Participo

optimising for the experience of being mobile...

Permalink

Last night I posted on Seed, a new forum discussing the business of web apps, set up by my pals at Litmus.

I was wondering about apps whose design focus is on the actual experience of being with a mobile, vs. being optimised for mobile devices.

I was trying to think of apps that are designed around the experience of mobility, here's what I initially came up with as best examples:

• Google Maps the dedicated handset app on series 60 is superb.
• TomTom (the single best mobile device I’ve used)
• Twitter
• Jaiku
• Dodgeball (rumours of it's death greatly exaggerated? Love the conceptual model of sms broadcast)
• Shozu - photos uploading on the move

Perhaps it's more interesting to look at the web apps that haven’t optimised for a mobile experience? My main candidate is Dopplr – I think it’s a great app, and I would have thought that it’s peripatetic userbase would be accessing information on mobile devices.

I spend time plugging into Dopplr where I’ll be travelling – I’d definitely opt in for:

• location targetted sms/mobile optimised travel guides
• restaurant etc. recommendations (on the morning I travel – or while I’m in the airport)
• Small, printable guides would be useful as well – mobile technology that builds from a web app, but not needing connectivity via expensive roaming rates.

That's it. We're carrying little, connected computers, with cameras and gps - it's just got to get more interesting.

It's worth mentioning Mowser, which proxies web sites and serves up highly optimised mobile versions for your viewing pleasure...sometimes, just reading the web while mobile is great mobile experience.