Clearly they’re working on something in the “wearables” space, but I don’t think it’s merely a “watch” (even with a funky cool display).

One of Apple’s defining corporate characteristics is “watch and wait” (okay, so I made a pun). They have rarely, if ever, been the first to market. Rather they watch the market and competition, cherry pick what works from what doesn’t, and then package it with minimalist flair and high-end construction.

In fact, when the company did try to be a market pioneer with the Newton they failed miserably. Lesson learned.

What I think we are going to witness is Apple’s transformation of the “quantified self” movement from quirky early-adopter status (“Count my footsteps during the day? Why would anyone want to know that?”) and lead by companies such as FitBit and Jawbone, later followed by Nike with their FuelBand, to mainstream.

Essentially Fitbit’s and Jawbone’s products are accelerometers encased in a wrist band, although the Basis Band has a few more sensors tacked on to make it interesting.

There are more than a few hints out there, such as this article on the team of experts Apple has put together to work on this project.

If you read through the specialties of the people on the team and then close your eyes (I recommend reading the list before you close your eyes, otherwise it’s going to be a bit difficult) an image of a small, perhaps wrist-mounted, fashionable device with a clear display appears.

But the real magic is within.

This will be a sensor-studded device which monitors its wearers’ vital signs day and night. I’m imagining a device that autonomously monitors pulse, respiration, perspiration, blood flow, glucose, temperature (ambient and skin), acceleration (and hence, movement), location and motion (via the M7 chip already found in the iPhone5S).

It will have some kind of low-power (and low range) communications protocol, and my guess would be BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), with which Apple already has experience.

What to do with all this information? The contributions of fitness, health, and sleep experts, point to many possible applications of this technology from the obvious (sleep and fitness monitoring) to the sublime (replacing current medical monitors, gesture-based input device – think of a WII without the WII or a Kinect without the 3D camera).

Apple was just granted a patent for headphones that can detect head gestures and monitor their wearers' activity, temperature, perspiration, and heart rate. There are a ton of applications here, and the one that climbs to the top of my list is training (measure exertion, stress, vitals, head position – and therefore change a displayed image or animation – and give audio feedback).

Personally I would love to go out running with nothing other than lightweight Bluetooth headphones and a wrist-mounted device. No, shoes and shorts are not optional.

Considering the involuntary nature of the device, this may be the largest scale invasion of privacy ever concocted and adopted willingly by millions of people – also paying for the privilege.

Want a hint? Apple is known for camouflaged field-testing their devices. Next time you see Apple CEO Tim Cook, take a glance at his wrist. It’s a fair bet.

Dong Nguyen is the most important mobile games developer on the planet today. Don’t ever expect to hear from him again.

Nguyen, developer of the hysterical hit “Flappy Bird”, did the unbelievable and withdrew his incredibly addictive game from the various app stores after it became too popular.

Nguyen claims to have taken the game down because it was “an addictive product” in his words. His other high-performing games Super Ball Juggling and Shuriken Block both have the same 8-bit retro graphical UX and simple game controls but are “harmless”.

His other games obviously benefit from the success of Flappy Bird, yet he did not build in any kind of cross-promotion between his games.

The best apps do one thing, and they must do it exceptionally well. The same applies to mobile games (which are, of course, apps as well): game play should implement one gaming principle as its main gaming mechanic.

Flappy Bird uses the gaming principle of “deceptive difficulty” (other gaming principles will be covered in future posts). As its name suggests deceptive difficulty works by confusing the player as to the real level of difficulty of the game. Often this is implemented by letting the player work through easy levels as they learn the controls and the rules. It also works as enticement for them to keep on playing through harder levels.

One excellent example of this is Angry Birds (hmm, maybe this is a “bird game” thing after all…). It’s deceptively difficult. It uses the digital equivalent of a slingshot which most people intuitively understand, but it’s not as easy as it looks. Angle and power need to be balanced to get the perfect shot (most levels can be solved with a single, properly placed bird). Looks easy? But it’s not.

“How hard can this be?”
Nguyen’s game skipped the learning and confidence-building stages. The game controls are exceedingly simple – tapping the phone screen is the only user action – which adds to the deceptive difficulty effect.

The seeming ease-of-play coupled with the extreme difficulty of getting anywhere in the game (most players would be sweating profusely if they made it to five points) simply enflamed players’ egos. The relatively short few seconds before players smacked into anything and killed off their birds encouraged players to try again and again since they hadn’t invested a great deal of time in navigating a level. This created a kind of negative-reinforcement loop – perhaps the “addictive” nature of the game that so bothered Nguyen – that drove players to play again, and again, and again.

Although it’s apparent when the viral spike in downloads happened, nobody to this days knows why it happened. The developers did not invest in any kind of marketing, and certainly not any viral campaigns, yet the game’s meteoric rise to the top of the charts came about only by its virality. In short, its success is probably due to the following IM (or DM, however you’d like to call it) sent by tens of thousands of frustrated players: “OMG. Dude, you’ve got to try Flappy Birds. It’s impossible!”

Of course having a YouTube video posted titled “FLAPPY BIRD – DON’T PLAY THIS GAME!”, or a mainstream article “Let Me Tell You The Time That I Played ‘Flappy Bird’ For 8 Hours” screams for this game to be played.

Reportedly at its peak this game took in $50,000 a day, all of it from ads. This incredible number obviously comes from the sheer volume of downloads (45 million or more) and game-plays (45 million times does anyone really know?). The press is wondering how he can turn off this money-making machine by killing off his game, while conveniently forgetting that existing installs still work and will continue to generate revenue until the masses’ attention is directed elsewhere.

On the other hand the idea of scarcity (“I have a game that you can’t have”) may keep people playing it for longer than its viral tail would ordinarily suggest.

The take away for developers from Flappy Birds: clearly “deceptive difficulty” is an ideal gaming principle to implement, although it’s deceptively difficult to do it right (Ahem. Sorry about that.). It’s driven widespread adoption of some of the best mobile games of the last few years, especially among the casual-gamer segment. The key is to figure out how to create a game that is easy to play but very difficult to master.