Throwback Thursday: From Large Mobile Phones to Small Mobile Phones...and Back to Large?

Photo Credit: postris.com

Happy Throwback Thursday!

With all the buzz around the announcement of the new iPhone 6, and the competition releasing their new smartphones on the market, it seems fitting to look back at the beginning designs of mobile phones. 

To the left you can see the progression of mobile phones. When Motorola first put out their cell phone, it was almost bigger than a house phone, but as time went on, they recognized the demand for smaller phones. Likewise, other major cell phone manufacturers followed suit and kept trying to make mobile phones smaller and smaller. 

As you can see in today's generation, mobile phones are turning into smartphones, and those smartphones are reverting back to the 'bigger is better' motto. Apple typically remained the same size, but with their latest iPhone, the screen is much larger than previous models. It is comparable to Samsung's Galaxy Note smartphones. With all the features and capabilities, developers needed to adapt the user interface to better fit all of the functionality. 

Similar to smartphones, the User Interfaces (UI) of Virtual Agents have progressively changed over the course of time to better accommodate users. In the past, Virtual Agent interfaces were text on a DOS screen, and eventually evolved to look very similar to AOL instant messenger. Now, Virtual Agents have become more sleek, can include multi-pane U.I.'s, avatars and promotions, the potential for speech capabilities, predictive text, and much more. In the past, Virtual Agents found their home on a website, and were best accessed from a laptop or computer; however, today, Virtual Agents make so much sense for the mobile customer experience (right, Siri?).

The user interface is not the only thing that is constantly updated; the administrative tools have also come a long way. For example, Virtual Agents can now integrate with third-party platforms, provide custom reporting, and with the Internet of Everything now in play, the capabilities are endless.  

What do you think the future of user interfaces will look like? How do you think the Internet of Everything will play a role in device designs?  
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How Will Amazon's Fire Phone Compare to the Rest? Should "MayDay" Evolve into a Virtual Assistant?

A couple weeks ago, Amazon unveiled their latest device to hit the market soon, the Fire Phone. As noted in the video, it has the look of standard smartphones, but inhabits a couple new features unique to the Fire Phone. For example, Dynamic Perspective takes 3D display technology to a whole new level. "The display is meant to give viewers a sense of looking deeper into the screen (technically called positive parallax) rather than creating images that "jump out" (negative parallax)." (How 'Dynamic Perspective' Brings 3D to the Amazon Fire Phone). 

With innovative components such as Dynamic Perspective and Firefly (a universal product scanner that allows you to identify and buy objects, in real time), you would think Amazon has a chance to compete with the top brands in the smartphone space (e.g. Samsung, Apple, and more). But with all these new features, a lot of technical support questions will follow. Similar to Amazon's Kindle Fire HDX, the Fire Phone will have a MayDay button to provide 24/7, live support via video chat. Using this as a first line of defense for support can quickly become expensive and time consuming. According to an analyst, Dan Miller, at Opus Research, "If the MayDay 'rep' continues to be a live agent, it will be a matter of training, workforce optimization and knowledge management. Yet I still maintain that, for MayDay to be done right, it is just a matter of time before it turns into a fully automated intelligent assistant, in which case it will depend on advances in life-like automated speech, natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML)." (Amazon's "Fire" Phone and MayDay Will Redefine "Mobile Assistance"). 

With the increasing volume of MayDay users approaching, do you agree that Amazon will need to turn MayDay into a Virtual Assistant? What about  the absence of a 'butler-style' Virtual Assistant (i.e. Siri, Google Now, Cortana, etc.). Will this effect sales and/or user satisfaction? Leave a comment and let us know what you think. 

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