Previously Computer will the only the products to get updates. Now we are seeing all sort of products from phone to television. We are seeing the demise of the static product.
The technology website The Verge is the latest to jump on. Other sites do push “updates” but usually they come in a site refresh every year or so not steady updates. The Verge even has a version history page just like you would get with apps.
Speaking of apps, you are now getting easy application update by the way of app stores. You are not having to go out and buy another copy and install it over your old copy, you just have to press an update button. There is also an advantage for the App developers, because it makes it more likely for the user to see that their is an update and this might make the user pick up an app that they had not used in a while. With app stores you get the convenience of all updates in one place. The mac is getting the new convenience of being able to update your operating system via the Mac Appstore.
If you have a Google TV then your television will get updates. People are also watching content on their televisions from their Apple TV and Xbox where you will get updates for both
If you have a modern smartphone you will get updates to your phone. The prefered way of updating a smart phone is over the air (OTA) updates, which allow you to update your phone without having to hook it up to a computer. The iPhone and Android phones both have OTA updates, but the Windows Phone does not. Android has OTA updates but isn’t perfect, it has the issue in not pushing updates often and not getting to all phones.
It is not just the computer like devices and the apps that run on them that are getting updates. With the Nest Learning Thermostat your thermostat can get updates.
Updates allow developers to give their users a better user experience as time progresses. The developer can quickly fix the bug with an update, no need to send in the product. It allows the product to stay up to its quality indefinitely. There will be products that do not have updates, but they will be in the minority and will less likely be picked up by users. It is best to give your users updates and make them easy.
Back in June at WWDC 2011 Steve Jobs said when he unveiled iCloud, “we’re going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device.” He then showed how the Mac, iPhone, iPod touch and iPad were all on the same level and iCloud was above all of them.
But there should be something else on the level of the devices, and that is The iCloud website. This is not just because it to is being pushed data from iCloud, but it is treated with with the same level of importance. When poking around with some settings I found out that the settings in the iCloud’s web apps control just the apps themselves, just like the native apps on iOS devices and on the Mac. It will take a little bit to get used to, but I think it is for the better.
This is very unique. See most other web services have a web app and a native app. The web app is thought of as the control panel to them and because of this the native app is crippled. They are treated differently because the developers think their users will perceive the web app as being closer, or is, the cloud because it is on the web. Something that is not true, so the developers are underestimating their users. In Apple’s view all of their apps should be granted the same power. It might be difficult at first not have a main settings that controls all the apps, but it is for the better, because in reality each of those apps have a different use case so they should have their own settings.
Today Google released Google Music, but the product is very uninteresting. The Google Music store has brought nothing new to the table, it is basically iTunes except with sharing to Google Plus instead of Ping. It is pay-to-play instead of the on-demand, which is where the music market is heading.
Just read this article about how Spotify, the leading streaming on-demand music service, and Facebook are scaring iTunes. If iTunes is in for trouble, Google Music should feel just as scared. Spotify already had an estimated 13 million in August and added over 4 million after their intergration with Facebook. People clearly want on-demand not pay-to-play.
Cell phones have become a computer that you can carry with you anywhere. One of the most popular uses is social networking. It is so big that Facebook the biggest social network is reporting that more than 350 million people are using it through their mobile device that is more than 43% of their active users. Mobile is not only playing a major part in social networks but has become the de facto way to update your social network if you have a smartphone.
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Sounds are not just for games or notifications or games. Many apps will just have sounds used for their notifications, and even then they often just use Apple’s built in sounds. People might think original in app sounds are just for games. Well this is not true, they can be used for many types of apps.
Normally boring apps become more enjoyable with in-app sounds. Instacast calls them interface sounds, and I think that is an apt name for them. Some of the apps that take advantage of them are the Tapbots apps (Tweetbot is one of the apps, here is a demo video). Instacast is another great app that uses them, you can hear them when you refresh the feeds, there is a new episode, or an episode has finished downloading. Spotify gives you a sound when you pause and resume a song. Apps use them for actions or in-app notifications.
