Key iOS 5 Developer features - a CEO’s perspective

Most of the news leaving the hallowed halls of the Moscone West building in San Francisco, where Apple’s Developer Conference - WWDC 2011 - is taking place, centres around the announcement of iOS 5 and its fluffy new features and services such as iCloud, iMessage, Newsstand, and Reminders. Surprisingly, very little has been reported on the major technical improvements in iOS 5 from a developer perspective. And iOS 5 has a lot of big improvements for developers.

Here are the features that I truly believe will make a major improvement to a developer’s life:

1. Notification Center

One of the main complaints over iOS in the last six months has been the inflation of push notifications that disturb the user experience with an iPhone or iPad. Notification Center in iOS 5 builds on the existing notification system with provisioning now built right into Xcode, making it easier to implement.

With the new Notification Center in iOS 5 you can display and manage notifications without interrupting the user. The user can see all notifications in a single place via the Notification Center from the home screen or from any app by swiping down the status bar. When the user gets a new notification it will briefly appear at the top of the screen instead of a popup. The lock screen also displays the notifications so you can respond to them quickly with just a swipe.

To read more about the Notification Center visit here. 

2. Automatic Reference Counting (ARC)

I might be going out on a limb here, but in my opinion the ARC is what is normally referred to as garbage collector. One of the key complaints by Android developers, particularly when developing for iOS, is the difficult of memory management in iOS.  This also affects users since apps constantly crash.  With ARC though, the developer no longer needs to be an expert in memory management as the compiler does the job for you.  In theory this should allow apps to run faster and more reliably. Whether it will make apps more stable in general or cause developers to become sloppy remains to be seen.

3. Twitter integration
To be fair this has been one of the main features discussed in the media. But I believe this is more due to the fact that the media loves Twitter.  What they don’t say though is that Android has supported Twitter and other social networking integration for over a year, as Android allows apps to interact with each other.  Nevertheless, iOS now provides the key features of Twitter as well.  The deep integration allows the association of a Twitter account within iOS settings. So now the integration with an app does not have to be done by the user by logging in and or adding an account manually.  Since most apps nowadays provide sharing through Twitter, this will enhance the user’s experience enormously.

4. Core Image

During the last year some of the coolest and most popular apps have been photo editing or photo filtering apps such as Instagram, Hipstamatic, Camerabag, Photogene and many more. Core Image provides a framework for editing images and videos, making it a lot easier to implement these features into any app.  In addition to this, the framework is tightly integrated with the hardware to make performance even better.

5. OpenGL ES

The new OpenGL capabilities are what really excite game developers and 3D animators.

With the GL Kit in iOS 5 the capabilities for advanced rendering and texture techniques have become even better, and we are yet to see how those capabilities can be utilised.

6. PC Free

The sixth and last feature I want to highlight has little to do with the developer SDK but may turn out to become one of the biggest advantages.  Today the majority of users upgrade to the latest iOS within the first couple of months. Some though, will still stick to an older version and cause headaches for developers in terms of backwards interoperability support.  Hopefully PC Free will be so tempting a feature that only a small share of users will remain with older versions of the OS. Unfortunately, however, Apple also announced that the oldest iPhones cannot be upgraded to iOS 5 so some legacy issues will still remain.

So there you have a CEO’s perspective on iOS 5.  Let’s start making use of it when it’s launched (hopefully) in September.

Golden Gekko is attending WWDC but it seems, playing with the SDK and Apple’s other new toys has kept them too busy to give us a full report yet.

Top 10 activities and predictions in mobile 2010 to 2011

Once again it’s time for us to summarise the past year´s key trends and predict the future for 2011.

At the end of 2009 we looked back at the year that passed and forward to 2010 to identify some key insights and trends. Maybe we cheated but it looks like our crystal ball for 2010 was right on the spot for 4 out of 5 of ourpredictions.

Review of our predictions for 2010

1. Breakthrough for mobile marketing

Most importantly the breakthrough for mobile marketing and apps have now happened which led to a revenue growth of more than 125% for Golden Gekko in the middle of a global financial crisis. One key factor was that major brands such as GAP, Zara, Domino's Pizza and Mango launched m-Commerce initiatives which all surpassed expectations making the mobile platform a business critical channel.

2. Increased mobile platform fragmentation

We saw an increase in fragmentation, which came true with more versions and hardware configurations of Android, Samsung Bada, Windows Mobile 7, with renewed investments in Palm WebOS by HP and MeeGo announced by Nokia and Intel.

