Happy Monday: Samsung Making fun of Apple users in Galaxy s3 video?

This morning one our QA Analysts brought this Samsung Galaxy SIII teaser video to our attention. While the end of the video seems to be a clear jab at Apple, suggesting that all iPhone owners are but simple sheep to Mac’s overwhelming marketing power, our Analyst pointed out that Samsung sells more mobile devices than Apple, which confuses the metaphor a bit.

Nonetheless, the video shows that the most highly anticipated Android phone of 2012, the Samsung Galaxy S3, is still stirring up some serious hype.

We look forward to seeing what other features, like “unpacked,” the Android version of the cloud featured in the video, will be included in the final new product.

Are you excited for the Samsung Galaxy S3? Tweet us @plasticmobile and let us know.

For the Canadian Marketing Association Mobile Marketing Conference, Plastic Mobile’s Maggie Adhami presented a “Say it in 7″ presentation that scared the bejesus out of the crowd.

She showed them what happened to a CEO, Sales Executive and Blogger when we took their mobile devices away for one whole day.

While there was some laughter at the expense of our experiment’s subjects, there was also a lot of nervous shifting in seats as the group watched the trials and catastrophe’s that occur when one tries to face a day without their most crucial device in our current everyday lifestyle – their mobiles.

Whether an iPhone, BlackBerry or Android device, the general consensus was life without mobile is a huge challenge.

Watch our videos of the three subjects as they first agree to give up their phones, and then attempt to navigate through 24-hours of mobile-less-ness.

Hooked on Mobile: Exploring our Latest Addiction from Plastic Mobile on Vimeo.

Plastic Mobile wondered just how dependent our society has actually become on our mobile devices. So we took three mobile junkies to the test and took away their mobile devices for one day.

We asked them to record themselves on a flip cam over the course of the day.

Watch them in the throes of mobile withdrawal as they attempt to navigate their way through a completely mobile world without their co-dependent.

The Smashing Cartoons by Smashing Magazine

There are plenty of alternative keyboards available to Android users in the Play Store. However, only a select few of these keyboard apps offer a totally creative and different mobile typing experience.

One of these rare apps is called, “Siine Keyboard.” Siine adds several interesting twists to the conventional QWERTY keyboard, including shortcuts (siines) for times, dates and commonly used words and expressions.

PM UX: Plastic Mobile Reviews the Siine Keybord App from Plastic Mobile on Vimeo.

Check out our video (Vimeo) demonstration of the Siine Keyboard App available on Android’s Play Store. Watch as Plastic Mobile walks you through the good, the bad and the ugly of this Android app.

Practice Makes Perfect

Using the shortcuts in the Siine Keyboard allows users to type common messages like “hey, what’s up?” with only two taps and two swipes of a single finger. In theory, this should make typing messages easier and faster. However, as a first time user, I spent more time looking for the shortcuts than actually using them!

To mediate this, I found it was helpful to take time to edit and customize existing shortcuts or download new sets of shortcuts to match your texting repertoire and messaging style. Eventually, after a little time spent practicing, I became comfortable with this new way of typing and found it to be a refreshingly different experience.

Time & Date to a “T”

The time and date features in Siine are brilliant. They are highly intuitive and feel quite natural to use. Unlike the vocab shortcuts, they do not require any getting used to.

The time feature makes adding times to messages easy and fun. It is definitely one of the best features Siine has to offer, but – in my opinion – the date feature is the most innovative and useful because it allows the user to check and post dates in one easy step. No longer do we have to navigate to a calendar app to find out which day the 1^st of next month falls on.

Trash it Fast

Siine gives users three options for deleting text. Tapping the delete button will delete one character at a time. Holding the delete button will also delete one character at a time, but it’s slightly quicker and doesn’t require multiple taps.

The best option for trashing large chunks of text is the quick delete function. I like to describe it as a “delete button on steroids.” Basically, users can hold the delete button then swipe their finger back and forth across their smartphone screen to delete text. The faster they swipe, the faster the app deletes the text. It’s deleting with muscle!

I found that the quick delete function felt very natural to use and was surprisingly fun. It reminded me of using rubber erasers in art class.

Thumbs Up:

• Very innovative keyboard
• Well-designed User Interface
• Variety of FREE extra downloadable sets
• The time & date features are great
• Fun and different alternative mundane keyboards
• Also functions like standard QWERTY keyboards
• Fun quick erase function

Thumbs Down:

• Requires some practice in order to fully benefit from the functionality
• Buttons are quite small in portrait mode

• The quick word shortcuts have potential, but require some setup to be truly effective

Do you have the Siine app? tweet us @plasticmobile and give us your review!

Amazing Acrobats Playing PLastic Mobile's Twist 'em!

Yesterday at the Spring IAB Mixx conference, our Plastic Mobile take on an old board game favourite was revealed at IAB’s MIXX conference and turned out to be a huge success among attendees.

“Twist ’em” allowed two players to compete to knock down the opposition’s bendy acrobat – yes, there were real acrobats on the unique Twist ‘em board. The two players combat using an iPad application to light up the positions and colours on the Twist ‘em board, causing the contortionists to try to twist away without falling over.

The iPad apps allowed the users to choose one of four colours and one of the left or right hand or a left or right foot (very similar, if not exactly the same, to Hasbro’s Twister). The mobile twist came of course from the mobile app controller on the iPads, as well as from the Twist’em board, which was 16 iPads that would light up to identify which square the acrobats should use. The person with the bendy acrobat left standing, won, and it was very challenging because those contortionists were REALLY flexible!

Needless to say, the Twist ’em game was a huge success for event attendees so we can’t wait to play it again!

One of our favourite tweets of the days was: “Wow, flavored oxygen at @TCTranscontinen and acrobats at@plasticmobile, bringing out the big guns! #MIXXCanada@iabcanada“

Stay tuned for our video of “Twist ’em: The making of…,” a documentary of sorts (not really) about what happens when a creative agency decides to take their event booth to a whole new level…

The inaugural Dx3 was a huge success! A pat on the back to the team that worked so hard to bring this digital forum together for the very  first time.

Also a resounding success at Dx3 was our Plastic Mobile Candy Shop, a creative exhibit illustrating the growing relationship between mobile and retail and the future of m-commerce. Our candy shop was the talk of the show (not to brag) and so much fun for our whole team – possibly because they sailed through the whole forum on a serious sugar high!

As well, a shout out to bNotions, who’s team of developers stayed corralled in a boxing ring for 48 hours until they completed a program. Whoa. That’s digital determination. We like to think our candy helped them get through the crunch, but whatever stimulants they  used to complete the job, amazing work!

Plastic Mobile’s CEO and COO, Sep Seyedi and Melody Adhami, had a great time speaking and being interviewed about their thoughts on the future of mobile and commerce and their team’s awesome booth. Plastic Mobile can’t wait for next year’s Dx3 – who knows what we’ll come up with next?!

Shame on you if you missed the first-ever Dx3, but check out this video of our slightly silly, totally interactive and undeniably adorable mobile candy buying experience.