We have worked on several mobile software projects over the last year. One of these projects was our collaboration with HTC on the TouchFLO™ 3D software that runs on for example the HTC Touch Diamond™.
This phone is a good example of the user experience becoming a differentiating factor among mobile phones. TouchFLO™ 3D is an application with a unique user experience optimized for touch and media that leverages the platform it is built on, Windows Mobile 6.1.
Designing such an experience is like designing a building in an existing city. You can be quite innovative in how you design the actual building and you have full control over the user’s experience inside the building. However in the end it is a building that is part of a city, with other useful buildings. To make it work you have to make sure your utility pipes align with the city’s main utility lines and your exterior doors should end up on the street level and not on the 15th floor.
This is also what differentiates the design of the Iphone with HTC’s Windows Mobile phones. Apple set out to design both the city and the main buildings at the same time. It might be a smaller city, but for now the urban planning and architecture is tuned into each other quite well. In order for Apple to maintain this, they have setup a whole bunch of building codes; only if an application meets those requirements will they be allowed in the app store. Google’s Android follows a similar path, however here the city they built is more akin to a Wild West town, without much restrictions and guidelines.
There currently is a trend to create dedicated user experiences that are finely tuned to a user’s goal. The goals for Windows Mobile, the Iphone and Android are to build big metropolitan areas. It will remain an open question whether the user’s unique goals will be met by simply adding more applications.
My expectation is that we will see a lot more mobile user experiences that are like highly focused cities, with intent to plan around the user’s goals and lifestyles. For example a separate town optimized for doing business vs. one optimized for going out.