The team here at Plastic is excited to announce the launch of the new iPhone and iPad shopping apps for Beyond The Rack, North America’s fastest growing flash sales e-tailer.

Even though it’s not quite the holidays just yet, you can start shopping right away by downloading the app in the App Store. You can never shop too early for the holidays, right? We don’t think so!

Download the Beyond the Rack app here!

It is amazing to see how mobile devices are becoming more and more present in all of the places around us.

We have been pleasantly surprised in the past months to see that many stores/restaurants are using mobile devices to take orders and process payments.

Recently, we went to Fat Bastard Burrito to order some Mexican fast food and realized that they provided some iPads with free Internet access for customers to use while they prepared our orders. It was pretty nice to relax for a bit and play with the iPad while we waited for our orders to be ready!

We also noticed some other places embracing mobile. As part of VitaminWater drink campaign, they’ve placed various mobile charging spots located inside some bus stop shelters across the city as a part of their advertisements. There are different cables available to charge any mobile devices. This is such a great idea since most commuters waiting for the bus are usually on their smartphones, making it extremely convenient to get a quick charge and solve that pesky ongoing battery issue.

Have you noticed any new spots around you becoming more mobile? Let us know and tweet us @PlasticMobile!

Happy 5th Anniversary to the App Store!

As we mentioned in our previous posts, the App Store celebrated their anniversary early with Apple fans by making 10 paid apps and games free of charge!

So, we thought it would be fitting to do our weekly app review on one of the newly free apps: Day One.

Have you ever felt that there are a lot of things about specific events that you would like to remember, but couldn’t?

Day One is a journaling platform that can record and preserve your memories for the long term. Currently available on Mac ($9.99), iPhone and iPad (free!) with fast syncing from iCloud and Dropbox, we think that this is one of the best journal apps out there.

What’s so special about Day One?

Well let us tell you! Social networking sites like Facebook automatically organize your activities and events in chronological order via timeline. But, there are not many interactive private places to keep track of your thoughts. With the passcode lock, you can keep your journal private if you like, or share and link your friends via email and social media. You can even store your journal on the Cloud.

The app not only focuses on helping users remember, record and track their lives in a simple way that can be easily accessed at a later date, but was built with integration in mind and a great user interface. Besides the typical journaling features like text and photo, it includes neat features such as a shortcut bar right above the keyboard  that allows you to include the weather and location, photo, favourite or markdown text formatting and a word counter with the simple swipe of a finger.

The beautiful user interface makes it an enjoyable experience when browsing or searching for a specific event. You can also set reminders in case you forget to log your day!

If you are not sold yet on this app, Apple awarded it the Mac App of the Year in 2012.

Even Jack Dorsey uses and endorses Day One:

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What are your thoughts on Day One Journal? If you use a journal app, what do you use and what do you look for? Let us know by tweeting us at @PlasticMobile.

Ever wanted to bring all your web and video content into a screen and move it around like Tom Cruise in the Minority Report?

TouchCast set out to reinvent the way we interact with online content, like videos, by turning it into an engaging and interactive experience. They believe that by merging video and the web together, it will become a super medium that can create and watch videos that are layered with live and real time information from web pages, YouTube video clips, Google Maps, Twitter and Facebook streams and other digital touch capabilities that viewers can expand, move around and turn on and off with their fingers. Other features that the app can do is turn your iPad into an HD recording device, choose from a variety of effects, draw on the video and broadcast titles.

What separates TouchCast from other video apps is its built-in feature of vApps (video apps) within the platform allowing users to view the web inside a video via web pages and interactive HTML graphics. In addition, users will be able to create video that require no post-production editing and can be enriched using its vApps. They have created over 20 vApps, but plan to allow other developers to add their own vApp on the platform. The videos will be watchable on TouchCast’s own website, and eventually on all websites.

Touchcast is currently free and available for only the Apple iPad in the iTunes App Store.

Check out the video below to see TouchCast in action:

Do you think TouchCast is the future of how we interact with the web? Let us know what you think! Tweet us at @PlasticMobile.

JetBlue Airways has just received Federal Aviation Administration approval to provide all pilots with custom-equipped iPads that will give them real-time capabilities in the cockpit, such as the ability to retrieve real-time weather data and the ability to update safety and flight documents securely.

JetBlue has already begun equipping 2500 pilots with a fourth-generation 16 GB Wi-Fi capable Apple iPad. They are heading towards a paperless cockpit with the iPads replacing the heavy mass of laptops and the bulky stacks of paper manuals and charts while saving fuel and making information much easier to access, an idea that American Airlines, Delta and British Airlines has adopted. However, JetBlue is taking the next step by introducing on-board WiFi.

Every pilot is getting trained to use the three apps core to their job: real-time weather, pre-flight planning and digital airport and aircraft charts supported by the super-fast capability of satellite WiFi enabled by LiveTV to download all information.

According to Jeff Martin, Senior VP of Operations for JetBlue, pilots will have the fastest real-time images in the air, and added that they will be using WSI Optima application for weather briefings, the Comply365 app for digital documents and the AeroData DFP app for aircraft performance and weight and balance calculations. The Comply365 solution will be used throughout JetBlue and is currently testing digital charting providers to be used later.

The addition of the iPads will enable pilots to make better decisions and help improve the customer experience such as having a more sophisticated weather briefing that can be used to update customers during the flight.

How do you think on board WiFi capabilities will affect the mobile app industry? Will there be apps catered for in-flight customer use? Let us know what you think and tweet us at @PlasticMobile.

Think about the last time you visited a mobile store, you probably noticed that Samsung is offering the most devices (phones and tablets).

If you have been feeling that Samsung is releasing a new device every week or month, you are not alone. Take a look at this infographic created by British mobile news website Which? illustrating how many mobile devices have been released in the UK this past year.

With 26 devices released in one year, it is like a new device every two weeks! The good thing about this is that they offer many screen sizes at different price points, allowing all customers with any budget to find the right mobile device for them. On the other hand, it may be super confusing for the user to understand the real differences between all these devices.

Comparing with Samsung’s main competitor, Apple has released only four devices in the past year (iPhone 5, iPod Touch 5, iPad 4 and iPad Mini). With this huge contrast (26 vs. 4) and knowing that Apple made a choice to make only a few devices, we can really say that these two companies have two very different approaches in this market. Though, we can’t help but wonder if Samsung’s strategy isn’t working a bit better given the significant increase in Android sales we have been seening lately.

What do you think? Is the Samsung’s Galaxy getting too big? Let us know! Tweet us @PlasticMobile.

Looking for a better newsreader that can learn from you?

Thirst is a social news platform that provides us with another way to follow topics we are interested in and curate content around those topics. Thirst Labs, the developer of Thirst, designed this iOS app so that the more you use it, “the better the newspaper gets as it learns from and adapts to your interests.”

Another factor that may make Thirst appealing to users reading other apps such as Flipboard, is Thirst doesn’t just give you the latest stories to hit a particular RSS feed, but uses complex algorithms to perform a search of the whole Web. Popular stories are then presented based on your category or search term. You may end up reading trending articles from news sources that you have not heard of right from your homepage. In addition, Thirst has an engaging social aspect that includes a discussion feature that lets you write and respond to comments on those articles you read with your Twitter account. Users can also share articles directly to Facebook and Twitter.

With the newest version 3.0 update, the app has completely revamped their user experience making topics even easier to browse, search and follow. Thirst is available for the iPhone and iPad and is worth a download to try out the clean user experience and intelligent customized reading lists. This is the same team that also developed Thirst Droplet, their version of the newsreader app for Google Glass in a weekend.

What is your favourite newsreader? What are your thoughts on Thirst compared to other newsreaders? Tweet us at @PlasticMobile.

