MWC 2015: Three big ideas from three "small" brands
If you are a regular reader of The Drum, you will probably have had at least fifty stories flood your newsfeed since Monday about the latest and greatest from Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona this week. I'm here, taking it all in, including the Catalan sunshine, and have spotted three big things from small companies.
The big players are getting their day to, of course, from dual curved screens (Samsung Galaxy S6) to smart folding bikes (Ford's MoDe:Me). I will write more about the big brands tomorrow, but today, I have spotted three big things from three less well-known companies:
The remote control is far from dead
Despite the trend of multiple gadgets leaning into your touchscreen device as the control hub, the remote control is far from dead: it just needs to be redesigned. There was a time you knew where all the key four or five buttons were on your remote control. You didn't have to look at it. The user experience was so logical and simple. Then too many buttons happened.
Then touchscreens happened. The people at Ruwido believe the remote control has many, many years of life left. They are bringing remote control design back to the level of simplicity that humans naturally understand and can easily navigate. Maybe just a dial and three or four buttons, to navigate a rich, connected interface. They also make seriously beautiful remote controls, even the world's thinnest "mobile device", measuring less than 3mm deep.
The beauty of touch and tactility isn't going away and so no matter how much we are moving towards visualising our controls, it may be sometime before the remote control is totally redundant, especially if they are as beautiful and intuitive as this.
The hand cream crisis
If all devices are going to be activated by a fingerprint, Nivea better start making a new hand cream formula that is touchscreen-friendly. All major handset manufacturers now have fingerprint recognition as part of the user experience.
Now, even if you don't own an android smartphone with the embedded sensor, as long as your phone has a camera, you can implement biometric security with the mobile finger print authentication solution by Korean company Nurugo. Simply attach the device to the back camera and you've got fingerprint enabled security. For the industrious and creative techies, there is an SDK for you to create apps with fingerprint recognition. But you still can't plan for your users who use too much hand cream.
Let your users help you innovate
Selfies. Love them or hate them, they aren't going away. In fact, they can lead your business innovation. This was how Chinese brand Meitu grew from a photo editing app in 2008 to filtering over 500 million selfies a day from its 850 million worldwide users today.
Meitu's new M2 smartphone, showcased at WMC this week, is a self-declared "ultimate selfie device", with a 13m pixel camera both in front and in the back. There is a very discreet flash on the front of the phone for ultimate selfie-lighting too. The default home screen is dedicated to photo capturing and editing (a trend perhaps not so coincidentally echoed by Huawei's Mate7 OS home screen).
Meitu's photo apps all automatically enhance your selfie. Or you can choose from the 50+ filters which come as standard. All the apps are free, and you don't have to fear being sucked into in-app purchases, because there are none. Everything is free - except the phone.
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