glut of Android handsets? Well… maybe a little..

However, it is again fantastic how violently hype swings from one side to the other. The press have been distinctly muted this time round, with even Engadget using the opportunity to show they are not biased with an unflattering spec review against Palm, Android, Windows and Symbian rivals. A quick look on Google shows that rather than screaming it’s virtues, the press have been more than happy to bemoan it’s lack of progression, or even (gasp) ignore it entirely.

But, as with two years ago, and the introduction of 3G, this year I am just really impressed at how Apple have iterated a great device to add things that really make a difference.

Yes it may be true that the forward facing camera was a feature that we early birds in mobile UI design saw on the Motorola A820 and NEC e303 back in 2002, but Apple only introduced it when it was a feature people saw a use for, rather than just a techy gimmick. Yes they increase the screensize, but only when they really have to, to make it easy to develop for (a problem that Android app developers will soon find). But when they do - what a screen! It’s not far off my laptop screen, yet even then it is in roughly the same aspect ratio as the old one ,so allowing apps and sites to scale to fit easily.

Yes the 5 megapixel camera is so 2007, but the old camera always punched above it’s weight, and this one will still have the amazing view finder and camera UI that actually allowed people to see the photos they are taking, rather than vastly compressed facsimiles.

Yes multitasking is long overdue, but at last we can see what can be done with it when opened up to the huge Apple dev community, rather than just the backroom lads that have typically got stuck into Android…

At last, the iPhone is what (in my mind) a good Apple product always should be. It is not the most advanced. It is not the “best” (most techy and feature packed). It is however beautiful, easy to use and works perfectly in the Apple ecosystem.

So, at the risk of being beaten up again by swathes of the techworld public opinion, let’s hear it for the iPhone.

I might even buy one now.

B

Deciding on a technical strategy for a mobile campaign or service can be really tricky. We like to think we offer our clients a good level of insight, and we are often amused by some of the mobile technology choices made by companies and organisations. However, I think it is fair to say that I was shocked and a little outraged by the choice that the UK Jobcentre made when they decided to launch a job finding service as an iPhone and Android app.

For the uninitiated, one of the major challenges in mobile is the fact that different mobile phones have quite different technical capabilities and that consumers (even if they own the same phone) can exhibit quite different behaviours. By technology I mean, for example, the phones’ ability to download applications or connect to the internet. By behaviours I mean, for example, a consumer’s willingness to engage with these technologies. This is often referred to in the business as ‘fragmentation’.

Next time you sit down at a meeting or round a pub table, look at the range of phones on display, ask people what they use their phones for, and you’ll see what I mean. Some phones will be used for apps, some will be used for the mobile internet, some will be used for both, and some technology refusers will just use their phone for making boring old voice calls.

The way round this for a brand or organisation is to get your mobile advisers to analyse your target audience and work out their likely device and usage profile. From this you can work out the most appropriate technology choices to meet your business objectives. Assuming you are a normal company or organisation, you’ll be faced with scarcity, especially in a world of cut-backs and economic uncertainty, and therefore a fixed budget. As a result, you’ll need to make some tough decisions around your technology strategy, because you won’t have the money or time to develop a campaign or service that works on all devices and appeals to every type of user (at least not from the get-go).

Developing an application, for instance, that will work on a Blackberry, a Nokia, an Android Phone and an iPhone, essentially requires building four separate products, so you will need to balance your functional requirements (what you want the campaign or service to do) against your reach requirements (how many of your customers you need to access) and choose a technical solution that get you the most ‘bang for your buck’. 

Those commissioning the Jobcentre application must have been thinking more ‘bandwagon’ than ‘bang for buck’, because an iPhone/Android application, in terms of their target audience, functionality and reach requirements was, quite possibly, the worst possible choice.

