This is Swipe, a blog by pinch/zoom about mobile, design, user experience, usability, development and the future of technology.
I think I’m alone in the pinchzoom team in thinking The Hangover was a rubbish movie. (Actually judging from the movie’s takings, I think I’m alone in America). The Hangover 2 has recently been released, and now an iOS app has followed.
This app is really interesting as it’s signaling a big move into the mobile space from movie studios and they appear to be embracing it in a huge way. The app is free, and there is an additional in-app purchase of $19.99 to download the movie. That seems a little excessive given you can purchase the same movie through the iTunes store for $9.99 and rent it for $2.99 (although I think your $9.99 is better spent on new socks or something a bit more original than this movie).
Some of the features and advantages of the app are offline playback so you can download the movie to your device for viewing later, streaming viewing over wi-fi, bonus videos and extras, stills, photos and wallpapers, social media sharing, the soundtrack to the movie, and being able to make ringtones out of sound clips from the movies. All in all, it’s a really comprehensive app and an awesome app that really supplements the movie.
It will be great to see more movie apps as the studios start to learn what works and doesn’t. It will especially be great if these apps could be released at the same time as the movies rather than two years after the movie is first released. Sure the app won’t have the entire movie available for downloading / streaming from launch but that could be added to an update once the movie rights are more widely distributed.
movie apps the hangover
Freelancer.com published a press release on the fastest growing outsourcing / freelancing jobs for the last quarter, which shows that Android and HTML5 jobs are booming right now.
The most noticeable digital labor shift this quarter was, that despite solid growth in iPhone jobs (they are up 9% from 2739 to 2985), Android work continues to outpace Apple. Android jobs are up a solid 20% going from 1419 to 1702 jobs, placing Android in the top five absolute movers in the Freelancer Fast 50. If Android work continues at this growth rate, it will surpass the iPhone category by the end of 2012. On the whole the market for mobile jobs is very strong, the Mobile Phone category having risen by 12%.
I remain incredibly skeptical that Android is going to surpass iOS – it might be having amazing growth right now but we’re just not seeing that level of interest at all. If anything, Android interest is in the guise of HTML5 apps rather than native Android development. The data is telling one story but there are more factors in play than just “Android is going to surpass iPhone”, such as many organizations having iOS teams in place and only needing to outsource Android development.
This quarter again marks a massive gain for HTML5 work, going from 604 projects in Q1 to 807 in Q2
The sort of enquiries we’re getting and work we’re booking definitely reflects this interest as well. Brian, Scott and I had a discussion about that last week – I’ve embedded the video below.
The Context: The HTML5 episode from pinch/zoom on Vimeo.
Blackberry development jobs are on the decrease, as is Flash work – no major surprises there. It will be interesting to see if the Playbook creates any native Blackberry interest – again, I suspect that most organizations targeting the Playbook are probably targeting HTML5 over native.
My prediction – HTML5 projects are going to continue to rise and rise and rise over the next 2 – 3 years to where it’s at least equal to the number of iOS jobs.
ios html5 blackberry android
As mobile designers we rarely think of email marketing but EDMs are an important piece of direct marketing to a lot of organizations.
StyleCampaign have just blogged 10 frequent mistakes when designing emails for mobile devices, and they’re pretty spot-on with all their advice. In fact, their advice is still relevant to EDMs in general, not just when viewed on touch-screens.
Peak mobile email usage takes place at 7am, probably right after the user’s alarm on their phone wakes them up. We are designing for users with blurry vision, poor co-ordination until after their first cup of coffee and little time to spare.
Great advice, and I really hope most of the companies that send me EDMs read it. Yes, I’m talking to you Net-a-porter.
email marketing edm
In an excellent move for consumers, the EU is proposing to cap data roaming charges throughout Europe at 80p (about US$1.20) per MB.
Data roaming charges are currently a black hole of fine print, legalise and hidden charges. Smart phones quickly become dumb with no access to data – and wifi isn’t always widely available outside the US. This is a great move from the EU to help protect consumers, although consumer groups warn that mobile providers may just tack on fees elsewhere to make up the shortfall.
Would love to see data roaming caps by every other provider.
data roaming EU
HTML5 seems to be one of the hottest topics in mobile development these days, and it really sounds too good to be true – can you really use web technologies for building cross-platform mobile apps instead of going native.
Brian, Scott and Chez dissect the myths and truths to HTML5, and discuss what it actually means to build a mobile app in HTML5. Should you be looking at an HTML5 strategy instead of building a native app? They discuss pros and cons of HTML5 development for mobile, as well as give case studies and best practices for anyone thinking about an HTML5 app.
Is HTML5 going to be the silver bullet and savior of mobile development? You’ll just have to watch and see…
html5 mobile apps web vs native
Following the footsteps of AT&T and T-Mobile, Verizon is to drop their unlimited data plan tomorrow (7th July), according to the New York Times. It was only really a matter of time – the public’s appetite for data is voracious, and data costs money. Verizon’s unlimited data plan is currently $30 per month – this is switching to be 2GB per month for the same cost.
Validas said it studied 11,000 Verizon Wireless bills that had been submitted for analysis and found that 96 percent of Verizon smartphone users consumed less than the 2GB of the minimum tier each month. In fact, 36 percent used less than 75MB of data. And less than 1 percent of the Verizon Wireless users consumed more than 5GB of data.
