It’s pretty much a given that everyone has a mobile phone these days. In fact 96% of 18-35 year olds in Ireland own a smartphone. 60% of these own an iPhone. I myself am the proud owner of a (wait for it)…Nokia C1-01. If you don’t know what that is, well you’re not the only one. I get the most judgemental looks from people when I take my phone out in public and I don’t blame them, because frankly its seen as an antique by now. I only bought it about 2 years ago.
This just shows how much we have progressed when it comes to cellular devices in recent years. When they first appeared, the size of bricks and twice as heavy, they had to be carried around in briefcases no less. Now they’re getting thinner and thinner, and if the latest iPhone 6 is anything to go by, in a few years time they won’t physically exist anymore. There appears to be no limit to how thin a smartphone can be these days, but that’s just one of many interesting points made at the Get Mobile conference on the 11th of November.
The first few statistics are courtesy of Dr. Theo Lynn, who introduced the conference. He also had a few more up his sleeve, such as 90% of us check our phones first thing when we wake up, 87% of us use smartphones on public transport, and a shocking 57% of people (admitted to) using their mobile phone on the toilet. Talk about unhygienic…
Our first speaker was Mark Hughes, CEO of Digifeye, where “every vision is a decision”. Around 250 million images are shared by mobile users everyday, and Digifye lets you look at them and effectively, buy what you see. This led to the creation of Style-Eyes, which allows you to take a picture of someone’s outfit, and find an exact match or similar piece of clothing from over 900 UK and US high street brands. Without apps like this, the ‘Duchess Effect’ (the influence of Kate Middleton, fashionista extraordinaire and royal Brit) and general fashion trends wouldn’t exist to the same extent. All this, available on what used to be a simple mobile phone.
Our next speaker was Cathal Gurrin, a lecturer in computing here in DCU, and a researcher specialising in data analytics. He started with a bang, stating that the iPhone 5 is 6000 times more powerful than the Apollo, a rocket that flew to the moon of all places. Not only that, but smartphones like the iPhone 5 will be seen as about advanced as my Nokia C1-01 in 5 years time.
Cathal also talked a bit about Google Glass, and here is where I can’t really take him seriously. Apparently the recently launched Google Glass will be mainstream by 2015. That’s next year, if you didn’t realise. Sorry?
Maybe I’m being a bit cynical here, but even at the rate at which smartphones and technology are evolving around us, I don’t think, especially here in Ireland, that we’ll all be donning what looks like robot headgear in the next year. On the other hand, that’s the beauty of this day and age, the inability to predict what will come next. The concept of seeing everything through your own eyes, but also through a computer built into your glasses, is something that we used to look at it Star Trek and think “wow that’s so cool!”. Now its actually possible.
Eoin Cruise took to the stage next, the market lead in Ireland for Nokia, soon to be Microsoft Mobile Devices. Come Christmas, not only will I own an antique phone, but I’ll own a rare breed, as Nokia will cease to exist. Eoin talked a bit about how this came about, from the renewal of 2011, the revitalisation of 2012, the momentum of 2013, to the recent consolidation of 2014. In the last few years, a number of objectives were brought forward by Microsoft, including to increase the usage of Microsoft, and also to work on what are termed the “bottom range” of smartphones, ie. the €60-€200 range. He also mentioned Universal Windows Apps, which us business studies students are already well acquainted with from our work on the DICE tourism app project.
The next speaker was Paul Davey, mobile leader of IBM– international business machines if you’ve ever wondered. They claim to have made the first ever smartphone back in 1994, albeit a lot more basic and a lot more clunky and heavy than today. IBM are one of those companies that you hear an awful lot about, and see their logo floating around a lot, however if you’re like me, you’ve never really quite known who they are or what they do. Are they mobile based? Security based? Are they involved in the process of making airplanes? Believe it or not, the answer to all of the above is yes. They do everything, from app development in partnership with Apple, to working with Twitter, to even assisting the fight against cancer. Impressive resume, to say the least.
It could be quite hard to follow a company curing cancer, in fact our final speaker Alex Meisl, the chair of Wiforia prefaced his talk with “shit, those guys are doing that?”, however he was definitely not outshone by them. Did you know that 1/3 of adults would rather give up sex than their smartphone, and 2/3 adults would forgo alcohol in favour of it? Well now you do. He talked for an hour and a half so for all of our sakes, I’ll stick to the most important points he made (in my opinion) otherwise we’ll be here all day! He talked a lot about app strategy, something I’d never really thought about before, but makes so much sense. Due to the popularity of apps these days, its very common for companies, retailers etc. to feel like they have to make an app fast and get it out there to the public. However how many of them actually sit down and think long and hard about the actual content of their app, and how it can benefit customers? Take John Lewis as an example. By increasing IT expenditure by 600% in 5 years, they doubled their sales, to $16 billion. This is a combination of app development and also showcases the importance of mobile-optimised sites. Considering the fact that 61% of people leave a site immediately if they can’t view it properly on their smartphone, it would be utterly ridiculous for a company to not invest in mobile app development.
I’ll leave you with a question that Alex put to us; what’s holding us back? The answer is quite simply, fear, uncertainty and doubt with regards to the mobile industry. This is nonsensical as it is evident that there is so much potential for businesses to expand and develop and be innovative when it comes to the smartphone. So why not be smart about it?
Digital Innovation Creativity and Enterprise 