Despite the hype, the iPhone (and even more so Android) is a niche device, appealing to a mostly urban moneyed crowd. The pay as you go version will cost you £350 and pay monthly contracts start at £25. If you need any more convincing of the unsuitability of this as the target device for a service aimed at the unemployed, then have a read of my colleague Ben’s piece on the average mobile user, I don’t need to repeat it here, suffice to say that the average user is not an iPhone or Android owner.

In terms of functionality, an application was simply not needed for this service. All the core elements could have easily been accommodated within a mobile internet page. In fact, I would suggest that while a mobile internet based solution would have had better reach, it still would not have met the needs of the majority of job-seekers.

Un-sexy as it is, something akin to a simple SMS alert (based a users job profile with a click-to-call) would look like a much more democratic and effective solution. It would not get a write-up in the Guardian, but at least it would stand a chance of connecting a real person with a job opening.

If you you are hoping that this exercise was just a trial or a side-project, then think again. The scheme was announced by Jim Knight, minister of state for employment and welfare, at the National Digital Inclusion Conference!

I wonder if he appreciates the irony.

In light of the announcement of the opening of the MEX Awards competition this week, and due to Marek et al’s raging, slobbering levels of common sense when it comes to contextual design and user centred thinking, I thought it might be nice to put together a list of misconceptions that we most commonly see from clients and agencies.

The main one, and one of my most fervent bugbears, is what the ‘average’ mobile user wants. When I say average, I mean, the largest group of mobile users. NOT the media/geek set, but those who make up over 70% of the mobile phone user base in the UK.

As we have been touching on the ‘when will the mass market be ready for enhanced mobile services’ topic for the last week or so, I thought it might be good to plant our feet back on the ground with some good old fashioned luddite vitriol…

So… without further ado.

1. iPhone users are, or will be ubiquitous

Let’s not even go there. They are 14% of smartphone users globally. That’s around 4% in total. Yes 3 million phones have been sold in the UK, and this is as many as read the Sun. It is however the same number of people who voted UKIP in the local elections. It is also mighty hopeful to suggest that those 3 million phones are all still in use as well…

2. People all want their phones to do everything

I know this is anecdotal, but for every excited punter who wants to talk about how their phone does it all, I know 10 people who just want to make calls. Sony Ericsson once said that people will want their phones to do the basics (call text, camera) and One Other Thing. Even looking at behaviours of people with iPhones, I would argue that is still true.

3. Feature development is because customers want it

This is the opposite of the truth. Most users are scared of new features. They would rather be able to get used to a device, and then just keep using it.

However, have you tried to get a simple Nokia in Carphone Warehouse? They are not on display, and if you ask, you are sneered at… by salesmen who make the most commission from phones that have expensive data tariffs.

4. Touchscreen is the future

Unresponsive, difficult to use one handed, suffering from parallax (where there is refraction between the top of the screen and the sensors under it), hard to keep clean, hard not to scratch… The best physical interface I have used was the E71. It has a full keyboard, with beautiful haptic rounded keys. It is a delight to use, and far simpler to get the hang of than any touchscreen.

5. Business users are different to personal users

Who actually uses a different phone for work and home? I mean, there must be some, but proportionally a person’s phone is their phone. People can, you know, answer a call or a text in two different ways. Judging by the conversations on my bus into work, I would say that most people learn to ‘personality multitask’ around age 12… The biggest group of people who have two separate phones is probably drug dealers.

6. Kids are the great adventurers of mobile experiences

Kids just don’t get the chance! The defining thing about kids is that they are skint. They will not use data if it costs them. They will not get a fancy phone if it costs them. What they will do is make do and get the best out of what they have. That is why you see kids using their w810 like it’s an iPhone, with music, games, pics etc etc.

7. People want to change their phone every 6 months or less

For an average, non first adopter punter, you have to wrestle their old phone out of their hands with a crowbar. If the phones didn’t fall apart with increasing regularity, these users would never change. Why would they? New phones have shorter battery life, and are harder to use for texting and calling than the old ones.

