Here’s a unique musical contraption combining a variety of smart phones. My favorite part of this instrument is the portable speaker at the base of the “guitar.” Classic.
…or should I say neo-classic?
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May 17th, 2010 by Dawn Dewald | 734 VIEWS | 1 Comment »
Japanese electronics-giant Sharp recently unveiled an LCD touchscreen that displays 3D images without requiring special glasses. Sharp identified mobile phones as a potential outlet for this technology, and this week announced the first 3D camera to be used in mobile devices.
In a press release, Sharp explained how its 3D technology works:
“3D images are composed of two views taken using two cameras that simultaneously capture separate images for the right and left eyes. Consequently, a 3D camera requires peripheral circuitry to apply image processing to the two images, for example, to adjust color or to correct positioning between the images from the two cameras.”
The glasses used to view 3D images have lenses with colored filters. This creates the illusion of something popping off the screen known as parallax. The left and right eyes see separate images because of the apparent displacement of an object as seen from two different points.
The reason 3D technology did not successfully gain widespread use in the 1970s was because technologists failed to create a 3D user experience without the need for funky glasses. In order for parallax to work without glasses on mobile, viewers will hold a mobile device 12 inches (30 centimeters) in front of their face – approximately the same distance a mobile phone is typically held.
Sharp plans to ship the cameras as soon as July, and will begin mass-producing the product this year. Could we be on the verge of capturing and presenting eye-catching 3D images and video with our mobile phones? It’s an exciting prospect.
How will 3D content change our mobile experience?
Three-dimensional imaging technologies are changing the way we experience media, first in movie theaters, now in our homes, and soon in our hands. If 3D cameras become standard in our mobile devices, a wave of new content would contribute to the refinement of the technology.
Here are five ways we’d like to see 3D cameras and imaging for mobile applications:
1. Games. (Did we hear someone say Nintendo 3DS?)
2. Data charts and interactive surveys. Information architecture in 3D would be amazing.
3. Product previews for smaller items like jewelry could change the way we pop the question.
4. 3D profile pictures and video chat.
5. Navigation and maps with pop-up landmarks to guide viewers along.
What are some of your ideas for 3D imaging in mobile applications? Tell us what you’re thinking in the comments section.
March 4th, 2010 by Zak Dabbas | 1,358 VIEWS | 1 Comment »
We’re excited about the Mobile University event that’s being put on by the Heartland Mobile Council. The one-day Chicago event promises to address the importance of a long-term strategic approach to mobile marketing, as well as demonstrate how to integrate mobile into your business.
Here’s a description of the event by the Heartland Mobile Council:
“Mobile University 101 is the interactive one day educational event that will address the importance of a long-term strategic approach to mobile within your business. Whether you’re interested in creating a mobile marketing campaign, or understanding the various kinds of rapidly evolving mobile technologies, Mobile University is the place to get started with a mobile strategy, and begin to leverage mobility to improve your bottom line.”
There are going to be some great educational topics covered at the event, and both Ryan and I will be leading a break-out session focused on different ways to successfully integrate mobile within an overall marketing strategy.
Pre-registration tickets for the event are $99 and can be purchased here.
If you’re interested in reading the official release for the event, click here.
December 28th, 2009 by Zak Dabbas | 1,694 VIEWS | No Comments »
The Business Insider has posted an article titled How To Hire A Great iPhone Developer and it features a few quotes from our creative director, Ryan Unger. It’s a good read with some valuable insight, so feel free to give it a look.
November 4th, 2009 by Ryan Unger | 2,146 VIEWS | No Comments »
Hampshire, UK – 4th November 2009: A new report from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com), forecasts that consumer usage of mobile coupons will generate close to $6 billion globally in retail redemption value by 2014.
Juniper Research’s new report – ‘Mobile Coupons & NFC Smart Posters: Strategies, Applications & Forecasts 2009-2014’ cautions that user apathy amongst the wider public, as well as lack of willingness to change and learn a new method of making financial transactions are potential stumbling blocks. This is despite NFC trial results which show very high levels of user acceptance.
