Today just a couple of mobile phone ads to illustrate what I mean by the mobile UX Design experience being all about creating activities that meld together the real world and the digital world.
First the ad for Sony’s Playstation. An idea that as I have said before would have killed the iPhone at birth if it had been launched 4-5 years ago.
The second is the ad for the Atrix. The recently launched ‘road warrior’ pocket mobile computing solution from Motorola.
With Playstation we have the ‘ultimate’ phone as gaming device. With Motorola we have the ‘ultimate’ phone as pocket pc device.
Within the context of the point I tried to make yesterday both products contain elements of what the next generation phone will be but sadly both are locked into old ways of thinking what the mobile phone is (i.e. Device centric rather than devices that empower you to live life to the max in a mobile world).
In the end it is the idea of the TV remote control that allows you to navigate the content on the ATRIX that provides the deepest insight into just how close the Motorola designers were to designing a device for the future rather than delivering yet another device of the past.
You see what is missing in terms of delivering the next-gen mobile phone experience today is the very simple idea that the phone shouldn’t just be the screen or the pocket hard drive. The mobile phone should be the device that controls the gaming or computing or web browsing or media consumption experience on your home theatre system or in the conference room.
If you’re at home you should simply be able to switch your TV on with the phone and start playing the game on your TV using the phone as the media centre come controller. The same goes for the conference room. The mobile docking station concept behind the Motorola is so 1990′s it’s almost a retro experience. If we are going to frame the mobile phone within the limitations of the personal computing experience then the mobile phone should also be the mouse and not just the hard drive or the monitor.
Likewise if we are going to frame the mobile phone within the limitations of the games console then the phone isn’t just the device on which we play games or watch movies. It is a device that allows to navigate and control games that can be played out in the real world and/or on other digital devices. There should be no plug and play. It should simply be a case of point and play with any display device you can point your mobile phone at. Once this happens we’ll not only have the future of gaming but the future of retail in the palm of our hands.
Posted on July 9, 2011
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