The latest version of Apple’s mobile software, iOS 7, was unveiled today at the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) along with the new Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks. We were happy to hear that Apple has decided to retire the cat-related names for more California-themed titles, such as Mavericks. New updated models of the Macbook Air line were also updated to offer all-day battery life and a three times faster wifi support. In addition, the new MacPro was announced to be an all new cylindrical shape with the Intel Xeon chip and up to 12 cores.

If you weren’t able to tune into WWDC today, here is what you missed on the iOS 7:

iOS 7 – Major UI Redesign

The new iOS 7 brings a completely new user interface to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The design was refreshed enough for users to see a difference, but the new iOS remains intuitive so current users do not need to worry about relearning the operating system. This feels like a new iOS device without replacing it. A major design overhaul replaces most of the skeuomorphic elements found in the earlier versions with a clean and gloss-less “flat” look with bright new colours. This means that apps such as the Calendar and Game Center no longer have the leather stitching, felt and wood elements.

In addition, the new iOS features a new colour scheme with translucency to “create a sense of depth and vitality.”

Demos of all the apps can be found on Apple’s iOS 7 website.

New Features

Motion Tracking Capabilities – As your device is moved with hand, the motion is tracked and the screen moves with that motion.

Dynamic Weather App - Incorporates live weather elements depending on selected city so if it is storming outside, the app will display rain.

Notification Center - New daily overviews that let users know about new mail, missed calls, tasks and much more. With a downward swipe, it can be quickly accessed on any screen, even the lock screen. Notifications are also synced across devices.

Control Center - New preference controls allow users to swipe up to access things such as Wi-Fi, Airplane Mode, adjust brightness and volume. An interesting functionality added to the iOS is the flashlight.

Multitasking - Available for all apps, the iOS 7 determines which apps are being used most frequently and keeps those apps up to date in the background. This features a new app switching screen that displays large-sized app cards which resembles WebOS. This will also be able to maintain great battery life.

Safari - New “omnisearch bar” that includes a new smart search field with “Share Links” provides improved social integration that pulls stories shared by friends on social media sites such as Twitter.

Airdrop - Available on Apple’s newest devices (iPhone 5, 4th Gen iPad, iPad mini), users can now easily share photos, videos and other content with others.

Siri – In addition to the new interface, Siri has been given a new voice options: male voices and voices for French and German. Siri can perform tasks like turning on Bluetooth and new service integrations such as web search results.

in-car iOS – This service will bring more functionality to the consoles of some vehicles through a partnership with several car manufacturers. This integration will let you make calls, have better control of Siri and view maps.

Activation Lock - In addition to the well-known and used “Find my iPhone” feature, the new Activation Lock prevents thieves from turning off that features off and wiping your device’s memory. It can not be reactivated unless the user’s iCloud information is provided.

Tim Cook stated the following data on the state of iOS:

The world’s most advanced mobile operating system by the numbers

• 600 million devices sold#1 customer usage

• 50% more usage than Android users

• 60% mobile web share

• 82% tablet market share (iPad)

• 10% iPad,  8.7% iPhone Black Friday mobile shopping traffic 2012

• J.D. Power & Associates #9 consecutive awards

• 97% overall satisfaction for iOS

• iOS 6 install base 93%, 33% Jelly Bean on Android (latest OS adoption)

iOS 7 is available for developers today on the iPhone and iPad support at a later date. The new iOS 7 will be available for everyone else this fall.

What are your favourite features on the new iOS?  Tweet us at @PlasticMobile.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is a busy guy and everybody wants some of his time, but it’s not an easy ticket to get! A coffee date with him goes for $610,000 and even several U.S. senators wanted to have a talk with him.

Assuming you don’t have half a million or subpoena powers, the chances of you getting to sit down with Tim is pretty unlikely.

Fortunately The Wall St. Journal’s tech blog “All Things D” was able to sit down with him at their D11 conference. At the going rate they got $825,000 worth of his time and you are able to watch the whole interview here.

As usual for CEOs, there wasn’t much new information that came out. Despite the interviewers best attempts, Tim wasn’t giving much in the way of the upcoming iWatch or what an Apple TV would look like, or do, or when it would be released or, well, anything. . .

While the video isn’t big on actual information, it’s also not that often that we hear the CEO of Apple chat it up for over an hour about the future of tech.

Do you have any thoughts on what Tim said? Let us know on Twitter @PlasticMobile

In a time where our mobile addiction has gotten so out of control that even our babies are using mobile devices, it looks like technology can’t wait to get in our hands.

How young can we go? How about just hours old. Newborns this year may be kept in touch with their mom using an iPad, like with the BabyTime program in a Los Angeles hospital.

Technology can also help make parents lives easier. Every parent knows that it’s a lot of work to take care of a baby and a major headache is having to change diapers so often. This is where Huggies comes in with TweetPee. It’s basically a sensor that you put over the diaper that alerts your smartphone when your little bundle of joy has left a package for you. The app will also help you manage your stock of diapers so you’ll know when you have to buy more.

If you are still wondering when your kid is old enough to have his first mobile, the answer is 4 years old. A new phone called “1stfone” is geared to children between 4 and 9 years old. It actually appears to be a very good device for kids since it can only send or receive calls from pre-defined contacts (like parents or family members).

Do you know any other cool mobile apps or accessories that have been made for babies or kids? Let us know on Twitter @Plasticmobile

As the highest selling tablet in the world, the iPad is everywhere. Here are three incredible iPad stories coming out of the US last month.

1) Saved by iPad

A man was trying to get some nice pictures of a softball game in Iowa when an errant foul ball came directly at his face! The backstop netting between him and the field didn’t stop the ball but the iPad in front of his face probably saved him an injury. Don’t believe it? See the video.

2) An iPad stuck in a car’s bumper

A woman in Georgia drove for nearly one hour with a stranger’s iPad wedged in the bumper of her car after the device flew off the roof of another car, bounced on the roadway and landed in her car’s bumper. Amazingly, the iPad still worked and the woman was able to return it to its rightful owner. More details here.

3) Sworn in on an iPad (through the bible app)

Four firemen from New Jersey were about to be promoted to the rank of battalion chief but when officials at City Hall couldn’t find a Bible for the oath of office, it was looking like they would have to postpone. That is until they decided to simply use an iPad running a Bible app. More details and the video here.

Do you know of any other incredible iPad stories? Let us know on Twitter @PlasticMobile

Plastic Mobile co-founder and COO, Melody Adhami, was quoted for a Luxury Daily article on Christie’s new iPad app.

For those of us not in the multi-million dollar real estate market, Christie’s is a publication listing high-end properties from around the world. They recently released a free iPad app. The app is a high quality digital magazine with excellent production values. It’s easy to read, navigate and comes loaded with breathtaking photos of some of the worlds most beautiful properties.

Anybody can tell you that an app with nice pictures is good, but Melody digs deeper, “Magazines are a very vivid, visual and tangible medium. When it comes to leisurely browsing, the kind that consumers have been trained to do for years with existing magazines, the simple added screen real estate of the iPad and other tablets allows users to garner more of this traditional experience.”

With print media increasingly struggling, Melody says that “if magazines are going to survive, they will simply have to embrace mobile devices.”

Do you think the iPad and other tablets are the future of magazines? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter @PlasticMobile

With the overall results of Boxing Day in, it seems that more and more mobile users are starting to hop on the smart train this holiday season (I mean who seriously wants to be a part of the crazy mall madness?).

With an increase in the use of mobile devices, and with the iPad being the most wanted gift this holiday season,  m-commerce set some new records this Boxing Day.

According to IBM’s Digital Analytics, around 30.7% of consumers used their mobile devices to visit a retailer’s site on Boxing Day. ComScore also found that from the dates of December 8th to December 14th, consumers in the U.S. spent around $6.9 billion online (that’s a $750 million increase compared to last year!).

Your probably wondering which device was the most efficient for increasing m-commerce traffic on Boxing Day? The iPad of course! The iPad generated more traffic than any other mobile device, making up for 15.8% of online shopping on Boxing Day!

