Welcome to Beyond SMS!
So – welcome to Revolution’s new mobile apps blog! Here, I’ll be looking at the good, the bad and the downright weird on iPhone, Android, java, Blackberry, and the myriad of other technologies springing up, as well as the new app stores being launched by all and sundry.
As anyone who’s been in mobile for as long as I have (9 years and counting…) the fact that there are now not one but two mobile blogs in Revolution surely means that this is the long-heralded but often-delayed ‘year of mobile’? Right?
Right!! Judging by the number of mainstream clients and agencies now calling about iPhone apps, this could be it, and there’s considerable knock-on effect for other forms of mobile marketing, such as WAP, java and plain old SMS too.
But while all mobile people love the iPhone, last Monday, when Apple announced the new features which will go into iPhone v3 software, was really special. Despite the fact it won’t be here until summer, I saw a number of my colleagues moved to Twitter or blog their heartfelt love for the iPhone in terms that should probably worry their partners…
iPhone users have always had a love/hate relationship with the phone, but 3.0 will mean giant steps forwards for developers, brands, and humble day-to-day users.
For anyone who hasn’t seen the new features yet, get yourselves ready for:
- Cut+paste – yep, just like any other device, even horrid Windows Mobile, you will now be able to manipulate text in a semi-intelligent manner
- MMS – although still one of the most expensive forms of data on the planet (25p for 100k of data anyone?) MMS has finally made it in, although most iPhone users are perfectly happy with just sending pics via e-mail
- Bluetooth accessories – will now be able to connect with external hardware – imagine jogging while listening to your phone’s iPod, while an app counts your heartbeats per minute via a Bluetooth monitor…
- Bluetooth peer-to-peer – imagine all the great games being made for iPhone suddenly being multiplayer
- Embed maps, streaming video and audio into applications. This means you don’t have to click out of your app into Google maps to find nearest stores etc
And there’s plenty more – in fact Apple have released over 1000 new widgets for us to build apps with, making them bigger and better brand tools than ever.
On one hand, this can be frustrating. Already I’ve been to one client to explain that the designs and concepts we’ve been working on for a couple of months now are all out of date as we can now do much more. But on the other hand, we can only applaud the way that Apple continuously listen to their users and improve their device. Sure, asthis bingo-card from Mobile Crunch illustrates, you can’t keep all the people happy all the time, but with a huge range of new creative possibilities coming up this summer, and doubtless more to follow, we’re set for a lot more fun to follow.
This article was first published in Revolution, Mar 27 2009.