Just another day in the world of mobile…
Just another day in the world of mobile…
Platform: iOS
Customer: Fashion.HR (http://www.fashion.hr/)
Personal reference as: Consultant and Concept Manager – on behalf of NTH
App Store link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fashion.hr/id484087192?mt=8
Short description: This was an experiment, and a successful one at that. How do you create an App in a week, a full 100% beautiful native App? Using a special framework this is now possible and many Apps like this one are expected to be launched in the future.
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 really dislike Andy Rubin, there I said it. Might as well say goodbye to my carrière over at Google, but the bugs in my head don’t let me ignore the comment from the above mentioned gentlemen.
This is like opposing evolution and saying that Apple will stop exploiting children to use their tiny fingers to assemble iPads. See what I did there?
The future brings new interface methods, in 10 years we will all be surrounded by augmented reality, motion and voice controls. Siri is the first step in that direction. I am sure in the near future Google will introduce a similar feature.
Quote: “It’s a lot faster and more convenient to hold down the home button and say “wake me at 8:15 tomorrow morning” than it is to go to clocks, click on alarms, and scroll around with your finger and then press save.”
The head Android honcho over at Google, Andy Rubin, had a few choice words to say about the iPhone 4S’ personal assistant Siri. According to Rubin, we should spend more time talking with actual people than with our phones, and that Apple’s technology “isn’t a new notion.” Speaking at the AsiaD conference, Rubin added “I don’t believe that your phone should be an assistant” though tasty desserts they totally should be.
Quote: “It’s idiotic for an executive to say something dismissive like this unless they truly don’t plan to add these kinds of features to their phones. (Or more accurately, to their phone OS.) But you know damn well that they will. Google does a lot with voice and translation and so on and there is obviously customer demand for this type of interface.
And also to say it isn’t a “new notion”. Well no kidding. the notion has been around for decades, but this is the most impressive actual implementation of this idea that’s been available in a consumer device.
Nowadays executives seem to have a hard time ever admitting that competing companies have anything worthwhile. I’d have a lot more respect for him if he said, “Siri on the iPhone 4S is pretty cool. There are a lot of limitations though in its current form. We are working on similar technology and when we release it, it will be more mature than what Siri is offering right now.” or “While Siri has some cool functionality, we see the current limitations as being a big problem. We are researching similar tech and when we feel we have overcome many of those limitations, you’ll see it in Android.” See? Was that so hard? And it’s probably completely accurate to say something like that. After all, Google isn’t likely to introduce a Siri like interface down the road that isn’t at least as good as what Siri offers now.”
Source: http://goo.gl/AaycR
… 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…
