from cellphone to computer
trends in mobility
ian hay & imran ali

hello :)
• Ian Hay - Head of Emerging Technologies, Orange
• Imran Ali - Founding Partner, Carbon Imagineering
• Programme advisors for O’Reilly Emerging Telephony
• Contributors to ETel, Mobile Messaging 2.0 and (ex) TechCrunch UK

today...
• emergent trends & weak signals in mobile technology & usage
• basically... a collection of interesting stuff we’ve recently observed

some background
• Vint Cerf - 1.244 billion internet users; 3 billion
mobile users
• Japan - PCs and laptops losing sales to
cellphones
• Nokia - ‘it’s what computers have become’

some background
• sophistication & complexity aren’t the only trends for mobility
• there’re more interesting developments that N95 and iPhone
• ethnographics
• the human-mobile interface
• hardware trends

1) ethnographics

ethnographics
• smart vs. simple
• understanding ethnographics is key
• jan chipchase - shared phones, cheap
banking, social signalling, clocks &
torches

ethnographics
• nokia designed a range of cheap
enthographically driven handsets
• addressing real needs of users
• not pushing ARPU & sales
• simple phones are also needed in
europe...understand your
ethnographics!

2) human-machine interface

human-machine interface
• increased sophistication - more computer than cellphone
• UIs still stuck on menus, forms, dialog boxes
• iPhone’s not the only direction for mobility...

neokeys

fastap
Alphanumeric Functionality
Simple Benefits
One touch Access:
Easy access to data services,
content, applications and other features
Downloads
Email
SMS, MMS, Email
Makes Messaging Easier
Speed Dial by Letter: Games
M for Mother, B for Bob IM
SMS Addressing by Name: Search
MMS
Type the name, not the number
Letter Dialing:
Text
1-800-GOFEDEX
Messaging
Custom Short Codes:
“PEPSI”, “IDOL4”
Web
Yahoo!
Music Lookup:
Type “MAD” for Madonna

mobile command line
• T9 + multitap
• invoke SMS commands to
remote webapps (dopplr, jaiku,
twitter)
• what if all mobile apps had
command lines?

geovector

openkode & yap

3) hardware trends

open platforms

BUG labs

OLPC XO

mesh + SDR

power issues

thank you :)
• we hope our whistlestop tour of mobile trends was enlightening!
• http://imran.ali.name & http://mobilemessaging2.com
• http://ikisai.wordpress.com & http://www.orange.com