Touchscreens have been with us for decades—and they’ve been the mobile input method of choice for many of us for about 5 years. In fact, many junior designers and developers—or at least those who were late to the mobile party—have never owned a mobile phone for which buttons were the primary input method. But there [...]
Mike Krieger wants companies to think about whether they’re getting the design right or if they have the right design. He fleshes his theory out by providing eight basic principles that will help build products that users really want: understanding, observing, synthesizing, ideating, prototyping, and iterating. Read more here.
As smartphones increasingly store sensitive information, we’ll need better authentication methods to protect that data. Typing a password into your smartphone might be a reasonable way to access the sensitive information it holds, but a startup called EyeVerify thinks it would be easier—and more secure—to just look into the phone’s camera lens and move your [...]
A patent agreement between Apple and HTC forbids the Taiwanese company from making and selling mobile devices that copy what is described as the ‘Distinctive Apple User Experience,” according to a redacted version of the agreement filed in a California court. The ‘slide to unlock’ feature at the bottom of the screen of some Apple [...]
Link New smartphone regulations in China have caused concern among technology companies. The regulations, filed by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to a WTO database of technical barriers to trade. China’s WTO trade barrier notification listed safety, rather than national security, as the chief reason for the regulations. China has long made use [...]
A number of tech companies including Samsung, LG, and Nokia are working on designing flexible handsets. These ‘bendy’ phones will use flexible OLED technology, and will allow phones to have a degree of durability never before seen. Users will be able to fold, roll, or even wear their phones. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20526577
http://www.wired.com/insights/2012/11/mobility-changes-the-shape-of-app-development/ Dion Picco is Manager, Product Management at Progress Software. These are his insights on how mobile application development will evolve. Organizations want to modernize their existing applications, resulting in a much more mobile-first approach. This includes moving the back end from on-premise servers to a more cloud-based architecture (whether that’s public, private or hybrid) [...]
We’ve been hearing the claim that “there are more mobile phones in the world than there are toothbrushes” for a while now. It’s important for marketers to think about what that actually means for them. According to a recent Pew Internet report, 46% of American adults own a smartphone. We’re deep in a world of mobile [...]
Link Today, Dell announced support for several new platforms that makes PocketCloud Explore even more flexible and compelling than before. Every single Dell Inspiron and Dell XPS sold after November 15th has already started shipping with the PocketCloud Companion PC client preinstalled. Even better, you’ll be able to connect to those computers (or any PC [...]
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/telecommunications/how-mobile-apps-developers-can-best-target-geolocation Amber Case, CEO and her small team at Geoloqi says that we can provide better time saving function for the user. Most geolocation, (Case insists), is polling-based. Get on a bus, for example, and you need to be constantly aware of the next stop, or else check your phone every few minutes, to make sure [...]
Voyager Mobile has introduced its new international communications technology at the MVNOs Industry Summit USA 2012 in Dallas, Texas. Project Global Voyager is Voyager Mobile’s exclusive, patent-pending global wireless technology that promotes cell phone usage across the world – without any roaming charges, period. “It’s technology that promotes collaboration between companies, vendors, employees, and customers [...]
Marina Mandarin Singapore is the first hotel to use a fully integrated mobile technology to enhance customer experience at their Food & Beverage outlet. Called the ‘OneGuest Mobile Solutions’, it fully integrates order-taking, customer service management and real-time updates to provide customers faster service and more accurate information on their menu selection items. Service staff [...]
Qualcomm hopes to make mobile phones just as adept at pinpointing your location within a building as they are at tracking your presence on city streets. The company announced on Thursday an ambitious plan to extend indoor positioning capabilities to all future handsets and Wi-Fi networks powered by its chips using a combination of GPS, Wi-Fi and [...]
Navigating public transportation systems has always been a challenge even for the savviest of patrons. Mobile technology should be able to provide real-time transit information to help city residents and visitors get to their destinations faster and more efficiently. This Read Write Web article shows us some of the ways in which mobile transit apps [...]
http://mashable.com/2012/11/14/mobile-app-analytics-tips/ Analytics is key to measuring the execution and value of all the hard work you put into the app. There is a variety of platforms and services vying for the privilege of providing you with good app data. So what can you do? Here are some things to think about: 1. Start Using App [...]
Link Public Radio Exchange has found and documented a bug in Apple’s iOS 6.0mobile operating system that apparently causes multiple downloads of podcasts, boosting data usage requirements up to 300 percent. “The player appears to get into a state where it makes multiple requests per second and closes them rapidly. Because the ranges of these [...]
This Ars Tecnica piece tackles what makes a good Android tablet app. From wasted space to too-small text size the review takes on big mobile players like Twitter, Spotify and Dropbox. The author points out that the iPad apps for these services rank high in style and usability and attributes this to Android’s market share and fragmentation.
http://www.mobiletechnews.com/info/2012/11/01/132431.html The mophie™ juice pack, which has kept millions of iPhone’s “in the green,” is now available for the popular Samsung Galaxy S® III, providing double the battery life on one charge as well as complete device protection in an ultra-thin, lightweight, low-profile design. The juice pack for Galaxy S III marks the company’s [...]
