Category: Mobile

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I believe Firefox OS may be on to something

A few days ago, during the Mobile World Congress, Firefox announced its mobile OS, which will be available soon. Teaming up with 18 carriers and 4 announced manufacturers (plus Sony), the release was probably bigger than expected. A few high-profile web services, including AirBnb, Disney, Facebook, SoundCloud and Twitter, also joined the hype by including their apps to the new marketplace. Analysts quickly put down their bets, some supporting the effort, while others denying the possibility of its success. One of the most fascinating things about the new OS is that it's going to be entirely web based, the operating system itself, the apps, everything. Unlocking the power of the web, as they put it. And to be honest, I can buy that.

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written 23:27 CET on chronolog
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Sempl 14 key takeaways: top trends in (digital) marketing

The 14th media trends seminar Sempl took place last week in Portorož. This year, I had an opportunity to attend the conference, since Neolab provided the official Twitter wall. And I was glad I could, because Sempl proved itself as an event worth visiting, packed with high profile speakers and marketers not only from Slovenia, but from the entire region. Most lectures were very interesting, and the fascinating fact is that they all went into the same direction. It seems mobile, social and local are so mainstream, they are not even put into the spotlight anymore. But here are the things that were.

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written 8:35 CET on chronolog
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Discover what's happening in Ljubljana in real-time

I've always been a big fan of the power of the crowds. When a mass of people can achieve much more than a few skilled individuals can. And ever since we've started playing with Twitter's API, I've been think about the possibilities of this magnificent data source. Besides Twenity, we've done a few other Twitter mashups like Twitter walls, but this wasn't enough. We wanted something more - geolocation. Displaying information on a map in real-time. But since there aren't that many tweets equipped with GPS coordinates, we needed to include other services for more diversity as well. Which we did, and Ljubljana Realtime, a social event discovery application, was born.

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written 14:37 CET on chronolog
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Did Apple and Samsung just pull the greatest trick in the mobile universe?

The verdict is finally in. Samsung has lost the lawsuit against Apple, which means the court decided they were copying iPhone's design and user experience. The decisions seems legit, specially if you saw the internal document from Samsung, a case study comparing and improving the Galaxy's user interface based on iOS's. On the other hand, it's hard to say if the decision is morally right and what it means for the mobile industry. Software patents are a problem and some companies like Google have already made a stance agains them (even though they've supposedly acquired Motorola because of them). But could all of this be just a marketing trick? Where Apple and Samsung set out to dominate the mobile industry?

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written 9:09 CET on chronolog
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On iPhone, toys, the enterprise and of course, Windows 8

Flashback 5 years ago. In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone, the original model, which had no 3G support and cost more than any other mobile phone. At that time, Nokia dominated the market, with almost 40% market share, and Samsung was gaining ground on Motorola, both owning around 15% of the industry sales. Funny, how things change in so little time, but what's even funnier, is how the competition reacted to the iPhone. Some of you may remember how Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, laughed at the iPhone, saying that it's pretty much an expensive toy that would never penetrate the enterprise. History proved him wrong, and we can only guess if this was one of the most bitter predictions he ever made.

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written 8:34 CET on chronolog
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The final destination, part 1: technologies and concepts enterprise IT will have to adopt

In the past years, we've witnessed a very important transformation: the consumerization of information technologies. Billions of connected users living their life online, overwhelmed by millions of information systems that have been tailored to suit their every need and desire. Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon came a long way with their products and infrastructure, but the enterprise isn't losing any time. Learning from the new paradigms and adopting new funky technologies, that have traditionally been developed in corporate laboratories. Can the Fab 4 also predict where enterprise IT is headed? And what will it become?

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written 19:38 CET on chronolog
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What Apple's headphones can teach us about user experience design

I've always been fascinated by things that simply work. By the details that convince, by the experience that fulfills expectations. Enter the case of Apple's headphones. They may be just an accessory that supports something else, but this little gadget is a brilliant example of how ux design should be approached. I'm not saying other vendors don't make equivalent or even better headphones (don't know, so please comment!), but Apple has proved many times that they really know what they are doing, reinventing stuff as they go along. Bottom line: as weird as it may seem, when your are designing user experience, you should think about Apple's headphones. They are one of the most perfect examples of how to do it right.

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written 13:25 CET on chronolog
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