Posts Tagged ‘design’

The new Mobile Developer TV logo is coming soon

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

I’ve had a few people ask me why I’ve kept Mobile Developer TV with the default run-of-the-mill Wordpress theme at the moment. The answer is simple — I’m still working out the design. I’ve begun collating some super content and I wanted to get it up and out to the planet whilst I waited for the design to be complete.

If you’re interested to see what we’re playing with, you can check out the demonstration logos (and weigh in with your comments) at this url.

I used 99designs.com to commission an identity for Mobile Developer TV. I’ve long been fascinated with the concept proposed by 99designs. Here’s how it works; You commit to spending a particular amount of money (say $200). You publish your brief and 99designs take your money. Then designers from all over the world compete for your business by submitting their designs.

Very cool indeed.

We’ve had 66 entries in total so far. You can see which ones I’m favouring at the moment by checking out the star-ratings on each. I’d welcome your perspective!

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Originally published on Mobile Developer TV and automatically republished here on Mobile Industry Review. View the original post.

Mobile Monday Silicon Valley rocked

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
May 4, 2009
6:31 pm to 10:31 pm

Mobile Monday Silicon Valley was fantastic this evening. There was a huge turnout on an uncharacteristically rainy San Francisco evening for the Location-Aware app demo evening.

Skyhook Wireless kindly underwrote the bar and gave a pitch at the beginning of the series of presentations, outlining their rather excellent range of location services available to mobile developers. I managed to catch Skyhook’s Director of Marketing, Kate Imbach, on camera discussing the merits of their offering. Suffice to say if you’re a developer and you’d like to integrate location based services (e.g. Find Me) into your app, definitely, definitely talk to Skyhook.

Here are the companies who presented:

  • Crazymenu.com – Launched their iPhone (lunchtime) online restaurant discovery and ordering facility. I really liked their concept. I’m going to look for it in the iPhone app store.
  • Cristdrive – Their application, VoilĂ , will simply and elegantly tell any of your online services where you are, right now. $0.99 in the app store.
  • Retronyms – Couldn’t make it for some reason so Kate from Skyhook did her best with their presentation. They’ve got a rather interesting GPS game by the name of Seek ‘n Spell going live. Check their site.
  • Wertago – Showed off their app offering city nightlife in the palm of your hand. Nice!
  • Geoterrestrial – GPSToday, a comprehensive Windows Mobile application offering an array of GPS related services. If you’re into location services, definitely check out what they’ve created — amongst other features, it’ll sit in the background and continually tell folk where you are.
  • HearPlanet – Dale Larson’s audio city guides deliver location information that really speaks to you. You can, as the site puts it, ‘leave those bulky tour books behind and let HearPlanet (iPhone) show you the way. Get it on the App Store. It’s the #2 rated Travel app at the moment and they’ve had almost 500k downloads so far.
  • Life360 – Trades on fear. But in a good way. Their mobile (and desktop) services deliver you instant safety, security and peace of mind. I’m going to get this for my wife and I. Google Latitude helps show where we both are.. but I want more than that. I particularly like their ‘find your family in an emergency’ facilities.
  • Carrrmatey by Lionebra –> Brought the house down. So much so that I filmed their pitch. I think the audience were really taken with the pirate theme. It’s a really smart utility that records where you left your car, reminds you to return at appointed times (for meters) and guides you back to your car — rather useful if you keep on forgetting where you parked.

I managed to get some good video interviews tonight — I was going to hold them back until we’ve launched with the nice new look and feel, but it’s al about content, right? I’m going to aim to get the first lot of videos up tomorrow morning.

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Originally published on Mobile Developer TV and automatically republished here on Mobile Industry Review. View the original post.

Mobile makers need to think about sex more

Friday, April 11th, 2008

Analysts Gartner have put out a advisory criticising the mobile industry for being too male-centric. According to Gartner, “Sixty-eight percent of the world’s population is women and children who could benefit much from mobile technology, but the majority of mobile devices are designed by men, for men,”, with most mobiles being targeted at western adult male (age 20 to 64).

Handset makers and enterprises need to get ready to address shifting demographics, the analysts say, and take into account “gender diversity and demographics”.

I’m always vaguely suspicious when gender gets brought into design. After all, it was the idea of better targeting women that spawned the awful and embarrassing trend for bringing device out in range of sugary, teeth grinding shades of pink. Please, no more. Equally, no more diet phones or phones that predict when you ovulate. Any chance we can see gender-differentiated handsets that aren’t condescending to the market they’re trying to target?


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