Just another day in the world of mobile…
Platform: iOS
Customer: Bosch (http://www.bosch.com/)
Personal reference as: Consultant and Concept Manager – on behalf of conVISUAL & NTH
App Store link: B2B application, distributed within enterprise, no public store link
Short description: Bosch sales force uses the Bosch application as a helping tool. Users can browse Bosch products, view videos, picture galleries and advanced specifications of the products using an easy-to-use and intuitive navigation.
Platform: MeeGo
Customer: 20 Minuten Online (http://www.20min.ch/)
Personal reference as: Consultant and Concept Manager – on behalf of Nokia & MOBILEtechnics
OVI Store link: http://store.ovi.com/content/218000
Short description: Application is used for browsing news of 20 Minuten Online, the biggest Swiss news publisher. Users have an option to report their news using the „Reporter“ part of the application.
Anyone noticed this pattern? Every time Apple messes something up, with the next software update they throw in few sexy goodies, which make people forget that they messed up and start chanting how awesome Apple is?
Fresh example is the iOS5 and iPhone 4S. The fix for the battery drainage problem comes with multi-gestures for iPad 1. WTF, what does one have to do with the other?! I am sure Apple has at least a dozen Aces in their sleeves, just waiting for the next fuckup.
Also, Siri on 4S was down and not working properly for a while, so now rumours are out that Apple is testing it for iPhone 4. What is there to test? The jailbreak community proved weeks ago that the only reason Siri isn’t working with iPhone 4 is the authentication with Apple servers, Apple doesn’t want it to work with iPhone 4, at least not until they have sold a satisfying number os 4Ses. Greedy as always…
Be sure in the future more fuckups will get covered with nice features like Siri on iPhone 4, Panoramic camera mode support, Bluetooth photo sharing (?) etc. First disappointment on the horizon is iCloud, this one will need a big, big candy because people just do not like it. However lacking MobileMe was, it was useful, it was working and it was a tool that would become very powerful in the hands of an advanced user.
iCloud is based on a very simple predicament – people are stupid. You don’t need file sync, you don’t need image sync, actually, let’s demote files to a fart in the wind, that way they can all chill up in the cloud. Seriously?! I want to have control, I want to sync ZIP and RAR files, I want to sync PSD, InDesign and MKV movies, I don’t mind paying for a service that I want to use the way I want and for the purpose I want. I want to share anything, of any size, with anyone. I don’t need a free service that syncs my own Word files for me to access it from any device. I always have my Macbook with me, I don’t need that crap.
Anyway, time to migrate to Picasa and Dropbox… 
… I imagine is what Google said when Apple disappointed with the announcement of iPhone 4S instead iPhone 5. Few short days after the Apple, event Google and Samsung decided to postpone the new product announcement, I guess they found some additional time for tweaking a thing or two… 
Quote: ”Samsung and Google have decided to postpone the Samsung Mobile Unpacked event during the CTIA in San Diego, previously scheduled for Oct. 11. Under the current circumstances, both parties have agreed that this is not the appropriate time for the announcement of a new product. We would ask for the understanding of our clients and media for any inconvenience caused. We will announce a new date and venue in due course.”
Just coincidence … or not?
Well, this was a very interesting event which showed that even core business industry cannot ignore the fact that mobile applications became a required commodity. Also, the coincidence (or not) that RIM was presenting just after Apple I find amusing, because for me it confirmed one important thing – even in the business world RIM is dead unless they manage to pull off a miracle as soon as possible.
One thing is especially interesting, among all the experts who made SAP the power-horse it is today in business circles, it seems there is none who understands anything about UI design and User Experience, let alone those two combined in the mobile world. All the mobile applications that were made internally in SAP, functional as they may be, they could do a lot more and look nice enough to actually make the user want to use them. Instead they look like it’s 2007 and the iPhone just came out yesterday.
The important message that was sent out is that SAP wants help from it’s partners to create better and smarter Apps, so lets see if we can get some synergy going…