“Marketers can use the mobile device as the ultimate personal marketing channel. It is almost permanently switched on and physically with the consumer. This makes a great opportunity for brands and marketing agencies to access clients immediately, driving footfall and encouraging an instant decision,” explained Howard Wilcox, Senior Analyst at Juniper Research and lead report author.
Smart posters with embedded NFC tags will bring to life static billboards, creating immediate interaction between potential customers and their prospective purchases. By simply passing their device close to the tag, users can take away a coupon or product information that can result in purchase decisions.
Further findings from the Mobile Coupons and Smart Posters report include:
- ARPU from NFC coupons and smart posters will exceed ARPU from NFC payment transactions
- The vast majority of mobile coupon redemption value will be generated by the Far East & China, Western Europe and North America in 2014
The report, launched globally today, contains comprehensive six year forecasting for all the key market parameters including users, redemption rates, values and incremental ARPU for all mobile coupons, NFC coupons and NFC smart posters.
The Mobile Coupons & Smart Posters whitepaper and further details of the study, ‘Mobile Coupons & NFC Smart Posters: Strategies, Applications & Forecasts 2009-2014’ can be freely downloaded from the Juniper website.
September 8th, 2009 by Zak Dabbas | 2,180 VIEWS | No Comments »
When I first got my iPhone some two years ago, I rarely experienced connectivity issues. In fact, I was pretty proud of the fact that my phone and data service were so consistent. Flash forward to today, and I’ve moved from Cleveland (population: 500,000) to Chicago (population: 2.9 million), and the number of iPhone users has increased many, many times over.
Increasingly, I can’t hold on to a call. No joke—I drop calls every single day. And 3G data service? At this point, I feel like I’ve won the lottery when I see that beautiful little 3G icon instead of the letter “E” at the top of my screen. The other day, a friend of mine received nine visual voicemails all at once…and they had been left by recipients four days prior!
Make no mistake. Despite these issues, I absolutely love my iPhone. And thankfully, a recent article over at the NY Times has shed some light on why these issues are occurring.
You can read the article here.
Clearly, no one could have predicted the success of the iPhone. With a little patience, it looks like all of these issues will be ultimately resolved.
August 30th, 2009 by Ryan Unger | 2,599 VIEWS | 1 Comment »
Question: How does a newcomer introduce just one cell phone, and absolutely obliterate their competition with respect to profit?
Answer: They build an iPhone.
Top Cell Phone Manufacturers' Estimated Revenues Compared to Apple's
In the cell phone game, the Apple iPhone only accounts for 8% of the total industry revenue, but 32% of the total industry profit. How they managed this feat is quite simple. They pull in a 40% operating margin, in an industry that averages only 7.5%. The next most profitable company in the industry, RIM, only takes in 20.7% operating margin.
[ iSmashPhone.com ]
August 12th, 2009 by Zak Dabbas | 1,840 VIEWS | No Comments »
Microsoft is teaming up with Nokia to develop mobile versions of its hugely popular software titles for Nokia devices. This sounds like a very promising union, and I’ll be excited to see what develops.
You can read the story here.
August 3rd, 2009 by Zak Dabbas | 3,293 VIEWS | 3 Comments »
I can still remember the good ol’ days, when the iPhone had no downloadable content. You had one home screen with all of your Apple-bestowed icons in a single place–no organization skills required.
Those days are long gone, and with a slew of amazing iPhone apps comes a puzzling question: How does one best organize the plethora of applications downloaded to an iPhone? In the past, I’ve tried sorting my apps in a million different (and often bizarre) ways, and frequently found myself looking at friends’ phones, trying to figure out the logic they’d applied to their own apps.
After some careful consideration, I’ve finally settled on my favorite way to sort iPhone app icons. Of course, these methods are purely based on my personal taste and strange sense of “logic,” so take this post with a grain of salt. That said, without further delay, my 3 Rules for Keeping My iPhone Applications Organized:
My iPhone's Home Screen
1. I am an Apple purist at heart, and in a nod to the 1st gen iPhone, I keep the original twelve iPhone icons on my home screen (note: these are in addition to the four app icons found on the dock at the bottom of the screen). These icons are: Messages, Calendar, Photos, Camera, YouTube, Stocks, Maps, Weather, Notes, Clock, Calculator, and Settings. The reason for doing this is two-fold. First, I find that through years of using my iPhone, I’ve genuinely memorized the location of these twelve apps. Clicking on them is second nature to me. The second reason I like this organization scheme is that having twelve home screen icons on your phone leaves a nice empty row between the upper twelve app icons and the home row. I find this aesthetically pleasing–to me, it beats having a home screen crammed to the brim with icons.
