Mobile Applications 2011 Karlskrona

Group 3 - An interview with Vision Mobile :)

Hello everyone! Today we go head to head, toe to toe with Andreas Constantinou - Vision Mobiles Research Director.

Carl-Oscar: You sent us a bundle of very interesting information via the slides that you gave us, thanks again for that. I however would like to know what you are most excited about - what are you really looking forward to when it comes to the digital industy?

Andreas: As mobile industry observers, the most exciting phenomenon we see happening is the ‘genetic pairing’ of the mobile and Internet industries into a single one; this genetic pairing leads into ‘mutation’ rather than ‘convergence’. i.e. we see unexpected new value areas emerge at the crossroads of mobile and internet. The genetic pairing of mobile and internet industries lead to value erosion (e.g. software and hardware commoditisation), wiping off 10s of billions off the mobile handset market. At the same time, new value areas are being created anew like direct-to-consumer applications, app analytics and customer experience management. The industry in 2 years will evolve as much as it evolved in 2008-2010 with the introduction of Apple’s App Store. We ‘re still going to see many surprises in the next 2 years.

Carl-Oscar: In the slides you highlighted some key points of the open source community. Is Visionmobile involved in the community? If not - would you like to?

Andreas: As analysts we are observers to mobile open source communities; we study the economics of open source; for example how major software platforms (Symbian, Android, WebKit, Chrome, etc) use governance models that often antagonise the ethics of open source. In addition, we track the influencers in open source, i.e. the smaller companies that have established reviewers or maintainers within major projects (Torch Mobile is a good example, which was acquired by RIM). 

Carl-Oscar: Some industry observers say that the current trend “mobile application” will be dead in the future, and be replaced by better working browsers - that we for example use today on our desktop/laptop computers e.g. the application would be imbedded into the browsers, just like “flash” is today. Do you think this is something that will happen?

Andreas: We see a multiplicity of runtimes, each with its own benefits - i.e. both native and browser-based runtimes - surviving well within the next 3 years. Each runtime has very different design goals and sweet spots - there is no design-once run-everywhere application like there is no design-once-apply-everywhere runtime. Google might want the world to consist of browsers (and Chrome is all about advancing the state of web development), but at the same time there are some pretty smart people working at Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and all the other companies supporting different runtimes. It’s all about diversity (the opposite side of the fragmentation coin) and diversity is the sign of a healthy ecosystem.

Carl-Oscar: Where is Visionmobile in 5 years time? Is it just about mobiles?

Andreas: VisionMobile should be ConnectedVision in five years :) i.e. analysing the industry of connected devices, people and places :)

Carl-Oscar: What “key” skills are you looking for when you hire people today? What is that little extra that you look for when hiring people?

Andreas: our tagline since our inception has been “knowledge. passion. innovation.” and this reflects in the people we work with. We look for industry insiders with passion, creative flair and unconventional out-of-the-box thinking.

Carl-Oscar: Have you heard of Hyper Island before? If not, would you like to? If you have, would you like to come and give us a lecture in Sweden, Karlskrona? We are very excited about Visionmobile!

Andreas: yes, sounds like a great idea. We work with many companies in the Skane area, so hope we can make this happen :)

Thanks a bunch to the guys at Vision Mobile, really good answers - I at least can register with a lot what Andreas says, and would like him to come and visit us at Hyper Island.

If you want more visions from Vision Mobile - yes am a poet, go and visit: visionmobile.com/blog

For a more mobile future!

Regards,

Group 3

Group 5 - Interview with Rickard Wallin, PayEx

Hi there, and thank you for letting me interview you! 

First of all, tell me about you career? How and when did you start working for PayEx Mobile? 

My name is Rickard Wahlin and I currently work as Key Account Manager at PayEx Solutions AB. I have a major in business, economics and IT from StockholmUniversity and started working for PayEx in 2002. For the first 7 years I built up the Backoffice function for the e-trade division within PayEx, and last year I moved on to work with our University payment solution and PayEx Mobil.

I believe that mobile payment is the next big thing, it’s certainly a new upcoming trend. How do you see your own company develop in the next 2-4 years?

First of all I think we still only see the beginning of what will follow. From my job perspective, working with PayEx Mobil, I am absolutely convinced that payments of all kind will end up in the mobile phone and you will no longer need cash or credit card in the traditional way as we know it today. What will take time is the infrastructure around us, the level of acceptance among users is already very strong.

Will PayEx come up with a more efficient way to use Mobile systems when paying? Digital Receipts? Or maybe use retail stores like 7eleven or Pressbyrån to top up your PayEx account?

