Tag Archives: android
This years CES brought close to 140,000 visitors enjoying 2,700 displays of awesome. It was truly a geek central and an experience like no other. With so many booths, tech displays, 200+ sessions and almost 1000 speakers it was hard to see and hear everything. All that makes it hard to pick your favourite gadget or technology, so here are five.
1. Tablets
You could pick from over 80 tablets, ranging from 7” to 14”. Most had front and back cameras. Many featured slider keyboards, dock frames with keyboard or bluetooth keyboards. Some had touch and precise pen input. A couple even had dual screen setups. They were running anything from Android 2.2, Android 3.0, Windows 7, Linux to Blackberry QNX. Many were designated for 4G networks and were packing some serious power under the hood. Most notable were Dell Streak 7, LG G-Slate, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia, ASUS Eee Pad, but my favourite was Motorola Xoom. It featured NVIDIA Tegra 2 Dual-Core Processor and Android 3.0 Honeycomb system with all the Google love you can handle.
2. Smartphones
2011 CES was definitely about smarter and faster phones. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile presented their 4G lineup. Many of the phones had some heavy duty features like: HDMI, Autofocus 8MP Cameras, AMOLED screens, HD Video recording/playback, Dolby Surround and more…
Top picks:
Motorola Atrix (AT&T)
Samsung Infuse 4G (AT&T)
Motorola Droid Bionic (Verizon)
Samsung 4G LTE (Verizon)
LG Revolution (Verizon)
HTC Evo Shift (Sprint)
Motorola Cliq 2 (T-Mobile)
My favourite was Motorola Atrix. In part because of the cool docking station that doubled as a netbook and in part because of the snappy 1GHz Dual-Core processor and HD Video Playback streaming option.
3. Android everywhere
Approximately 70% of devices at CES were Android powered. Anything from phones, tablets, netbooks, and TVs, to cars, clock radios, printers and Android-powered headphones. Read More
By Neil Clemmons | Critical Mass Chicago
There’s a lot being written about the iPad – reviews, new applications, the ongoing debate on Flash, what the device does and what it doesn’t do.
Beyond the device, however, there are some implications and the longer-term impact it will have as we create digital experiences. New devices and interfaces have a profound impact on consumer expectations, competitive moves, and the evolution of digital interfaces. The Wii ushered in new interface concepts and ideas. Same with xBox and xBox Live. The iPad will do the same in its influence on the conventions and expectations of our industry.
We have several of the Wifi iPads in our offices and have had a number of discussions with our team about its implications. Some see immediate opportunities for the iPad to ‘fit in’ to their lifestyles. Others are still debating if it replaces something or is a supplemental access and consumption device. It’s bigger than a phone with no ability to do more than SKYPE calls. But it’s not quite a notebook with all the file access and productivity tools – so the iPad makes compromises in both directions. The limitations will change in time as new applications, new peripherals, an updated OS, and improved connectivity come.
One thing the smartphone and iPad do is to force a focus on ‘what’s important’ versus ‘what’s possible.’ As sites or applications evolve, they become more bloated, more confusing, and lose the punch they can have. Redesigns of a site or an application can be liberating, in removing the old conventions. But invariably we worry about ‘moving the cheese’ of the habituated consumer and thus add rather than subtract in making experience design tradeoffs. This is where Apple and the developers of iPad apps demonstrated tremendous courage in leaving behind the conventional interfaces and tools. We need more courage to advance the customer experience.
What’s the take away after a week of using the iPad from an experience standpoint?
Here are the 7 Areas of Implications for digital marketers:
#1 – Fragmentation.
Josh Bernoff (Forrester) wrote about the Splinternet earlier this year. That theme is in full force on the iPad. Media and content fragmentation continue as new devices enable content consumption in new and different formats. Information ubiquity that started with the smartphone is further exacerbated with a new form factor. iPhone apps that are played on the iPad look OK, but you’re much more engaged by an iPad native app. The need for liquid experiences that adapt to the screen become even more important as we look at alternative form factors.
#2 – Development Challenges.
We have to think differently about how content and experiences are created, disseminated and maintained. Monolithic frameworks start to break down when there are hundreds of thousands of developers creating new experiences. And with Apple changing their developer terms and conditions, it looks like Apple will expect you to use their tools and frameworks, rather than many of the cross-platform frameworks. We have several clients working with Android, iPhone, Blackberry and other instances for applications. The iPad and follow-on products from other vendors based on Windows 7, Chrome, or Android tablets will further exacerbate the challenge of consistency and maintainability.
#3 – Personalization.
We’re at the early stages of more personal (and relevant) consumption of media – that means the customer is even more in control of the experience. Most will seek out an application rather than a web browser to consume their content where possible. Android, the iPhone OS, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry are all targeting what Mary Meeker with Morgan Stanley says will be a bigger market than the desktop PC market by 2014. The browser lives on at the desktop, but many of these new devices will take a very different approach to content and experience access. Remixing content from feeds, apps, alerts, and personalized experiences will become even more important. Add in the intersection of social to these experiences and you quickly see that use cases with these new devices will become even more personal.
