• Anything that makes textbooks more interesting can only be a good thing. However, is it possible to turn every book into an amazing visual journey. I notice they only showed introductory science book examples. How complex can the topics become before the book reverts to mainly text? What about drier subjects like some branches of mathematics?
• Does this risk trivialising learning? They’ve taken the study questions and made them more interactive. Fine, but this is just like any web based learning environment, so not exactly revolutionary. And not everything can be represented as a multiple-choice question. It would have been great to see more innovative approaches to learning. Without this, there is a risk that the reinforcement of learning is only very shallow.
• Immersion. There are lots of potential distractions on an iPad. Just how effective will it be as a teaching tool.
• Reading experience. iPads are not e-Ink displays, which means that they will be tiring to read over time. People seem to cope with this, but if kids are looking at a screen solidly for 5 days a week, I’m not sure that’s amazing for their eyes.
• Typing. Nobody is going to claim that an iPad makes a great tool for typing for long periods. The problem is, if a school invests in iPads for each student, then they’re not going to provide laptops too. So what are students going to use to do coursework while at school?
• Exclusion. I echo the sentiment about this being too expensive for most schools/students. It would have been nice if the iBooks format was slightly more open, so it could perhaps work via a browser for those schools that couldn’t afford iPads. This is not in Apple’s interests though, hardware sales are where all their profits are (and why they can make the entire iBooks platform free software. You need an iPad to view it and a Mac to create it).
• Reach. As the article states, cost aside, not all schools will want to move onto an entirely Apple ecosystem. I’m not sure this matters to Apple though and I don’t think they’ll be worried if they only carve out a small niche in the education market. For one it’s great publicity for how socially responsible they are, it also helps to cement use of Apple products into the next generation of consumers and it will drive sales from those wealthy schools that can afford it. Now they’ve made the software, there are no major costs to supporting it (even interactive books are likely to be less costly to host and serve than apps, music or video as they will be smaller files prone to lower levels of demand).

So, there are limitations, but it is likely to see success within those schools that can afford to adopt it. Just don’t expect to see it revolutionise education overnight.

For those of you that watch South Park, a recent episode highlighted the public perception of end-user licensing and privacy statements. The character Kyle doesn’t bother to read the privacy agreement of an Apple iTunes update and has to suffer the consequences, which cannot be detailed here!

Apple has suffered a significant damage to its public reputation recently, due to the news that it has been tracking the location of it’s iPhone and iPad users.  Apple, along with Google, have been requested to participate in a US Senate panel on the issue of mobile tracking, with Apple adamantly stating that it does not track user’s locations, but uses the data collected to help speed up the use of location based services. As you can see from the map below (produced using the iPhone Tracker tool ), the wi-fi location and cell towers around your phone, can give an impression of your own location – you’d never guess that I use the east coast railway a lot!

<Click to enlarge>

Last year I wrote about the issues of advertising on mobile devices, a theme that I’ll be coming back to again shortly, along with the potential difficulties of mobile tracking. One of the issues related to the latency of the tracking and the corresponding issue of data accuracy. A recent article by ‘Localytics’ has highlighted this problem and it will be an ever more important issue as the use of mobile devices becomes more and more main stream. The common consensus (Wikimedia & Online Marketing Trends)  predicts that mobile devices will surpass desktops as the method of browsing the internet by 2014.

The Apple story is interesting as the issue of tracking on mobile devices, and indeed this specific issue relating to the user’s location, has been known about for well over a year. It only gained momentum in the popular press when the information was visualised!

This really shows the importance of visualising data. We all love a good story and need to be able to relate to the protagonists. Data is great, but insight is better!

Our own Neil Mason discusses the use of storytelling in his recent blog post. We are often confronted with the conflict of making data look ‘sexy’, think of glossy 3D pie charts, rather than meaningful. For me it is vital that a data visualisation tells a story. It should allow the user to experience a journey through the data to gain meaningful insight.

