Think ecosystem

(This is part of my series on what I learned at the Fluxible conference over the weekend.)

Michal Levin of Google talked about the growing interactivity of devices, and what that means for app development. She said...

In our new era of connectivity, we'll increasingly be designing apps not for a phone or a PC, but for an ecosystem of device types (phone, tablet, PC, TV and... who knows). Here are three new design models:

• Consistent design - For apps like Trulia, which have versions for the PC, tablet and phone. All should have a similar IA, navigation model, and look-and-feel.
  
• Complementary design - For apps where devices control or influence each other. For example, with KC Dashboard you use a phone to throw darts at a dart board on a tablet. Some other examples interact with a TV: Real Racing 2, Slingbox, Heinekin Star Player.
  
• Continuous design - When you start a process on one device and then move to others. For example, All Recipes starts on a web site (probably viewed on a PC) where users choose recipes for a meal. The web site downloads a shopping list to a phone, and downloads recipe instructions to a tablet.

The ecosystem approach is just getting started, but we should all be aware of it and plan for it. For example:

• If you are creating an app for a single device type, you should consider ways to make it scalable and flexible for the future.
  
• You may need to use cloud computing for the data sync required by multi-device coordination.
  
• Some companies should consider changing their corporate structure so that development for phones, tablets and PCs is not done in separate divisions.
  
• The ecosystem concept will expand as computer chips become ubiquitous in home appliances; as their use in cars improves; etc.

In his closing keynote, Dan Gardenfors of TAT picked up on Michal's idea of future extensions to our online world. He envisioned a world of public computing where screens are everywhere (on buildings, bus shelters, bus windows, etc). One of the uses of these public screens could be to have the ability to screen whatever we are watching on our phone. Other uses will be advertising and public information. He suggested we start thinking in terms of a mobile computing platform rather than a platform for mobile devices.