M-commerce has only just begun a reinvention of the traditional modes of shopping. We can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2013!

What are your predictions? Tweet us @PlasticMobile and let us know!

This holiday season, cross everyone off your list with a few quick taps and swipes using the all new AIR MILES iPad app.
This morning, AIR MILES and Plastic Mobile launched the iPad app as the latest addition to the AIR MILES mobile family.

The new iPad app allows Collectors to earn reward miles and shop at their favourite Canadian and American online retailers directly through the new airmilesshops.ca feature.

Modeled after the award-winning iPhone and Android AIR MILES apps, the AIR MILES iPad app also boasts a beautiful interface for browsing rewards, and still lets Collectors Check-in to Sponsor locations for the chance to double the rewards earned each month.

Watch this video on just how amazing the new app really is.

The AIR MILES iPad app is the answer to all your holiday shopping prayers! At least, it is to ours. Thank you, AIR MILES!

Apple’s autumn release blitz continued today with the much anticipated iPad Mini, a new MacBook Pro, iMacs and the iPad 4.

Out of the shadow (literally) of it’s predecessor, the iPad Mini has all the functionality of the standard iPad in a smaller package. Features like 1080p HD video, LTE, faster WiFi and an A5 processor are jam packed into a 7.9 inch frame. Consumers can get all of Apple’s great mobile capabilities in a device as thin as a pencil.

During the event, presenter and Apple VP Phil Schiller emphasized the fact that the iPad Mini is not just cross between a speechless smartphone and a tablet. In fact it’s probably handier than you’d think. At $300 less than the standard iPad, the Mini gives consumers an option of how much they want to shell out for the newest Apple technologies. It offers the same capabilities as the iPad which are – as Schiller reminds us – everything from browsing to educating and gaming and is still easy to tote and type on.

Shipping starts November 2nd.

A few days ago, while browsing the app store, an app in the New & Noteworthy section caught my eye. After reading some reviews and checking out some screenshots, I decided to cough up $1.99 and give it a try. Within five minutes of launching the app I was not only happy with my purchase, but I was also hooked. The app, True Skate, is and iOS game available on iPhone, iPad and iPod. It is best described as Tony Hawk series on PlayStation. Minus Tony Hawk.

You probably did not hear it from us first, however, our Technical Director let us all know this morning that the infamous “yep” has been written.

According to one of the greatest sources for clarifying Apple rumours, Jim Darlymple, Apple will reveal the new iPad mini on October 23rd.

We can’t wait to see if this rumour will prove true, and what features this new iPhone 5 / iPad in-between will offer other than being, well, in between in size.

Are you excited for the reveal? Let us know @plasticmobile.

The Smashing Cartoons by Smashing Magazine

A few weeks back, Plastic’s CEO, Sep Seyedi, was attending WWDC 2012 and sent an email to us here at the office recommending we checkout a specific application. Right away, I knew it was going to be something great because Sep wouldn’t waste our time with anything less than fantastic.

Thus, I immediately  proceeded to download and launch National Geographic’s National Parks app. Right away, I could see why it caught Sep’s attention and compelled him to tell the rest of us about it.

National Geo’s Parks in an App

National Parks has all the elements of a great app. It is beautifully designed, easy to learn and use, and the attention to detail is impeccable. It also offers substantial amounts of functionality for those want it. However, what impressed me most about this app was its clean, intuitive and uncluttered UI, coupled with its cool transitions and animations. Not to mention the stunning photos that utilize the iPhone’s retina display.

This app is perfect for those who want to plan their next great camping trip. Users are given all the basic park info that is necessary to plan a getaway to any of the 20 most visited national parks in the United States.

This includes information on how to get there, when to go, entrance fees, special advisories and of course the parks contact info. Users are also given weather conditions (current and a five-day forecast), stats about the park (number of annual visitors and park size) and some amazing photos of the scenery.

Additional information is available in the form of park guides, which users can purchase in app. The first guide is free of charge and subsequent guides cost anywhere from $0.99 – $1.99. With the guides users get additional photos, park secrets, suggestions of what to see, what to do and photo tips.

Photo tips are a great feature of this app. The National Geographic Society is known for amazing photography and now, with this app, users get all the information they need to snap their own masterpieces.

With the photo tips, users get the location (GPS coordinates), time of day, camera details and difficulty levels for each individual photo. They also get an overview and some fairly detailed instructions from the actual photographer who took that particular photo.

All in all, National Parks delivers a great mobile app experience. It offers a bunch of features wrapped in a very pretty package and believe it has a little something for everyone.

Granted, not all people are into camping and the outdoors. However, most people do appreciate the beauty of nature, and some people, myself included, value the beauty of a great app.

I have discussed this app with some colleagues and, as people who truly appreciate great design, attention to detail and great usability, we know that those elements are extremely important to producing a great experience for the end user and we all agree that the Apple Design Award was well deserved

I recently experienced one of the worst cases of smartphone withdrawal after losing my iPhone while fishing on Balsam Lake in Ontario. I’m not sure exactly when and where it happened, but I’m fairly confident that my phone is currently baffling a school of minnows.

The following two days without a phone proved difficult, to say the least. I found myself reaching for my nonexistent phone every time someone else’s started ringing. Finally, on day three, I was able to find a replacement. Much relieved, I then proceeded to devote more than four hours playing around with my new device as though trying to make up for lost time.

I first recovered all my data from a backup, then reacquainted myself with all my go-to apps, setting them up just as they were prior to losing my phone. Once I had finally got that out of my system, I moved on to installing and trying out a collection of new apps. Frankly, it had been a while since my last visit to the App Store, so I needed my fix.

During this App Store binge I cam across some pretty cool apps – two in particular. The first app, Timegg, is a fresh alternative that is perfect for those who  have grown a little tired of iOS’s native clock app and are craving some change. The second is a great photo-editing app that uses gesture controls to deliver a great experience.

Timegg is a sexy and well-designed app that can be a fresh alternative to the native iOS clock app. The interface and the navigation are extremely simple and intuitive. Especially, when you consider all the functionality that is essentially displayed and accessible from a single screen.

Users can easily navigate between the colour-coded Alarms, Reminders, Timers and D-day sections by either swiping horizontally near the header section at the top of the screen, or by tapping the corresponding corner in the bottom portion of the screen.

I especially liked this because it works great as an alternative to the conventional iOS style tab navigation that you usually see at the bottom of the screen. Moreover, it allows for better consistency among all four sections. This consistency makes learning to use and navigate the app extremely easy (once you learn to use one, you have essentially learned them all).

I’ve been using Timegg mostly as an alarm for the past few days and am very pleased with it. You are able to set up to 8 alarms and doing so is very fast and easy.

You are able choose from one of 16 pre-loaded wake-up tones, or set a song from your music library, as I like to do.

I really enjoyed how easy it was to set up repeating alarms. It was much quicker than the native clock app and delivered a superior experience. Instead of being taken to another screen to individually tap each day that I want my alarm to go off, I could quickly select multiple days without multiple taps. More importantly, I could do it without having to be taken to another screen, only to be returned to that initial screen.

Overall, Timegg is fun and a little refreshing. It may not offer some of the functions that the native Clock app does (World Clock & Stopwatch), but it offers its own unique set of functions and does so in a user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing way.

I have read one review complaining of unreliability. Citing that the app sometimes fails to deliver notifications if left running in the background for long periods of time, and only delivers those notifications once the app is re-opened.

I haven’t experienced any such problems myself, but I also haven’t been using the app for that long. I’ll keep you posted as I continue to use it, and will let you know if I come across any reliability issues in the future.

Snapseed

Snapseed is one of many photo-editing apps that can be found in the App Store. In Canada, this app is currently sitting in the #5 spot on the Top Free chart, and I can see it climbing even greater heights.

