2014 mobile trends: Anticipatory computing
It's no secret that the power of mobile lies in its close proximity to the end user. Mobile devices are with us virtually every minute of each day, helping us to navigate through our daily lives, communicate with friends, access information and even shop, along with an endless list of other activities. But 24/7 access to the web at our fingertips is only scratching the surface when it comes to the true promise of mobile.
The real beauty of the medium is that it can help marketers to better understand the context of our daily lives. Through data points like location, app usage, search queries and purchase patterns, marketers can piece together our behaviors and preferences and understand the motivations behind our mobile engagement and purchases. Once they have this information, they can then act on it in a much more powerful way, anticipating our needs before we even know that they exist.
Predicting people's mobile behaviors is more scientific than reading a crystal ball
This means we will have to worry less about doing everyday tasks from checking weather, doing groceries, getting to our next meeting or catching a flight at the airport. We can simply sit back and let or mobile devices magically tell us what to do, when and even how.
This concept, known as "anticipatory computing," has been gaining traction in the last year, but its true potential won't be unleashed until 2014. This is due to a convergence of factors this year that will make the mobile ecosystem ripe for the concept.
1. Ubiquity of wearable technology
For anticipatory computing to truly take off, there needs to be a treasure trove of data available on mobile devices. To date, most of the excitement has been around location and, to a lesser extent, app usage data, but that only gives marketers partial insight into what a person is doing. The explosive growth of wearables will change this reality by giving them a better sense of someone's physical state and mindset through the myriad of sensors that are worn on their body. As I noted back in August:
[...] An altimeter can tell us when someone is in an elevator, flying in a plane, or climbing a mountain. Similarly, a health tracker can identify movement and stress levels, a microphone can detect noisy environments, and an air meter can differentiate between indoor and outdoor spaces.
The opportunities to anticipate these human states and take proactive action on them are endless. For example, apps could send us alerts to take medication when our stress levels go up, advice on breathing while we're going or warnings about excessive noise levels at concerts. In a similar manner, they can send us contextual notifications as we're driving or when we're kicking back on a couch in the evening.
There's also a myriad of opportunities around smart devices which can anticipate our presence or a change in our environment. A smart thermostat like Nest can prepare for our arrival at home by heating up the space, the front door can be unlocked through a proximity sensor as we approach it and a smart microwave can heat our dinner to perfection as we walk in. With the launch of iBeacons, a greater sensitivity to our presence will be extended to local and retail environments, with companies like Macy's and MLB already testing the technology to improve the in-store and in-stadium experience.
Once again, the real value that companies will create is not by reacting to the context, but rather predicting how things will change and serving up the right solution.
2. Better mobile hardware
Not to be overshadowed by wearable technology, the hardware that powers mobile devices will become even more sophisticated to better capture our physical and emotional states as well as our surrounding environment.
Apple is leading the field by introducing the M7 Core Motion sensor in the iPhone 5S, which runs continuously in the background to track various motion data while remaining independent from the phone's regular processor. This is an evolution from the existing sensors that Apple pioneered - including the proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope - which were only activated in specific scenarios due to battery limitations. The Moto X has done something similar with a dedicated microphone chip which always tracks noise levels.
The implications of better mobile hardware are similar to wearable technology, but in some cases even more powerful given the mix of sensors available on a smartphone. As David Talbot of MIT Technology Review points out, an always-on motion processor allows us to identify specific gestures and movement patterns that signal intent and then act on them in the appropriate manner.
Given these rapid improvements in mobile hardware, it's clear that ambient intelligence is here to stay. As Google, Samsung and other device manufacturers introduce better mobile sensors in 2014, marketers will tap into this data to better serve their customers.
3. More inventive apps
The final piece of the puzzle in anticipatory computing will be the app layer. Perhaps the most successful example of the concept in action to date has been Google Now, which taps into it Google's massive information trove across its various product lines (Search, Gmail, Drive, Weather, etc.) to unearth information that is both useful and contextual to the end user. The beauty of Google Now is that it just works, serving up cards with weather forecasts, driving directions, package delivery status and stock prices, to name a few. The system also learns from behavioral patterns to infer someone's home and work locations, without asking for them.
But Google is not the only game in town, with Foursquare joining the mix as well. Last December, the company announced a complete overhaul of its app which proactively makes recommendations to people based on where they've been and what they've done. Rather than relying on people to check-in, its user intent engine crunches contextual and historical data to determine what someone may like and notifies them via push notifications. The idea is to make the experience more frictionless and effortless by tapping into data that is already available.
There has also been a rise in calendar and personal assistant apps like Sunrise, Refresh, Donna and Cue, which focus on optimizing our daily schedules (Semil Shah wrote on the topic a few months ago). On Android, apps like Cover and Aviate are providing a more contextual experience with a slightly different approach: by personalizing our lock screens to reflect our location and app usage patterns. As the anticipatory computing space heats up with the acquisition of Cue by Apple a few months ago (presumably to compete with Google Now) and Aviate by Yahoo just yesterday, there will undoubtedly be many more.
In 2014, apps will find more creative ways to anticipate our needs by:
Tapping into new sources of data from hardware sensors and wearable technology, especially as new APIs and app stores become available (Pebble is slating its app store launch for end of January 2014)
Deriving better insights from their own data as well as third-party data that they can access, which will require the expertise of data scientists
Thinking about ways they can collect this information as an invisible background process, rather than thinking about active user engagement
SUMMARY
In 2014, the true promise of mobile - instant, personal access to the end user - will be more apparent than ever before. But to truly take advantage of the opportunity, app developers and marketers will need connect with their end users on a much deeper level and embrace the notion of anticipating their needs, rather than asking for information outright. The rise of wearable technology and more powerful devices will provide them with all of the data to make this possible, but it will be up to them to use it in a creative (and responsible) way.
Apps like Google Now, Sunrise and Cover have already tested the waters of anticipatory computing and demonstrated stellar results. But there's still a huge opportunity to disrupt new industries with the concept and simplify people's lives, from travel and retail to healthcare and automotive. As we move into 2014, it will be exciting to watch as more startups bring delight and magic to the mobile experience.
Note: This is the third article is my series on 2014 mobile trends. You can also read about Unifying app discovery and The rise of the mobile marketing manager.
