Ixonos has launched Ixonos Super App™, which combines the best online content with the most useful functionalities and creates unparalleled user experiences by harnessing the pull of social networks. With the help of Ixonos Super App, the user can enjoy the functionality of several ‘regular’ apps simultaneously, on top of seamless interaction with social networks, without the need to login to or use separate apps. The solution also allows the use of several layers within a single user interface. It has been created with patent-pending technology and a fully customizable user interface, all in-house.

“The market of an estimated 1.3 million apps, available in 250+ application stores, is currently overflowed by one-trick-pony apps. With well thought-out, customized Super Apps, we aim to deliver next-generation app experiences that have lasting appeal to consumers as well as offer a way for companies to truly stand out and significantly increase their customer loyalty and brand engagement”, says Sami Paihonen, head of User Experience Design at Ixonos.

The world of competitive sports, for example, is particularly suitable for utilizing the power of the Super App concept. “Sporting events are ideal for creating repeated use cycles for apps”, explains Julian Harris, head of the UK design studio at Ixonos. “Sports fans follow games faithfully and have heightened interest before, during and after each game. This means that sports apps are likely to capture the fan’s interest during the whole playing season and also from season to season”, he continues. In the same way, Super Apps serve well the purposes of music and other cultural events, and they can be used to build customer engagement for clothing and lifestyle brands.

Ixonos also offers support in strategic planning: “Super Apps will allow us to gain information on how and when consumers engage with them. We can turn this intelligence into fail-safe viral marketing campaigns for our customer companies”, Mr Harris adds. Super Apps will be a cost-effective way to broaden a company’s digital marketing towards its existing customers and also to target new consumer groups.

Ixonos has productized the concept, and the company offers the design and delivery of customized Super Apps to customers via a licensing model, as a part of the Ixonos App Agency™ service. The patent-pending technology will allow Ixonos to roll out customized super apps in just one month as well as to implement them on a variety of platforms and on all types of wireless devices.

Ixonos launches the new product to the visitors to the Mobile Show Middle East in Dubai on 17–18 April 2012. At the event, Ixonos will be showcasing engaging Super App demos at its exhibition booth 342 at the Madinat Arena. Visitors get a chance to interact with a Super App created for an ice hockey team and built on the iOS native client as well as with a demo that utilizes the platform-agnostic HTML5 technology and is targeted at rugby enthusiasts.

For more information, please contact:

Sami Paihonen, Vice President, User Experience Design, tel. +358 50 502 1111, sami.paihonen@ixonos.com

Julian A D Harris, Creative Director, UK Design Studio, tel. +44 7843 725 809, julian.harris@ixonos.com

Esa Nettamo, Creative Director, Finland Design Studio, tel. +358 40 543 1195, esa.nettamo@ixonos.com

Ixonos has created the world’s first 3D engine designed to offer sustainable beauty with natural and pleasant user experiences. The Ixonos 3D Engine™ is now ready to deliver customized 3D user interfaces for devices of all shapes and sizes – platform and chipset agnostically. Ixonos offered an exclusive preview of the engine’s capabilities by showcasing two reference 3D user interface designs to the visitors at the Mobile World Congress in February. Now Ixonos brings the demos also to Beijing for the Intel Developer Forum on 11–12 April 2012.

At the height of the 3D user interface boom, Ixonos concentrated on what consumers want and need from their wireless devices and came to the conclusion that excellent usability overrules visual flair. “Everyone knows that 3D technology enables the creation of stunning visuals, but according to our user experience, philosophy pretty isn’t enough: 3D functionalities should also improve the user experience for the consumer”, says Sami Paihonen, head of User Experience Design at Ixonos.

The Ixonos 3D Engine was specifically designed to enhance the way consumers interact with touch screen devices. “By mimicking the way objects behave in the physical world, we have been able to create foreseeable interactions that match users’ expectations and therefore feel natural to the consumer”, Mr Paihonen explains. Ixonos’ reference user interface includes a message stream, an address book, a calendar and a photo gallery based on natural interactions. For example, dragging the corner of a digital image resembles handling an actual physical photo: the photo bends and reflects light according to how the user moves it.