Apple uses interface sounds. Most of them are operating system interface sounds like when you unlock the phone, typing and putting the phone to sleep. They also put them in their apps, when you take a picture with the camera app, dialing in the phone app, sending a message and sending an email.
More developers can make their apps less bland and more delightful by adding interface sounds.
How was Twitter used in its early days? How did people converse without all the syntax that is established now?
Earlier this year on Twitter’s fifth anniversary people were retweeting old tweets, and there was one that wasn’t retweeted that much and found another retweet from the account @wetreet, and this twitter account started out at tweet number one and just kept retweeting up from there. The account was really interesting, so I went through them and found some really interesting tweets that answered the questions, below are those tweets.
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When I saw that Apple was doing a phone I rejoiced in the advantage of a phone being produced by the same people that make my computer. Knowing Apple makes both my computer and cellphone I thought there was going a lot of interoperability between the two, but I was saddened when I learned that it didn’t go that far. Sure you can sync stuff like your media and contacts between them, but would about the interactions that you do with them, wouldn’t you like to be able to mirror them at some points.
Paul Miller of This is My Next wrote something along the lines of this (which was a follow-up of Joshua Topolsky’s article over at Engadget), however I liked to make a comment more on the local use, the computer’s awareness of your phone.
There are are some instances where I would like to my computer can just translate a feature. One instance is notifications, many notifications I get on my phone can be interpreted on my computer because they have a web or desktop counterpart. It just becomes irritating to be alerted for the same event twice. These notifications include mail, Twitter, and Facebook. Sometimes my computer can use its applications to tell the phone it taking over by it’s applications doing the notifications. Other times when it doesn’t have the corresponding application the phone can push the notification it displays over to the computer if there is a web application that it corresponds to, or if there is nothing at all the phone can tell the computer that it will do notifications for these applications. Thomas Houston did a great write-up over at This is My Next on an API for notifications and I can see this system taking advantage of something like this.
Sometimes I place-shift content. This comes into play with things like music and videos, which oddly Apple has implemented something like this for the TV with an Apple TV and Airplay. Another case is webpages, which I have found a third party service to do this but would really think that this is a feature that Apple should implement, because I may be reading an article while I am out and want to finish it when I get home on my computer.
Some applications on the phone can have a counterpart on the computer. The most likely case for this is text messages, it feels ridiculous typing out text messages on my phone’s miniature keyboard when I have a full size keyboard right in front of me. I should have an application on my computer that can make and recieve text messages (ironically they did have a feature like this).
There needs to be a way for the computer to recognize the phone and it should be Near Field Communication (NFC). NFC allows the exchange of data wirelessly over close proximity to reader device. Apple could implement this in the next iPhone and Macs and then with this technology implement these features.
If email was customer support 1.0 and products like User Voice and Get Satisfaction were 2.0, then social networks are customer support 3.0.
If you check out many brands on Twitter you will notice that good deal of their updates are support responses, some brands will have a separate account for support (I prefer when it is it all unified in one account, but if you have to, make sure to link to it in the bio). If they are a good brand then when you dig a little deep you will find that all of the tweets they responded to didn’t directly mention them. These tweets might just say their band name or a product name, meaning the brand is keeping searches out for these keywords and actively monitoring them.
Though this isn’t only taking place on Twitter this is taking place on many social networks like Facebook, Quora, Reddit and others. Brands are even sometimes announcing something first on a social network. Basically anywhere you can give a text response you will find a brand there now a days.
One of the great brands that is really excelling in this new way of customer support is Instagram, currently just a six person company. Here is a great instance on Quora, now this isn’t a response is to a devoloper instead of a user ,but still a very important person. This response came right after they announced that they were going to have an API, it was part of a reach-out to the multiple networks.
If you are a brand you don’t have to be on all networks though, but you should be on the major networks and seek out the ones where most of your users are.
Just like email is still used, these specific customer support products are going to have a use, however it will take on a diminished role. My suggestion for these companies is to to focus on being the backend instead of the forefront which is the site. They can provide tools to help you manage your social networks, both by taking in help requests and sending out updates from. The actual page can then become more of a display instead of a destination.
