Blog of Shaun McCran - Architecting robust, elegant technical and business solutions - Mobile

Can an Innovation lab fit into the classic Corporate model?

Tue, 12 May 2015 16:38:00 -0000

At a recent company event one of the leaders in my division presented his thoughts on designing and implementing an Innovation lab. The presenter, Daryl Wilkinson, Head of Group Innovation at Nationwide (Link: @DarylAndHobbes) put forward the idea of creating a digital Agency style innovation lab. This would allow a select group of Thinkers, Strategist and Developers to rapidly wireframe up services and applications/widgets and quickly prototype them into working, running applications. I think this is a very interesting opportunity, but I think the radically different approaches between operating an Innovation Lab and a large-scale UK Corporate company may pose some interesting issues. Having worked in a few smaller companies, particularly digital and marketing agencies I can see the value in this. The benefits of this sort of approach are many, including increased flexibility, ability to change direction quickly and a more open way of communicating and moving ideas around. A key principle that allows this way of working to be productive for smaller companies is the removal of barriers. These barriers might be Company rigidity, Governance rules, formulaic team structures and employee ego. By removing all of these things, you can take away, or minimise their impact on the way people think about opportunities and problems. By removing traditional working barriers, you encourage people to open up to new ways of thinking that is not constrained by traditional learnt behaviour. (This is often referred to as disruptive thinking). The two fold acts of giving them literal authority to become unconstrained in approach, and the removal of these business rules allows for a different, more agile operational model. This also results in the blurring of responsibilities and roles within the team. Team members are far more inclined to own their own space, and stretch out into other member's spaces, as the boundaries between them are blurred, in a far more collaborative working approach. Let us contrast that with the traditional UK corporate model. Typically, they have a far more rigid structure, with defined lines between departments and responsibilities. Employees have a role to play and generally, because of the luxury of scale, people are kept in that role, and find it difficult to venture too far into other roles without encountering resistance. Add into the corporate mix a defined, constrictive Governance model, security policies, hard-wired policies and processes and a corporate operating model, and the attitudes that brings with it. These elements are in direct conflict with the outline described above, that not only enables but also drives an Innovation lab. How this newfound Innovation lab will integrate into a corporate environment, working its way through the barriers described here, will either enable or contain its success. It will be a tricky journey implementing, then maturing a lab like this into a working state. It could become an interesting bubble of productivity, living inside the corporate structure, creating ripples that disrupt the usual state of thinking within traditional departments. What better way to introduce change into your organisation than by having a department like this forge new ways of thinking and approaches to solutions. I'll certainly keep an eye on how it develops, and see if any of these conflicts arise.

Is wireless mobile charging really here?

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 06:20:00 -0000

There seemed to be a growing movement on the wireless charging front for mobile handsets at the moment. There are more and more charging plates and compatible handsets out there, so I thought I'd investigate and see how easily I could enable my Samsung Note to charge wirelessly. Wireless chargers emit an alternating current via a transmitter coil, which then induces a voltage in the receiver coil found in the device.

For clarification I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 that in theory can charge wirelessly. It uses the Qi (pronounced "chee") standard which provides an inductive charge, this is a convenient and hassle free way to charge your phone.

The first stumbling block I found was that my Samsung Note 3 handset didn't ship with the correct back plate to wirelessly charge. It appears as though this wasn't an omission or product error, it seems to be firmly be Samsung's strategy. I'm confident about this as both the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S5 are wireless charger compatible but neither ships with a back plate that allows them to charge out of the box.

So the first step to Qi compatibility is to switch out the standard back plate and fit a Qi wireless charging compatible case. Something like this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-S-View-Wireless-Charging-Galaxy-Black/dp/B00FON947S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407157846&sr=8-1&keywords=samsung+note+3+wireless+charge+case

Or as an alternative you could install a bridging 'card' which has a coil in it to enable Qi charging. This is effectively the coil that comes inside the Samsung Qi wireless case. Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultra-thin-Wireless-Charging-Receiver-Samsung/dp/B00GFGL0XE/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Now the handset should be Qi compatible. Keep an eye on some of the coil cards that you can pick up as some of them are NFC compatible and some as S-View, but there doesn't seem to be a Qi /NFC / S-View coil card out there.

