MobileXpeditions

It is a very exciting time for MobileXpeditions! Recently, we created three art tour applications for the premium cruise line Celebrity Cruises.  Celebrity is “debuting the industry’s first self-guided art tours on an iPad®” this week on the Solstice. Two additional Celebrity ships, the Eclipse and the Equinox, are scheduled for this coming week. To learn more about Celebrity and the app, check out articles at Frommers, TUAW, or a press release from Celebrity Cruise Lines.

The app really looks beautiful and is a fantastic way to browse all the amazing artwork on these stunning cruise ships. The schedule to create and deliver these apps was very short. The flexibility of the MobileXpeditions platform, however, allowed us to create and iterate the apps quickly.  Give us rich media content around any topic, venue, or location – and we can quickly build an intuitive application to deliver engaging experiences for users.

MX helps venues and brands tell their stories on mobile. Art, in particular, is one of the oldest sources of stories. Celebrity has spent a lot of resources carefully putting together compelling collections on each of their ships. The iPad apps we created help passengers, not only locate where the artwork throughout each ship, but understand more about each piece and the artist behind it.

It is no accident that one of our core brand images is that of a cruise ship. Long ago, we felt they had a unique convergence of space, leisure time, and content that is ideal for mobile.  To now be working with one of the premium brands in the industry is both thrilling and gratifying.

If you have interest in telling your brand or venue story on mobile, use the contact page to send us a message. We’d love to learn more about you  – even if your venue is landlocked.

- Mark

Last week I saw the documentary film “Waking Sleeping Beauty”.  Its about the renaissance of Disney animation from 1984 to 1994 – the good and the bad.  I joined in 1993, a year before “The Lion King” came out, to help support the custom-built technology they used to make the films.  It was, and will likely always be, one of the best jobs I’ve ever had – a fusion of passion, artistic achievement, technology elegance, and consumer reach that was inspiring.

One of the two filmmakers of WSB is Peter Schneider.  He was the head of the Animation division at the time I joined.  One of the things I admired was the mission statement he would talk about in group meetings.  It’s the shortest and most direct one I ever heard – “We tell stories”.  It may seem deceptively simple, but there were a lot of things behind it and what it represented.  Among them was the point that the style of animation wasn’t important, whether there were musical numbers or not, or what kind of technology was used.  Ultimately all the decisions and energy were in service of telling a great story, something that can entertain, touch the heart, and be worth retelling.

In many ways MobileXpeditions is a direct product of those days.  There is something powerful learning about a place or event while actually standing in that location.  Mobile technology can deliver stories, games, and information at the moment they can have the most impact – in the real world while you are “there”.  Books, websites, and TV shows are great and have their place, but what if there was more?

What if you could tell the story of your organization, your location, your history, your brand in a new and visceral way?  Deliver it to your consumers and fans where they can most use it?  That’s what we’re building at MobileXpeditions.  The great part is, as amazing as my experience at Disney was, I’m even more excited about MX.

On Thursday, May 27th, MobileXpeditions participated as one of the official DEMO’s at IT Martini 10 at Park Street Patio in downtown Columbus.  IT Martini’s goal is to create engaging social events to connect the IT community.  They always do a great job, but one was particularly good – that and that the rain held off.

We were fortunate to have some of our COSI partners join us.  Emily, Jeremy, and Kimberly were fantastic to take time to come help us demo and talk about MX.  A huge thank you to the COSI team for their help and support!

Kickin' it at IT Martini 10 (l. to r. - Kimberly, Sean, Mark, Jeremy; Emily took photo)

Sean, myself, and our COSI partners demonstrated MobileXpeditions on Apple’s iPad to many of the several hundred attendee’s and got overwhelmingly positive feedback.  This was further validated when we received the Community Choice award as the best DEMO of the evening (garnering 54% of the vote) despite some stiff competition from some awesome technology companies.

Thank you to everyone who voted for us at the event, to John & Aladin for having us Demo, and to our COSI partners for being there for us!

My 9 year old daughter and I were by ourselves on a recent Friday night while my wife and boys were at an event.  We went to the grocery store to pick up some supplies for dinner and decided that we should rent a movie.

Our preferred way to rent is RedBox.  They really understand data and their website has the full inventory of every RedBox so you can review what movies are at a given location and reserve it.  All that and its only a dollar a day, plus tax – a tremendous value.  We didn’t use the reservation feature this time, but simply stopped at the local Walgreens on our way back from the store.

As we looked at the first screen of movie choices my daughter didn’t see anything she wanted to see.  I told her to go to the next screen, expecting her to hit the large “Next Page” button at the bottom of the screen.  Rather, she reached up and swiped the screen from right to left.  Puzzled on why it didn’t work, she looked at me for assistance and after controlling my laughter, I showed her the “Next Page” button.

Attention user interface designers and industrial designers – the iPad generation is coming.  Better be ready!

- Mark

I was one of those people who bought the iPad went it went on sale.  I knew the MobileXpeditions application we developed would look great on it.  What I really didn’t predict, however, is the amazing response when people see the software on the iPad.  It truly is like a different product.

Our company builds iPhone applications for venues and brands so they can tell their many stories in a map-centric experience.  Given our visual nature, it makes sense that the iPads increased screen size takes that interactive map experience to a whole new level.

