Mosaic of Mobiles in Coffeeshops

When I make trips to coffeeshops, one of the things that I pay attention to is the use of tablets, laptops, and mobiles. It’s really interesting to see how personalization scales to the smaller devices a lot easier. For example, you can easily spot the colorful natures preferred by some iPhone owners, and then there are those with similar, but usually more splashy colors with BlackBerries.

I think though that I get the most inquisitive thoughts from those who have clear or no cases to their devices. Like those with laptops, there is a sense of blending in. And yet, screensavers seem to dominate as the picture within the frames. Many of these people (myself included) seem to position the mobile in such a way that it speaks towards some kind of comfort with the appendage (that’s what an older friend calls mobiles).

Tablets blend in. The people with them usually have light diversions on their cases, and there is always a case. It would seem that no one would be caught dead (broken) without them. There is a woman here with a Galaxy Tab. A white one, with a red cover. It stood out, like a few articles of jewelry she had. But then her laptop was like the her apparel, blended in.

Ad that kind of fits the laptop persons. Personalization here here has more to do with laptop bags and book bags than the device itself. In some respects, it reminds me of customizing a car – you are stuck with whatever you do, so it’s better doing little to nothing. Even the Apple laptops are free of stickers and such. There usually are a few Linux toting folks, and their stickers give them away.

I think that it can be taken further. But, in that wise personalization requires better technologies for cases and different interpretations for behaviors. If it could change, would it also be durable? Is it possible to take that Color social picture app and turn that into something where or cases become part of the mosaic of displaying shared images around us? what if advertisers got into it? Say when you log into their networks, that you get some kind of special skin/theme on your device that when it displays you accrue points or a coupon for other stuff (I know, stuff like that can get annoying really quick).