We have many plans for PayEx Mobile. Talking about toping up your account – you can top up your account via your mobile application already today. All you have to do is save your credit card credentials when you top up your PayEx Account the first time. Another way of doing it is to let people have a credit function attached to the account, so you get a bill each month instead – this is not live yet but around the corner. The third alternative, which is also our long term plan, PayEx is not supposed to be the sole issuer of PayEx Mobil. Our long term aim is that operators or banks will be interested so that you can have your Nordea account attached to your PayEx Mobil application (for example).

Talking about Pressbyrån och 7-eleven. You can buy PayEx Value codes there today to top up your account. What we do not have, and are working on, is that chains like Pressbyrån and 7-eleven accepts PayEx Mobil as a payment method. We are currently involved in many interesting discussions. Look at our webpage to see the ones already accepting PayEx Mobil, that might give you a hint. 

What gets you most excited when thinking about the digital media industry in the future?

The future is interesting. NFC telephones will make some difference, not only for us with a payment application, but also for example for passage systems. Swipe your phone to access locations (your home, the office, temporarily, permanent, sertain hours…) – no more need for any key´s. All you have in your pocket is your phone – no credit cards, no cash, no keys. All in one. In short, the future is creative.

Are you going to adapt this “RFID-tag” in a “invisible” way? Let me clarify that. Do you think it’s possible to use the iOS or Android to make a digital payment “push-wave” so you can pay for the things you want? 

Everything basically has to do with security. What is the lowest level of security that you accept? It is possible to make payment extremely easy and fast, but are you prepared that if someone finds your telephone they will be able to use your money. It is not all black and white, but the discussion is important. Maybe it should be up to every user to have their own security level?

How would you like to see the industry use digital platforms in the future and how can digital services improve the industry?

Anytime, anyplace – being able to transfer money, buy things on the spot – directly from adds in the newspaper, etc. How many times have you been prepared to buy something on the spot, but had no money at that specific time? Availability, always being able to buy things in all channels. I do not necessarily think it is all that good for the customer, but for businesses it is definitely something valuable.

Which are the key skills you are looking after when you hire digital creatives today?

Documented working experience and good working references is the easiest way of getting a job at PayEx. Personality is extremely important. Being the right person for the job. You have to be self reliant, taking initiatives, a good sense of quality. If you work at PayEx we say that you have to take active part, always try to make things better and think new.

It was really intresting and I hope we get to hear more about PayEx soon. Thank you!

Group 3 - A visit to Blekinge Läns Tidning!

A good newspaper is a nation talking to itself.

-Arthur Miller 

When old Arthur Miller wrote this, he couldn’t been more right, that however was in the 1950s, today we live in an ever growing civilization, that squashes you with information if you get left behind. This blog entry centers on what we learned when we visited BLT.

Thursday and it’s raining - who could have known? Apparently though Karlskronas autumns only consists of rain - what a drag. Luckily we had an appointment - an appointment with BLTs magazine director, her name is Kerstin Årmann. 

We sat down and waited for her to arrive, though after a time, we realized that we might need to mention that we are sitting here, so we did. After a couple of minutes Kerstin appeared and welcomed us to BLT. She led us to a conference room and bid us to take whichever seat we wanted. She sat down on one side, and well we took the other side.

Traditional news agencies have always had a strong foundation. As we know today though, due to social media interaction, and the coming of the Internet - newspapers have suffered a beating. Our initial discussion surrounded this phenomena a lot - what can BLT do? What can other agencies do? So what can you do? Do you have a golf session with all the higher ups in traditional news agencies? Why the hell would you even do that? My initial thought was really to involve news papers in todays blogger, to make the interaction more personal. At BLT they have a problem though, most news agencies have this - it’s called pride. Some people just don’t want to write a blog, why would I do that? When I can easily just write a very detailed journalistic piece of art? The problem is that the old warhorses don’t want to realize the simple fact that bloggers are biting at your foundation at the moment. (Rome was built for hundreds of years, but was sacked by an uproar from the masses) 

Is this an immediate concern for BLT? Not really, Kerstin told us that BLTs role is to be an observer e.g. they observe and implement solutions that works for the industry. The community in Blekinge is evolving rather slowly, so they have the time to really observe - before taking action. In short you could say that if you wanted BLT to grow faster - you’d need the people from Blekinge to take action. In the end it’s all about us consumers - are we happy with what we get? You could say that a prime example is the current BLT website that was made in 2005. Did I just say 2005, yes I did, so what happen’t was that BLT noticed that the interest wasn’t there - we readers didn’t visit BLT enough, so now they are making a new site, with new additions. I personally thought that the vision was really good, so in the future you will be able to visit a new “fresh” site. These additions are mostly to update the already existing areas, but also to provide more social interaction via blogs. 