What is interesting, is that the depiction of data can often feel like an uphill struggle, everyone has an opinion on what a chart should look like. It is often only when you have played with a couple of different visualisations that the true meaning comes through. From a linguistic or memory perspective, this would be termed as ‘semantic’ meaning that a greater level had been achieved. As analysts, it is our job to help create this journey for our client.

This is not easy. It may take several iterations before the insights come through, but then again, it wouldn’t be a true story without a struggling hero now would it!

For more about Foviance’s Data Privacy Audit

According to recent figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), the trade body for digital marketing, the total spend on mobile phone advertising in 2009 rocketed by 32 percent year-on-year to a new high of £37.6 million – and all that despite an overall contraction in the advertising sector in 2009.

Two of the biggest names driving this hike in interest in mobile advertising are Apple and Google. Apple launched iAd, its mobile advertising platform, following the acquisition of Quattro Wireless for $275 million. Google is similarly bullish, investing $750 million in its own AdMob. So that’s more than $1 billion investment by these two giants of the marketplace, and a pretty good indicator to potential advertisers that this isn’t a fleeting opportunity.

Before joining the mobile advertising bandwagon, potential advertisers need to try to understand mobile better as a platform. If possible they should gauge the value of applications by tracking their usage. Before the iPad was launched, a firm called Flurry Analytics – a developer of a leading smartphone application analytics and monetization platform used by more than 30,000 applications across iOS, Android, Blackberry and J2ME – enabled developers to include code in their iPhone apps to track usage. With this help brands could breakdown exactly what users were doing within their apps and how often. A bit like Google Analytics on the desktop, this data wasn’t personally identifiable but was very useful as guidance.

Unfortunately for Flurry and app developers alike, Flurry’s analytics were blamed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs for ‘outing’ IDs of new tablet devices on the Apple campus that turned out to be the secret iPad in testing. Jobs said at the time: “We learned some company called Flurry had data on devices that we were using on our campus. It was getting developers to put software in their apps that sent info back to this company! So we went through the roof. It’s violating our privacy policies! So now we’re only going to allow analytics that don’t give our device info.”

Apple felt obliged to change its terms and conditions for tracking software. Developers must now sign up to stringent restrictions of third-party tracking libraries unless tracking is explicitly obvious to end users. What does this really mean though? Most websites already use non-personal tracking. Are our mobile phones considered to be more personal devices, with more questions raised over tracking of information on them, especially any locality information?

If rich information capture from mobile devices was permitted, either specifically through raw cell tower information or by other boundaries, advertising networks could undoubtedly put it to good use. The Apple iAd platform can already enable developers to put targeted interactive ads into apps, that with permission can look through iTunes histories and study behavioural information to enable tighter targeting. Google’s own ad model can employ Google maps to present ads to users depending on their location. Theoretically all of this would be ‘opt-in’ from a customer point of view, but it isn’t impossible for permissions to be bound up in general terms and conditions. Regardless, Apple currently believes its apps should be explicit about intentions to track behavioural information, using location-based services and permitting targeted advertising.

2010 is already the year of mobile, and that’s largely because mobile manufacturers and service providers are getting so much better at understanding what consumers really want. Debates will certainly be raised over what is good for them – do we all want targeted business ads while walking city streets, and shopping vouchers sent to us as we walk through the doors of a shop? Arguably the offline world is moving this way anyway, thanks to pervasive loyalty and travel cards. Even Facebook has been in hot water for targeting ads based on profiles at one time, but it’s obvious to most that this is a trend on the cusp of acceptance by many, so long as an acceptable balance can be struck between benefits and privacy.

This article was writtern as part of the Foviance July/August Newsletter

First of all, iPhone4 does not mean iPhone 4G! Apple has branded their phone in a way that suggests it has got 4th generation mobile broadband capabilities whereas it doesn’t. As far as I’m concerned, the upcoming HTC Evo is the only handset so far equipped with such a feature. But it doesn’t really matter anyway as here in the UK there are at the moment no 4G infrastructures.