Finally find yourself a Qi charging plate. The choice here is extensive but the main difference seems to be voltage and cosmetics. Simply find a plate that is the right size and shape for you. Here's a selection: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=samsung%20note%203%20wireless%20charge%20pad

So in summary the handset is compatible with Qi, but it doesn't work out of the box. You need further accessories to enable Qi wireless charging, and you need to buy the charging plate. The Qi standard is evolving as well, the standard has just been upgraded: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/01/qi_wireless_charging_extends_to_30mm/ so it might be worth waiting for the next wave of devices.

Micro transaction madness with Marvel Puzzle Quest

Mon, 21 Jul 2014 16:17:00 -0000

I'm a big fan of Puzzle games, and Marvel, so what could be better than a Marvel themed puzzle game?

The game itself is a classic three-in-a-row puzzle game just like the previous versions of Puzzle Quest games. It's the now 'classic' model of free-to-play but with in-game micro transactions through it. There are several resources used in the game, Iso-8 which is used to upgrade your hero's level and hero points, which are basically coins that you can use to but team slots to hold more characters, or to buy skills for characters.

You can play the game without purchasing anything at all, which is my preference or you can spend upwards of £80.00 on all the extras. Personally if it was priced at a sensible mobile price point I would have happily purchased it, it's the sheer volume of micro transactions present that is annoying. I don't know how or why the trend for Micro transactions started but the model is abhorrent.

This whole game feels like a vehicle for micro transactions. Every way you try and play it you are faced with a transaction. The only other option is such soul crushing repetition that the game is almost unplayable. You really have to purchase a wealth of content if you want to even see half of the characters and powers in this game.

Looking at this from a design perspective it is obvious that the design started with user journeys arriving at micro transactions. For me, if a games design is being driven by the purchasing functions in it then you've lost the plot. I appreciate that games have to make money, that's just the modern games industry but they shouldn't be the driving design principle in the product!

This is a real shame as the game is quite enjoyable, its just that the constant barrage of 'purchase me' advertising really starts to intrude on your enjoyment of actually playing the game. It feels like there is more 'purchasing advertisements' than puzzle matching.

So, I'd stay away from this game. Marvel should release a non 'free to play' version at £9.99 or £14.99 with all the content unlocked. I'd be happy to purchase in that model. Micro Transactions hidden in the 'free to play' games are a blight on the games industry. Its false advertising, plain and simple. There needs to be a change in policy, and a change in terminology, as this terms is just lies.

New stats show further SMS decline as customers switch to online messaging apps

Tue, 21 Jan 2014 03:05:00 -0000

Recent statistics from mobile operators are showing a further decline in SMS usage over the last year or so. It seems to growth of Smartphone messaging apps that's eating into SMS's usual territory. Personally I credit this to two main reasons. The advance of online messaging applications
Now this might sound obvious but messaging apps have come a long way. Not just in terms of availability, but usability and adoption. There are far more people now using messaging apps, that have a greater number of features than ever before. With this advancement we've seen aggregation of several services. Take Trillain as an example (Google Play Trillian App) Out of the box it supports 'Facebook Chat, MSN, Google Talk, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo!, and Jabber'. This allows you to forget about potential compatibility issue, as compatibility is no longer an issue. The Apps are no longer restricted to a messaging network, they are cross platform compatible. Also with the working model of App downloads people are more comfortable now downloading applications. As the percentage of mobile app downloads increases it follows that a certain percentage of that increase will be messaging applications. The push for data services
One thing that Telecoms companies have really pushed since the mid 2000's is the usage of the data network. Voice and SMS networks and usage have been relatively stable for a while now. The costs to operate them have come down and the tariffs customers buy have also come down. This may sound unbelievable based on the current operator contract process but recent statistics show that contracts are 27% less profitable than they were in 2005, partly due to pricing and partly due to the allowances included in them. The only commodity left for a telecoms company to sell is data. Data is a measurable, metered commodity that can be priced for usage. It's the perfect target to try and get customers hooked on. You pay for a limited amount, use it all, and demand more, so you pay more. This encouragement leads to more uses of data. Customers want to use the data they have, so they find uses for it. Messaging being something they are already familiar with its an easy transition to switch from SMS to a messaging app, after all SMS is pretty much a pre-installed app these days anyway. The future of SMS?
So are we only a few years away from an SMS-less mobile network? I don't think so, the problem with this is that the capital cost has been forked out for a mobile network that can support current SMS volumes, and continues to be spent on supporting it. Vodafone advertises a daily expenditure of between 1.5 and 2 million a day to support the existing network infrastructure. This is for voice, data and SMS but those things are intrinsically linked. They cannot extract the SMS functionality from the core network and stop supporting it, it just doesn't work like that. That leaves them with an expensive on-going support cost for a declining SMS market that is unlikely to ever go away. All you'll end out with there is a small resilient core of customers using the SMS network at an incredible costs (to the Telco) per SMS. SMS will never truly vanish. You can read the Guardians view on this here.