The Ixonos 3D Engine was received with rave reviews by current and potential customers and partners, as well as by the media, during the preview at MWC. “Many of our customers were pleased to discover how suitable the 3D UI was for making the most out of the existing capabilities of their devices and how this helps to differentiate their products from other similar products”, comments Antti Aumo, head of marketing at Ixonos.

With the Ixonos 3D Engine, Ixonos can offer rapid design and implementation of customized 3D UI identities across the range of products from low to high end. The engine uses optimized 3D rendering and utilizes the device’s own CPU and GPU chips, which means that customer-specific UI implementations are guaranteed to perform according to the highest standards on all manner of devices.

The engine does not limit Ixonos to work only with specific technologies, but enables rapid and easy implementation of 3D user interfaces for all major platforms, including Tizen, Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7. Since Barcelona, Ixonos has been developing 3D user interface demos for various customers to show how customized implementations work in the real world regardless of the platform and device category. In addition to the wide range of platforms Ixonos has already been working with, a 3D user interface demo for Tizen based devices is already underway.

For additional information, please contact:

Sami Paihonen, Vice President, User Experience Design, Ixonos, tel. +358 50 502 1111, sami.paihonen@ixonos.com

Patrik Ågren, President, APAC, Ixonos, tel. +852 9039 7131 or +86 134 6632 8741, patrik.agren@ixonos.com

Antti Aumo, Vice President, Marketing, Ixonos, tel. +358 40 505 0477, antti.aumo@ixonos.com

The Mobile Show Middle East takes place on 17 – 18 April 2012 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. As the region’s largest show for mobile technology, mobile apps & solutions, it is the place to meet the leaders, disrupters and challengers of the mobile ecosystem. The event is built around 5 conferences that bring together the big names to discuss the latest strategies, solutions and technologies in the world of mobile. 

Ixonos will be showcasing an impressive portfolio of recently launched products and services at its exhibition booth number 342 at the Madinat Arena, Dubai.

Representing our User Experience Design offering, we will be showing:

–         Ixonos Super App™, our patent-pending, next-generation app experience concept for the development of superior apps that combine the best online content with the most useful functionalities.  

–         Ixonos 3D Engine™, our robust and innovative user interface engine with which we can design compelling 3D user interfaces for customer devices and offer end-users natural, elegant and engaging 3D user experiences.

–         Ixonos TV Compass™ , one of our original super apps introduces the viewing experience of the future by combining social networks with the world of visual entertainment. This multichannel solution works consistently across television sets, smartphones and tablets.

Representing our Online Solutions offering, we bring out:

–         Ixonos App Agency™, our comprehensive app factory covers everything related to app development: business consultancy, production, deployment, maintenance, and even analytics.

–         Ixonos Experience Store™, our customisable digital marketing and distribution channel that enables companies to improve brand awareness and build customer loyalty.

Representing our Connected Devices offering we will be showing the game-changing creation:

–         Ixonos Smartphone Platform™, our customizable high-end smartphone platform leverages leading technologies in accordance with tomorrow’s smartphone experiences. We will showcase our star together with our stunning reference device.

“The Middle East is one of the newer frontiers for Ixonos and we are very excited about this opportunity to show our portfolio here. We firmly believe our cutting-edge products and services will be well received by the innovators of the Middle Eastern mobile segment,” says Antti Aumo, head of marketing at Ixonos.

During the event, Ixonos’ Nigel Alexander, Sales Director, User Experience Design, will be holding a presentation with the topic of “User Experience for Mobile and Online Retail”. In his presentation he will e discussing current trends in mobile shopping, how to maximise opportunity and enable the user experience.

