As the rest of the team predicted, it's going to be a crazy year of evolution in the mobile world, especially for consumers. As I watch my parents socialize with their peers about which apps they've downloaded lately, I feel that this quote from last year rings even truer this year: "We are reaching the sweet spot as the penetration of a [mobile] technology reaches [the masses]". It's a sweet time to be in the industry for sure. Here are some specifics I see happening this year:

1. Death of the 'smartphone'
   There was a time when you had to be somebody 'important' to own a

(Guest Post by Amit Lubovsky, Co-founder and VP of Business Development and Marketing at tawkon)

Our company tawkon is focused on radiation tracking, specifically on detecting phone radiation emission on mobile devices. Especially as mobile devices are being relied on for more and more, radiation is a growing concern among consumers. When you make calls or browse the web, your phone emits radiation in various levels, depending on your circumstances and even the model of the phone. We monitor those levels and offers suggestions for lowering them before and during calls (disclaimer: while

Looking at the amount of new Apps that are published for Apple and Android each month, we can roughly estimate a new app comes out every 1-2 minutes.  Obviously, this is a lot to compete with so developers need to keep differentiation on their mind. There are many different ways to differentiate, but one of the most overlooked differentiators is haptic feedback. Haptics also happens to be one of the simplest and effective features to add to your Android application.

Integrating Haptics into an App
Tactile Haptic feedback is the vibration a phone creates, and now Immersion has recently

As it’s time for predications and reflections I always go back to my previous predictions to see how I made out.  And contrary to the belief of Strand Consulting, they are not the only ones to publish their previous years, so you can see how I made out too! 

Here are the highlights and  links to those predictions:
2011 – Year of APIs, Growth of Discovery, Less BlackBerry, Less Android, More iPhone
2010– a Thibaut/Caroline combo here.  I declared:  More Android, More BlackBerry, Less iPhone, More Innovation/More funding
2009 Tough economic times, Access the new open, Less US centric,

Developers continue to be in hot demand as we enter 2012 with many events eager to cater to them - so many events it is becoming much harder to choose which to attend.  I see operators/carriers doing more and more to attract developers to their SDKs and APIs.  A couple of years ago, only a few were hosting developer events; now all are hosting at least one per year with many additional hackathons, seminars and workshops.

Much more emphasis will be placed on how developers can make money with their applications.  More events with this focus will be forthcoming in 2012 and beyond.  All