Then comes the feature that should transform the way we communicate: video calling. Video calling effectively combines audio and video, and is indeed a step ahead of traditional phone usage. But this is no breakthrough. Six years ago, I was already using a phone (manufactured by Sharp at the time) that allowed me to talk and watch my interlocutor at the same time. But the video calling concept never really took off and fell into oblivion until now. However the main issue that resides in the iPhone4’s new feature is that it only works through the WiFi. In other words users need to be connected to a WiFi network to place video calls. And this goes without saying that the receiver must also possess a phone capable of interpreting and displaying the video signal.

This brings me to my third point: the iPhone4 WiFi capabilities. Apple’s handheld devices are not particularly renowned for embedding powerful WiFi aerials, be it the iPhones series or the iPad. The iPhone4 surely doesn’t escape the rule. Proof is Steve Jobs’ Keynote speech last April: his demo of the iPhone4 was plagued by slow WiFi connection issues.

And last but not least, many iPhone4 customers reported signal reception issues, depending on how they were holding the device. This is certainly bad press for the device, especially as there are no quick fixes for the problem. In response, Apple told its customers “not to hold the device the wrong way”. This was a bit uncalled-for and shows that Apple should definitely start thinking about doing some sort of user research.

In sum, the iPhone4 is definitely far from being the perfect next generation mobile device. But don’t get me wrong; the new iPhone is a nice piece of electronics and my intention was not to discard it. Yet it is still not as good as you think.

This post was originally posted by Xavier Klingenfus

Before opening the box I’d already heard the damming reports of the phone immediately losing reception when held in the hand.  This sounded ridiculous and I felt like one of the many geeks who had been over excited by a new gimmick and potentially bought it before all the teething issues had been resolved.  It is true, and I have experienced this problem with reception when on calls.  It’s a hideous design fault and even worse that Apple didn’t uncover and rectify the problem before launching the product.  Apparently, Steve Jobs is instructing users to use tape or nail varnish to resolve the issue – but having bought what is supposed to be such an iconic and sophisticated designed product, I’m not going to be ruining it by plastering over Apple’s mistakes.  I have instead had to resort to buying a case for the phone, which means that I no longer experience the loss of reception, but I am now carrying a beautifully designed product within a not so beautifully designed rubber case.    

Anyway, I’ve managed to get over this major design fault and believe it or not, I’m actually really happy with the iPhone4.

Out of the box, even before switching on the phone, it does feel pretty smart and sophisticated. The stainless steel rim and glass back completely convert the phone from feeling soft and curvy (as on 3G/S), to sleek and sexy.  The phone doesn’t actually feel that much thinner in my opinion and it may be a preconception based on the metal material used on the rim, but I can certainly notice the 2grams of extra weight in the 4GS.

As soon as you switch the phone on, the excellent high resolution screen is remarkable.  Images are crystal clear like photographs and colours are bright.  Talking of photographs, the camera is far and beyond the 3G offering – but as I mentioned in my previous blog, it wasn’t a challenge to create an improvement the original camera. With this great feature and integrated flash, you really don’t need to carry around a dedicated digital camera to take shots day-to-day.  Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to try out the FaceTime video calling feature as none of my close friends have managed to get their hands on this hot new phone, but I’ll be sure to blog my experience when I’ve used it.  

I’ve only experienced the 3GS iPhone as a guest user on a friends’ device, so it’s difficult to compare the speed of the device but I am not noticing the 4G phone to be that much quicker when surfing the web (unless connected through wifi, when it’s super speedy!).  I assume this won’t change dramatically until 4G is available throughout the UK…but for that, we could be waiting a while.  This isn’t a show stopper for me.  It’s great to be able to use the Internet whilst out and about, but I really don’t want to be one of those people that have their phone stuck to their hand; constantly checking Facebook or surfing mindless pages on the Internet.  I’ll stick to a book or the newspaper for that kind of entertainment, but having said that – it will be great to answer all those questions that come up and the only response I’ve recently had is “I’ll Google it when I get home”.  Now, I can Google it, there and then.

