Table of Contents
- Summary
- Health and fitness: the new platform war in mobile
- Can Apple Pay pry open mobile payments for others?
- The battle for the mobile enterprise is finally heating up
- Beacons: a boon to retailers or the bane of consumers?
- Key takeaways
- About Colin Gibbs
- About GigaOm
- Copyright
1. Summary
Some important developments and trends in 2014 have laid the foundation for a particularly eventful year in mobile in 2015. Apple, Google, Samsung, and WebMD, for instance, all launched initiatives that signaled the arrival of health and fitness as a crucial new platform for mobile apps, services, and devices.
Other important trends to consider as we enter 2015 include:
- Apple has begun to make headway in a mobile payments market that Google, PayPal and others have failed to crack. The company will continue to make progress next year, likely blazing a trail for at least one of its competitors.
- Apple and IBM took aim at the enterprise with a collaboration to develop apps and sell iPhones and iPads to businesses and other organizations. Apple’s iOS threatens to become the platform of choice in the mobile enterprise, and Google will continue to move aggressively to keep pace.
- Retailers are rushing to deploy beacons in an effort to engage their customers via smartphones as those users walk through the store. While beacon-based systems are a promising mobile-marketing tool, they may initially see better adoption in venues such as museums, amusement parks, and mass-transit hubs.
Thumbnail image courtesy of audioundwerbung/iStock.