8. Everyone wants the mobile internet

If we introduce ANY mobile internet interaction into a mass market campaign for clients, interaction goes down by half to two thirds. This includes a landing page to download free content. People want services that do stuff for them If they are forced to, they will go on the mobile internet to do it.

9. That if stuff is good enough, they will pay for it

Again, we’re not talking about those who feel comfortable buying things via their phone, but people who still think that Premium SMS rip offs are the norm. This is why the boom in mobile social media (the real genesis of mobile internet usage) only happened when data became unlimited, and therefore unnoticeable. Again, some people will pay for some stuff (games and porn spring to mind) but these are usually niche audiences.

10. That Pay As You Go is irrelevant

It is, I believe, still 60% of mobile phones in the UK that are on Pay as you Go. Have you used PaYG? Have you felt the annoyance of having to top up - and not by credit card (that’s cheating) but by going into a shop and buying a card? When you do, things like being able to access Layar seem a little meaningless when you can’t call your boss to tell her you’re going to be late for work…

Thanks again to Caveman Media for the illustration

Orange made a very interesting announcement yesterday regarding their support of widgets.

Their tie up with Widget Behemoth Netvibes is a big positive step towards adopting widgets as a platform. This ties neatly into the conversations that were going on in Barcelona about unified app platforms. Ericsson, for example, use widgets as the basis for their unified app store strategy that they launched at MWC. Blackberry were also making a big push around widgets in their App World stand.

Of course, widgets is one of the potential routes for those trying to implement a unified application provision for all handsets. Widgets being essentially small websites wrapped up and delivered as off/online experiences.

As they are standards based, and work on any number of platforms, it means that most phones (Orange say 80% of all phones) can access these products.

This does mean that there are varying levels of access to handset and network APIs, depending on what handset a widget is sitting, but for simple service concepts widgets, we believe that widgets have huge potential to tick all the boxes, especially for brands and agencies looking for a greater reach or different demographic to the normal iPhone app campaigns.

So, the Bunfight goes on!

We Love Mobile are normally too tight to give awards. However, we would like to tip a nod to our favourite party of MWC.

To set the scene, MWC does tend to revolve around the parties. While I’m sure some people get some work done in meetings during the day, we find that more is achieved in the process of relaxation of an evening.

There are of course a few must-attends. Swedish Beers, arguably the oldest continuous social event in the mobile calendar in London, and named after “The Worst Bar in London” (Evening Standard) do a fabulous event, ably looked after by Helen Keegan and chums, and sponsored by Russell et al at Admob.

Others are of varying quality. Some are tight fisted corporate affairs where there is a belief that someone’s soul can be bought for a drink in a poor quality bar. Where you are pumped the spiel, forced to leave your business card, and spammed for ever after by a tech services provider who are incapable of describing their product in normal language.

Others, in the pursuit of a ‘fun’ evening are simply tawdry. A good place to come and find the people you would never want to talk to in any other situation. Drunken corporates shuffling to bad music and leering over young female execs, the bar staff, and anybody else they can find.

However, our chum Jules, the font of all knowledge when it comes to parties, found one kind company provided that most unusual of achievements - a corporate event that was both interesting and engaging. In an underground Jazz Bar, a moody four piece swung (swang?), between performances of some classy burlesque. The lucky few who knew about the do were treated to endless trays of Tapas, and a seemingly bottomless supply of fine wines and beers.

There was even an artist on hand, sketching impressionistic interpretations of the night. Actually she was a punter - the wife of a mobile company director, fuelled by healthy swigs of illicit Absinthe that we may or may not have given her…

All in all, it was classy, edgy and generous. We Love Mobile, the masters of the freeby, salute them.

Next year, if they decide to do it again, see you at Vantrix!

No big spiel today, just a sexy piece of interaction work from Microsoft on the Engadget site.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/02/skinput-because-touchscreens-never-felt-right-anyway-video/

Skinput allows you to touch your arm to interact - a way of allowing sign language to be used as an input method, perhaps?

