When talking to your customers and users, it is important to synthesize the information to make sure you are not just “delivering faster horses” (and apparently, there is no evidence that Henry Ford actually said it, but I digress). When you are working onbrand new features, you likely are talking to a lot of power users and early adopters. Given how well they know about your current product, it is quite likely that they will tell you not only the “what” of the feature but also give you insights on the “how”.

I went to the MassMobile – Mobile Developers Meetup, organized by Localytics, yesterday. There was a very lively discussion, with participants sharing stories of what worked, what didn’t, and what they are trying now.  Here are my key takeaways / quick

summary of the meet up:

• Ice Cream Sandwich is not in anyone’s radar right now. Almost everyone is still thinking about 2.2 and 2.3. (Except maybe Google, which seems to be looking ahead. Looks Like Android 5.0 aka jellybean is coming up soon)
• There were not a lot of real-life pain points around Fragmentation (yet?!). There wasn’t anyone that had to resort to device specific builds or anything funky like that.
• Almost everyone is still developing native apps over HTML5 sites. A couple of folks had gone down the path of HTML5 before deciding to go native largely due to poor user experience on HTML 5.
• There was a lot of interest on the so-called “Hybrid apps”. A few people had prototyped using frameworks such as jQuery Mobile, PhoneGap, but nothing in the market  yet.
• There were not a lot of folks developing for Multiple platforms (such as Android and iOS).
• There was a lot of discussion on how developing for Android would be different than developing for iOS. Three key themes emerged: 
  • Actual coding is roughly the same between the two platforms.
  • Android has higher demands for testing, due to the varied types of devices and configuration.
  • Android has slightly higher UX cost, given the different screen resolutions.
• Windows 7 is still < 5% of the total market share. Apparently, the developer tools are great and development is really easy. Hopefully there will soon be people that actually use it, so we can build some apps for it.

Thanks to Raj and the Localytics team for making it useful and informative.

I guess this one should be filed under “Duh”. The use of personas is pretty common while defining user interfaces and is a valuable tool in defining use cases, usage scenarios.

It is a very logical next step as you move from the what to build (through Customer Development) to the actual building (Product Development). The KissMetrics blog has a an interesting post today on how you can use Personas to define your SEO Keywords. When figuring out which keywords to optimize for (and bid), it is especially important to speak the “user’s tongue”. Use of the right terminology is not only important within your product, but it is even more important to get it right, to make sure you get your positioning right. Personas help refine the SEO key terms and I think are also a great way to figure out which segment works well and which ones don’t.

While I have used some of the underlying techniques here, I have never actively thought of extending personas in the context of SEO. Overall, a great read. Check out the the entire blog post at the KissMetrics blog at How User Personas Can Improve Your SEO Strategy

This blog post (and graphic) drives home the how manufacturers are not updating Android frequently (my Top 10 peeve with the platform). A few of the stats really jump out at me: 

• 10 of 18 were at least two major versions behind well within their two year contract period.
• 15 of 18 don’t run Gingerbread, which shipped in December 2010.

Check out Android Orphans blog post to get all the information.

Thank you, Steve for inspiring me to create technology that “just works”

Thank you, Steve for proving to me that technology doesn’t have to be clunky, messy and awkward

Thank you, Steve for helping me appreciate beautiful design

You sure put a ding in the universe. I promise to Stay Hungry and Stay Foolish.

RIP

Knowing your users and the context in which they are using your app is a key aspect of developing useful and user-engaged mobile apps. This is especially important in a fragmented market (and a recurring theme in the frustrations of developers). The Hunch Blog has some interesting stats on broad demographics and patterns of iOS and Android users.

Here are a few that I found especially relevant to me:

• Stat: iOS users also travel frequently. (They are 50% more likely to have visited more than five countries and 55% more likely to have used their frequent flyer miles). 
  Takeaway: Optimize your app for slower data connections and Be sure to test your app in “Airplane mode”.