For more information about the Mobile Show Middle East, visit their website. >>

For additional information, please contact:

• Antti Aumo, Vice President, Marketing, tel. +358 40 5050 477, antti.aumo@ixonos.com
• Nigel Alexander, Sales Director, User Experience Design, tel. +44 783 148 5081, nigel.alexander@ixonos.com
• Roope Suomalainen, Director, Experience, tel. +358 50 564 5988, roope.suomalainen@ixonos.com

Intel’s premier technology conference in Asia, the Intel Developer Forum Beijing will take place on 11-12 April 2012. It is where people from every part of the technology industry gather to hear about Intel’s latest technological advances and products across the entire compute continuum, as well as to connect with the industry decision makers.

Ixonos will take part in the event to introduce its fantastic portfolio of products and services to the Asia-Pacific region. “We’re extremely proud of the products and services we have been developing and bringing out during the past year and we believe they hold great value for our customers in Asia,” says Patrik Ågren, President, APAC region at Ixonos. “Intel is a truly valuable partner to us, so we’re excited about the chance to introduce the cornerstones of our product portfolio to the entire Intel ecosystem,” adds Antti Aumo, head of Marketing at Ixonos.

At Ixonos’ exhibition booth GE15, visitors can witness for themselves the following technology showcases:

Ixonos 3D Engine™, our robust and innovative user interface engine, already attracted a lot of interest in Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. With the UI engine, Ixonos can design compelling 3D user interfaces for customer devices and offer end-users natural, elegant and engaging 3D user experiences.

Ixonos Smartphone Platform™ will be showcased together with the stunning reference device. Both the smartphone platform and the reference design have been developed in-house at Ixonos and were launched in February during the Mobile World Congress.

Since its launch in June 2011, the Ixonos App Agency™ has produced for Ixonos’ global clientele numerous successful apps that put the brand and the user first. The comprehensive app factory covers everything related to app development from business consultancy to production, deployment and maintenance, and all the way to analytics.

Ixonos Experience Store™ is a customisable digital marketing and distribution channel launched in December 2011. As a premium app store, the platform enables companies to monetise mobile apps, improve brand awareness and build customer loyalty.

For additional information, please contact:

•  Patrik Ågren, President, APAC, Ixonos, tel. +852 903 97131 / +86 134 6632 8741, patrik.agren@ixonos.com
• Antti Aumo, Vice President, Marketing, Ixonos, tel. +358 40 5050 477, antti.aumo@ixonos.com

Microsoft TechDays are arranged on 8 – 9 March 2012 in Helsinki, Finland. The event gathers together more than 2,800 ICT decision-makers and developers.

Ixonos’ Tiago Luchini, Principal Consultant, will be speaking about “Opportunities in mobilizing the enterprise” at the event on Friday. Ixonos will also be showing demos of our latest Windows Phone apps.

Find more information in Finnish at the event website: https://www.techdays.fi/ 

For additional information, please contact:

Tiago Luchini, Principal Consultant, tel. +358 43 824 5297, tiago.luchini@ixonos.com

Ixonos introduced a fantastic portfolio of products and services at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on 27 February – 1 March 2012. Now we have created a video showing the product highlights:

Ixonos Smartphone Platform™ presented by Kimmo Nahkamäki, Program Manager. The star of the show, our primary product launch was the smartphone platform, showcased together with a stunning reference design, developed in-house at Ixonos. Utilizing Android 4.0 and a powerful chipset, the platform guarantees top performance and integrated connectivity.

Ixonos App Agency™ presented by Tiago Luchini, Principal Consultant. Launched in June 2011, Ixonos App Agency has been producing numerous hit apps that put the brand and the user first. Our comprehensive app factory covers everything related to app development, from business consultancy to production, deployment and maintenance, and all the way to analytics.

Ixonos Experience Store™ presented by Roope Suomalainen, Director, Experience. Our customisable boutique app store platform, launched last December, is a digital marketing and distribution channel that enables companies to improve brand awareness, build customer loyalty and monetise mobile apps.

Ixonos 3D Engine™ presented by Sami Paihonen, head of User Experience Design. An exclusive trade preview of our soon-to-be launched 3D Engine. We combined world-class user experience design with the latest UI technology and created our own user interface engine that enable the design of natural, elegant and engaging 3D user experiences.

