Apple’s FaceTime ads trigger emotions and wallets

I’d like to first say that I dislike Apple’s new ads that showcase their FaceTime feature. They feel cheap and are as painful to watch as a sitcom with poor acting. At the same time, I also think that they are brilliant.

FaceTime is one of Apple’s new features for iPhone 4 that supports video chatting with other iPhone 4 users (if you’re both using a Wi-Fi connection). The iPhone 4 has a new camera in the front so you can see who you are talking to (and they can see you). Get a tissue box ready and watch one of the ads:

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Don’t hold your iPhone like that!?!

I’m sad to say that my new iPhone has the same “death grip” problem as everyone else. If I hold it so that my hand bridges two of the three metal bands that encircle the device, the reception bars drop. It’s especially bad if you bridge a gap in the bands at the bottom-left corner of the device, right where it nestles into your palm if you hold it left-handed. What was Apple thinking, building the antenna into an exposed metal band around the edge of the phone?

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There’s a market for resistive touchscreens

Do you have long fingernails? Do you live in a cold climate and often wear gloves? Well, device manufacturers may be ignoring you.

There are two popular types of touchscreens: capacitive and resistive. Capactive touchscreens (e.g. iPhone or iPod Touch) work when a conductive object (e.g. finger or stylus) touches the screen. Resistive touchscreens (e.g. Garmin or TomTom GPS unit) work when pressure is applied to the screen. Digitimes reported on February 12th that most Taiwanese touchscreen manufacturers are not going to manufacture resistive touchscreens anymore.

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CES 2010: Zomm Remembers Your Phone

Note: This week we are reacting to CES 2010, which was last week in Las Vegas.

Zomm has created a keychain fob that’s a Bluetooth accessory for your phone. It pairs with your mobile phone, and then it beeps if it gets more than 50 yards away from your phone, to help you remember to take your phone with  you.  It also doubles as a personal alarm and way to talk to emergency personnel. The folks at CES also thought it was cool, they awarded it “The Best of Innovations” Award. This is a great example of design to avoid mistakes. For many of us it’s pretty difficult to leave home without keys because we have to lock the front door and start the car, but it’s much easier to forget your phone at home or on a table at a restaurant. With Zomm, as long as you have your keys, you’ll remember your phone.  If you keep your phone in your purse it can help you remember both, but if you forget your keys too you’re completely stuck.

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The HumanCentric mobile phone

Several months ago the industrial design team had an internal design competition with the intent of creating a “HumanCentric” mobile phone that we could then use to showcase some of our interaction + graphic + UI design skills. The designers brainstormed, sketched and argued as a group and then had one hour to render their vision for what our HC mobile phone should be. The final design that was selected is pictured above.

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Traveling to Paris with the iPhone

I am a relatively new user to the iPhone, having just purchased one this summer. I bought the iPhone primarily on the promise of 3^rd party applications making my life easier. Switching to AT&T from Verizon was difficult because the network coverage of Verizon is so much better where I live and travel, but I was ready to make use of these 3^rd party Internet-enabled applications to improve my life.

All-in-all, the iPhone has delivered on that promise. Nothing demonstrated that better than a recent trip to Paris. I have done a bit of international travel, but this was to be my first time to France. France is famous for not wanting to speak English to tourists and I don’t know a lick of French and I was traveling alone, so I did more than my usual preparations for this trip.

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Yo AT&T, watch your junk

Yesterday I came home to find an enormous piece of junk mail from AT&T jammed into my mailbox. It was so big that it was a literal struggle to get it out, and in doing so, I almost took the mailbox right off of the post! One second in the door and I’m already annoyed…

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3rd-Party Developers – the deciding vote?

On Saturday (June 7), the Palm Pre was officially launched. And with it, another smartphone platform. We now have a very large number of smartphone OS platforms (Windows Mobile, iPhone, Symbian, Blackberry, Android, BREW, LiMo, Openmoko, Qt Extended, and now the Palm Pre’s Web OS). These platforms are backed by a virtual who’s who of technology companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Nokia, RIM, Google and Palm. Each wants to become the platform of choice for the mobile internet device market. However, they can’t all be that. There can only be one platform of choice, with perhaps a second or third strong competitor. The rest will be relegated to niche markets or discontinuation.

So, which one(s) will emerge? That will, of course, depend on many factors, but one of those factors that will play a significant role, if not a deciding role, is third-party developers. The promise of being “always connected” cannot be realized solely by built-in applications. The uses of the internet are too varied for any one company to enable. And third-party developers are too creative, quick to market, and resourceful for any one company to replicate. Third-party developers are going to enable some of the most compelling uses of “always connected” devices. However, they are often small companies, small groups within larger companies, or even individuals, and are unable to port their application to 6 or 7 different platforms. They must choose. And the platforms that they develop on are going to have capabilities that other platforms won’t. These platforms will have a decided advantage as this market matures.

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