Pathway #6: Thinking outside the slate
Category
100 years of slate-itude
The silhouette of mobile devices has firmly homogenised around the anonymous rectangle. Our fond memories of clamshells, spring-loaded sliders and rotary lipstick mobiles are starting to fade. Will there ever be a time when we can get excited …
Bringing customisation closer to the customer
There was a time when handset manufacturers and network operators talked of delivering personalisation right down to the level of individual customers. For manufacturers, it meant ever more diverse products targeting smaller segments. The economic…
Watching a brand move
Alcatel TCL is a brand on the move at Mobile World Congress. Dwarfed by competitors such as Nokia and Samsung on most metrics – unit sales and revenues – it is taking a refreshingly creative approach to finding a niche where it can be meaningful t…
Augmentation without the cyborg
How would the digital experiences central to users’ lives change if they weren’t embodied in a touchscreen slate? Google’s Glass project provides an obvious answer by virtue of the fact it has been much in the news recently. The interest around sm…
Material changes
Golla is one of numerous third party case manufacturers plying its wares at Mobile World Congress. Quite apart from being a level above most others in product quality, it is also a source of insight into the trends in materials and colours which…
Watching the emergence of wearables
There has been a lively buzz around I’m Watch, the Italian manufacturer claiming to have launched the world’s first ‘smart watch’ here at MWC.
What does the photo make you think of? A watch? A smartphone on a strap? A 1990s era PDA?
The co…
Uncompromising, comprised
Consider the two products above, the Nokia N9 on the left and the Nokia Lumia 920 on the right. Both employ Nokia’s ‘Fabula’ design language and, at first glance, are so similar as to be indistinguishable. Look closer, however, and which see…
Tablet review
In preparation for chairing MobileMonday London’s event entitled ‘Tablets come of age‘ I’ve been watching some hands-on videos of tablets I haven’t had a chance to own personally, with a particular focus on those other than the iPad. Here’s a sel…