• Stat: iOS users are 26% more likely to  prefer spending their money and Android users are 29% more likely to prefer saving their money .
  Takeaway: Charge for your iOS apps even if it is just 99 cents

• Stat: iOS Users are early adopters, 50% more likely to first use the Internet before ’92 and 67% more likely to back up their computer constantly. 
  Takeaway: This is further confirmation that iCloud is going to have a lot of potential. You start with a user base that backs up constantly and then give them a very easy way for their data to be available everywhere. If you have iOS apps and weren’t already considering iCloud, you should.

Other Interesting stats:

• Android users are 10% more likely to be men and iOS users are 10% more likely to be women.
• iOS users are 50% more likely to text while driving. (Seriously!)
• Android users are 50% more likely to use Yahoo! Mail. (Maybe this bodes well for Yahoo’s upcoming Android phone)

As with any other broad based demographics, analyze it in the context of your users and be sure not to confuse correlation with causation.

Google just announced that it is acquiring Motorola Mobility (reportedly for $12.5 billion). This could be really good news for the end-to-end user experience in the Android platform. Google is also committing to keep the Android platform open. To quote the blog post :

This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business.

I see this as Google taking a cautious step in the right direction in the whole debate on “Open” vs “Integrated”. It’d be great if Google can find the perfect balance, but if it can’t, I’d much rather it move towards Integrated rather than staying open.The mobile (and tablet) industry is converging on a single playbook for succeeding in the post-PC era. It involves hardware and software from the same vendor, providing a rich user experience. This is the third of the marriages of hardware + software vendor, following RIM’s purchase of QNX, HP’s purchase of Palm for WebOS.

This is really good news for users and developers alike. The one recurring theme in the Top 10 things that I hate about Android was fragmentation. Assuming that Google provides a strong baseline implementation, this will force other manufacturers to follow suit otherwise, over time, only Google’s phone will be selling.

This could also mean that Xoom 2 (or 3),  might be a good viable alternative to iPad 2. Right now, it doesn’t even come close, but with a converged OS for mobile and tablet (Ice-cream sandwich), and hardware from the same vendor, and with Android’s reach, we might very well be looking at 2012 as the year of the iPad competitor.

Good luck Google!

My observations on the pain points of developing for the Android platform, and suggested workarounds for those pain points are published today in TechRepublic. To summarize a few key points :

• Fragmentation is a nightmare and makes Android development a lot more complicated than it should be.
• There should be broad based agreements on what manufacturers and carriers can and cannot do to the platform, and the ecosystem should work together to provide a good, solid baseline that all developers can take or granted. It is in the best interest of the platform
• Google should act as a “good cop” in helping the platform as it matures.
• Patent related issues (aka “The Pink Elephant in the room”) need to be addressed sooner than later.

You can read the entire blog post at TechRepublic

And finally, I’d like to leave you with an image (From Engadget) that I think captures the gist of all things wrong about the platform. Think about it!

It is fun to watch a real life case-study of sorts playing out in the battle of the tablets. There is the iPad 2, selling users on the experience, the emotional tug of Facetime, about how doctors and teachers and kids love the iPad.

And then there are the Android tablets selling specs, processors, gigahertz, dual-core, Adobe Flash and a good dose of WTF!

Seth Clifford (thanks to Daring Fireball) notes how a Staples manager says that a lot of people are returning Galaxy Tabs. To quote from the blog.

“Oh, ok, because we’re selling a lot of these things, and we get a LOT of them back. People buy them thinking they’re getting rid of a laptop, and they all come back returning them.”

This is what happens when you sell on features and not on benefits. This is what happens if you muddy the positioning of your product. Looks like we are all going to have start thinking about 2012 as the year of the iPad competitor.

It has been a hectic past few months. We launched our mobile apps for the iPhone and the Android, and also launched our partnership with Nuance Communications to launch PaperPort Anywhere, the cloud-powered version of PaperPort software.

Rolling out the two mobile apps, a tablet app was exciting, to say the least. You can expect a lot more of my thoughts on those in the coming days (and fanboys always have an opinion, don’t they?!). Meanwhile, you are welcome to catch up on my guest blog posts :

• At KissMetrics blog, I write about how we increased conversion in OfficeDrop by listening to our customers, leads and effectively using those tools.
• My chat with Morgan Friberg of Atlassian about how we do Product Development at OfficeDrop and how Jira helps us develop markets that people love and use!

Stay tuned, and happy to be writing again!