Last week I met up with Mark Rolston, Senior VP, Creative, Frog Design, over for a short visit to attend the Mobile User Experience Conference (MEX). He showed off the look and feel of the Alltel Celltop and waxed lyrical about the Apple iPhone's impact on mobile phone design. (Follow the link for a full low-down on Celltop).
Frog Design has worked with Apple Computer, Microsoft Windows XP and Media Player.
UKMR: So what's the thinking behind Celltop? It's intriguing that you chose to break the screen into two halves.
Rolston: "Alltel asked us to come up with something that would make real-time feeds more attractive and thus increase the usage (and revenues). So we came up with something very simple and configurable. This is the first widget dashboard for a mobile. Each 'Cell' can be created by third party developers, thus opening up an entirely new application market. The aim was to drive data usage and we think we have achieved that. Cells are like widgets in the PC world."
Do other operators see the benefit?
"Not enough do yet. They don't see the importance of openess. But just as each stage of PC innovation has led to more openess, so the same trend is occuring in the mobile arena. "
What about hardware innovation?
"We are up against human ergonomics there. There is only so much you can do to make the hardware more useable. Look at the computer keyboard and you can see the problem. The real drive is on the software side because there are huge amounts of improvement that can be made.
So do you think the iPhone is heading in the right direction?
"Definitely. When I saw it I was amazed. It's clearly going to change everything. One of my colleagues actually handled it and was very impressed."
But how does it fit into your view of openess?
"Apple will develop a whole ecosystem around the iPhone, that's for sure and that will lead to changes from other manufacturers - it already is."
UKMR Verdict: It's good to hear a leading design firm calling for a more innovative approach in interface design but I was surprised to hear how bowled over the Frogman was when it came to the (unseen) iPhone. But then a very design-driven phone is probably a great stick to hit the rest of the industry with if you are in the design business.
Sidenote: Frog Design is not afraid to explore the fringes of mobile innovation when it comes to developing new ideas. It recently hosted a discussion titled 'From bedroom to battlefield - a discussion of design and business between the executives of sexual accessories company JimmyJane and military design firm Crye Associates. No doubt some high impact ideas ensued.
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