2016; capitalizing on the platforms
As always I like to look forward to the new year. Starting with a look back at the predictions of last year. I have to say that I was pretty accurate last year. Check it yourself.
So to sum up I think the home will be the main playground of the digital developments in 2015, with the internet of daily life as silent revolution. Impacting some of our habits and devices we use. The move to private messaging communities will have big impact and next to that we could be really preparing for a new sensing communication language that will however fly later.
More than ever the first seeds were planted for the things to happen later, like in 2016. As the messaging as platform, a lot is said on that in 2015 and is happening big time in China. It will definitely execute in 2016.
The new platforms for our smart homes as silent revolution is also something that happened with a couple of players. Samsung got into the market with the acquisition of SmartThings, the new Apple TV as platform can be seen as a move into the home, Amazon Echo products, and of course NEST platform from Google. That one is the most interesting to watch. It is clear that Google is trying to enter the home to collect user data there. Nothing secret there anymore. The big question is what they will do with the data. Expect more products and services connected to the platform to generate data. Leveraging the platform as service to — for instance — advertisers will follow later (2017). I am very interested if Google will make some serious steps in making the new invisible design patterns for data driven real life products at the next I/O.
Apple is also always interesting to take as reference for predictions. Everyone predicting the future talks on Artificial Intelligence as the thing to go big in 2016. Apple will try to play an important role. The way they build in more helping functionality in iOS building on your data is paving the way for more serious AI driven services. We will also see the first tangible products that use the SDK for making the product smart. If the SDK is opened up of course to external use…
The same goes for haptics. I was right last year that the integration of haptics in Apple Watch is important but very basic. With the roll-out of 3D touch to the phone and laptop will continue this year. Only if there is a serious installed base we can expect to open up the possibilities of haptic to use for real functions instead of the limited possibilities now. Expect that with iOS10.
Twitter is in decline. Not falling yet in 2016 but if they do not find a new purpose it will be hard in the years after. It moved very rapidly to Instagram, and Snapchat.
Snapchat did grow strong in 2015 indeed, even more than expected. Will continue to do so and is more and more adopted with broader audiences. There will be more discussion on the business model of the service. A connection can be made with VR. 2015 was not yet the year for VR breakthrough but certainly the first steps are taken to have a bigger impact in 2016. Snapchat is showing how to augment real video with animations. It is acclaimed they storing the visual information of our faces as valuable data. VR concepts could very well leverage that. Expect some examples on that.
A lot more can be said on 2016 and beyond, but I keep it to this. The platforms created in 2015 will start to collect our behavioral data and will offering helpful services as tradeoff. We will start to get used to have a dialogue with the products we use, and have more tangible interactions at the same time.
I hope we will remain gaining more awareness on the systems we live in and the consequences our behavior has. Just using the P word without offering actionable tools is not useful. We will see new forms of design thinking on systems (like design for agency, meta design, playful), good signposts for some increased literacy in 2016.
Have a great 2016!