Anyway, another exciting and totally overlooked way of moving interaction forwards that is swamped by the mania for unresponsive, non-haptic and really quite irritating touchscreens…

And who’d have thought I would say the words sexy, interaction and Microsoft in the same sentence without being on drugs?

I had some lunch (darling) with mobile media guru Tim Stott yesterday, and while discussing some lovely media work around a certain sporting event coming up soon (not Henley or the Six Nations, I’m afraid) he let me into a dark secret.

Tim has an N97.

And he thinks it’s quite good.

To be fair, I had a play with his well set up device… and it is! In many ways it reminds me of Google’s personalised homepage, but has clever use of scrolling text to gently inform the user of all the device can pull together for you.

All the major features are there and convenient, and there is none of the usual ferreting around for what you need under piles of unnecessary rubbish that have plagued Symbian devices (especially network customised ones) The device interaction and touch screen was also very smooth, so I assume that it has received some form of firmware upgrade as well.

It is, as Tim admits, a real pain to get the phone set up to provide you with this seamless interaction. And I think this is where the initial reviews let it down. They did much to criticise the device out of the box, but failed to go past that initial frustration, and allow the device to grow into the communications and media tool it should be.

This is not an unknown conundrum. It is often the tricky to set up phones that ultimately give a user the best experience. The Voda 360, for example, is a superb device if you can be arsed to essentially set up each of your chums on it, and the LG cube interface is a dream when you spend some time jigging around with it. Let’s not even talk about the loveliness of Palm…

However, for obvious reasons, it is the phones that work well out of the box that get the rave reviews. Yet ultimately most people have a relationship with a phone for between 18 months and 3 years. That is a lot of time to find the initial wizziness of an interface quite tedious, or for certain animations and transitions to pall somewhat. I know many people who have opted for an ‘obvious’ smartphone, only to find the experience ultimately shallow.

Smartphones are increasingly involved devices, and getting to know them is ever harder. Sometimes initial simplicity is best - after all, you need to get that call made, to send that text. But also sometimes sticking with a device can open up all sorts of unexpected pleasures that create quiet, secret advocates of the most arcane devices.

So don’t be scared, wander off the beaten track when you get a new phone. You never know, it might not be that bad.

Engadget ran a nice piece the other day about some work being done by Deutsche Telekom, looking into using the magnetic field generated by the compass on your average smartphone.

Apparently, if you are wearing some form of magnetic handwear, then you can subvert the compass to pick up changes in the magnetic field caused by the movements you make. This can then be expanded so that you can get your phone to do specific things by waving your hands in a specific way.

Put aside the actual app ideas that have come flooding out of this, two things spring to mind.

The first is that can you use different rings for different gestures? So a suitably bling two finger lump for registering hip-hoppy gestures, and a pinky ring bearing the family’s suit of arms for upper class gesturing? What about a magnetic baton for conducting an orchestra? Or a Smiley ring for those still inclined to ‘build boxes’?

Secondly, I wonder if you could programme the gestures yourself, so allowing you and your phone to share ’secret’ body language moves? Could you and your phone work in cahoots to get rid of unwanted company in a bar? Can you dismiss an unwanted call with a click of your fingers? Can you call your loved one with a blown kiss? Can you even use your phone to cheat at Bridge..?

It seems the big bun fight at MWC this year was the war of the application store.

Not, as in previous years, the scrap for platform or handset supremacy, but the realisation that handset manufacturers and network operators need to consider how to create a unified development environment and experience for applications across all devices and networks.

This is a hugely big deal. Back in the dawn of mobile (well, 2002) myself and a certain Russell Buckley strived to sell the idea of applications as being the answer to brands’ mobile marketing requirements. There were two minor issues with that at the time.

Firstly, the handsets averaged a screen size of 128 pixels across, and most of them were black and white. Secondly, the technology was J2ME, even then the most laughably un-standard standard possible.

So, it may be said we were ahead of our time. Apps are of course everywhere now, and everyone is downloading them all the time.