Although I realise this isn’t something new to the 4G, one thing I am totally impressed by on the iPhone are the zillions and zillions of apps that are available – there literally seems to be something for everything.  And, now with the iPhone4 new feature you can organise them into folders which is imperative given the volume of apps available.  Initially, when delving into the app store I went into overdrive, installing anything free.  However, in reality I wonder which apps will be really useful day to day and which ones really don’t have any place in adding value to my life.  It’s interesting to see which companies have and have not decided to create a dedicated iphone app.  In my next blog, I’ll be looking at which companies are really missing out from not having an app and which apps really have little to no use.  So, if you have any thoughts about that do comment…if not, watch this space.

So, what are some of the new features of iPhone4 that are going to be so special? For me forward facing video calling, is going to be a really good feature (in the main). A number of my close friends live all around the UK so being able to actually see their faces when we chat will be a real bonus and make them feel much closer. This is great. But, I don’t want all my friends, family and colleagues to be able to utilise video calling. What about when I’m working from home in my PJs? Or not feeling I’m looking my best? What’s the etiquette with video calling  if someone asks you to video call, how can you decline without them thinking that you’re hiding something? It will be interesting to monitor social rules around this feature and how they unfold as it becomes more widely used.

Multi-tasking is an essential feature of any smart phone which was overlooked in the launch of the first iPhone. As the number of functions and apps on such a device is so high, the ability to simply switch between them becomes more and more essential and I have never found the Home button on the iPhone good enough to support this. Parallel to this is the new feature to be able to organise apps into folders. Again, given the huge number of apps that are available this is essential to provide come kind of organisation on the Home screens. Currently I see people swiping through pages and pages of vibrantly coloured icons, in the hope of finding the app they’re looking for. 

iBooks is one feature I won’t be utilising. The Apple advert for this app uses a Winnie the Pooh book as an example where there is just one sentence of text displayed on the screen below a large illustration. The advert looks great, displaying such a simple page of a children’s book, but I moved on from Winnie the Pooh a while ago and I can’t imagine the 3.5″ inch screen being a comfortable reading experience for longer books. I know some people have got into the e-reader craze, but these have much larger screens than the iPhone and I therefore don’t think this is one of the top features of the iPhone4.

There area number of other features of the iPhone4 including a 5m.pixel camera which although will be useful, it’s expected in a phone these days. The original camera on the iPhone was way behind, so Apple are only just keeping up with competitors by offering this and I don’t see it as a super-selling feature. Similar to this, they are promising an extended battery life on the iPhone4 which, as far as I’ve been told from friends was horrendous on the original iPhone. Again Apple are just correcting flaws of the older iPhone and these aren’t unique selling points. I did read today that Apple are patenting solar panels to be used in future iPhones to enable users to extend the power even further by simply using the sun. So do I continue my wait for the iPhone until it includes this feature too? I think not. Given UK summers the use of solar panels is probably pretty limited…

I hope to be the proud owner of an iPhone4 at the end of the month, so look out for my next blog reviewing my new toy.

• Connect to my wireless network. All fine, except main CTA (after writing password) was amongst letters and looked equally grey)
• Watch YouTube videos – Eddie Izzard – great experience with the iPad sitting on my legs, picking it up every so often to show my husband who could also participate at a distance.
• Write document – using both hands, feels a bit weird but improving as time goes by.
• Browse the web to check Sandown racecourse events and buy something for my husband – easy
• Browsed photos – again same as with videos – good experience and easy to share with close by people, but how do you delete an album?!
• Read news – great BBC interface

These are the type of tasks I would be doing on a regular basis. I feel the iPad does what it’s supposed to do: browse content more so than create it. A thing to have on your knee and use in the relaxed environment of your lounge.