Ixonos TV Compass™ presented by Esa Nettamo, Creative Director, Finland Design Studio. One of Ixonos’ original super apps, TV Compass introduces the viewing experience of the future, where social meets the world of visual entertainment. The multichannel solution works consistently across devices from television sets to smartphones and tablets.

Ixonos Super App™ presented by Julian Harris, Creative Director, UK Design Studio. Another trade preview introduced our patent-pending, next-generation app experience. Our strategic concept for developing superior apps combines the best online content with the most useful functionalities and creates unparalleled user experiences by harnessing the pull of social networks.

For additional information, please contact:
Antti Aumo, Vice President, Marketing, tel. +358 40 5050 477, antti.aumo@ixonos.com

Ixonos offers a trade preview of its new patent-pending, next-generation app experience to the visitors to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Extensive research into the app ecosystem from the user experience angle has pushed Ixonos to innovate a strategic concept for superior apps that go beyond the one-trick-pony apps currently overflowing the market. Super Apps, as Ixonos sees them, combine the best online content with the most useful functionalities and create unparalleled user experiences by harnessing the pull of social networks.

Ixonos has created the Ixonos Super App™ concept, developed the patent-pending technology and designed the customizable user interface, all in-house. “With well thought-out, customized Super Apps, we aim to deliver next-generation app experiences that have lasting appeal to consumers”, says Sami Paihonen, head of User Experience Design at Ixonos. In other words, Ixonos offers to help its customers by creating for them apps that truly stand out from among the 1.3 million apps currently on offer in the 250+ application stores in existence.

Super Apps will offer a way for companies to significantly increase their customer loyalty and brand engagement. “We consider our core customer base to be in brands interested in entering the mobile app business in a way that utilizes the brand’s individual strengths and arouses more than a passing interest in their target audiences”, Sami says. Ixonos also offers support in strategic planning: “Super Apps will allow us to gain information on how and when consumers engage with them. We can turn this intelligence into fail-safe viral marketing campaigns for our customer companies”, he adds. Super Apps will be a cost-effective way to broaden a company’s digital marketing towards its existing customers and also to target new consumer groups.

Ixonos sees the power of the Super App concept to hold special appeal in the world of competitive sports. ”Loyalty towards sports can be higher than to consumer goods, and sporting events are ideal for creating repeated use cycles for apps”, says Julian Harris, head of the UK design studio at Ixonos. “Sports fans follow games faithfully and have heightened interest before, during and after each game. This means that sports apps are likely to capture the fan’s interest during the whole playing season and also from season to season”, he adds. In the same way, Super Apps serve well the purposes of music and other cultural events, and they can be used to build customer engagement for clothing and lifestyle brands.

At Mobile World Congress, Ixonos will be showcasing engaging Super App demos at its exhibition booth 1E19, in Hall 1 in the Finnish Pavilion. Visitors get a chance to interact with a Super App created for the Finnish ice hockey team Kärpät and built on the iOS native client as well as with a demo that utilizes the platform-agnostic HTML5 technology and is targeted at rugby enthusiasts.

Ixonos is ready to productize the concept, and the company plans to offer the design and delivery of customized Super Apps to customers via a licensing model, as a part of the Ixonos App Agency™ service. The patent-pending technology will allow Ixonos to roll out customized super apps in just one month as well as to implement them on a variety of platforms and on all types of wireless devices.

Ixonos has over 15 years of experience in mobile software development, working together with companies such as leading device manufacturers and helping them roll out winning devices one after the other. During Mobile World Congress on 27 February – 1 March in Barcelona, Spain, Ixonos introduces a productized service package based on this vast experience. Ixonos Mobile SW Services Suite™ is a collection of services that enables straightforward development of high-quality components ready to be integrated into customers’ wireless devices.