3. Android accelerates past iPhone

As expected Android surpassed iPhone as the most sold smartphone OS, while the iOS market share growth stabilised.

4. Mobile networks collapse under traffic load

Finally, several of the networks in the UK (O2) and US (AT&T) experience vastly reduced performance due to smartphones and dongles.

5. Improved efficiency in mobile service development

The one prediction which did not really materialize was improved efficiency in mobile service delivery through new tools and products. The reason is most likely that most of the tools and services are not good enough yet which could be a great opportunity for 2011.

The key trends 2010

1. Launch of the iPad and other tablets

In January Apple announced the iPad which has ever since been sold at an amazing rate although I think the usage patterns have surprised quite a few. Most of the usage takes place at home rather than while mobile. At the same time other manufacturers, despite promises, failed to bring out competitive devices during 2010 even though Samsung managed to sell about 1 million.

2. Microsoft Windows Phone 7

Maybe it was because expectations were low but reviews of the Windows Phone 7 operating system and phones have been very good. Unique user interface, great social networking integration, excellent SDK for app development and all in all the first real smartphone OS from Microsoft.

3. Launch of iAds

When Apple acquired Qattro Wireless the iAd formats with rich media had already been developed but Apple took it and turned it into a great new innovation. Although the impact in terms of mobile advertising was very small in 2010 iAds has set the benchmark for mobile ads for the next couple of years.

4. Launch of 50+ appstores by operators and handset manufacturers

The openness of Android is both good and bad in terms of security, fragmentation and developer control. One slightly unexpected result however is that everyone is now launching their own appstores. In 2010 Android appstores were launched by Vodafone, Telefonica, Verizon Wireless, Orange, Sony-Ericsson, LG, Samsung and many many more. We expect this trend to continue in 2011 making distribution of Android apps more challenging for developers but also giving them more opportunities to sell and promote their apps.

5. Blackberry proving that they can hold the fort

Many analysts thought that RIM was down for the count in the beginning of 2010 with the competition from iPhone and Android but over and over again they have beaten forecasts in terms of sales. Maybe there is demand for something different than the iPhone even though the app environment and browser is nowhere close even on the latest Blackberry 6 devices? And it will be interesting to see what is yet to come. In the past 12 months RIM have acquired one user interface expert (TAT), one SDK developer (QNX) to be used as basis for the new tablets and a couple of app developers (DataViz and Cellmania).

Our predictions for 2011 are

1. Smartphones for everyone

The price of Android phones is dropping drastically with the low end expected to reach 30-40 euro by the end of 2011.* You can already buy a ZTE Blade for about 120 euro with a specification similar to the Nexus One and other manufacturers such as LG, Huewai, Lenovo and Dell will launch low-end Android phones throughout 2011. In addition to this Nokia will continue to offer Symbian for as little as 50 euro and RIM will offer Blackberries at around the 100 Euro mark. There may also be some surprises from Apple with iOS and HP with WebOS. The exciting thing about the drastic drop in prices is that smartphones will reach mass market allowing businesses and developers to reach a much greater audience. The challenge will be to see if app usage is still sustainable or if the early adopters have a different behaviour.

* All quoted prices are list prices for an unlocked phone without contract. Prices with contracts vary depending on country and operator.

2. Mobile is going from a marketing to a business critical channel

In 2009 we talked about mobile advertising shifting to mobile marketing. Now it's time for the next phase. Based on soft launches in 2008-2010 many brands are now seeing mobile deliver substantial revenues with examples including Opentable, eBay, Amazon and Domino's Pizza. Retail brands such as H&M, Zara, GAP are now following suite with major investments expecting that the mobile channel could be as big as the web or even bigger.

3. Multi-platform strategies will be the key to successful mobile strategies

Although a lot of businesses are now turning to mobile web including XHTML and HTML5 as the base platform for their mobile business, downloadable apps continue to drive innovation and discovery. The app platforms continue to develop extremely rapidly with at least one major release per year from Apple, Google, HP/Palm with new functionality and business opportunities. Mobile web on the other hand is based on standards with considerably slower evolution since everyone needs to agree. Therefore the gap between native apps and browser based services will only get larger for now. Mobile browsers could potentially evolve as fast as the apps but then the advantages of standardised coding would disappear. In conclusion businesses and developers that want to stay ahead in mobile will have to develop for and support multiple platforms including XHTML, HTML5, iOS, Android and maybe Symbian/MeeGo, Blackberry and Windows Mobile 7.

