Five User Interface Advances to Watch in 2008

Credit Apple's iPhone for vaulting the user interface to the forefront of the mobile web experience. During his keynote appearance earlier this month at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, AT&T Mobility president and CEO Ralph de la Vega called the iPhone "a game-changer," noting that since AT&T exclusively launched the device in mid-2007, mobile data consumption has skyrocketed. According to de la Vega, 95 percent of iPhone owners regularly surf the web, even though 30 percent had never done so prior to iPhone ownership. In addition, 51 percent have viewed videos via YouTube, and nine out of 10 rated the device better than their previous handset. "There isn't a device that's easier to use," de la Vega said. "[The iPhone] proves that price resistance is only as strong as the user experience is weak."

Now that the iPhone has made simplicity and elegance fashionable, the mobile industry must next make its services and devices even easier to use. Here are five mobile UI advances setting the stage for a better mobile user experience:

• Modu [1]
• Skyfire [2]
• ModeShift [3]
• Zeemote JS1 [4]
• TouchFLO [5]