Even though I found the overall app great, the selection of tools and filters to be extensive and the sharing capabilities to be on par with other similar apps, the thing that impressed me most and made Snapseed stand out, was the use of gesture controls.

These gestures are intuitive and don’t take much time master. They make switching between adjustment options within each tool or filter very simple and fast. Users can swipe up or down to switch between the various adjustment options and swipe left or right to adjust how heavily that option is applied.

I found that the use of gesture controls in the app worked great to increase efficiency and enjoyment. I almost always enjoy using apps that employ gesture controls, because I find that tapping has become slightly repetitive and mundane.

For my inaugural post as the resident Plastic Mobile intern, I’d like to focus on the eTail event we attended last week where I learned a number of interesting facts and stats about m-commerce.

First, and this one made my jaw-drop, a stat reported in late april by theeTailing Group in their annual merchant study, Making the Right Choices in a Connected World: Customer Experience Escalation: 85 percent of merchants say mobile commerce is a focus in 2012, up from 68 percent in 2011.

With nearly four out of five respondents suggesting that m-commerce is in their strategies, the mobile retail arena is about to get a lot more competitive. With so many merchants now simultaneously making the move to mobile, they will have to quickly develop effective mobile strategies that will also help engage their customers and bring their brands into the new world of mobile retail. I for one hope that the need for speed won’t hinder the need for quality initiatives.

Second, the Interactive Bureau reports in their study, Mobile Phone Shopping Diaries May 2012, that 73 percent of consumers say they have used their mobile phones in a store and that 40 percent of respondents said they want mobile ads to allow them to browse the brand’s broader product offering. This is interesting because it suggests that retailers can look to in-store mobile solutions and other alternatives to just mobile websites.

For instance, earlier this month Sephora went through a complete Digital Makeover. Their new and exciting cross-channel initiative includes a new mobile app with improved UX, sharper search capabilities, m-commerce enabled shopping and all the social network bells and whistles. Some of Sephora’s stores are seeing iOS devices being launched in-store to allow sales agents to speed up checkout times with mobile POSs. Other stores are implementing in-store iPads that provide extensive product information, style tips that customers can send to themselves via email and, of course, more social media integration.

There are definitely other brands implementing some fantastic m-commerce initiatives, but Sephora stood out to me as a leader because of the grand scale and quality of this mobile initiative.

Last, a recent study by Juniper Research estimates that mobile transaction volume will grow to $670 billion by 2015! I can’t wait to see which brands will follow Sephora’s fantastic example and make that prediction a reality.

So there you have it, a few interesting m-commerce stats and one very extensive and exciting new initiative to enhance consumers retail experiences.

Do you have your own mobile insights or thoughts on other great initiatives? Tweet us at @plasticmobile and let us know!

For more recent information on m-commerce, and to learn about the initiatives of other brands, I recommend some of the following articles:

Canada leads world in digital wallet tech, so what’s the holdup?
Key Traits of Mobile Commerce Leadership
The Future of Shopping is Mobile

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…

Our creative team at Plastic Mobile has come up with a ridiculously fun way of showcasing how we approach everything with a slightly twisted sense of humour.

We’ll be showcasing our comedy at tomorrow’s IAB Mixx conference, taking place at the Carlu Theatre in Toronto, Ontario.

Don’t miss the one-day conference, sponsored by IAB Canada, where techies, media and marketers unite to learn more about the interconnectedness of all that they do.

AND, don’t forget to drop in to our our booth to work out some frustrations on a mobile powered game of twists and turns.

See you there and feel free to tweet us and let us know if you’ll be visiting our booth.

Today, the Bagel Wednesday team really shook things up in the office and pretty much changed the way we will think about Bagel Wednesday forever. Instead of bringing bagels to our mobile sharing meeting, they made pancakes. Holy flap jacks batman!

Needless to say, the excitement over the pancakes made prying mobile news from full mouths a challenge. But, we did learn more that we can expect the new office iPads to arrive any day now, that Apple may have purchased patent rights to mobile payment controls and that I found an amazing mascara that actually gives your lashes some serious oomph (Benefit “they’re real!” mascara, available at Shoppers’ Drug Mart for $26).

While there was actually very little mobile news shared, the experiment in a breakfast favourite resulted in some great bonding and a long lasting sugar high thanks to the syrup.

Good job team!

The Smashing Cartoons by Smashing Magazine

Last Thursday, Apple released iPhoto – the final piece of its iLife suite for iOS. A few days later, a friend asked me to recommend an app that she could use to touch up photos taken on her iPhone. I told her to give iPhoto a try. The next time we spoke, I asked her what she thought about iPhoto. Her response was: “It was ok, but it wasn’t worth the $4.99. It doesn’t do much.”

Apple #Fail? Is that even possible?

I decided to check it out for myself. Maybe the reason her experience with iPhoto was so mediocre was because she’s a fairly new to iPhone and lacks the experience to get the most out of the app.

So I installed iPhoto on my iPhone and was greeted with a pretty straight forward, simple and intuitive home screen. I could see what was clearly my Camera Roll (as an album) sitting on a glass shelf.

The Home Screen

When I selected my Cameral Roll, my individual photos were presented in a cool scrollable thumbnail view along the bottom. So far, so good.

Camera Roll

The trouble starts when you realize that auto-enhance is the only real photo editing tool in the main view. It works really well for an automatic editing tool and is simple and easy to use, but I then had to go into the toolbox icon on the bottom left to slide out a tab with additional editing tools. Since there were so many options, it was difficult to figure out what each tool did and how to use them.

Tool Kit

The problems continue when I clicked on the cropping tool and could pinch to zoom and move the grid to crop my picture as desired. As an experienced iPhone user, pinching to zoom while moving an image was intuitive. However, iPhoto also throws image rotation into the mix, and there seemed a bit too much going on. I also noticed that, after I had zoomed into my desired amount and started to rotate my image, my zoom level would unwontedly change. This was really annoying.

Only after further exploring the copping tool did I realize there was an alternate option. After pinching to my desired zoom level, I could tap on the rotate dial at the bottom of the screen to rotate my photo by actually physically rotating my iPhone. This was not only a cool feature, but I found it made for easier image manipulation that was much more user-friendly.

Rotate

Overall, iPhoto delivers a lot of functionality with many ways to edit, tweak, optimize and share your photos. But when the high amount of functionality equates to increased complication for the end user, tooltips for each tool or on-demand tutorials might be a good idea. That way, users who don’t want or need help won’t be bothered. But users, like my new-to-iPhone friend, can get the help they need.

That being said, after going through all the editing tools and options in iPhoto, I couldn’t believe that my friend said that iPhoto doesn’t do much. What I can believe, is that she might have never gotten to the cool effects because she wasn’t prepared to put the effort into learning about all the tools. So she gave up before she had a chance to really bask in the glory of all that iPhoto has to offer.

It just goes to show how important a user’s first impression of an app is, and that the fine balance between having too much and too little is a delicate relationship. Even if it does everything the user wants, there’s a chance that if they can’t do it easily, they won’t do it at all.

The good news is, I hear the iPad version of the app does offer tooltips to users, so hopefully the iPhone version of the app will incorporate some much needed tooltips soon.

As I sit in the Apple Store waiting for Genius Ted to tell me all will be well with my iPhone 4s (and, by default, my life), I am not surprised to see the number of people filtering into the store to inquire about or try to purchase the iPad3, or the new iPad.

Apple CEO Tim Cook presented its iPad as “the ultimate poster child of the post-PC world” in the event. “The iPad is about post-portable computing.  And it’s outstripping the wildest of predictions. The momentum behind iPad has been incredible and has surprised virtually everyone.”

But what is really new with this Apple product? What is the real deal? Is it as amazing as the wait time to make an online order suggest?

With mixed reviews from colossal #Fail to “sheer brilliance,” I sought an impartial review from the one person I could think of who could keep a level head in this time of excitement; our resident tech guru and CEO, Sep Seyedi.