“By productizing one of our core competences, mobile software development, we can help companies fast-track their products to the market”, says Antti Aumo, head of marketing at Ixonos. Instead of investing in internal R&D, companies can turn to Ixonos to secure cost-efficient product launches. ‟Essentially, we are offering a new approach to buying software development services: high-quality software components with reliable integration”, Aumo recaps.

The scalable and customizable suite of services benefits from Ixonos’ extensive technology competences and deep understanding of all levels of the mobile software stack. “We conceptualize, design, develop and verify complex software features and deliver high-quality applications, UI features, frameworks and device drivers”, says Kari Liuska, head of Connected Devices at Ixonos.

Ixonos’ 10,000 combined years of experience in building world-leading mobility and connectivity solutions means customers can enjoy guaranteed quality and reliability. ‟Ixonos has provided software components to a number of different customers using different technologies and we have the ability to make the best mobile software on the planet”, says Liuska. “This has enabled us to put a fixed price label on the different components and thus offer our customers better-than-ever predictability”, he adds.

To illustrate the power of Ixonos Mobile SW Services Suite, we have created a video that introduces its benefits to a worldwide audience consisting of manufacturers of any form of wireless device. Visitors at Mobile World Congress have a chance to see the video first at Ixonos’ booth: 1E19 in Hall 1 in the Finnish Pavilion.

For more information, please contact:

• Antti Aumo, Vice President, Marketing, tel. +358 40 505 0477, antti.aumo@ixonos.com
• Kari Liuska, Senior Vice President, Connected Devices, tel. +358 40 848 6116, kari.liuska@ixonos.com

Links:

• Ixonos Mobile SW Services Suite introduction video and multimedia release
• Follow Ixonos on Twitter and YouTube
• Ixonos’ Connected Devices offering
• Mobile World Congress event site, Ixonos’ booth 1E19, Hall 1, the Finnish Pavilion
• Ixonos Online Press kit for MWC 2012

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Ixonos offers an exclusive preview of the soon-to-be launched Ixonos 3D Engine™ that brings alive the richness of the visual universe and its various dimensions and layers on wireless devices. By combining world-class user experience design with the latest UI technology, Ixonos has created its own user interface engine to enable the design of natural, elegant and engaging 3D user experiences.

With the Ixonos 3D Engine, Ixonos can offer rapid design and implementation of customized high-performance 3D user interfaces for customer companies looking to differentiate their wireless devices from others. “Our core audience consists of manufacturers of smart and feature phones and other types of wireless devices, as well as of companies and brands wanting to bring their own customized devices to the market”, says Sami Paihonen, head of User Experience Design at Ixonos. “Specifically, companies working with Android could use an engaging, yet cost-effective way to differentiate their devices from the rest. And that is exactly what we can now offer”, he adds.

Ixonos 3D Engine utilizes the device’s CPU and GPU chips to deliver high-quality graphics with guaranteed top performance. “The engine frees us from the limitations of individual operating systems and allows our designers to use more creativity when designing customer-branded user interfaces”, Paihonen explains. Ixonos has the capability to design and implement 3D user interfaces for all major platforms from iOS to Android and from Tizen to Windows Phone 7, as well as to bring elegant 3D experiences alive on high and low end devices.

In only a couple of years, 3D has developed into a mass-market phenomenon, with films and television leading the way and wireless devices following suit. While 3D displays and cameras are an attractive novelty in smartphones, they rarely provide real added value to the user. Looking into the phenomenon more closely, Ixonos saw that what is needed are 3D functionalities that actually improve the user experience for the consumer. The underlying design principles of the Ixonos 3D Engine rely on utilizing 3D effects to mimic the way objects behave in the physical world, thus creating foreseeable interactions that match users’ expectations.

“In our reference user interface, we have created examples of an address book, a calendar and a photo gallery based on natural interactions that invite the user to interact with the different UI objects and at the same time guide the user in doing so”, Paihonen explains. For example, when a user of a touch screen device drags the corner of a digital image to move it, the experience resembles lifting an actual physical photo from the table: the photo bends and reflects light according to the way it is moved. According to the same logic, messages and contact cards have their own characteristics that determine how they can be moved around and interacted with. “Our goal is to make 3D interaction feel as natural and engaging as possible for the end users”, he underlines.