I guess for most folk it’s more of a safety net. Data is still mercifully cheap in the US, but I know when I went over my data plan in Australia by 50MB I was charged about $1200. It’s only $10 per GB for overages with the new Verizon plan.
If you have your heart set on an unlimited data plan, you have a day to go and get a contract and be grandfathered into unlimited data – if not, the same $30 a month will only get you 2GB.
verizon data plan
We’re hosting the 1st meetup of the “Seattle Media Technology Group” here at the pinch/zoom offices in Fremont tonight (Wed June 29 from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm). Sign-up and details are on Meetup here
Come on by. We’ll have some food, adult beverages and lively discussion.
Here’s the gist of the group from its chief instigator H.B. –
We’re a group of Seattle technologists and designers passionate about the intersection of the visual media of film/television/internet video and technology.
We’ve got UX designers, software developers, product managers, and hobbyists/enthusiasts exchanging ideas, innovations and trends in mobile applications for video/film, streaming media, rights management, dedicated devices, 10’ UIs and whatever else seems right!
disruption events meetup seattle media technology group
Carrington also addressed the question of apps versus mobile web, stressing that Google is not taking a side in the debate, but that businesses may be focusing too much on native apps and not enough on their mobile websites.
“We would generally encourage people to have both,” he said. “A lot of people have an application strategy and not a mobile web strategy.”
— Ian Carrington, Google’s mobile advertising sales director for northern and central Europe.
Growing up in Australia the dangers and likelihood of skin cancer are drummed into us on a very regular basis. We have TV, radio and print ads on the dangers of the sun, massive billboards telling us to get checked by a doctor regularly, and endless articles on spotting the first signs of skin cancer. I guess that needs to happen when you live under the hole in the ozone layer.
Mark Pesce tweeted yesterday about an app to check your skin for melanoma. Yes it’s an icky topic, but a really important one – skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States, with more than 3.5 million skin cancers in over two million people diagnosed annually.
Skinscan has already secured €50,000 in funding, and is an app to encourage people to see their doctors early if they have medium / high risk moles or lesions. It’s a very clever app – the user takes a picture of a mole, then the app uses a proprietary algorithm to look at the fractal-like shapes which exist in human skin. It then calculates if the shape of the mole means it is is developing normally, or abnormally into a potential cancerous melanoma.
I was a little skeptical about whether the iPhone camera would be high-res enough for an accurate analysis, but I tried it last night with a few moles I know have been given the “all-clear” by my doctor, as well as one I’ve had my eye on as something to worry about. Sure enough, the app analyzed the pictures I took and told me most of them were low-risk, but the one I was worried about is a medium risk and I was told to keep an eye on it.
Skinscan is US$4.99, which is well worth it for peace of mind and to get you seeing a doctor earlier than you may have otherwise. This is great use of technology providing a meaningful experience and value – and potentially saving lives by alerting users to high risk situations early enough to be able to change the situation.
medical apps iphone health skin cancer
Well it was only a matter of time before the SEO experts started casting a beady eye on the iTunes app store*. It was fun while it lasted, but the days of great apps floating to the top are gone, with more and more people trying to game the app store rankings.
Search Engine Land have published an article on How to SEO for Apples App Store. Their first tip is to “make an interesting app”. You would hope so – I would go further and suggest that if you’re not making an interesting app you should stay well away from mobile until you can figure out a way to creating something meaningful for your users.
Their second tip is to keep an eye on the top 50 apps so you can create a similar app and piggy-back off traffic for related apps. I think this is terrible advice. Why on earth would you watch the top 50 most popular apps and then set out to create something similar? I’d say keep an eye on the top 50 apps so you could see what sort of apps are missing rather than appearing. Do you really want to create Grumpy Birds, or Smaller Wings based on the top 50 apps now? That’s crazy advice and akin to telling your kids to run out and play in the abandoned old mine shaft.
They also suggest adding keywords to the app name, which would explain why there’s so many spammy results in the app store when you look up popular topics such as photography, games, fun, etc. The iTunes store app search has become fairly clunky and unwieldy, precisely because companies are doing this, and a lot of the time their keywords aren’t relevant to the search results. We do a lot of competitor reviews, which means we’re constantly searching for apps under particular categories. It’s amazingly hard to find great, relevant apps because of so much keyword stuffing in the title.
The same goes for referencing other popular apps in the body copy (another suggestion from the article). When used properly this can be useful – I have not yet seen it done properly.
I say ignore all articles that tell you how to game the app store rankings, and create a meaningful, useful and beautiful app for your users. Apple pays close attention to the detail of design – you’ll notice that many of their featured apps have gorgeous pixel-perfect design. Concentrate on creating the best possible app and testing it with your users. If it adds value to the lives of your users, that is the only measure that counts.
* I spent 5 years working in SEO so I feel like I’ve earned the right to be a little sarky about the industry. I worked for good rather than evil but it’s still an industry that focuses a little too heavily on side details (how to get better rankings) than what I see as really important – creating meaningful experiences. I really hope Apple takes a hard line on SEO within the app store as all the SEO advice I’ve seen really isn’t good for the end user.
SEO iTunes app store