“The iPad 3 has some really fantastic new features. For instance, it sets a new bar for resolution on tablets and imaging. The 4G is fantastic to promote it as a tool for collaboration (i.e. things like video calling / conferences). Work places that are worried about data consumption may look to the iPad 3 in the work place and offices to support their infrastructure.”

Basically, what i got from him is that the iPad 3 doesn’t have all the features Apple fans were hoping and wishing for, BUT, it seems to be a pretty great product with a fresh look, processor, increased screen resolution, new firmware and a set of other advanced features that at least make us go  ”oooo,” if not also “aaaaa.”

The stylus has been a heated topic of conversation around the office ever since last week’s Bagel Wednesday. Today, the battle continued between the pro-pen vs. anti-stylus fanatics during our discourse of baked goods.

A key component to the dispute is, of course, Apple vs. Android – with Apple users in the office suggesting that a stylus is more suitable for an Android device because iOS products are (their words) “superior.” WELL. According to this article in Gizmodo, there is a stylus for iPad that might actually be better than our “inferior” phalanges.

Ten One Design’s Pogo was one of the first styluses designed for use with iOS devices and has recently out done itself with the pressure-sensitive super stylus (code name: Blue Tiger).

Using a low-power Bluetooth 4.0 connection it wirelessly connects to your iOS device without the huge, heavy battery pack that can make a stylus quite the cumbersome utensil. Also, as long as an app supports it, the Blue Tiger can accurately relay information about how hard you’re pressing. This technology is amazing for the artist group – probably the stylus’ no. 1 supporters. The Blue Tiger allows the users to vary the thickness of a stroke based simply on how they apply pressure. Pretty cool for artists, but what does that mean for the rest of us?

Is the Blue Tiger awesome enough to convince the skeptics in our office to choose a pen over our handy (get it, hand – y?) fingers to conduct every day iPad use? Tell us what you think on twitter @plasticmobile.

Blue Tiger Stylus. Photo: Gizmodo

Plastic Mobile teams up with leading group-buying site TeamBuy to bring the power of shopping to your fingertips – literally! Plastic Mobile announced the launch of the TeamBuy app yesterday in a press release. Our award-winning mobile marketing agency and TeamBuy, a leading Canadian group-buying site, created a channel that allows smart shoppers to get great deals anywhere, at anytime, on the go.

With mobile commerce on the rise and more than 60% of mobile users shopping on their smartphones, the TeamBuy app allows savvy shoppers to get that amazing weekend getaway or a spa-cation deal without rushing to a desktop. The app uses geo-location to offer deals pertinent to the users nearby area and allows TeamBuy users to track their purchases and redeem them directly from any iPhone, iPad, iTouch or Android phone. Built directly into the app, the “Team Bucks” loyalty program ensures users keep coming back to the app for more.

Check out the video to learn more!

…as well as about 750 other execs, media personnel and tech enthusiasts, but, whatever.

At 7:30 this morning, this odd pastiche of professionals piled into the SONY Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, ON, to hear Duncan Stewart, Director of Technology, Media and Telecommunications, entertain and educate about Deloitt’e annual #TMTPredictions.

The tech arm of the professional services giant put together some very interesting facts and advice on what’s in store for our evolving industry in 2012. Among the most interesting prophecies were:

• continued growth of the ever-surprising TV
• the advent of data caps in many leading countries (i.e. the death of unlimited ISP deals. Le sigh.)
• the metamorphosis of our smartphones and tablets to “little PVRs”; and
• the immediate future of NFCs (hint: it’s not what you think).

One mobile prediction that really stood out was the hypothesis that the purchase of tablets would continue to increase, but that it would be less by new buyers and more concentrated by a secondary tablet in the home – apparently we’re not very good at sharing with our families.

Likewise, while the creation of apps continues to surge, Duncan Stewart pointed out that a great number of them are not unique - meaning that, while a number of new apps are being developed, so are existing apps being expanded to cover other operating systems. So, an app that was made last year for iOS, may this year be added to the Android and Microsoft markets.

According to Duncan Stewart, developing a mandate (like we have here at Plastic, not to brag, but we’re just saying) to develop cross-platform apps as often as possible, or as often as makes sense for our partners, will be crucial to increasing efficiencies in the future, and staying competitive in the mobile game.

The mobile space has set the wheels in motion for its world domination…well, maybe not quite. But we’re getting there according to research firm Berg Insight, which reported this week that mobile is expected to grow from $3.4 billion in 2010 (at a compound annual growth rate of 37 percent) to $22.5 billion in 2016. Yikes! The report suggests that by 2016, mobile will account for 15.2 per cent of all global online advertising and marketing spending.

While mobile has been a bit of a nouveux trend until now, with some savvy and innovative agencies testing the waters, Berg Insight suggests that companies have begun changing their strategies to incorporate mobile into their annual ad plans as a key media component. Rickard Andersson, telecom analyst for Berg Insight, stated in the article from GIGAOM: “The popularity of smartphones and the increasing availability of mobile media that can include mobile advertising are the main game changers. Brands are now progressively embracing the mobile channel, including the entire range of apps from games and entertainment to utility applications.” He suspects that, while in-app ads have been the leaders in mobile marketing thus far, the advent of HTML5 brings traditional channels such as SMS as well as mobile web advertising, back on the table. He thinks that location-based advertising has the potential to unleash the full power of mobile advertising.

Location-based advertising is certainly having a hay-day in the world of mobile commerce, and should continue to be a driver of the mobile ad world. We second the emotion that it would be to a brand’s benefit to find new and innovative ways to employ mobile campaigns to enhance other advertising channels, and vice versa.

Today was a big day at Plastic. The Marketing Intern brought in homemade chocolate chips cookies so we were all on a major sugar high for the launch of “ETF Central,” our latest app that was created in partnership with Claymore Investments, a subsidiary of Guggenheim Funds Services Group, Inc.

Because a part of our mandate is to pioneer innovative products and solutions that allow the financial industry to expand into the mobile space, we wanted to be sure that ETF (Exchange-traded Funds) Central met all of the user needs, in an engaging and easy-to-use format.

So, employing both tech and creative wizardry (our magical formula for super apps) we created a sophisticated tool that sets the bar for excellence in the financial space. Voila! ETF Central. A new, free, customized, dual-purpose mobile app available on BlackBerry, PlayBook, iPhone and iPad.

ETF Central satisfies both the need to better educate users unfamiliar with the relatively new exchange-traded funds, as well as allows them to manage their ETF investments easily and conveniently. The app puts all Canadian-listed ETFs into the user’s palm, allowing them to view market prices of all TSX listed ETFs, create and track their ETF portfolio, view ETF educational resources, link to all online brokerages to trade ETFs, track upcoming ETF events and more. Ultimately, it’s a pretty outstanding financial gadget.

The leading force behind the app creation, and our very own “Queen of Apps,” Melody Adhami was excited to launch ETF Central as ETFs represent a sizable industry, but public awareness about them has been limited. She and our team here at Plastic Mobile set out to create a tool that would both educate and manage ETFs for the average user/investor. To read the full media release, click here.

In the news:

Advisor

Investment Executive News

CNW News

Digital Journal

The battle continues over which is the superior platform – Android or iOS. Everyone from users to marketers have weighed in with their future predictions, past musings and current praises and complaints. From a developer’s perspective, things remain uncertain and, at times, contradictory. Here’s the low down based on the latest research.

A couple of months back, the general opinion was that app developers were turning their attention to Android over iOS, because of its rapidly increasing market share. A survey from Appcelerator indicated that the momentum was shifting in favour of Android, closing the gap on current app development that traditionally favoured iOS. The idea behind the supposed shift was that the Android platform is considered to have the best long-term outlook.