At Mobile World Congress, visitors get a chance to witness the allure of two different reference user interface demos functioning on a variety of different wireless devices, including Ixonos’ own smartphone reference design and Samsung’s Galaxy S II tab.

For more information, please contact:

Ixonos:

• Sami Paihonen, Vice President, User Experience Design, tel. +358 50 502 1111, sami.paihonen@ixonos.com
• Vesa Metso, Director, Connected Devices, tel. +358 40 522 8611, vesa.metso@ixonos.com

Links:

• Follow Ixonos on Twitter and YouTube
• Ixonos’ 3D UI concept
• Mobile World Congress event site, Ixonos’ booth: 1E19, Hall 1, the Finnish Pavilion
• Ixonos Online Press kit for MWC2012

Ixonos has prepared a cutting-edge product launch to coincide with the opening of this year’s Mobile World Congress. We are bringing out a genuinely unique high-end smartphone platform that gives birth to a whole new concept: Smart Quality. Ixonos Smartphone Platform™ has been developed in-house at Ixonos, leveraging leading technologies and in accordance with the highest standards of tomorrow’s smartphone experiences. Utilizing Android 4.0 and a powerful chipset, the platform guarantees top performance and integrated connectivity.

“Ixonos has been successfully developing mobile software for well over a decade and we have already proven our skills in full device design for our customers’ projects. Now we want to help companies, such as high-end consumer brands looking for fast and easy entry into the smartphone market, to bring out their own customized high-end smartphones”, explains Folkert Wierda, Vice President, Mobile Devices at Ixonos. “This is why we have created the Ixonos Smartphone Platform.”

The most significant promise Ixonos makes is that by working with the pre-verified platform, all customer products based on the Ixonos Smartphone Platform benefit from high predictability and quality. This translates into low total cost of ownership for the customer.

“We can develop state-of-the-art smartphones according to customers’ wishes, using the Ixonos Smartphone Platform as the basis and complementing it with full UI and UX customization, app design and cloud services”, Wierda explains. Customer companies can choose to embark upon a joint R&D project with Ixonos or have the final product delivered as a black box deal. They can also have a say on the technologies they want to include, as customization allows for a variety of different hardware and software options. “For those customers who are looking for the quickest possible time-to-market, we can utilize the fully-developed platform, making only minor modifications, and roll out an astonishing, fully-compliant device in mere months,” he promises.  

“With Ixonos Smartphone Platform, we create superb devices that exceed market expectations and offer unparalleled user experiences for consumers”, says Antti Aumo, head of marketing. “It makes Ixonos a game-changer in the smartphone ecosystem: we can now enable companies to enter the smartphone market and make a lasting impact on it.”

At Mobile World Congress, Ixonos brings the smartphone platform alive by showcasing it together with Ixonos 3D Engine™ and on a stunning reference design device, both of which have also been designed entirely by Ixonos. The Ixonos 3D Engine, which combines leading 3D technology with the user experience design standards of tomorrow, has been used to create a reference user interface with engaging 3D interaction. Ixonos’ smartphone reference design is way ahead of other reference designs available: assembled from the highest quality components available, the ready-to-productize reference device provides easy and fast rollout for customer devices.

Prepare to be astonished at Ixonos’ exhibition booth 1E19 in Hall 1 in the Finnish Pavilion at the Mobile World Congress 2012.

For more information, please contact:

• Folkert Wierda, Vice President, Mobile Devices, tel. +358 50 305 7711, folkert.wierda@ixonos.com
• Antti Aumo, Vice President, Marketing, tel. +358 40 505 0477, antti.aumo@ixonos.com

 Links:

• Follow Ixonos on Twitter and YouTube
• Ixonos Smartphone Platform site
• Mobile World Congress event site, Ixonos’ booth 1E19, Hall 1, the Finnish Pavilion
• Ixonos Online Press kit for MWC 2012