New Samsung Galaxy Gear advert shows you how to get the girl

Tue, 07 Jan 2014 00:53:00 -0000

A somewhat bizarre Samsung advert was recently released telling the story of two chaps competing for the attention of a young lady. The one with the Samsung Gear appears to have an advantage over the other in a series of incredibly contrived scenarios. Its quite un-pc for a modern TV advert from the Telecoms giant. Its also a little bit creepy, what with the covert stalking and picture taking etc. I've got a Samsung Note 3 and in no way does this entice me to go out and spend £250.00 on a postage stamp sized watch, even if it does make me a wonder with the ladies. Lets be honest, you'd look like a massive nerd, there's no way Samsung is fooling anyone with this advert.

Has the golden age of massive Mobile Application growth come to an end?

Mon, 06 Jan 2014 06:30:00 -0000

Statistics over the Christmas period show that mobile App market usage is still on the increase (by 11%), but that growth has significantly slowed year on year, from 97% (2011) to 90% (2012) to 25% (2013). Is this the beginning of a mobile app decline? Or are customers just changing their usage patterns? This article looks at how I think mobile users develop their patterns and where this has led us to.

Welcome to the all-you-can-eat-App-buffet!

Let's start off by looking at previous mobile app usage patterns. Early adopters and new mobile platform customers (Tablet and handset) are initially 'wowed' by whichever App store they visit. The wealth and availability of applications in an App store is impressive, and they are all available within a few clicks. People have little to no experience with any of these new applications now available to them, so they skip around a lot, downloading applications without a great deal of thought. We snack on different applications until we are gorged with a wide selection of them. There are no repercussions to installing a lot of these things, after all the only currencies are disk space (plentiful on modern devices) and a few pounds if you are purchasing applications. We haven't really got a plan, or a usage pattern here, it's an exciting new world of easily downloaded applications.

This slightly chaotic, unfocussed view on downloading applications gives people an opportunity to find the programs that work for them. It would be really interesting to see the discard rates for installed applications. Users try them, find that it wasn't what they thought and get rid of them. Often to then try something else very similar to see if the issues they had with the first App are fixed in a competitor or if that extra bit of missing functionality they thought was there is present.

Building Application loyalty and discovering a usage pattern

There is no App loyalty at this point. People are still adding and removing Apps until they settle on a relatively stable core set of applications. Consider the last time you upgraded a device. Chances are you simply reinstalled half of the same applications that were on the old device onto the new device. Apple and Google have actually built this data migration functionality into their ecosystems now. Its become the expected behaviour. Users develop a pattern of usage, and then they tend to stick with it. Barring significant life changes that introduce new categories of interests such as Marriages, children, house moves etc. people stay within their comfort zone. It takes a lot of marketing, or a trusted social recommendation to instigate someone to try out a new application.

A statistic that has an important bearing on this is the early adopter (or repeat upgrader) figure. New Smartphone sales are slowing. This is due to all of the early adopters having already adopted them, and in all likelihood are now on their third or fourth device due to the length of contracts. So the user base is more familiar with the way smartphone work, and integrate with everyday life. There are less and less completely new users to the ecosystem. The pattern described above is attributed to these new users, so the 'snacking' phenomenon is decreasing. This is evident in modern examples of Apple and Samsung's advertising campaigns which are both aimed at the casual user, the fringes of their traditional market segments, such as the 40+/50+ or budget conscious.

Application market Stagnation? Or User Stability?

I think when you take these factors into account the figures make a lot more sense and can be explained more as a repercussion of user stability and established practices. Experienced users have experience using online App stores and don't download a dozen applications in the first ten minutes just to test them out and remove them. Downloads are more considered and planned, time is taken to find the right application as the novelty value of having ALL THOSE APP's(!!) right on your fingertips has gone. This really helps to separate the chaff, and poor applications find themselves falling by the wayside quickly.

Rather than having a statistic around downloaded applications it may be more useful to view how many times an application was opened on a mobile device. Typically applications that are kept by a user are more heavily used. Users end out in a model of fewer applications, but more heavily used.