The latest news, however, turns that theory upside down. It appears that Android continues to take a back seat to iOS, in part because, well, it’s not as mainstream cool (those Mac commercials still make us chuckle). While Android operating system is still the big winner on the charts (46.3% of US smartphone owners running the mobile operating system) according to the Strategy Analytics’ survey, “App Developer Attitudes and Behaviours,” it seems that Apple’s iOS platform remains near and dear to developers’ hearts, with 51% saying they plan to write for the “iTeam” (iPod, iPad and iTouch) platforms in 2012. Yes, Android is fast approaching a majority share in smartphones among US customers, but it now seems that the platform is suffering among its app builders, with interest rising only 30% from 23% in 2011. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

That being said, it seems that Apple’s status among the people writing app code comes from the multiple device types now using the operating system, with the iPhone down 26%. In fact, the real growth for iOS comes from the iPad, which attracted only 8% of developers last year, but will get 19% in 2012 (+138%). With more than half a million apps now cataloged in the Apple App Store, over 150,000 are compatible with or written specifically for the iPad.

Experts such as Strategy Analytics report author and Director of Apps Research, Josh Martin, expect that money will talk and developers will continue to favour platforms that offer the most diverse ways of generating revenue.

Piper Jaffrey recently estimated that Apple’s App Store substantially outperforms the Android marketplace for developers, with Apple responsible for about 80% to 90% of revenue generated by the app market.

What do you think? Will iOS continue to corner the market in app developers despite Android’s appetite for market share? Or will the interest in the iTeam fizzle out and watch Android steal their fan base?

In the News

Just some of the people who think we’re pretty cool (thank you!).

Bloomberg

Market Wire

Yahoo! Finance

Canadian Business Opportunities

Euro Investor

Reports listed in a Venture Beat article this morning state that Cyber Monday is set to kick Black Friday’s butt in overall sales.

This year, the two made-up shopping holiday’s book-ending the US Thanksgiving weekend will once again likely post dramatically different numbers. Cyber Monday sales are estimated to hit 1.2 billion, with 122 million Americans expected to participate in the online shopping extravaganza. While Black Friday sales were up 26 per cent from last year, they still fell short of the billion mark. Shucks.

The mania continued this year as news reports of pepper spraying moms, and dads and kids coming to fist-a-cuffs over Xboxes, hit the airwaves. In spite of that, the shopping holiday raked in $816 million in sales. But, thanks to e- and m-commerce, Cyber Monday is still expected to be the reigning champion.

Shopping chaos can be avoided via e-commerce

The physical experience of “shopping” continues to morph into an entirely different beast as the amount of consumers using their smartphones to shop is expected to double, according to a recent survey by BigResearch.

Cyber Monday’s rising popularity is, of course, directly correlated to the increase in e-commerce and mobile shopping in general. Andrew Lipsman from ComScore points out that Cyber Monday was just the 12th-biggest online shopping day back in 2006, but it steadily rose throughout the years, reaching the No. 1 spot for the first time last year.

It was shop.org that dubbed the Monday online shopping extravaganza with the moniker “Cyber Monday” back in 2005. They used the term to identify the noticeable rise in online shopping sales the Monday after US Thanksgiving when it was suspected that consumers followed up with purchases they didn’t make over the weekend.

This isn’t actually that peculiar once you consider just how dramatically Cyber Monday’s mobile shopping has exploded in recent years. In fact, 3.6 million consumers used their phones to shop for deals in 2009, a number which is expected to triple to 17.8 million for 2011 and is double last year’s figures (7.3 million).

Do you have a Cyber Monday wish list? if so, will you be purchasing any or all of your must-haves via your mobile smartphone? Let us know on Twitter, @plasticmobile.

1. Don’t build an app just for the sake of building an app- Businesses are starting to recognize the enormous potential to interact with customers through the mobile platform. As this area expands everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon, especially if their competitors are already embracing the mobile space. The automatic reaction that I often witness is a panic stricken one attached to the words “I need an app… Can you make me an app?”. This reaction is also paired with the misconception that a ‘mobile strategy’ is essentially having an app. Examining the business model to determine the most relevant path into the mobile space, be it a mobile website, an application, or a mobile campaign of sorts might encourage businesses to be more objective with their approach.
2. An app will not solve all your mobile needs- Although an app can serve as a tool to utilize the mobile channel, businesses need a strategy that could come in the form of a combination of SMS campaigns (if need be), mobile websites, mobile commerce, mobile social programs and/or perhaps a tablet strategy.  Exploring mobile commerce capabilities, customer engagement practices, along with possible loyalty programs that are built into a mobile campaign would be a more comprehensive way to tackle mobile.
3. One size does not fit all: As a marketer you don’t need to reach far beyond your personal experience to figure out that mobile is different than the website/online experience. Apps or mobile websites are not just mini websites, and “porting” your site into an app/mobile websites is not a mobile strategy. Mobile devices are used differently, so you don’t just take all of your content and move it onto 320×240 pixel screen. Ask yourself: ‘how much time will my user spend navigating a website on their mobile device?’.  Be selective about what you put out in the mobile space and remember that generally less is more.  Also, take into consideration that mobile usage happens at different times of day, and in different settings for the user, so what you serve should be relevant to time and location.
4. If you build it they wont come: An app or a mobile website is like any other product which requires a promotion and distribution strategy. Identify your target audience, assess your distribution channels, and give your audience an incentive to use/download your product. It may seem elementary to point out that existing and potential customers aren’t psychic, and they’re certainly not browsing the various app stores to see if your brand has decided to offer mobile services.
5. Although this would suggest that you will need to build apps across the various platforms, its important to focus on the old principle of “quality over quantity”.  So if you are at a cross road and deciding between doing an HTML5 app that will work on all platforms, I would recommend that you go for quality (in native form), rather than quantity (in HTML5 form). Disclaimer: HTML5 can be very useful, even in-app, but must be handled with expert care and used for certain design patterns.

Last Sunday, we were in New York to celebrated our Webby win for our Pizza Pizza app. The Award show was hosted by the hilarious Lisa Kudrow. Every winner had the chance to give a 5 WORD acceptance speech. Check out the video below on what Plastic Mobile and Pizza Pizza said:

Our Melody Adhami (aka Queen of Apps) speaks with Rob Woodbridge for UNTETHER.tv. The interview discusses the fast growing pace of mobile, how companies should implement an effective mobile strategy, as well as predicting the future of the mobile space.

See video below. Here’s the full article.

(May 3^rd, 2011)  Plastic Mobile and Pizza Pizza are honored to win a Webby Award for their recently launched pizza ordering iPhone app. Under the category of Mobile Shopping for smartphones, the members of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences awarded the Webby to our Pizza Pizza app. This mobile ordering app was in the running with giant US brands such as Target, Walgreens, Consumer Reports, and Gilt.

In the entire category of mobile, both Plastic Mobile and Pizza Pizza are the only Canadian company to receive this prestigious award. “We are absolutely thrilled to receive this award and excited to represent Canada at the Webby Gala,” says Melody Adhami, co-founder of Plastic Mobile and crowned Queen of Apps, Globe & Mail.

The 15^th Annual Webby Awards attracted nearly 10,000 entries from all 50 US states and over 60 countries worldwide, as it’s the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet that includes mobile, websites, online film & TV, etc. The Pizza Pizza app has been ranked #1 Lifestyle app in the Apple iTunes store, and a favorite app among Canadians.

Share this news on Facebook and Twitter – use a shorten URL:

http://bit.ly/jefXOq

Our Twitter & Hashtag:
@PlasticMobile
@PizzaPizzaLTD
@TheWebbyAwards
#webbys

Download the Pizza Pizza app:
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/pizza-pizza/id425026119

Graphics of the app:

http://www.plasticmobile.com/media-pizza-pizza-iphone-app/

Media Contact for Plastic Mobile:

Salome Sallehy

Earlier this week, we got a call from Regan at Intel APPUp to showcase our mobile platform, Joomo, at AppNation in San Francisco. With much delight, we took the next flight and we were ready to roll at this two-day conference that is all about apps. It’s great to be surrounded by so many people in the app and mobile space.