Another aspect that is troubling, but required, is to make money. The economic truth of how traditional media gets their money flow today is still from traditional means e.g. the paper that we buy today from our local news stands, or get home in the post - is still BLT, and many papers primary source of income. This might be news for some, well at least it was news for me - BLT and SydÖstran is merging. This is just another solution to making news more accessible - in the future you will be able to get your Blekinge news from one single platform - the combined site of both together. In the share deliverance of news BLT knows though that a change is needed - they want to be able to give out their newspapers in other formats e.g. the digital formats, and well they want to make more money. In the future you will be able to read BLT at your mobile platform via a mobile application, or a mobile duplicate of the site. You could argue that this is old already, though for BLT it isn’t, and I personally would welcome the choice of getting that application. So there is a plan, not a master plan, but BLT is there for the people of Blekinge. I still continue reading news at BLT - and will do so until I move away from Karlskrona, Blekinge. 

Over and out,

Group 3

Interview with Dawn Dewald from Punchkick Interactive by Edu2

- Do you know about Hyper Island? What do you think of it?

We are aware of Hyper Island, and we think it’s an amazing place to learn about digital and interactive media. The people have an awesome attitude toward digital communications, and we love how proactive the students are about diving into their work. Hyper Island seems like a learning experience unlike any other.

- What is the hottest on the mobile market right now? (apps/web design)

From our perspective, it’s mobile web, because it requires no downloads and is becoming very accessible across a broad spectrum of mobile devices. As phones continue to evolve, the need for an app can often be filled by the mobile web. 

- Do you specialize in all platforms or just iPhone?

Punchkick Interactive supports nearly all of the mobile platforms available. When it comes to designing and developing applications, we work with the iOS that includes iPhone, iPod, and iPad, but we also work with Blackberry, Android, and other leading phone technologies.

- What media do you follow to keep up with the mobile app market?

We check the iTunes App Store to see the top apps, but we also read tech blogs and trade publications to see what technologies people are excited to use. We follow trends in Asia to see what technologies are growing in popularity, and we constantly keep our eyes and ears open and study this evolving market.

- How many people are involved in the development of an app?

The actual number can vary depending on the platform. At an agency level, the minimum would likely be four. We use a designer, and a team of developers, as well as a dedicated QA tester. It really depends on the scope of a project to determine how many resources will be dedicated to it.

- What trends are there at the moment?

In the U.S., mobile apps for smartphones and tablets are popular. However, many people are aware that the market of smartphones has not yet surpassed feature phones, so companies are easing into the mobile space and often developing mobile web presences first. Location-based services, check-in services (i.e., Foursquare), mobile coupons and loyalty programs are growing too. 

- What’s your prediction of the future?

We stopped trying to predict the future a long time ago. Three years ago, there was no iPhone – who knew that Apps would be so hot? The technology is changing so rapidly that the best you can do is to keep your eyes open for new opportunities, and learn as much as you can about the industry while inspiring trust with your clients.

- What are you excited about in terms of mobile?

We love how quickly mobile technology is picking up, and how quickly the technology is improving. We also like that consumers are becoming more educated about mobile technology and design.

- Are you able to accept interns from Hyper Island in the future? And if, what do you expect from them? Attitude, skills etc.

We do accept interns! Our team is highly collaborative, so we like folks who have an entrepreneurial spirit and take the initiative to drive their work to completion with vigor, passion, and creativity. So long as you have the right attitude, we can train for specific skills.

Group 3 - An interview with the guys from Illusion Labs :)

Group 3 “sat” down with the well known Carl & Marcus from Illusion Labs. 

Carl-Oscar:

Alright! First of all we have people in our group that have tried your games before and really love them, Touchgrind comes to mention as soon as we started discussing it in the group. (One player has a score of 2 357 600, with the online rank of something abysmal)

Carl & Marcus:

Nice, to hear that! We have just released an update with Game Center that shows your rank among friends as well as daily and weekly rank so hopefully you can get a more satisfying rank now :)

Carl-Oscar:

Who are the people behind Illusion Labs? What is your current most important working policy?

Carl & Marcus:

Illusion Labs was founded by Andreas Alptun and me in 2008 and we started the company to create a fun and satisfying job. That is still what guides everything that we do. We are now 6 employees and a couple freelancing consultants. We both have a computer and mobile graphics background and we really like it when people go “wow!” about the stuff we make so our tagline is “Creating the wow effect”.

Carl-Oscar:

The name “Illusion Labs”, where does this hail from?? Who came up with the idea?

Carl & Marcus:

We were brainstorming names and and felt that we love creating illusions in the form of cool graphics etc in computers. We felt that we wanted our workplace to be a lab for making such things so then “Illusion Labs” felt like the perfect name.

Carl-Oscar:

I’ve played games since the age of something so small that I can’t remember how old I was. Games are always fun to experience,  I’m the kind of person that just got stuck in an RPG, forgetting the real life world sometimes. The world I envision when I play mobile games is that it’s rather brief. My question really is what you think about when your making mobile games. What world do you envision when you create them? What are the boundaries?