I find the most comfortable position is with lying on my thigh as I have my legs crossed and writing with both my index fingers.

I kept picking it up as I watched TV and chatted with my family, either to show them something to do with the conversation or look up something on Wikipedia / Google / Google maps.

The iPad is not a necessity, it’s an indulgence. It’s not a work tool, it’s a lifestyle object.

Frank Ma, our man in China, offers a fascinating insight into the mobile state of play in his own vast marketplace. Chris Holmes takes Apple’s latest toy home for the weekend but fails to be seduced by its good looks and charming first impressions. Jamie Barnett examines why Betfair is odds-on to turn its first-to-market mobile betting advantage into solid returns. And finally, Guy Stephens explains why ‘on-the-go’ points to a bright new future for customer service.

I would be very interested to hear from you directly with any feedback.

Paul

In this issue:

Mobile habits made in China

My weekend with the iPad

Gaming cuts loose

Customer service ‘on-the-go’

I was asked to field test Apple’s iPad presumably as penance for mouthing off about how impractical and uncomfortable I predicted it would be to use. While I haven’t changed my mind about the iPad, I’m also pleased to say that I was wrong about many details. So just like Jacob Nielsen recently did, I can now reveal my first usability findings for the iPad.

For the record, I started writing this article on the iPad which I was given to test-drive for the weekend, but its not currently very easy to get any copy off the device when typing in Pages, I had to give up and resort to my laptop.

The brief for this assignment was to use the iPad in as many real life situations as possible. With devices as richly functional as this, there’s a temptation to play with all the apps and gadgets incessantly simply because they’re there. Instead I put my regular computer away and committed to using the iPad for everything for which I would normally use my laptop.

Tasks I performed:

• Connect to home network – unbelievably easy.
• Browsing the web – relatively easy, but it takes two clicks to close a web page or navigate between open tabs, which is counter-intuitive. Also you can’t open links in new windows unless it’s coded into the link HTML code.
• Check Gmail – images don’t display in emails and there’s no easily identifiable option to turn them on. The ‘Compose Email’ link is now a new button. Typing is only usable if you write it all in one go and don’t make mistakes as correcting or going back is extremely difficult.
• Browsing photo albums on Picasa – very easy, crisp and clear.
• Watching movies – Avatar in hi-res looked incredible and the built-in speaker was really good, but it’s hard to get the iPad in a watchable position on your lap as it slides. around a lot. No matter what angle it’s impossible not to get screen reflections.
• Booked a table for Sunday lunch – easy apart from navigation issues, and there was no Wi-Fi in the restaurant and no 3G in this iPad model.
• Researched and created a spreadsheet for an info-graphic project – easy but formatting was basic and there’s no way of exporting data.
• Browsed for a recipe – had iPad when cooking, which was very handy.
• Wrote this article – or attempted to

Navigating web pages is easy and the iPad really comes into it’s own as a display device. Unfortunately some web pages simply aren’t designed to work with touch screen input and I often had trouble making fields big enough to select, getting drop downs to scroll, and selecting from closely grouped links, even in landscape.

Typing itself is cramped and there’s no tactile response like with a physical keyboard despite the pleasing sound of your fingers hitting the glass. There’s also a slight delay between pressing the key and the on state appearing which can be a little off putting, Landscape mode should add extra keys not simply make the keyboard bigger. Quirks like the apostrophe being omitted from the first screen completely ruins rhythm. You can’t key back and forward and it’s very hard to place the cursor with just your finger. There’s no delete button, only backspace, and no tab key.

Ergonomically, the iPad is hard on the wrists both carrying and typing. Realistically, you’d never type one-handed on this thing because even simple touch navigation is agonising. It’s heavy enough to avoid holding in one hand for any length of time, let alone prodding at it repeatedly with the other hand. The only practical way to use it is flat on a table or on your lap, and even then you need a case or something under it to prevent it slipping.