4. Breakthrough for m-payments and NFC

With Google introducing NFC (Near Field Communication) support with the launch of Nexus S and Apple expected to follow with NFC on the iPhone 5 we expect a breakthrough for NFC and related services in 2011 although the eco system will take a long time to develop. In Japan NFC already has already replaced tickets and magnetic cards on the tube and allows you to pay for physical good in stores just like a debit card. And the potential services that can be offered are almost endless. NFC equipped devices should in theory be able to communicate or listen to RFID chips that are already everywhere. We could put sensors in flower pots that tell your phone when they need to get watered, products in the store could give you information instantly without the need for barcode scanning, the phone could store your loyalty cards for air miles or hotels.

The breakthrough in 2011 will be in terms of innovation and initiatives by major players rather than mass market adaptation which will still take many years.

5. Rapid growth for tools that improve mobile service and app delivery

This was a prediction for 2010 that did not materialise but we have not given up. Historically businesses that offer developer and service delivery tools in mobile have not been very successful with the greatest exception being Admob. The reason has mainly been that the buyers haven't had sufficient skills and knowledge to use self-service tools and therefore preferred to buy a full service offering making it difficult for mobile marketing companies to establish scalable business models. Another reason is that few marketing agencies want to use template based solutions something Golden Gekko has experienced with Tino as well as Mobile Rhodi with their service. In 2011 we believe that this will change with more experienced marketers and better tools. The main areas of development will be mobile ad serving (Adfonic), CRM and messaging services (e.g. texting.ly), mobile content management systems (thinkshed), self-service app development services (Tino and Mobile Roadie) and appstore distribution.

Happy New Year 2011!

How to market and distribute mobile app

You've developed a great mobile app for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, Palm WebOS, WM7 or any other platform and now you want people to download it whether it's free or paid for. Yet, even the world’s greatest mobile app will deliver no results unless you make people aware of its existence. Over the past year Golden Gekko has produced a basic guide based on 5 years of application development and distribution and over 50m downloads to date on how you get the most out of your mobile app through various different distribution channels.

The white paper is available in 2 different parts that will be published on the blog over the next month. The parts are:
1. Mobile App Distribution - Mobile Distribution Channels including Mobile Advertising, Messaging, Appstores, Search, Communities and Operators - Download
2. Mobile App Distribution - Other Distribution channels including Web, ATL, BTL, PR and sharing/viral - Download

Use links above to download white papers.

The opportunity of iAds

What do we think?

When iAds was launched earlier this year the Financial Times called me and asked what we thought about the announcement and it's impact on the industry. I said I was excited about the richness and simplicity and that I was convinced it would give the mobile advertising industry exactly what it needs in terms of strong backing (Apple) and setting a new industry benchmark.

Since then Apple has officially launched the product and sold inventory for about 40m USD so what do I think now? When should you use iAds?

iAds are fantastic in terms of attracting customers to engage with rich media. If you want guaranteed eye balls and engagement then iAds can be a great start. Especially now that media is excited about iAds and will write about it therefore generate positive PR.

Does iAds replace mobile apps?

In my opionion iAds replace mobile microsites and not apps. The advantage of apps compared to iAds are...

1. Apps are available offline and iAds are not
2. Apps can give you very low cost engagement per customer if you have a strong brand and/or concept, e.g. an app that costs 40k USD to develop and generates 100k downloads cost 0.4 USD per engagement vs 1 USD per click for iAds at the moment which would cost you 100k USD for the same engagement

How do you reach customers on other platforms such as Android and Blackberry?

Our expectation is that other mobile advertising platform providers such as Google and Microsoft will quickly follow with similar formats based on HTML5 and that mobile web and iAds will merge over time as the user experience will be almost exactly the same.

Posted by Magnus Jern CEO of Golden Gekko

Tech Media Invest 2009

We presented at the Tech Media Invest 2009 today but also thought we should share some of the insights from the conference. A lot of the discussions were around mobile applications even though Golden Gekko was the only pure mobile development company present. See http://www.e-unlimited.com/events/view.aspx?events_pages_id=1 for more information about the conference.

1. Mobile platform choice is difficult
3-6 months ago everyone was going for the iPhone as the primary platform and then expended to other platforms. More recently developers have started to question the impact of iPhone apps versus other platforms due to increasing competition.

2. iTunes appstore storefront has become a barrier
The difficulty for customers to find the apps they want / relevant apps on iTunes appstore is becoming a barrier. Despite this Apple has reached over 2 Bn downloads so question is whether this is a consumer or publisher issue? We think that it is currently mainly an issue for publishers but that it will become a limited factor for increased consumer activity in the coming months.