If you want to view more or this, or see a statistical view then have a look at either of the following two articles:

http://blog.flurry.com/bid/103350/Christmas-Continues-To-Set-App-Download-Records-In-Spite-Of-Slowing-Growth-and-Globalization-of-App-Market

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/03/christmas_app_downloads/

New report recommends Limiting teens web access to two hours a day

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 05:56:00 -0000

A report released in the last few days by the University of New Mexico has recommended that a two hour per day limit on web access should be enforced by parents, on children.


Under the advice, a two-hour limit should be imposed on using the internet for entertainment, including Facebook, Twitter, television and films.

The problem with this report is that it is let down by its traditional view on internet usage, and thus data consumption. The report has a central theme, and its findings also align to this theme, despite pointing out new device usage patterns within the report. The traditional (historic) view of internet usage is that consumers require specific devices or workstations to access the internet. This lead to a 'resource' measuring model. Data and speed became the measurements for how fast your access is, or how much you are allowed to consume. With the growth of internet and the ease of access to it, both from a proliferation of network access and the abundance of internet enabled devices this traditional resource measuring model simply isn't applicable anymore. The modern view of the internet should be realigned to one of that of a persistent layer, a non-tangible pervasive entity that sits comfortably over our existing social infrastructure. This is quite a common view when you go back to classic internet literature like SteamPunk or Manga. The internet is integrating into everyday life so much that it is becoming impossible to separate it from the fabric of everyday activity. We need to stop viewing it as a commodity resource and instead move it into an amenities category. Would you deny your children access to lighting or heating? No, you wouldn't but go back in history a little bit and you'll find that those two items were also rationed against a resource model. The best thing you can do is inform them of best practices in using the internet. You wouldn't ban them from spending all day in a library, instead you'd teach them how to use it. Now this does rely on parents knowing how it works (often far less technology savvy than their children) and there is still a strong requirement to shape exactly what content they can get to. The idea here though is to shape their desire to access inappropriate content, rather than shaping their access to it. No present day internet management software can blanket cover all items of concern in terms of access, it just isn't possible. Instead of trying to measure access out, why not help integrate it into everyday life, the usage pattern will develop on its own. Otherwise education establishments will continue to produce inaccurate reports based on historical understanding that just propagate a jaded view of our modern digital era. A link to the Telegraph article is here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/10410349/Limit-teens-web-access-to-two-hours-a-day-parents-told.html

Where is Google music stored on the Android OS?

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:46:00 -0000

After synchronising several albums into the Google Music service recently I thought I'd copy them from my mobile onto my work laptop, as I can't install Google Music manager on it, with Corporate security policies and all that.

Having a dig around on the mobile I couldn't find the music files anywhere. How was I to copy my music? Turns out that Google Music stores the music files in a sector of the memory card that you cannot access unless you have root access.

/mnt/sdcard/Android/data/com.google.android.music/cache/music

So you cannot move them around easily. Also watch out for the fact that Google Music applies its own indexing system so all your files are renamed to match a cloud based index database. They have numeric names now instead of the original ones. To work out what each song is you'll have to listen to them each in turn.

Smartphone data consumption now higher than Tablet data consumption

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 04:02:00 -0000

A recent report from Arieso shows the changing trends in mobile device usage. Interestingly Smartphone users now consume more data traffic than Tablet users. This is based on a top ten list of devices, order by data usage volume.

The report digs into detail around mobile usage for devices by brand and device type. It also looks at regional fluctuations on usage which give some interesting insight into global data consumption trends.

What's quite interesting from my point of view is the trending of device consumption.

Extract:

Users of the iPhone 5 demand four times as much data as iPhone 3G users and 50% more than iPhone 4S users (the most demanding in the 2012 study). However, Samsung Galaxy S III users generate (upload rather than download – photos, videos etc.) nearly four times the amount of data than iPhone 3G users, beating iPhone 5 users into third place on uplink data usage behind the Samsung Galaxy Note II. And in the rapidly growing tablet market, Samsung Tab 2 10.1 users have asserted their dominance - demanding 20% more data than iPad users.

This information is all based on the user operating the device, but in my experience there are considerable differences in data usage based on mobile OS (and specific version of the OS) and mobile hardware. Saying that an iPhone 5 user is a heavier user than an iPhone 4 user based on the handset is inaccurate. What else is the iPhone 5 doing in the background over the iPhone 4. A considerable amount of network traffic is not generated by the user, or is specifically user initiated.