Well, the 14% of global smartphone users, who have iPhones, are using them a lot, and the 9% of global smartphone users using Android are getting into them as well.

But, operators look at the shiny happy faces of these converts to the ways of the application, and think “golly, wouldn’t it be nice if ALL our users were downloading applications, increasing their ARPU and data usage like these chappies.”

Let’s not be bitter and say we might have mentioned this to blank faces at each and every one of these operators for years, and concentrate on the upcoming bunfight to make this work.

Is it possible technically? Can bitter commercial rivals agree to it?

Well, three apparently different schemes were kicked off at MWC this year.

Firstly, there was Ericsson. They unveiled an application store product for mobile operators allowing them to set up their own application store. The eStore is available in 25 markets worldwide, reaching more than 1 billion subscribers throughout more than 100 operator networks. It already has 30,000 free and paid apps and games. The eStore is backed by Opera who provides the client framework for widgets and applications across multiple channels and devices.

So.. a widget based app platform?

Next there was the announcement that Symbian (59% of global smartphones, despite the hype) have agreed to buddy up with Flash by joining the Open Screen Project. This is an industry-wide initiative led by Adobe to enable the Adobe Flash Platform across a broad range of devices. This means that Symbian will be integrating Flash 10.1 in future releases of the platform. If we accept that most of the future app-happy masses will be Symbian smartphone users (and, according to Gartner, things would have to change a LOT for that to change), then it means Adobe may well have played themselves right into the market.

Finally, and apparently at odds with Ericsson’s statement, there was the PR launch of the Wholesale Applications Community, supported by everyone from Sony Ericsson to Orange to China mobile. They are super vague on the website, but they say:

“We… have signed a memorandum of understanding with the aim of building an environment or ’wholesale applications community’ where innovative applications can be developed irrespective of device or technology.

The new alliance, which represents more than three billion customers worldwide is inviting players from across the ICT industry, not only operators and developers, but also handset manufacturers and internet players to join forces to create an initiative based on openness and transparency. We believe this model presents the most compelling format on the market where developers will thrive and customers will reap the benefits of greater choice. Furthermore, the GSMA is supporting this initiative.”

So - The bunfight for a “unified” app environment has started with three apparently very different plays…

We, as a ’small developer’, await the outcome with… trepidation.

So, Apple are allowing naughtiness back on their App Store, hey?

What a turn up for the books. At We Love Mobile Towers we are delighted with this fine move.

Because we are part of the dirty mac brigade? Well, not publicly.

The issue here is that, when Apple made that epoch defining move into the mobile world, they provided something that we mobilists had been screaming out for.

Stability

A platform that has fixed rules, that has standards, that has an entire ecosystem all set up and ready to go. No being mucked around by the operators, no settings guff, no shifting ’standards’ quagmire, and just one screensize.

It finally allowed all those budding mobile service creators to produce what they wanted, and proved that there was huge steaming piles of genius out there, producing mobilised, virtual farts, booze, sick and wobbly bits.

And it was good.

However, when Apple suddenly got all puritanical, the whole community went a bit quiet. Apparently, if an app shows less skin than Jessica Simpson in the (PG rated) Dukes of Hazzard, then it is too risque for the (young, hip, largely male) audience. If an app shows a man wearing top to toe lycra, then Apple is strangely aroused, and so we must suffer.

..and people got worried. If lycra smothered men are not allowed, does that mean that the Olympics will be no go? What about when a footballer takes off his top in a fit on excitement when he scores a run (or whatever they do) in the World Cup? Does that mean that Sky will be banned? And why is it that the naughtiest of all apps - Playboy and Sports Illustrated - were immune?

The stability went. The boat rocked. The developers started considering how popular Android was becoming…

..and Apple saw sense. They backed down, and the naughtiness oozed back on to the App Store.

Well done Apple, and welcome back iWobble, iBlush Babes, and all the others.

To misquote Voltaire - I might never actually look at your app, but I’ll fight to the death for the right for you to produce it.