It’s been a good year for mobile and there’s no reason to imagine it being any different in 2015. Certainly from my perspective the use of mobile doesn’t seem to be abating in any visible way and there’s a lot around the corner to be excited about. Here’s my list of what I’m looking forward to in the New Year and beyond…
Consistency and continuity across devices
One of the headliners for WWDC, OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 this year was the idea of seamless continuity across your Apple devices – in essence the ability to connect and move from one device to another with unprecedented ease. Although the landscape is noticeably changing, right now we’re still working within ecosystems that necessitate multiple devices, each suited to specific contexts and situations, so the idea of being able to start work or watch a video on one and when needed be able to immediately pick it up and continue it on another without an ounce of faff, is very appealing.
Apple have approached this through the introduction of features such as Handoff, personal hotspot and SMS/Phone Relay, which focus on intuitive an uninterrupted interaction between devices without the need for numerous arbitrary actions or lengthy setup. Check out this link for an overview of Apple’s approach to continuity and expect to see Handoff capabilities appear in more and more apps as developers get to grips with it.
To be fair, Handoff isn’t anything innovative in terms of the functionality being used. Google offers browsing and tab synchronisation through Chrome browser extensions and lets you access draft emails over various devices with its ability to do real-time saving in Gmail. What Apple does though is cleverly design the way in which the user can utilise these features, providing them in a way that is seamless and sensible, which straightaway makes it more useful.
As this approach improves over the coming year it will become more expected by users and seen less as added value – when consistency and continuity across devices becomes taken for granted that is the point when we’ll know it has truly been adopted and is successfully working as intended.
Smartwatches and smartwear
As mentioned in a previous post, smartwatches really speak to me in a nostalgic childhood wish fulfilment kind of way. Despite that, and having spent time with the Android Wear SDK and a couple of the devices themselves, I still haven’t bought one yet. Why? For me the devices still need to be that bit better… or a lot cheaper… or both! Better battery life, amongst other things, stopped me from being enticed by the Moto 360 (Update, 20/05/15: since the latest software update I’ve found the 360 battery life to be a lot better, and under ‘normal’ usage it lasted me a day and an evening, which for me is the least I’d consider acceptable right now). Hopefully 2015 should see smartwear improve enough for me to finally purchase something, whatever it might be.
Although as consumers we don’t seem ready for head mounted wearables such as Google Glass, it’s interesting to see that pick up of both that and similar wearable devices is increasing within industries where the ability to get and send information whilst keeping you hands free actually makes them desirable. This definitely looks to be a growing space through 2015. For the person on the street though it seems focus will remain firmly on items that can be worn without drawing crazy attention to oneself – so keep your eye on the second round of Android Ware driven devices and of course the Apple Watch (which, although clearly first gen, can’t help but add credibility to the idea of us incorporating smartwear into our lives).
What comes after wearables? Well that would be embeddables, but hey let’s take it one step at a time shall we? Check out this list of influences shaping the wearable landscape.
Mobile payments
Apple Pay, Google Wallet, PayPal in-store, Current C and many more – the options and buzz around mobile payments is increasing. Mobile payments are clearly starting to gain wider acceptance and adoption, and there is no reason to expect that this trend won’t continue through 2015 as interactions between business, financial institutions and consumers increasingly occur via mobile devices – we are at a point of convergence between the new digital ways for completing transactions that retail and business are now offering, and consumers new found willingness to experiment with them. Combine this with the use of iBeacons and similar technology in order to provide people with location based purchasing opportunities, and you have a powerful vehicle for targeting the right people at the right time at the right location, whilst making sure that they have the ability to purchase unhindered.
There is an undeniable cool factor around mobile payment technology right now, and stats coming out suggest that whatever option is available to you on your device you’re likely to be interested in giving it a go at some point or another this year. Apple finally brought NFC to their devices with the the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus (for payments only though, nothing else) and are pushing adoption of Apple Pay hard, which rather interestingly has helped increase awareness beyond just Apple users – for example it has had a positive knock on effect on the uptake of Goggle Wallet, which has actually seen usage grow since the launch of Apple Pay.
Swift
It will be interesting to see how Apple’s new Swift programming language continues to be adopted for iOS apps during the course of 2015. It’s a great step forward over Objective-C that should make creating apps for the platform smoother and less daunting for the first time developer creating native apps for the platform.
Worth considering though is the increasing desire to create apps that are cross platform. Increasingly I’m talking to people that want to write once and distribute anywhere, and whilst historically cross platform frameworks have not delivered the goods they are definitely coming of age. I explored going cross platform on mobile earlier this year and the options available for cutting down the effort, time and cost whilst being able to target multiple markets. Knowing this trend is happening you have to ask the question, will Swift have the impact it might have had a few years ago?
That said there are still apps that gain an edge from being developed natively, games being the obvious example. In this sense Swift should do a great job, the question being how long will it take for developers to adopt? Apple obviously aren’t going to make developers change languages over night – many have spent years learning the ins and outs of Objective-C and have made it their livelihoods, so Apple aren’t gong to be shutting the door on it anytime soon. Shifting to Swift will be about the benefits it has over the older language, and many of those will come from the fact that it isn’t built on top of another language (unlike Objective-C that was built on top of C) – because of this Swift should make creating apps for iOS easier, should produce more efficient code and ultimately give developers a more productive experience when creating apps.
