To truly cash in on the mobile media market, cellular network providers and cellphone manufactures need to collaborate more on creating user friendly interfaces in their mobile media applications along with creating complimenting user input technologies.
Navigating content and accessing media on the internet has become second nature to most users, and people are accessing content faster and easier than ever before. With innovations in interfaces and organization of content like that of YouTube, Google, combined with the customizable input technologies built into most internet browsers today, has caused users to have high expectations and little patience regarding how we interact with machines or devices in accessing information. While the combination of the QWERTY keyboard and mouse have produced a input duo that is well suited for accessing information from the internet and on the computer, it is obvious that these traditional input systems will not work for mobile devices like cell phones or portable media players. Here in lies the problem.
The importance of interface and input technologies is epitomized in the evolution and the success of Apple's iPod. The iPod revolutionized the way we access media on a portable media player by combining a unique and intuitive input system with a simple and clutter-less user interface, allowing the user to access content or media will little effort or thought.
The answer for mobile phones for the past couple years have consisted of two forms of input systems, the full QWERTY keyboard, which is obviously infinitely smaller on a mobile device, or just the keypad, which can utilize input systems like predictive text (T9). Both of these systems have their limitations, but these systems have served there purpose for the primary uses of their respective phones.
However, the future of phones holds much more than just text messaging, watered down internet browsing, and phone calls. The mobile phone is increasingly becoming more important to our media consumption. This poses a problem for the previous input technologies because they are not suited to perform the dynamic tasks that the phones and mobile devices of the future will be performing.
An recent example in an innovation of input technology coupled with user interface advances is the iPhone. This phone utilizes dynamic input, meaning the phones input methods and buttons change with respect to the task its performing. This is made possible because there are almost no physical buttons on the device, all but one button is located on the touch screen. By utilizing touch screen technology a phone can better adapt to its task at hand by utilizing the best input system for that task. Combined with the intuitiveness of the multi-touch input system, the iPhone has seemed to zoom ahead of competition in providing a interface and input system that complements and simplifies the process of accessing content and media on a mobile device.
This is a good example of how when cell phone manufactures design the input systems to compliment the applications or uses of the phone. Apple has provided a good start in this area, but for the mobile media market to really take off and for serious monetization of mobile content to become a reality, companies need to devote more resources and efforts to this marriage of input technology and interface. When these two things begin to work harmoniously on mobile devices and it becomes second nature to access content on a mobile device, just as it is accessing the same content on a personal computer, then and only then, will people fully embrace the technology and media and begin to spend money in a widespread fashion.
Navigating content and accessing media on the internet has become second nature to most users, and people are accessing content faster and easier than ever before. With innovations in interfaces and organization of content like that of YouTube, Google, combined with the customizable input technologies built into most internet browsers today, has caused users to have high expectations and little patience regarding how we interact with machines or devices in accessing information. While the combination of the QWERTY keyboard and mouse have produced a input duo that is well suited for accessing information from the internet and on the computer, it is obvious that these traditional input systems will not work for mobile devices like cell phones or portable media players. Here in lies the problem.
The importance of interface and input technologies is epitomized in the evolution and the success of Apple's iPod. The iPod revolutionized the way we access media on a portable media player by combining a unique and intuitive input system with a simple and clutter-less user interface, allowing the user to access content or media will little effort or thought.
The answer for mobile phones for the past couple years have consisted of two forms of input systems, the full QWERTY keyboard, which is obviously infinitely smaller on a mobile device, or just the keypad, which can utilize input systems like predictive text (T9). Both of these systems have their limitations, but these systems have served there purpose for the primary uses of their respective phones.
However, the future of phones holds much more than just text messaging, watered down internet browsing, and phone calls. The mobile phone is increasingly becoming more important to our media consumption. This poses a problem for the previous input technologies because they are not suited to perform the dynamic tasks that the phones and mobile devices of the future will be performing.
An recent example in an innovation of input technology coupled with user interface advances is the iPhone. This phone utilizes dynamic input, meaning the phones input methods and buttons change with respect to the task its performing. This is made possible because there are almost no physical buttons on the device, all but one button is located on the touch screen. By utilizing touch screen technology a phone can better adapt to its task at hand by utilizing the best input system for that task. Combined with the intuitiveness of the multi-touch input system, the iPhone has seemed to zoom ahead of competition in providing a interface and input system that complements and simplifies the process of accessing content and media on a mobile device.
This is a good example of how when cell phone manufactures design the input systems to compliment the applications or uses of the phone. Apple has provided a good start in this area, but for the mobile media market to really take off and for serious monetization of mobile content to become a reality, companies need to devote more resources and efforts to this marriage of input technology and interface. When these two things begin to work harmoniously on mobile devices and it becomes second nature to access content on a mobile device, just as it is accessing the same content on a personal computer, then and only then, will people fully embrace the technology and media and begin to spend money in a widespread fashion.
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