3. Openness is key
Media, developers and investors all believe that openness will win. This is somewhat strange considering that
a) The success of the iPhone is much thanks to the fact that it is not an open platform and continues to get the most media attention
b) Android is still far behind other platforms such as iPhone and Blackberry
c) Feedback about Symbian open initiative has not been as positive as Android

4. Business models are uncertain
Rupert Murdoch has made it clear that the time of “free” is over. Therefore it would seem that focus should have shifted to premium revenues. Generally this seems to be the case but consensus points to freemium as the golden answer.

5. Mobile Marketing is going from one hit wonders to a strategic marketing channel
Brands such as BMW, Coca Cola, Barclay’s are now moving from one-off campaigns to developing mobile platforms for future growth.

6. Apps and browsers will become seamless but when?
One interesting point that was made is that the browser is getting more and more functionality and integration with the phone but development is slow. Google has repeatedly stated that they believe browsing and not apps is the future of mobile but at the same time they refer to several of their online services as Google Apps despite the fact that they are being delivered through the browser? The difference will become more and more grey.

7. Branded apps are performing amazingly well
Speakers and panel members referred several times to branded apps as the killer mobile advertising service at the moment. iPint, BMW Z4 app, Barclays app, etc.

All in all an interesting day with lots of great new contacts!

Yankee Group Predicts $4.2 Billion Mobile App Gold Rush by 2013

The appstore market keeps booming. iTunes appstore is now showing the top apps by earnings in a separate category which gives you an indication of which apps generate top dollars and to no ones surprise 80% of the top apps are games and only a few major players (EA, Gameloft, etc) as well as a few independent development houses are making money. We believe that the forecast by Yankee Group is too optimistic in terms of direct premium revenue. One of the reasons is that customers overestimate their spend on apps but also the number of great apps available for free. According to our estimates only a few hundred or less than 1% of the apps on the iTunes appstore generates a positive return to the developer. So is mobile apps a big bubble?

The answer is definitely no. There is a much bigger story. In addition to entertainment (games), apps are used for marketing, information, productivity, communication, networking and much more so the overall value to mobile operators, advertisers, consumers and businesses is much bigger. According to Strategy Analytics approximately 20% of all apps downloaded to date in 2009 have been to an iPhone or iPod which makes the total number of downloads over 5Bn. This is almost 1 download per inhabitant globally. Amazing figures and yet they will continue to grow.

Read the full pressrelease by Yankee Group here

Universal Pictures promotes the movie "The Unborn" on the iPhone

There is a huge opportunity to entertain the audience where there is no other media format available, and fill the downtime with rich interactive experiences.

With this in mind, Hyperhappen have just launched the first ‘mobile interactive movie trailer’ for Universal Pictures developed by Golden Gekko. Over ground, Underground, in the middle of the Atlantic... the content is in the handset to play with. The navigation toolbar is truly virtual and a first step towards mobile’s ability to build on intuitive engagement.

OK. It does require an iPhone or iPod Touch...

The movie industry has a great heritage of using outdoor to promote new movies. The design methodology that goes into creating a billboard poster is built on how the consumer should read the imagery to ‘buy in’ to the film bring promoted. The Unborn app has built on this heritage, therefore tying into the consumer’s familiarity with this ATL imagery to act as the launch pad for their user journey.

You can find the app on http://tinyurl.com/ape524 or click here

Enjoy!

Monday: Golden Gekko News Update

In the past couple of months we have launched lots of new exciting campaigns and partnerships. As a matter of fact Bena at Gomonews managed to announce some of them before we even did.

Here's just a few of them:

iPhone Chrimbell Application
Chrimbell turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a christmas bell. The project was delivered to Ogilvy as there Christmas greeting card. You cand find it by searching for "chrimbell" on iTunes or by visiting http://tinyurl.com/6re6wa

iPhone Application Mockup Viewer
Golden Gekko has developed the iPhone Application Mockup Viewer that that enables us to deliver application mockups to clients in less than 24 hours. The service can also be used to produce customised slide shows.

Golden Gekko also provides a similar platform for all Java enabled mobile phones that has been used to produce more than 30 mockups for client demonstrations and user testing in 2008.

Contact us on sales@goldengekko.com for more information.

