Are mobile apps becoming more practical?

Nice personal plug from Chris over at Delirious Acorn who picked up our recent release of a beta version of Mobile Movie Times. Notable because Chris is studying cognitive science and also because this is exactly the kind of dialogue we wanted to spark industry-wide in releasing our first mobile application.

Cupertino-based Mobio Networks recently released what promises to be a very successful mobile application that enables users to receive essential information pertaining to movies showing in their area and purchase tickets. Not impressed? Well, the most promising thing about Mobile Movies Times is that it may force developers to reconsider their present efforts and spend more time working on the UI, and more importantly, the entire user experience. Present mobile apps tend to be sluggish and unintuitive, and are often cluttered by necessary menus and options. In short, mobile apps are designed as if you’ll be viewing them on your 100″ LG/Phillips LCD. Mobile Movie Times features a streamlined interface that embraces the fact that people using mobile apps don’t want to be using mobile apps, and completely focuses its effort on completing a specific task initiated by the user. The app is flexible enough, however, that pertinent additional information is available (i.e. cinema directions, showtimes, movie synopses).

I hope we can expect the one year old startup to produce additional apps with a similar philosophy. Earlier this year, Mobio was able to secure $8M in funding, and in late August, they hired Marcia Kadanoff as VP of Marketing. Kadanoff helped raise $100M in funding for Everypath (another mobile solutions company) before founding the consulting firm Firewhite in 2002.