Christian Lindholm is Managing Partner and Director at convergence design agency Fjord and a long-time developer of mobile products.
Mobile World Congress 2010 wrapped up for another year this evening in Barcelona. I have massively enjoyed seeing all the innovation -- from the major global brands, to the developers walking around the Congress with their company in their back pocket.
The conference began amid a lot of speculation about Nokia's absence and ended up with the arrival of new players in the space -- Google and Microsoft. Windows Phone 7 Series in particular appeared to be generating a tremendous amount of excitement, and I think it represents a new paradigm in mobile.
I'm still completely buzzing from the event and wanted to share some of my personal highlights of the conference with you while they're fresh in my mind:
Favourite Phones of Mobile World Congress 2010 Mobile World Congress will always be a big event for handset manufacturers and operators. We always see some of the biggest and most exciting releases of the year saved for this event, and this year was no exception.
The Sony Xperia Mini opens up a whole new small touch category, and is such a bold move. There's a lot of work that can be done within this category.
I would not say that Sony has nailed this device completely -- they haven't created a classic. But this will be enough to begin grinding within the category.
Puma Phone, developed by Puma and Sagem is a full, rich, deep brand experience that will be difficult for a manufacturer to dramatically outdo.
The big question behind the Puma iswhether consumers are likely to accept it. Are consumers going to adapt to it? Are they willing to accept Puma in phones and place the brand in their pocket?
I do think that over time, the phone market will further segment into deeper, functional segments. The big question that will need answering with regard to branded experiences on phones, however, is which brands are going to get the permission from the consumer and the operator to continue along this road.
I think an important question with these branded experiences will be whether the phone experience is a good fit with the brand. Brands need to create experiences that properly integrate with other touch points and are consistent. They need to have a functional authenticity about them.
If Samsung manages to clearly undercut the iPhone in price, it should be a very successful phone. If it doesn't, then the devil in the detail of the iPhone will keep the iPhone on top.
I think it's important, though, that the market moves away from trying to build iPhone killers. We have already seen this with the Nokia N900 and the larger HTC handsets. Smartphones no longer need to come in 3.5inch capacitative touch form.
Best PR stunts of Mobile World Congress 2010 Mobile World Congress is also known for its PR stunts. My favourite PR stunt this year was Symbian giving away the source code -- which has been the OS for 300 million mobile devices around the world -- on USB sticks for people to carry around their necks. It was an iconic PR stunt.
A rather richer stunt was that of Google. It lured attendees to its App Planet Android conference sessions with the promise of a Nexus One mobile phone. This giveaway of over £750,000 caused absolute chaos at the event, and emphasised that Google is going to be a big player in mobile for years to come.
Best demos
Texas Instruments is now always a big presence at Mobile World Congress, and the Omap 4 mobile app platform is a hugely eagerly awaited TI release. The demo of Omap 4 was multiscreen, and showed the raw pattern power of Omap to speak to the ADD-HD generation.
Another favorite demo was of eyeSight Mobile Technologies, who are an Israeli startup. eyeSight were demoing a touch based, camera triggered gesture recognition software. It can take the input from an embedded camera in a mobile device. The video stream is analysed using advanced machine recognition, and it recognizes gestures around the phone.
This quick snapshot does not begin to capture the innovation at Mobile World Congress -- it really is one of those events where you have to be there to catch it all.
Christian Lindholm is Managing Partner and Director at Fjord, a convergence design agency. In his previous role as Vice President of Global Mobile Products for Yahoo, he was responsible for the global creation of the company’s various mobile products. Before joining Yahoo, he spent 10 years with Nokia in various roles in the areas of user interface, product creation and venturing. During that time, he invented the Nokia Navi-key user interface, fathered the Series 60 user interface and created Nokia Lifeblog – a multimedia diary. He’s based in London.