App measurement and ad company Flurry has revealed significant traction for its iOS and Android app advertising and targeting platform, AppSpot. The platform was made publicly available just over three weeks ago and has attracted more than 1,000 app publishers to sign up, according to the company.Flurry described revenue performance of the first 500 applications already live as [...]
http://9to5mac.com/2012/11/09/facebook-product-manager-talks-facebook-for-ios-retooling-the-mobile-development-process/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+9To5Mac-MacAllDay+%289+to+5+Mac+-+Apple+Intelligence%29 Facebook product manager Michael Sharon shared how it has retooled its development process and integrated features from its standalone app into Facebook for iOS. retooled our development process–from making every product team responsible for their experience across desktop and mobile, to switching to native code and timed release cycles–we’ve been able to make sure the [...]
http://www.sfgate.com/business/prweb/article/Freshdesk-Launches-MobiHelp-the-Free-in-app-Help-4022694.php With Freshdesk’s MobiHelp SDK, app developers can integrate their Freshdesk help desk into their apps with just a single line of code. Developers get to use all the powerful customer support capabilities in Freshdesk to automate workflows, identify critical issue areas and complete the conversation loop with their users. The Freshdesk MobiHelp SDK is free. [...]
A version of Microsoft Office is being developed for mobile use on iOS. The application will include the popular programs Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Powerpoint. Microsoft’s Office Mobile app will be released on iPhone and iPad free of charge, however users without a Microsoft Office subscription will only be able to view documents, [...]
Ars Technica has produced a comprehensive review of Apple’s latest product, the iPad Mini. The Good: Size, weight, and shape are all great. It’s what the full-sized iPad can’t be Screen size is technically smaller than the iPad, but real world use doesn’t make it feel that way Good battery life means I’m not having [...]
The lobby group for Australian telcos has declared that SMS technology should no longer be considered a safe means of verifying the identity of an individual during a banking transaction. Communications Alliance chief executive John Stanton, representing the interests of mobile providers Telstra, Optus and Vodafone, took the extraordinary step of of declaring the technology [...]
Tech Breakthrough Could Double Mobile Device Battery Life Scientists from US startup Eta Devices claim to have invented a technology that could double the battery life of an average smartphone, without interfering with the batteries themselves. The breakthrough is related to the power amplifiers – chips that control energy distribution in mobile devices. Called ‘asymmetric [...]
Google has launched a new service that will give developing countries access to Google’s main core offerings such as Gmail, Google+, and Google Search. This service is first starting off in the Philippines and if successful will branch out to other developing countries. The service if it works will give users in developing countries the [...]
Link With its newly released Windows Phone SDK 8.0, Microsoft is offering a better story for smartphone software developers, but the SDK itself may force some developers to undergo system upgrades. Windows Phone 8 could at long last give Microsoft the smartphone it needs to make up for lost ground in the mobile space, which [...]
http://www.formtek.com/blog/?p=3360 PhoneGap uses standard HTML/HTML5, CSS and Javascript. PhoneGap provides hooks in Javascript that permit access to native device functionality, like geolocation, the camera, and the accelerometer. PhoneGap applications basically run on the native browser for the mobile device, but they are packaged and made to appear to the user as native apps. The AgilIQ blog has an interesting [...]
The ongoing debate over how to best get applications onto mobile devices — either through native deployments or writing a mobile Web application — is going to remain a front-burner question for developers to ponder, given the pros and cons of both, developers say. Developers see benefits to both approaches, as well as to hybrid [...]
http://www.networkcomputing.com/wireless/android-ipad-tablets-drive-enterprise-ap/240010045 As more enterprise users show up at the office with tablets, organizations are increasingly looking for creative ways to leverage these devices for business use. Recent research shows that a significant number of organizations will deploy mobile line-of-business apps in the next year, with many of those efforts geared toward tablet-specific enterprise apps. As enterprises [...]
http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/10/25/4366612/samsung-opens-new-opportunities.html Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced the availability of Arndale, a new community development board designed around its Exynos 5 Dual system-on-chip (SoC). The Exynos 5 Dual features the implementation of both the world’s first dual-core ARM® Cortex™-A15 MPCore™ processor and the world’s first quad-core ARM Mali™-T604 GPU based on 32nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) process [...]
A survey by the Mobile Operators Association and YouGov shows smartphone ownership has doubled in the UK in less than a year. Over half (58 percent) of mobile phones in the UK are smartphones, and 20 percent of adults own a tablet. Developers are going to have to take this rise in the UK into [...]
There are plenty of ways to become outraged about the state of affairs in global communications, but one of the easiest is to travel to a foreign country and try to use your smartphone like a normal person — in other words, check your location on a map, get your email, send text messages, take [...]