We are in the process of launching Joomo for everyone to engage it…so stay tuned for more details.

Joomo is a web-based platform to easily develop mobile applications for smartphones and tablets devices based on a personal blog or website. Our goal is toempower content producers and bloggers to enter the mobile space without dealing with the heavy costs and compete with media conglomerates. In addition, users will have the opportunity to monetize on their apps with Joomo’s ad-network. The platform is flexible to allow anyone customize their own mobile app by using our easy to use tools.

If you are at AppNation, visit our pod. Or email me:  melody[at]plasticmobile.com

Our team huddled around the table when our own PlayBook arrived in the mail. Despite all the mediocre reviews on RIM’s tablet, the first day sales exceeded the low expectation.  Here’s a quote from Postmedia News:

“Checks of 70 retail stores found 11 per cent of the locations stocking the device were sold out, according to Mike Abramsky, analyst at RBC Capital Markets. He estimates day one sales of 50,000, including pre-orders, and that RIM is on track to ship 500,000 PlayBooks in the first quarter of fiscal 2012.”

In the next 60 days, there will be an update to offer PlayBook users stand-alone email, rather than having to go onto web-mail or the Gmail app. In the meantime, make sure to download our popular Rogers Sportsnet Hockeycentral app.

Check out the rest of the photos on our Flickr page

Plastic Mobile has teamed up with Rogers Sportsnet to develop a hard-hitting Hockeycentral application for the launch of RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook.

“With playoff hockey in full swing, this app will become your immediate guide for all hockey news and analysis,” says Melody Adhami, President of Plastic Mobile. “Being hockey fans, we really enjoyed working with the team at Sportsnet and Mobile product development at Rogers Digital Media to build the application for the launch of this exciting new tablet.”

Whether you’re a hockey buff or just jumping on the Playoff bandwagon – the Hockeycentral App for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ will be your mobile broadcast hub for all hockey highlights, scores, news, and analysis from top hockey insiders in the industry.  The app also includes breaking news on Twitter from the Rogers Hockeycentral panel as well as latest coverage and editorials. The app is available free in the BlackBerry App World on launch.

We are truly pleased with the outcome of the Hockeycentral App for the BlackBerry PlayBook and the immediate access to NHL news that we are providing hockey fans,” said Pary Bell, Vice President of Product, Rogers Digital Media. We are excited to release this dynamic and useful app just in time for the launch of the PlayBook and the Stanley Cup Playoffs.”

Avoid the penalty box and download the app here.

Tweet this release:
http://bit.ly/h3XRzP

@PlasticMobile
@RogersSportsnet

About Plastic Mobile

Plastic Mobile is an award-winning mobile marketing agency, working with some of North America’s best brands. Plastic Mobile expands their presence into the mobile space through innovative, cutting-edge strategies, user experiences and creative. They are known for many first-of-their-kind mobile initiatives, including launching the first video iPad app in Canada. Recognized for their exceptional client service, Plastic Mobile designs and delivers mobile applications and websites for all platforms, while achieving optimal results for their clients.

Founded in 2007, Plastic Mobile’s rapidly growing client list includes both Canadian and US companies, such as Rogers Communications, CBC, Unilever, Sportsnet, Liberty Science Center and Pizza Pizza. For more information on their services and client work, visit www.plasticmobile.com

##

Media Contact for Plastic Mobile:

Leila Pejman
Leila@plasticmobile.com
604.644.8293

April 4, 2011 — Pizza Pizza and Plastic Mobile Delivered a One of a Kind Pizza Ordering iPhone App.

Plastic Mobile has joined Pizza Pizza, Canada’s leading pizza chain, as their mobile agency to help build and launch an iPhone application to make ordering and delivering pizza both convenient and fast. This free app is available for all iPhone models, the iPod Touch, and the iPad. The app will let users build the pizza of their dreams; a half order of ham & pineapple and the other half Italian sausage, extra mushrooms, no cheese, and easy on the sauce? Looking to order a gluten-free pizza? Pay through your application or when it arrives. It all can be done with the Pizza Pizza iPhone App.

This innovative application will fundamentally change the ordering experience, making it fast, visual and convenient for the customer. By using location-based services (LBS) to locate the nearest Pizza Pizza restaurant, as well as allowing users to simply pay within the application, the app provides a seamless experience.

The application, delivered by Pizza Pizza and Plastic Mobile, can be downloaded from the App Store on iTunes. For more information on this app visit http://www.pizzapizza.ca/mobile.

Check out our news release here.

Plastic Mobile team had a great trip to South by Southwest Interactive. Austin, TX was buzzing with over 20,000 people traveling from around the world to attend the festival. We hopped from one panel to the next keynote speech to the various industry parties. Most importantly, we enjoyed connecting with talents in the digital space.

Over the last few years, SXSW has become a launch pad for many start-ups. Social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc all got their popularity boost from this festival. For the sake of mobile, here are some highlights from this year’s SXSW:

1) Group Messaging: Before the festival began, the hot thing expected for 2011 was ability to message an exclusive group of people. After SXSW, we still don’t think group messaging got its sex appeal (yet). It’s still a tool that people will find useful on the specific occasions. Beluga, Fast Society, Kik, Yobongo, and GroupMe were all contenders in the group messaging app battle. According to an infographic published in TechCrunch, GroupMe won at SXSW. Now, I’m not sure if the results were skewed since GroupMe were serving free beer and yummy grilled cheese sandwiches. Marketing is king at SXSW.

2) iPad 2: Opening day of SXSW fell on the same day that the iPad 2 became available in the US. Apple made it convenient for the fellow SXSW tech aficionados to get their hands on the latest tablet by opening up a pop-up store in the heart of downtown Austin. Yes, iPad 2 was heavily talked about at the festival. Plus, we saw a lot of tablets being held up in the air, as people were testing out its camera feature. (I hope this doesn’t become a trend) As expected, the iPad 2 was pretty much sold out…well, they only had 64G version in Austin.

3) Mobile app creator. Everyone wants to create a mobile application. Many bloggers and online publications have the influence but not the budget to invest on a mobile application. New platforms are coming out help alleviate that problem – so people can produce high-quality apps at an affordable price. Plastic Mobile will soon be launching its mobile platform called Joomo (pronounced “You-Mo”). It’ll create applications for all platforms on smartphones and tablets based on a site or blog. Learn more about Joomo by checking out our site (it’s in beta): www.joomo.com

4) QR Codes: The movie Source Code with Jake Gyllenhaal premiered at SXSW. Microsoft was a sponsor and used its Tag technology to promote the film. Essentially, Microsoft Tag is a form of QR Code where you scan the barcode and it’ll direct you to a specific site. The Source Code tag, took its users to a social game on Facebook. The game itself was based on the movie. Are we seeing a new trend for Hollywood in order to promote its films?

5) Deals: As Groupon leads the race on the daily deals space many other mobile applications are jumping on the bandwagon. Facebook has announced that they are testing daily deals in a few US cities. The co-founder of Foursquare, the geo-location mobile app, said in a SXSW presentation that they are aggressively looking into offering more deals for its users. All I have to say, let’s move away from the discounts on spas, massages, or bootcamp sessions. New deals please!

Tomorrow (March 2nd) is a big day for most Apple fans, the unveiling of the iPad 2. It seems earlier than expected. Maybe it’s a strategic plan to overshadow the popularity of the Motorola Xoom? We highly think so.

What should we expect from tomorrow’s Apple-a-palooza? I think we’ll be getting some new advancements but nothing too revolutionary that’ll make you want to sell your old iPad for the new one (unless, you’re a tech snob, and there is nothing wrong with that). Here are a few things to expect:

• With Steve Jobs away due to medical reasons, who’ll make the announcement of the iPad 2? Likely, the presentation will be from Phill Shiller, senior VP of worldwide product marketing at Apple Inc. The last time Jobs was ill, Shiller had revealed the iPhone 3GS.