Think about what happens when you turn on Google location services, or the Apple Facetime service polling monitor. Both of these services are continually polling against the network and location based data systems.

This is not user demand, but device and service demand. I haven't been able to work out from the report yet if this is addressed.

Also if this trend continues, does this spell the demise of the Tablet market, as users become more comfortable with mobile handset browsing?

A full article is here, along with the report: http://www.arieso.com/news-article.html?id=138

SMS turns 20 years old today

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 07:09:00 -0000

"On December 3 1992, engineer Neil Papworth sent the first SMS message to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone. It simply read "Merry Christmas", and Jarvis had no way of replying." The Short Message Service turns twenty years old today. It's hard for us to consider a world without such common technologies as the SMS and easily accessible mobile communications but think about that statement for a second. SMS is only twenty years old. Only twenty years ago a technology came along that has radically changed the way people communicate, in both business and social environments. Think how much harder things would be now if SMS wasn't easily available? The most amazing thing about SMS is that is isn't all that complicated in comparison to most smartphone functionality. SMS is accessible to everyone with a mobile, through a common interface. It doesn't require a special network protocol or data system, it is truly available to everyone, all around the world. Think about the impact that SMS has had on changing the English language, think of how much English has changed due to the short nature of messaging, look at terms we are all familiar with now (Lol, BRB) that have come around specifically due to human interaction with the SMS technology. From its humble beginnings things have changed. People are innovators, and they have driven the SMS message on to greater and greater things, like MMS and now modern messaging services like WhatsApp and Skype. These are all essentially driven from the SMS concept. You can read a lot more information about the background of the SMS here, from the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mobile-phones/9718336/Text-messaging-at-20-how-SMS-changed-the-world.html Or the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/06/sms-text-messages-20th-birthday My thinking is that the mobile landscape is still a very new and exciting environment. The technology landscape is still forming and innovations like SMS are frequent and game changing. The coolest thing about SMS technology for me? Working for the company that made SMS a reality, and that 4 billion people use every day.

How to report mobile spam SMS messages

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 03:12:00 -0000

Nobody likes spam communications, especially spam SMS messages. One of the things I was unaware of until recently was that there is a short code that you can forward spam texts on to. I've had this info through from Vodafone but I've been lead to believe that it is in industry wide use. Just forward your spam messages to 7726 (this spells out SPAM on your keypad) and your network will deal with them. Forwarding to this number is free, so it won't cost you anything. Everyone complains about spam, now we can collaboratively help reduce it, after all if we don't tell the mobile operators about it how do they know its spam?

Samsung TouchWiz bug found and squash – in a day

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 06:42:00 -0000

Yesterday (Sept 25th) news site across the web were buzzing with the news that an entrapeneuring type had managed to find an exploit in the Samsung Touchwiz software. It basically allowed foreign code to be run on the phone, without the users authorisation or prompting, that formatted the handset.

You can read more here: http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/25/got-touchwiz-some-samsung-smartphones-can-be-totally-wiped-by-clicking-a-link/ By today (Sept 26th) the same news sites are reporting that Samsung have fixed the loophole and are urging users to download the fix for it. So if you are running a Samsung handset then go check for system updates. http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/26/samsung-speedily-plugs-remote-wipe-flaw-urges-galaxy-siii-owners-to-update/ That sort of timescale for bug fixes is admirable, whoever you are.

NHS Launches Blood donor mobile app

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:15:00 -0000

I've donate blood for a few years now. I view it as a relatively easy thing to do, that causes no harm to me, and can help save someone life. I won't miss the blood they take, my body will just create more of it naturally, and there is a reward card system where they change the color of your card based on the number of donations (I'm a sucker for any kind of reward based system). What's the biggest problem with donating blood? Finding and booking a session. [More]

Apple suing Samsung on the on going patent war

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 02:42:00 -0000

In the last few days the latest court case between Apple and Samsung has kicked into action. This isn't something I'd usually comment on but I am feeling quite annoyed about the continuing trend that has become the technology industry's default stance on competition. What ever happened to innovation? This isn't so much a discussion on the court case, but more my own view of its impact on us, the consumers. [More]

Vodafone Sure Signal review

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:26:00 -0000

A product I'd been vaguely aware of, but have since discovered a lot more about is the Vodafone Sure Signal box. This little white box uses your home broadband to create a 3G bubble in your own home. It is basically a mini, private 3G mast. [More]