Carl & Marcus:

We often come up with a cool physics idea and build the game around that. We feel that elaborate story-lines work better on a computer. It could work on a mobile platform but it is not our focus. We fell that this area of the market is better covered by the giants of the industry.

Carl-Oscar:

When you consider the hardware implications as your create a game - what are these, are they known to developers? To me it seems that Mobile devices are bottlenecked on the hardware side e.g. we are kinda missing the old, yet new DirectX that Microsoft introduced for developers. Does this stop you when your making a mobile game? Do we need a Mobile DirectX variant as times flow past this interview?

Carl & Marcus:

Certainly not. We love working with OpenGL ES! Close to the hardware :) The capabilities of modern mobile devices deliver quite a lot and have not really been a big limiting factor for us. There are usually ways of working around the limitations with different tricks that can be challenging but fun to come up with.

Carl-Oscar:

Considering the available mobile devices for gaming at the market right now the PSP comes to mind. Do you envision yourself as a company to create templates for other platforms than the products you already use?

Carl & Marcus:

We might, but we love how easy it is to work with Apple products on the marketing and sales side of things. We can create a game that we love and release it. We don’t have to listen execs from other companies but can rather create what we feel will be cool.

Carl-Oscar:

If you envision the future right now - what game have you guys produced?

Carl & Marcus:

Cant really tell you the answer to this question ;)

Carl-Oscar:

What are the upcoming products? Any secrets?

Carl & Marcus:

Cant really tell you the answer to this question ;)

Carl-Oscar:

Who do you hire? What do you look in today’s and tomorrows creatives? 

Carl & Marcus:

We hire the most talented engineers who we feel will be great fun to work with. That being said we don’t have any plan to become a big company. We feel that our small size make us very dynamic.

Carl-Oscar:

We know that you are coming to Hyper Island in October, and we are all looking forward to that, thanks a lot for taking the time to answer our questions.

Carl & Marcus:

Thanks, Marcus is looking forward to meeting all of you!

So guys! Go and check out http://www.illusionlabs.com/ ! Maybe you will be the one with the highest Touchgrind score?

Regards,

Group 3

Interview with Johan Halse from Doberman by Edu2

- Do you know about Hyper Island? What do you think of it?I know about it. Graduated some eight years ago. It’s still providing the industry with good talent :)

- What is the hottest on the mobile market right now? (apps/web design)
Everyone is waiting to see if the iPad will make the splash it’s been predicted to make. It has the potential to further monetize sectors like newspapers, audio books, and suchlike - but only if the customers decide it’s good enough and it manages to achieve a big enough market. There is a lot of development going on behind the scenes here in Sweden; publishers and content companies want to be quick off the mark when the iPad is officially launched here.

- Do you specialize in all platforms or just iPhone?
We have done some multi-platform work (not just on smartphones, general accessibility studies and web design for mobile handsets) and a few forays into Android, but our main platform is iOS. It’s what our customers are currently asking for.

- What media do you follow to keep up with the mobile app market?
Personal networks, mostly. Twitter.

- How do you think the pricing of apps will develop? Free + ads, cheaper, more expensive?
I’m guessing that current pricing models and cost per app will stay at about the same level as today, but in-app purchases will become more and more important and free stuff will be used to as a lure to sell premium content.

- How much mobile do you do at the moment?
We are currently developing four apps in-house at the moment, I think. Hard to keep track of all our projects, but that’s an educated guess.

- How many people are involved in the development of an app?
Depends on the scope of the app, but it ranges from three people (designer, programmer, project manager) up to perhaps six.

- What trends are there at the moment?
Multiplayer gaming, augmented reality apps, development shifting from small independent developers and hobby projects as the larger companies all want apps of their own.

- What’s your prediction of the future?
Companies providing the services we’ve come to depend on the Internet for - banking, maps, booking tickets or travel, that sort of thing - will need to move into the mobile space soon, or lose market share. Most handsets will not be getting them as native apps, though. As mobile browsers evolve and competition shifts back and forth, HTML, JS, and CSS with progressive enhancement is the more obvious choice to maximize your reach.

- What are you excited about in terms of mobile?
Standardization! We finally have capable mobile browsers with blazing fast JS engines and accelerated rendering. Suddenly you have all the tools you’re used to, with the one-two punch of immediacy and localization.

- Are you able to accept interns from Hyper Island in the future? And if, what do you expect from them? Attitude, skills etc.
Yes, we are. We like them to be open-minded, comfortable with giving and receiving honest feedback, and equipped with curiosity and respect for those who use the services we design. We’re all about creating natural everyday experiences that nevertheless should feel magical. And that takes empathy, passion, and a fair bit of sweat.