I’ve not had the chance to spend much time with the language yet, but the syntax looks to be better and the developers I’ve spoken to so far confirm that it is a big improvement in many ways (let me know if you think otherwise) and you can indeed do things in a line or two of code that would take more to do in Objective-C and be a lot less concise. Whichever way you cut it Swift looks like a good step forward for Apple from a development perspective, but the interesting thing for me right now will be to see how quickly it is (or isn’t) adopted for developing apps over the course of 2015.
Bigger screen phones and the potential of foldable screens
Do you remember the Dell Streak? The first of it’s kind in 2010, this 5 inch device was way ahead of the curve in terms of screen size. We now live in a time where you wouldn’t bat an eyelid at a phone sporting a 5 inch screen – long story short we now have greater acceptance of mobile devices with larger screens, which is hardly surprising given how much more online activity we’re all willing to do through our smartphones now, and how much a larger screen makes that experience more comfortable. Apple obviously feel the time is right too with the introduction of the iPhone 6 (4.7 inches) and 6 Plus (5.5 inches) this year.
The flip side of the coin is convenience – if the screens get bigger where will we put our phone? Will we have to put them elsewhere or will we see trouser pockets getting bigger? 🙂 That’s why I’m interested in the research that’s being done into foldable screens. Both Samsung and LG have started research into foldable, bendable, rollable screen technology and expect to have devices that utilise them during 2015 and beyond. Check out LG’s roadmap:
For me this is a big deal. Big screens offer a great experience for many activities, but they can then hamstring the portability and convenience of the device. Imagine a device that utilises a foldable screen with no hinges or breaks ruining the continuity of the screen. Imagine a device that can fold down to the pocketable size of a smartphone when carrying it or using it for calls, but can then fold out to provide a larger screen for video and productivity based endeavours when necessary. That’s the kind of device I’m looking forward to.
The Internet of Things
After much talk about the Internet of Things it’s finally starting to feel like 2015 will be the point when we actually start to see it touch upon our lives a lot more. Wearable tech and home automation seem to be the two ‘things’ with the most momentum and attention right now. Combine these with the growing integration of beacons and NFC into items and areas that will pick up on who we are and where we are, and you can imagine how the three will interact with each other to provide a rich, targeted experience.
There’s still a long way to go. The speed at which we integrate into more and more items will be dependant on the continued improvement of low powered chips that can make it a reality, big data companies improving the ways in which all this new data can be handled and understood, and perhaps most importantly how we handle the serious question of security. How would you like your car being hacked or someone half way around the world being able to mess with your thermostat settings?
All that said, you won’t stop the Internet of Things from happening and 2015 will be the year where we start to see it entering the mainstream. Apple has HomeKit, HealthKit, CarPlay and Apple TV. Google has its Nest acquisition, (the multi OS) Google Fit, Android Wear, Android Auto and Android TV. It’s clear that both of them are making sure they are set for integration beyond the world of phones.
Enterprise mobility
Mobile first isn’t just a trend in the consumer space, it’s clearly changing the landscape within enterprise too: the need for mobile-centric CRM, the continued march of BYOD and CYOD along with the analysis and control of the data being accessed through these devices – these are all going to be key items of attention for businesses during 2015. Check out this article for more detail on the above along with thoughts on Microsoft Office for iOS and Android becoming a mobile productivity standard and the increased adoption of enterprise app stores for managing and securing app usage.
Google’s Material Design
I expect we’ll see that Google’s Material Design will be implemented in more and more websites and apps during 2015, providing a simple, easy to apply framework that should in theory speed up design for developers and remove some of the common pitfalls. It will also be interesting to see if anyone else comes up with alternative frameworks for doing the same thing.
The card design standard
Mobile is clearly responsible for the idea of cards as a design approach. Google Now, Apple Glances, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook’s Open Graph are all examples of how the card approach can been utilised, and we’re at a point where the concept really does make sense given the proliferation of small screen devices. Ranging from the ubiquitous smartphone to the newly emerging smartwartch and on towards the Internet of Things – designs based around cards will really make sense during 2015 wherever you find a small screen interface staring up at you.
Project Ara
Will 2015 be the year that smartphones go modular? Are we at the point in mobile evolution where we’re jaded enough to be ready for something as different as Project Ara? Do you want to be able to build your own phone by swapping out components you don’t want and inserting better specced ones for the functions you do care about? Do you want a physical keyboard? Longer life battery and/or a faster CPU? Better speakers? In theory you should be able to take your pick. I’m not sure if we do want this or not, but I’m excited to check it out. Ara is expected to arrive at some point in 2015 and you can read about it in more detail here.
And there’s more than that too…
Of course there’s more than the above for us to look forward to in 2015, but these are the things in and around mobile that have really caught my attention. What are you looking forward to?
This will most definitely be my final post of 2014, so with that in mind I wish you all a very happy and magical New Year. Here’s to 2015.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” — Albert Einstein
rickynealeuk 