Verizon Reports Third Consecutive Quarter of Double-Digit Earnings Growth In third-quarter 2012, Verizon Wireless delivered the highest number of retail postpaid net additions in four years; strong growth in revenues; an increase in smartphone penetration; and the highest segment EBITDA margin on service revenues (non-GAAP) in the company’s history, surpassing last quarter’s previous high. via [...]
he Philippine government has launched a mobile phone application which can provide real-time information on rainfall and flooding to the general public. The Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH), which aims to provide information about bad weather and thus mitigate disasters such as floods, typhoons and landslides, launched itswebsite in July, and now a free mobile [...]
http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/blog/9506-ericsson-releases-webrtc-enabled-mobile-browser Ericsson has released what it is terming an “experimental” WebRTC-enabled browser on the Apple’s USA App Store and on Google Play. The browser is called Bowser. The browser “will finally enable web developers to add audio and video functionality to their mobile web applications” the company said. WebRTC is based on work ongoing within the World Wide Web [...]
The new Samsung M400 is a cell phone that is designed specifically with seniors and disabled people as their target consumers. It has a large screen with settings that allow the font size to be adjusted to make it bigger for seniors and disabled people. An oversized keypad, making typing easy. A dedicated 911 key, [...]
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — In the crowded mobile payments space, a major player is about to make a long-awaited debut. Isis, a mobile commerce network founded by three of the nation’s biggest wireless carriers – Verizon Wireless (VZ, Fortune 500), AT&T (T,Fortune 500) and T-Mobile — will launch in its first two cities, Austin and Salt Lake City, on Monday, October [...]
Sprint will be the first mobile carrier in the U.S. to offer the innovative new service called StarStarMe. This service will allow customers to use a word of their choosing as their phone number instead of a number. This service will allow people to call others by tapping the star key twice on the phone’s [...]
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CEQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tlu.ee%2F~kpata%2FharidustehnoloogiaTLU%2Fmobilesharples.pdf&ei=hEV4UMDxKYOC9gTS8oCYBQ&usg=AFQjCNHAQM__v8k24lhoGNDFsoThON3NIg&sig2=m6hkgXr3Kb-ohkT8lf-xHg Disruptive Devices: Mobile Technology for Conversational Learning Mike Sharples- A dilemma at the heart of networked learning is that learners can command an increasingly sophisticated set of communication and computing devices, which they are forbidden to use within formal education because they disrupt lessons and lectures. Meanwhile, schools, colleges and universities are starved of IT resources, and [...]
Mobile operators including those operating from Nigeria are set to lose $54 billion by 2016 in revenues that would normally accrue from short messaging service (SMS) to over the top (OTT) service popularly known as social messaging. Already, all the global operators are set to lose $23 billion in SMS revenue by the end of [...]
RIM showed off its new Active Frames feature for the BlackBerry 10 at CTIA’s MobileCon this week. The concept behind Active Frames is pretty simply: No one likes minimizing apps on their smartphones and then flipping through different screens to open up new ones. So Active Frames creates a series of minimized windows on users’ screens that [...]
http://www.gizmag.com/iphone-case-sensus-rear-top-touch-panel/24517/ The new iPhone case from Canopy called the Sensus adds the back touchscreen feature of Playstation Vita to iPhones. This eliminates getting smudges on screens and adds a new way of using the iPhone. It also acts as a usual casing and protects from falls and drops. However, many gaming forums [link, link, [...]
“While the hubbub surrounding Apple Maps on iOS 6 has been somewhat sedated, some people who made the move to Google Maps’ web app had been further encouraged by word that it’d be getting Street View imagery soon. And what do you know, barely seven days into the estimated “in two weeks” and here it is. Search for a [...]
“Beginning Oct. 7, AT&T* GoPhone® smartphone customers will have a new rate plan option. The new Monthly Unlimited Plan with Data offers unlimited talk and text, with 1 GB of data for $65 per month. Unlimited text messaging to Mexico, Canada and over 100 other countries is also included.” MobileTechNews – AT&T Launches New, Affordable [...]
Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, thinks the company should make a version of iTunes for Android devices. He thinks it would be a good way to put a little of the Apple experience inside the Google OS. http://blogs.computerworld.com/ios/21095/steve-wozniak-wants-apple-launch-itunes-android-phones
Eddie Lee has created an app that lets him steal a credit card by simply waving his Samsung Nexus S phone over a leather wallet tucked into the back pocket of a stranger’s jeans. He can then walk into a nearby store and tap his phone at a cash register to charge a sandwich, a [...]
Link MyHumana, an app that helps patients to the best doctors they can get, receives a Stevie’s Award as people’s choice for favorite app. With this growing app gains more and more recognition and becomes more recognized across the country. With this award and wider recognition, it’s sure to be implemented more often in [...]
Did you know that the US Federal government has launched over one hundred Apps and mobile-friendly websites in the past few years? Thought so. Nextgov has asked three app developers and experts to review several of the most popular Apps. The reviews are brief, but offer great insight into what makes an App worth using. [...]
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/09/26/appcelerator/ Survey results found that developers anticipate these five things to change the world of application development: 1. Television: Google TV vs. Apple TV vs. Vizio TV. Even though televisions are far from mobile, the apps they’ll likely be furnished with will have mobile roots and probably borrow heavily from and sync with their mobile [...]