Quick background – I have an iPhone 4 and my wife uses an Android.  When I bought my iPhone my 7 year old daughter was straight into it, touching the screen, downloading free games from the App store and without any problems or instruction – amazing.

Gave her the Android and the questions started flying.  Mainly around the size of the icons, the way the interface works and the not intuitive marketplace which is the Androids App store.

Now let’s jump to the other end of the age scale and give the same devices to my 90 year old Grandma.  Same story as my daughter.
You could take a number of generalizations from this basic test, but what strikes me is that maybe that is exactly how Apple tests their new products.  They stick a bunch of 7 year olds in a room with the latest product, the other room is full of the over 80′s and then the fun begins.

I believe their secret is if you can make a product that can be used by those two generations, then you cover all your bases and sell millions of devices!

Now if the Google Andriod team & Microsoft Windows Mobile team did the same thing as Apple, instead of using 18-35 year old test groups – they would have formidable products.  I guess time will tell!

Let the smart phone war continue…

One of the best tools they offer is the Google Analytics tool.

“Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you’re more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites ”

An extremely powerful tool, and if you take the time to understand how to use this, you can become an SEO guru.

Visit the Google Analytics home page here

http://www.apple.com/nz/ipad/gallery/ads.html

The development team at Harcourts and Orsome Software are really proud to be one of the apps chosen by Apple to appear on their TV advertising campaign

We have also built another application called eCampaign which is used by our sales consultants to help market and appraise our customers property

I see 2011 as being another big year for mobile applications and Harcourts will be pursuing more developments in this area including targeting Android devices

I believe the answer is now no.  All you really need is a wireless broadband connection so you hook up your Macbook / iPad/ iPhone / PC / Laptop and your mobile phone.
Most people give out their mobile phone number as their first point of contact and if you’re like many of the Gen X & Y, you give out your Skype name or Windows Live Messenger ID.

So your grandparents can’t get hold of you now, but who cares, you don’t want them calling you anyway – just kidding, you should be visiting them face to face.

For me, I love keeping in touch with my brother-in-law in Taiwan via Skype, my friend in Perth Australia via Messenger, and my work colleague in Orange County CA via Skype Video calls.

With my friends in New Zealand, a lot of communication is via Facebook, and the majority of young and old are texting via their mobile phone.

My best guess is 4-6 years life span on the old land line phone and it could be even quicker with Telecom New Zealand rolling out some very competitive Google Android phones and 2 degrees offering pre-pay data plans for smart phones.

Will I miss the landline?  No way.  However, I do miss the original 10 hole dialer phone that would take a minute just to dial the numbers.  I see this turning up as a retro phone!