In client meetings I no longer bring out my laptop.  Our presentation is in Keynote, so I use the iPad version of that app to talk about the company and how we operate.  I can then demo our software on the same device, both the iPhone size as well as full screen.  There are a lot of design and content choices that we provide for our platform, so I can show Design Guide we created in Pages show the possibilities.

The bottom line is that the iPad doesn’t enhance our product a few times, it amplifies it by an order of magnitude.  Even more of a game changer than I thought.

- Mark

I was speaking to a friend the other day about the vast number of applications now available for the iPhone/iPod touch which I had always seen as only an advantage for the platform. After all, who doesn’t want more choice? However, the more I thought about it, the more I began to question the benefit to having so many choices available.

Don’t get me wrong, I love that “there’s an app for that” for just about anything I want to do. The problem I’m having is that often there are 50 or 60 apps for that, and, quite frankly, 20 or 30 of them suck. There are almost 140,000 apps in the app store now and with renewed developer interest stemming from the iPad introduction, I only see that number growing. That’s a lot of choices to sift through.

Moving forward, I think a major challenge facing the app store is finding a way to organize content and prevent user frustration. So far, they seem to have done an admirable job by pushing featured apps and sorting by popularity, offering staff picks and user ratings. However, as the app store continues to grow, it’s going to become increasingly difficult to find the “best in class” apps or discover the gems you didn’t know you were looking for.

I’m not saying I have a solution, but with as many titles as there are available currently in the app store, decision paralyses is a real threat.

Well, Apple has announced the iPad, it’s long rumored tablet device with predictably mixed reactions. I’ve had some time to think about what the implications of the product are for the industry, and what my predictions are for its success.

Surprisingly, most of the criticism I’ve seen has had to do with the name, lots of ink and more pixels have been used to crack jokes about it, and not without reason. However, I remember in 2001, when the original iPod was revealed and the ridicule that name received. Only time will tell if the snickers fade away, but if the name of the product is the biggest challenge Apple faces, they have another mega hit on their hands.

The other primary criticism I’ve seen is that it’s just a big iPhone (or more accurately, a big iPod touch). I think this argument misses the point; I keep saying to myself “Wow, it’s a big iPod touch!” I love my iPod touch, and judging from this past holiday season, so do millions upon millions of others. The few complaints I’ve had about the iPod touch have primarily been with its screen size.

The only reason the iPod has not become my go to web browsing device is screen size.  I have it with me all the time,  so when I’m struck with a need to look up a recipe while working in the kitchen, or check on something while lying in bed, it’s more convenient than pulling out the laptop. However, I’m not nuts about scrolling around web sites that aren’t mobile optimized, and the 1024 x  768 resolution of the iPad will make that a non-issue. It also looks like the email experience will benefit from the larger screen, which will be nice, as the iPod has already become my default email reader.

The criticism about it simply being a bigger version of the iPod touch seems to stem from a lack of full computer OS on the device. Most of the specific complaints have been about the lack of a file system, true multi-tasking, and running legacy (computer) applications. Again, I think this is missing the point. The iPad is not a computer, and isn’t supposed to be one. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad, he put it in a classification between a phone and a computer, a third class of device.

For those of us who use them daily, it’s often easy to forget how hard computers are to use. It doesn’t matter how much easier they are compared to the past, they’re still difficult for many people. Not too long ago, I read a poll that said that 20% of respondents who were heads of a household had never created a document on a computer or sent an email. I have seen people who could not begin to grasp the concept of using a mouse with a windowed interface on a computer pick up an iPhone and start working with it right away.

I would venture to guess that most people don’t care about multi-tasking, files systems, usb ports, removable media, etc. They just want to get stuff done and want it to be as easy as possible. The iPad delivers most of what people need from a computer in a much easier to use package. Yes, by the classic computer definition, it’s a less capable device than a netbook, but in a sense, by being simpler to use, it’s a more powerful device.

Now, if they just add a camera, I’ll be happy.

I am pleased to announce the addition of Paitoon Ratanasirintrawoot to the MobileXpeditions Advisory Board and as a Senior Creative Consultant.  Paitoon is an accomplished artist and designer who has worked with clients such as Disney, Warner Brothers, Universal, SeaWorld, and Hasbro.  I’ve known Paitoon for several years and he is one of the most creative and nicest individuals I’ve ever worked with.

Paitoon’s creative vision, and theme park experience, makes him a great addition to the MobileXpeditions team, and will be particularly valuable when helping to create new experiences for theme park guests. He will consult on specific engagements as well as advise the company on product direction and market capability.

Paitoon has worked as a concept artist, designer, and art director for several of the world’s most exciting theme park entertainment clients such as Walt Disney Entertainment, Walt Disney Imagineering, Walt Disney Cruise Line, Universal Creative, Sea World, and many other great design groups around the world.  He has also designed toy and consumer products for Warner Brother Consumer Products, DC Comics, Marvel, Hasbro, Li & Fung Trading, Toy Island, Walt Disney Consumer Products, and many others.

Prior to his current design work, Paitoon was a visual effects artist with Walt Disney Feature Animation with screen credit on ten animated feature films including The Lion King, Mulan, and Lilo & Stitch.  He has won numerous industry awards and has a BFA in Industrial Design from our own Columbus College of Art and Design, where he won the Outstanding Senior in Industrial Design Award upon graduation.

I couldn’t be more thrilled to have Paitoon help as an advisor to MobileXpeditions.