Where the iPad truly excels is as a book replacement: the resolution is incredible and text looks crisp and clear. Cooking was a breeze as the iPad is way more convenient than any hefty cookbook, and I could turn pages with damp or dirty hands without worrying about marking them permanently (although I was deathly afraid of getting flour or water in it). What’s missing, I think, is innovative content worthy of this new paradigm, if indeed that’s what the iPad is. Apple has always been very good at creating devices a few steps ahead, so perhaps the iPad is just a little too far ahead and is waiting for us to catch up.

I can’t help feeling that the iPad could be a great device if it really could do all the things Apple is trying to convince us it can. Apple’s genius lies in reinventing paradigms; by finding new and interesting ways of doing things, and doing them better and in more interesting ways than their competitors. There’s little point comparing it to existing devices because there really is nothing else like it, and Apple should have marketed it appropriately. The closest comparison is the e-reader, which it beats handsomely, but that’s hardly a market which was screaming out to be dominated.

The iPad is a gorgeous device, well designed and well executed, and I really wanted to like it, but for all the enhancements and improvements it brings, for me it introduces too many downsides and inconveniences.

This article was written as part of our May Newsletter.

You may also be interested in viewing our 2 minute video clip on the iPad

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2iYO0Wioog

There are many reasons for this; different screen sizes, platforms, functionality and overall complexity of delivering to different handsets, but one other reason for this neglect is the attitude to online gambling generally in the major US market. Although the industry is still worth many billions of dollars in the US and it is not technically illegal, there has been a stuttering history of acceptance to say the least. The most recent twist could soon make it illegal for financial institutions to knowingly accept payment in online gaming transactions, under a law that is set to take effect next month.

Then of course there is Apple’s own ban on online gambling for its ubiquitous iPhone device. Until recently there was a blanket ban on all forms of mobile gambling by Apple – no access to betting sites or gambling apps – presumably as a direct result of the US stance on online gambling generally. Arguments to enable gambling have frequently come back to the table on a State-by-State basis, but only recently have we begun to see the first big commercial betting brands launch directly on the iPhone.

In early May, UK business Betfair became the first betting firm permitted on Apple’s App Store, immediately increasing mobile revenues for the company by 50 percent. Charles Palmer, head of mobile at Betfair, was quick to highlight the importance of usability and customer experience: “Our iPhone app takes advantage of the handset’s multi-touch interface and high-resolution screen, offering the same core exchange functionality as the main Betfair site.” Arguably though, it was another area of functionality – location-based technology – that was the key enabler for Betfair.

Betfair was an early adopter of KYC (Know Your Customer) verification. Using industry best practice, Betfair chose to deploy KYC to positively identify all its members to demonstrate that it knows who its customers are, how old they are (that they are over 18), where they are and guard against money-laundering practices. This helps Betfair satisfy demand from platform providers such as Apple to prove that they can restrict services precisely to individual national regulations.

Gamblers in the UK and Ireland can now use Betfair today to place bets as soon as their iPhone GPS verifies that they are in their home territory. Instead of just opening up Betfair’s complex main website to the iPhone, the new app has been designed to be as simple and intuitive to use on the move as possible. Not only does it add to Betfair’s already broad ability to target mobile punters through Symbian, Blackberry and Android, it sets a precedent on the iPhone for other betting companies to follow.

Cutting gaming loose across the iPhone is obviously great news for Betfair because it not only provides a new channel, but a huge first to market advantage. It provides healthy revenues for Apple, and of course is very convenient for customers who are far more likely to place bets with an uncluttered app that makes the journey of there money from wallet to betting slip that much smoother.

Despite some concerns about making gambling so easy and convenient, most would accept that this move to mobile was inevitable, and bearing that in mind, it’s gratifying to see companies using advanced mobile technologies not only to ensure security and regulatory compliance, but also to maximise the potential of small screens and compact devices to make the whole experience more enjoyable.

This article was written as part of our May Newsletter