Ooh, now here’s an interesting idea. Apps are one of the cornerstones of the modern smartphone, but the way it normally works, from what I can gather, is developers saying “we think this is what people want”, then making it work, then getting it out onto phones. The same with manufacturers, they try to give us what they think we want in our phones.
Sony Ericsson are taking a different tack, as seen in this video. They’re asking us, the end users of the world, what we want in our phones:
That’s a rather nice idea, that is. Off the top of my head, I can’t ever think of a manufacturer actually stopping and saying, “Hang on… what do you guys want your phone to do?”
So, to achieve that, Sony Ericsson have set up an initiative called SE-dot, with a website dedicated to giving us the chance to make our own dreams (well, okay, dreams is probably going a bit far) a reality. The idea behind it is: people come up with ideas for what they want their phones to do, other people help develop those ideas, someone gets their backside in gear and makes that idea come to life. From what I can see, it’s best to think of it as a community-based app-development thinktank-project-collective-hippy commune-type thingy. I’ve got no idea what phones are supported, but the image on the video is a Sony Ericsson Satio, and the apps on their site seem to be coded in Java, so it’s fair to assume Symbian, Java and Sony Ericsson’s own Project Capuchin programming environment are supported.
I have to wonder whether Android and Windows Phone will be supported in future. Here’s hoping.
So yes, if you have suggestions on what you’d like your phone to do, get yourself over to the website, and get those ideas flowing!
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March 9th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Thanks a lot for posting our video! Hopefully your readers will have some great ideas on how to use the mobile to make life better! It’s a great place to share ideas and we think we can capture people’s imagination with the site.
We’re actively encouraging the developer community to participate in SE-dot and we hope that they’ll be developing apps for all those operating systems as Sony Ericsson has phones running them all.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Why, you’re very welcome!
I’m digging the whole user participation thing, so yes, everybody reading this, get yourselves over there and give SE-dot your ideas! Do it. DO IT NOW!
Also, yes, I’m excited that someone from Sony Ericsson has actually responded to a blog post I wrote!