2. Apple has provided us with five more application icons since the first gen iPhone. These icons are: App Store, Compass, Contacts, iTunes, and Voice Memos. Based on my logic in Rule #1, one could reasonably argue that these Apple-given icons should be on the home screen of the phone (they are Apple-bestowed, of course). This would be a fair argument, except that there’s no way to fit them all on the home screen. For this reason, I opt to treat these five application icons the same as I do any other downloaded iPhone apps. Doing this still supports Rule #1, which aims to keep my iPhone home screen organized and uncluttered as it was in its first release.
3. Finally, the piece de resistance. For ALL application icons not located on the initial home screen of my iPhone, I simply arrange them alphabetically on secondary home screen pages. This way, I don’t have to wonder where an app should be located and any hesitation I have to download millions of apps is squashed. I’ve tried all sorts of ways to sort my downloaded apps, but nothing is as fool-proof and easy to remember as this method. My experiments with attempting to sort apps based on categories like “utility” or “games” have always ended up failing. Alphabetizing is simple through and through.
…Phew. I hope this makes some semblance of sense! Do you have a better method of organizing your iPhone icons? If you do, feel free to share with me. I’d love to hear your thoughts as I continue in my quest to find true iPhone nirvana.
A Secondary Screen on My iPhone
July 29th, 2009 by Ryan Unger | 2,150 VIEWS | 3 Comments »
As with many other Web sites, Google.com offers its users a convenient way to find what they’re looking for using a feature called autocomplete. Autocomplete does just what it says—it automatically completes a user’s search form based on the popularity of possible keyword suggestions. For example, as you type “m,” “MySpace” is displayed because “MySpace” is the most searched term that starts with an “m.” If you follow that “m” with “obile mar,” “mobile marketing” is shown because it’s the most searched term that starts with “mobile mar,” and so on.
I’ve compiled a list of the top 26 autocomplete keywords from a to z. I’ve also cross-referenced this list against Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) costs, and came up with some really interesting results.
Key Findings:
- It would cost between $611,930 and $922,680 to own the first PPC position of the top 26 autocomplete keywords.
- “Quotes” is by far the most expensive of the top autocomplete keywords, costing ≈$23.67 per click, or ≈$374,755 per day for the first PPC position.
- The next three next most-expensive CPC keywords are “orbitz,” “gmail,” and “netflix” at ≈$4.79, ≈$4.30, and ≈$4.04, respectively.
- The three lowest-cost keywords with respect to estimated cost-per-day based on clicks-per-day are “facebook,” “photobucket,” and “zillow.”
- ALL of the following keywords do NOT break 1,000 paid clicks per day: “facebook,” “irs,” “photobucket,” “realtor.com,” “southwest airlines,” “usps,” “xm radio,” and “zillow.” The obvious assumption is that users searching those keywords ignore the sponsored links and just go organic.
PPC Costs for the top 26 autocomplete keyword suggestions
Punchkick Interactive and Keathley Advertising Team Up to Create GE Mood Lighting Cam iPhone App
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Punchkick Interactive, a Chicago-based mobile marketing company, and Keathley Advertising, an Akron-based advertising agency, today announced the launch of the GE Mood Lighting Cam iPhone app. The new iPhone [ MORE ]
Punchkick Interactive Appoints Director of Business Development and Mobile Strategy
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Punchkick Interactive, America's first design firm to focus exclusively on full-service mobile marketing, is pleased to announce the addition of Dirk Rients as Director of Business Development and Mobile [ MORE ]
Punchkick Interactive
10 West Hubbard Street, Suite 2D
Chicago, Illinois 60654 USA
Phone (800) 549-4104
info@punchkickinteractive.com
10 West Hubbard Street, Suite 2D
Chicago, Illinois 60654 USA
Phone (800) 549-4104
info@punchkickinteractive.com
