A new identity for net neutrality

Bloomberg Business Week gave some top design firms about 24 hours to come up with alternative identities for net neutrality. You can see the result here, and read more about our contribution below.

Net neutrality is a belief not a product and as such it can't really be branded. So what if the net neutrality 'brand' was more of a movement, brought to life with a series of disruptions? A reminder of our freedom, a slap in the face to wake up and a celebration of the amazing nature of the internet. In our version, you'd click on ‘internet is ours' and be are invited to add a pixel to the virtual tapestry. You can then create your own intervention by linking the tapestry to your homepage, or covering your company logo. Every time someone comes across it they can click and add their own pixel. All you need is a Facebook page. The campaign will spread in glorious, disruptive colour across the web. A simple reminder that we all own the internet.

With thanks to

Anthony Galvin, Technical Director Neil Cummings, Creative Director Chris Moody, Creative Director

Can Apple take health and fitness wearables mainstream?

By Anthony Galvin

Apple’s Keynote announcement provided much more detail about Apple's approach to health and fitness tracking. Although many software features and APIs linked to the 'Health Kit' software were announced at WWDC in June, it's only now that we are able to see how this fits into Apple's functionally integrated eco-system.

The new iPhone has a dedicated health and fitness (M8) co-processor (tasked with tracking movement) and uses 'native' GPS functionality to understand the amount and the type of activity a user achieves during the day. Combined with heart rate monitoring and additional motion tracking in the Apple Watch, developers now have a huge amount of data available.

The list of start-ups, app developers and innovative businesses who think that health and fitness tracking hardware and software represents the future of wellness is a long one. But this is already a crowded market with the likes of Fitbit, Jawbone and Polar already forcing established players such as Nike to rethink their approach. At the time of writing the #1 paid app in the UK Apple app store is a £1.49 health and fitness app - Apple knows how much money health and fitness is worth to the developer community (and how much it makes through App Store revenues).

But the challenge for many in this space is not getting people to part with their well earned cash, but to convince people to continue to use (and recommend) their products. Some reports claim that between 50% and 75% of users stop using their wearable device within six months. 

With Health Kit, Apple and its developers are hoping to use the fact that your phone (and or watch) is always with you to create new metrics and supercharge existing apps such as Nike+ or Strava, all without users having to do anything more than carry a phone or wear a watch.

Whilst Apple are not the first phone and device manufacturers to incorporate fitness data into their products, by creating a simple way for users track and interact with powerful data and complex metrics they may have helped fast forward the category beyond the fitness enthusiasts and brought health wearables into the mainstream.

Photo via Apple