3 Spine-Tingling Mobile Innovation Trends
Mobile innovation is getting increasingly exciting lately - here are our favourite trends.
It’s in our pockets, it’s on our minds… Hell, it’s in our hands most of the time. Mobile is getting bigger, better, faster, smarter every single day and it doesn’t look like it’s stopping anytime soon. As we see innovation coming in left, right and centre, what are the main themes we need to focus on? Research points to one motif present throughout most innovations: bringing more value through mobile experiences.
Matt Lintott, Director or Technical Operations at Lab, says: "It's become part of life now that you should be able to do everything on your mobile, regardless of the make and model. It could be gaining access to the office, a concert or event or paying your gas bill while on a train. It's the ease of how smoothly these processes work that will define success and engagement or frustration and failure (although some people will push through). Smartphone spend now exceeds a massive £5bn. Magic Leap still hold my all time favourite mobile responsive website example, and it was for a product launch but just blew me away!" (Check it out here)
"I remember when people were talking about the "year of the mobile" but as a platform, or interface, it's seen exponential growth. I personally rarely have to get a laptop out or sit at a desk to do anything now, the better you support and innovate on the mobile experience - the more you'll win hearts." - Matt Lintott, Director of Technical Operations
Here are a few trends we’ve spotted that we think you should definitely know about...
Proactive Apps
My gym code, a 8 digit long number that I have now accepted will never learn by heart, is stored on my phone as an image. Over the past two weeks, I’ve accepted the fact that my memory is less than brilliant and accessed that image more or less every day. But yesterday, just as I was about to sadly open my photo gallery, I found myself not having to scroll way down my camera roll - my phone had automatically added that specific image to my favourites and I was through the door in two seconds.
The smarter our phones get, the more used we will be to them being proactive and taking initiative. This could be triggered by location, time of day or past behaviour. I must admit that although I was pleasantly surprised by the intelligence of my phone that saved me time in real life, it took me about ten seconds to go from ‘Oh my god, technology is so advanced’ to ‘Of course it should do that, it cost an absolute fortune!’
Growing up in the ‘90s and seeing the technology I used mature even faster than I did, I learned to adapt to the quick pace of improvements and almost expect it. So who knows what we’ll be getting used to next...
The Rise of M-Commerce
ONS announced that E-commerce accounted for over 15% of total UK retail spending in March 2017, and over a quarter of those sales were conducted via a smartphone. Traffic to retail websites via mobile has now overtaken desktop traffic for the first time last year, accounting for 36% of online sales.
Niall Cook, Head of Marketing at Thyngs (Norwich-based start-up company specialising in mobile tech), affirms in this interview that mobile also drives showrooming and webrooming - buying online after seeing a product in-store and, respectively, buying a product in-store after seeing it online. It becomes more and more apparent that creating mobile experiences that give value to the users and save them time, money and effort should rank quite high in our list of priorities.
Cater 2 U… Specifically
Machine learning is increasingly facilitating the possibility of fine-tuning mobile experiences to individuals’ needs. The resulting interfaces will create interactions that are more seamless and useful. Andy Hood, who presided over the mobile jury at the Cannes Lions this year, suggests in this Campaign article that we need to move away from thinking about ‘mobile’ as the device and towards perceiving it under the larger concept of ‘mobility’.
As brands become more educated in what their users are interested in, what they like and their past behaviour in general, they will be able to create mobile experiences that are timely, personalised to the user’s needs & wants and add value rather than causing frustrating interruptions. More than just remembering that you bought a specific brand last time and suggesting it again, mobile will develop the capability of learning when you might need it - and enable you to get what you want quickly and fuss-free.