MWC Key Trends

1. 

   Jide Sobo, Head of Mobile at MEC Interaction

   It’s just dumb glass

Hardware continues to be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, and the big excitement is around the services that can be accessed on the device, rather than the device itself..

Samsung’s S7 is a definite evolution of the S6, with waterproofing being the main improvement.

LG appears to have picked up where Google left off with Project Ara, by releasing the LG G5, a revolutionary modular design allowing the bottom of the phone to be removed, and additional modules to be added. For example, adding a professional camera attachment,  allowing manual focus and zooming, or an audio unit, designed in conjunction with Bang & Olufsen.

AD BLOCKING: THE END OF QUALITY CONTENT, OR A CALL TO RE-IMAGINE ONLINE ADS?

Jide Sobo, Head of Mobile at MEC Interaction

The behavior of avoiding ads has been with us for a long time, in fact, probably since the first ad was developed! I think it has now entered into urban myth status, that the National Grid sees its biggest spike in power at half time in the FA Cup final, as everyone watching at home goes to the kitchen, puts the kettle on, and avoids the ads. Back in the 90’s we had the curse of the pop-up ad, which led to the development of third party pop-up blocking software. By 2004, most web browsers had pop-up blockers built in as standard and another era of ad avoidance came to an end. Of course, before pop-up ads, people had been avoiding TV ads by fast forwarding through the ad breaks on programs they had recorded on their VHS recorder, and they are now doing the same with services such as Sky+.