Disney Camp Rock
To promote the release of the movie Camp Rock II on DVD, Disney through Carat Mobile in Sweden asked Golden Gekko to produce a fun mobile application that turns almost any java enabled phone into a guitarr and music box. The application also includes wallpapers, ringtones and information about the movie. The app is available for free on http://camprock.golgek.mobi

Partnership with Tribal DDB
In September 2008 Tribal DDB partnered with Golden Gekko for mobile strategy development and production of mobile applications and sites. The partnership has already resulted in a couple
of undisclosed projects for Tribal DDB clients with a lot more to come.

Partnership with Nokia Interactive
In August 2008 Nokia Interactive (the mobile advertising unit of Nokia) partnered with Golden Gekko to support them with mobile website, application and widget development. The partnership has already resulted in over six projects including internal Nokia campaigns and external clients. More to follow about this in the new year.

iPhone SDK, Android and Symbian creating more fragmentation

With over 300 million iphone applications downloaded to date and 200m+ applications downloaded every month across all mobile platforms the mobile application market has never been more interesting. But it's not all good. Despite all the positive impact from the iPhone and Android in the last year this is also causing majors headaches for the mobile services industry. Fragmentation is constantly increasing with more OS (iPhone, Symbian, Android, Windows Mobile, Moblin Linux, Blackberry, etc), mobile browsers (Opera, Safari, Chrome, etc), application standards (Java, iPhone SDK, Symbian, Android SDK, Brew, 5+ different widget standards, etc). This will increase technical complexity, time to market, costs and potentially kill the chances of the industry really taking off. Imagine having to developing different versions of every software program for Dell, HP, Lenova, Toshiba, Asus, etc.

Developing 4 different OS versions of an application is possible although costly for most mobile services companies. Mobile game developers have dealt with this issue for some time with porting and testing costs making up as much as 80% of the total budgets which is bearable but certainly not profitable. The even bigger challenge however is maintaining, upgrading and supporting 5 different OS versions of an application that is in need of constant change. Unless you are Google, Facebook, MySpace or another business with 100m+ users this is simple not an option if you want to have a profitable business.

What are the options then unless you have unlimited resources for mobile application development?

A) Browser based solution only
Stick to a browser based solution and do everything you can to optimise the service over time and leverage new functionality such as script languages on the devices where this is possible. The negative side of this is that the user experience is always a little bit slow and the design and interaction capabilities very limited. It will very seldom give the user a WOW experience.

B) Automatic porting tools to support all platforms
There are a various porting tools available for porting from Java to Brew, iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android etc. These reduce the development efforts but not the optimising and Q&A work. However, they also substantially limit the use of native APIs and functionality across the platforms which means that the ported version is usually based on the most common denominator between the platforms, i.e. a bad compromise.

C) Java and iPhone versions
The only application development standard that works on a majority of handsets is Java Mobile Edition (J2ME). Java is currently available on over 90% of all devices in Europe, 80% in North America (includes packaging for Brew) and about 75% worldwide according to Strategy Analytics. The only multimedia enabled device that does not support Java today is the iPhone. Java definitely has its limitations but in terms of cost efficiency it is the only platform of choice.

In conclusion although the new platforms provide great new capabilities it is very unlikely that the development community will be able to support all of them. The decision on which platforms are used for development must be made on a case by case basis but in most instances Java is the only viable solution for downloadable applications in combination with standard XHTML for browser based services. Despite the competition from new and exciting platforms Java has a good chance to continue to be the platform of choice in the future.

We look forward to further debate on this subject!

Monday: Golden Gekko in Mobile Entertainment Magazine

Here's an excerpt from the interview with Russel Buckley at Admob:

"...Some brands are already creating imaginative ad-funded mobile apps that really exploit mobile’s uniqueness across all handsets. Golden Gekko’s Lynx deodorant mobile app (part of BBH’s award winning campaign), gave its young male users a bunch of sound effects they could use to amuse women. Later, the brand launched a mobile app replicating the farting chipmunk – and an amazing 500,000 people downloaded it. See, downloads can be measured too. Golden Gekko also found that many consumers were happy to sideload these apps to their phones. This isn’t just a result of the App Store, although I suspect this factor will popularise the method even more. Having said that, I still believe it’s preferable to run ads on the mobile web: apps only have a place when you really can’t achieve the same effect from browsing. It’s still too early to say if the iPhone will be a long-term winner, or just a very important influencer of the market. But it’s certainly a major milestone in the fields of mobile advertising and search. Apple’s iPhone picks up where midinnings wristwatch ads left off... "

Our latest campaigns have further proven that we can achieve massive viral effect through community seeding. More about this to follow shortly...