This category covers startups that provide for the mobile communications industry. Here you will find posts that relate to apps and peripherals for all your mobile devices.
Battery life can be the answer or phone throwing annoyance that does and doesn’t allows us to endlessly text and use smartphone’s to their optimum capacity. But if you don’t want to be tethered to a wall outlet like a mother leashed to a child there’s a new solution you can partake in with friends: ChargeBite. The keychain dongle lets you borrow battery juice from a friend’s iPhone or iPad to charge your own.
Being marketed as a social charger, the pocket size device transfers power as fast a USB port could supply juice to a drained device. There is no need for power outlets, USB ports or charging cables, there’s just the ChargeBite to fuss with – which also needs no pre-prep it simply is the middle-man in device power transferring.
SMS marketing isn’t a top of mind solution for us to stay in contact with those that want to be on top of the latest startup news – we think it can be evasive and we don’t think anyone has provided a platform usable enough like Mailchimp. For us Twitter has been the only reasonable option to keep our followers up to date, but for retail shops, non-profits, real estate agents, restaurants, artists, schools, bars and corporations having a more personal messaging experience could be the difference between a returning customer and one that chooses the competitor.
Mobilla (pronounced mo.bill.a) is a smarter SMS marketing web app that uses exclusive local telephone numbers to help brands create more personalized and more intelligent SMS marketing campaigns. These phone numbers are unique for every customer, allowing you to create local campaigns fast, send campaigns wherever you want, use the keywords you want, and deliver a more personable messaging experience with your subscribers at a lower cost. Most importantly the web app delivers a user experience that’s delightful, easy to understand and makes you want to use the service.
Could you use a second screen on your fancy new iPhone 5? popSLATE is a new iPhone 5 case with a built-in 4” e-link display on the back. The screen could be used for pretty much anything: a unique design, a shared photograph, additional notes or a map can be saved.
The Indiegogo project is looking to raise $150,000 over the next 48 days. But as the below video shows, the real justification for a dual screen iPhone isn’t just for custom designs and photography for expression. In reality it’s the opportunity for apps to possibly push information for an enhanced and versatile experience. As a low-power, always-on, super-readable in direct sunlight, and customizable iPhone 5 add-on it could it be a Kindle killer?
There are very few companies that advance the print industry as much as Moo.com with their well priced inspiring design options and user efficient web app experiences, they make incredible strides in an industry ignored by many. Now they’ve added technology to business cares. While there have been ideas that take the business card into digital format – Moo.com combined the experience of print with NFC.
By touching these “third sides” to business cards with a smartphone, the NFC-enabled cards update your contact information across social networks and will keep them in the loop when ever a change occurs on your online presence. The self-updating NFC business cards won’t need to be reprinted when you change locations and phone numbers because it’s all digital, but the novelty of sharing a piece hand-to-hand is the core of the experience now accentuated with NFC.
Sometimes the ideas we enjoy the most aren’t the ones that will change the world, but are smart, interesting and puts that clever smile on someone’s face. The Hi-Call is a one of those products – the full functioning Bluetooth handset camouflage’s itself as a glove you would wear for the upcoming winter season.
With a speaker built into the thumb and a mic conveniently located in the pinky, you talk into the glove with the familiar “call me” hand gesture. Designed by Italian electronics accessory company hi-Fun, the glove you can talk into will be available in October and run you €49. Although it may not have the best clarity and reception, its one of those products that will turn heads as you walk down the street talking into your invisible phone.
Augmented Reality may be turning into a marketing gold rush. Everywhere you turn it seems some latest and greatest innovation has been deployed with the purpose of using mobile platforms and technology to create concepts and experiences that would have quite literally have been considered impossible say.. 15 years ago. The marketing implications and opportunities have been recognized by everybody from small business’ to international brands and modern prospectors from every corner of the world have been falling over themselves to be first to claim their stake in what could be a very lucrative market. That said, being “the first” is different than being “the best” and there are a few firms already in the augmented reality space that may eventually illustrate that point.
Blippar is a London based firm that has produced a phone app that can bring posters, magazine ads, and other real world objects “to life” through their image recognition software. The company launched in the summer of 2011 and has already worked with some very notable clients including Heinz, Samsung, and Cadbury.
As artists and daily users of Paper, on the iPad, to sketch ideas and draw in general we ran into quite a few problems while relying on our natural tendencies of using traditional pen and pencil on a sketchpad. Resting one’s palm and drawing with either a finger or a stylus will inadvertently turn on multitouch gesture controls hindering the drawing experience and making us re-learn what’s comfortable when drawing. A frustrating occurrence, but one that does have a solution.
For $20, the Hand Glider changes everything; it lets an artist feel relaxed and be involved in their craft more readily when drawing – making using the iPad to draw enjoyable once again. The lightweight sleeve for your wrist and pinky acts as a barrier between your skin and the iPad’s multitouch gesture controls that prevents those unexpected tools and unintended marks from showing up on the canvas.
Most developers wouldn’t consider working on a tablet as an efficient method to code for anything. The inefficiencies of selecting text on iOS devices, syntax preview options are limiting and hindrances on keyboard deficiencies can be paramount.
Kodiak PHP is changing all of that with its release of an intergrated development environment PHP coding app. The software development tool is loaded with useful features and the code written within Kodiak can be tested within the app, allowing developers to test their script without having to switch applications or platforms.
This past March we shared with you Seriously Mobile, a community for mobile designers, which is being built with an emphasis on feedback and interaction rather than just a showcase of design. Since then the platform has re-branded, redesigned and grown rapidly with hundreds of crowdsourced designs for your inspiration.
Now named Meerli, the Swedish founders Alexander Auld and Holger Sindbaek have developed an Pinterest inspired minimalistic forum to share iPhone, iPad, Android, WP and icon designs. Users can also upvote other peoples designs, give feedback on them, favorite them to save for later or just browse for inspiration.
Being an adventuresome jungle explorer is all well in good, but what you and probably almost everyone else is aware, is that cellular reception isn’t always available. So if you’re ravaging through bush country but still want to be tech connected, do you buy an expensive Satellite phone or do you compromise for a service that connect to satellites to send a 41 character custom message via email or text.
“Simply pair your smartphone with SPOT Connect, and get connected to a global satellite network that lets you send messages and GPS coordinates from virtually anywhere on the planet. Update Twitter and Facebook. Send email and text messages. Request non-emergency help from professional service providers. And in the case of a critical emergency, send an SOS message requesting emergency assistance.”