• Yes, they’ll be a front facing camera, so that they can continue to promote their video calling app/software, FaceTime. Most are predicting there’ll be a rear-facing camera too; I’m still not sure if Apple will give in.
• It’ll be smaller and thinner, but nothing too drastic.
• The new device is expected to be faster, with a robust processor. Rumors say that Apple will use an A5 chip.
• Better and louder stereo speakers.
• Cheaper! Apple can afford to knock off at least $100 of the current price point. The price model of the iPad is one of its competitive advantages against the the other tablets.

As the battle of tablet continues, we’ll be watching the Apple conference tomorrow.

Imagine how convenient it’ll be to make payments at restaurants or stores with your iPhone or iPad! Imagine how great it’ll be to have a fast checkout process and not have to wait in line. According to Bloomberg’s report, Apple’s next iPhone and iPad are expected to have NFC technology.

NFC technology (near field communication) that is gaining popularity, allows various forms of data transfer between the iPhone and other NFC capable devices. NFC technology receives and sends out information at distances up to 4 inches. This means iPhone and iPad users will soon be able to make payments using NFC.

The key to this is iTunes, or better say the payment system within iTunes that is already in use by millions and millions of people around the world. By entering the payment service market, Apple has a massive opportunity. By including NFC into its iPhone and iPad, Apple could use its existing iTunes accounts and give consumers an alternative to traditional financial services by Visa, MasterCard and PayPal.

Right now, Apple has launched a prototype for the payment services by allowing smaller businesses to scan NFC-enabled devices.  Upcoming versions of the AT&T iPhone and iPad 2 are expected to have the technology enabled and the technology is anticipated to be available by mid 2011.

If Apple can nail NFC and tie it directly into their iTunes payment system, it could change everything. This can be an evolution of the payment system within iTunes.

This could be the greatest tactic they’ve ever pulled. Is it possible that Apple and iTunes will replace Visa and Mastercard? From our perspective, it seems unlikely that they will go that far due to the complications and the financial burden associated with giving consumers credit.  But I guess we will never know how far they will go and we will just have to wait and see!

While consumers’ expectations of smartphones are rising everyday, the mobile industry hasn’t educated consumers about the limitations of mobile devices and this has led to idealistic expectations of mobile phones and mobile ads. A part of their unrealistic expectations is that smartphones can do just about anything and everything for them.

Before the Smartphone’s boom, most cell phone owners were satisfied with only clear voice calls, fast texting, and simple games. But times have changed and consumers have great expectations from their mobile devices; they want the best smartphones at the lowest possible prices. They demand more features, better performance, the coolest apps, and indirectly the best mobile ads.

The competition in mobile OS market is intense and bloody! Everywhere you go, you see Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, or Symbian devotees trying to make their friends switch or upgrade; marketers and advertisers are adding mobile to their strategy; manufacturers and app developers fight for increased market presence; wireless carriers try their best to attract more customers, and basically everyone in the mobile industry is fighting for more profit, higher market share, or stronger presence.

As a result of this hype, today more than ever before, mobile advertising is up swinging. Mobile advertising campaigns have become the key to making money with mobile marketing. This means that the opportunities for making money are endless, but the question is how can you turn mobile ad campaigns into successful mobile marketing that puts money in your pocket?

How to best turn mobile ads to dollars?

Cell phone adoption rates, especially smartphone adoption rate are rising everyday, so is the importance of mobile advertising; therefore, marketers should keep in mind the necessary qualities in creating successful mobile ads.

Marketers should also bring into consideration that many consumers are still less than thrilled about ads on this very personal device. In order to increase the usefulness of the channel, mobile marketers must cater the features and formats of their mobile ads to their consumer’s preferences. Meaning that they should understand not only do consumers expect mobile ads to inform, but also they expect the mobile ad to provide relevant information tailored to their preferences.

According to a survey from Yahoo! and Nielsen Company, being informative was the most important quality of mobile ads for a wide variety of products and services. Relevancy was a relatively close second in most categories. Respondents cared relatively little about the graphical and multimedia elements of the ads. This contrasts with research on iPad advertising, which has shown that tablet users pay more attention to the look and feel of the ads and care more about the colors.

According to the InsightExpress “Digital Consumer Portrait” published in 2010, the heaviest mobile users generally did not find mobile banners annoying, while full-page ads were seen less favorably.

Based on the research that has been done on mobile ad campaigns and our expertise in this arena, we recommend marketers to focus on relevant information for their mobile ad. A smartphone user’s satisfaction of mobile ads will only improve if the mobile industry releases flawless, informative, relevant mobile ads that truly offer excellent value and choice for the user.

As mobile ads are getting millions of clicks and eyeballs, it’s important to create an ad that meets users expectation. Time on a mobile ad with a brand is a great deal for a retailer; it is a very intimate experience exploring a brand on such a personal device; isn’t it?

Happy Birthday to the Mac!

Apple introduced the very first Macintosh on January 24, 1984, beginning an era that is still going strong 27 years later. Steve Jobs introduced the Apple Macintosh on January 24, 1984 and received wild applause from the crowd of 3,000 people. It was originally introduced simply as the Apple Macintosh and was re-branded as the Macintosh 128K when its big brother, the Macintosh 512K, was introduced in September 1984.

Apple has evolved it’s business beyond the Macintosh computers and has revolutioned the music and mobile industries with the introduction of the iPod, iPhone and iPad. In the latest earnings release, apple revealed that their new iPad device has sold close to $15M.

The iPad is definitely a hit based on the reports & iPhone sales are coming in ahead of estimates. In addition to these, Apple’s App Store has just posted its 10 billionth download, just two and half years after the store opened in July 2008.

Up to this point, consumers have largely driven Apple’s iPhone & iPad growth, and these technologies are said to be creeping into corporate world.

For those that want to relive a piece of history, here is the demo of the first Apple Macintosh by Steve Jobs. Demo of the first Mac computer by Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder and chief executive of Apple Company hasn’t exactly been in the best shape for a while now. Mr. Jobs, 55, who recovered from pancreatic cancer after surgery in 2004, has not appeared at public events since October. He appears considerably skinnier these days & now he’s taking time out.

Steve Jobs sent out an e-mail message to all Apple employees saying that he is taking “a medical leave of absence”, so that he can focus on his health. He says that he will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company; only, he’ll do it from home. This is the third time he is taking a step back in less than a decade. Whether Steve Jobs returns or not, he will definitely be hard to replace; it was because of him & his extremely talented team that the company succeeded over the past years.

Steve Jobs’s perseverance, management style, innovative qualities, creativity, outlook on design, charisma, and overall business “know how” can’t simply be replaced. His unique & great qualities have made him the technological guru of his time and of technology today.

Steve Jobs kept the development of products like the iPhone 4 and iPad on track, increased Macintosh computers sales and improved Apple’s financial performance during an economic downturn; his performance has always been a heavy dose of reassurance for the investors. He succeeded many negotiating grounds because of the strength of his personality. The persuading & negotiating role that he has is very important, as Apple seeks to become a bigger power in media distribution. It would be hard for anyone in the industry to have a comparable level of influence as Steve Jobs does.

Of course no one expects Apple to suffer in the short term, as the company has a long product cycle. But we don’t know what will happen over the long term if Mr. Jobs does not return. The problem here isn’t the operations of Apple and their ability to keep doing what they’ve been doing; the problem here is that Steve Jobs’ inspiration is irreplaceable. With all his unique characteristics and talents, and the breakthrough innovation he introduced to Apple, we are not sure if anyone can fill his shoes.

He changed many lives for the better. We hope he’s back on his feet soon and returns to work at Apple.