Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Physical puzzle versus digital puzzle app



Yesterday, my lovely wife talk to me. She wants to buy a little puzzle for our 2,5 years son. Spontaneously, i asked her to check some on Android market.
And her response surprise me. She said she won't do that.
She wants physical little puzzle, not some digital one on flat touch screen.

Then it makes me think..
Maybe shes right..maybe too much interaction with touchscreen is bad for our son. He needs to feel and learn more about physical object. To play with, to explore with.

And, right now, i just read a great article by  tittle A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design.

He talk that touch screen interface he called "picture under glass" should not be our future because it isn't our natural way to interact with our world.

I think in some point he is right.

But i still can't imagine the better way of acquiring information, contacting our friends and packing so much data into a small form factor other than our current smartphone or tablet design and UI.

And its quite bother me.. 

Connect.me a people based communication app for smartphone

Todays many of us are using various online services to connect, interact, communicate and play with our family, friends and colleague.

We have Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Yahoo messenger, Google talk/hangout, BBM, Skype and so on..
And in today's world filled with always connected smartphone, we always sign in or connect with that services.

In some ways, the services makes us easy to reach someone. Not so long ago, we called them or send them a SMS. Now, you can reach them if one of that online services.

The problem is, in most todays smartphone, all that services are not integrate inside our smartphone OS, they lived in separated application. You want to tweet someone, you go to Twitter app, want to chat, you go to Whatsapp..
This approach isn't the most practical ways of communication. These online services should make our live easier, easier to reach our contact, not spread them into separated application.

Thats the problem

This is the basic concept of Connect.me.
This app will integrate all that online services into an address book replacement. And when you want to reach Adicahya for example, you can go to the Connect.me address book. And then from his page, you can see in which online services she online.

You just pick one, and a new conversation windows pop up.



This windows will contain all your conversation with Adicahya whether the online services you use to reach him. If you sms him first and that continue the conversation via facebook chat, all that is displayed and stored in this app.

And the windows is dedicated for that particular person, and act like a single separated app.



This is why i called it people based communication app. Its a different concept with what we used to have. Previously we have services based communication app.

Another this, since this is based on people. You can always make a shortcut for conversation with that people. But this is not traditional contact shortcut in your desktop. Its a dedicated conversation app for that particular person you care about.


As you can see, i imagine this app for Nokia Meego based N9, but i think its possible to make deploy it on Android too.

So, in the near future, you don't have to worry in which online services your friend can be reach. You just have to select on of them, and have a conversation immediately. And maybe, this can make BBM obsolete :)