Follow Me Revisited

It's been more than three years since I posted the Follow Me blog entry. Back in 2010 multi-device life was not as widespread as it is today. And things were not that obvious. Today they are: everybody expects synchronized context across all connected devices. And in most areas the context is becoming synchronized, thanks to the cloud systems standing behind the device families. From my own experience I can mostly speak about Android, which seems to be leading the pack. Unboxing a new Android device and getting it in sync is just a matter of providing the Google account credentials. Then everything happens in the background: apps are installed, passwords synchronized, even the saved WiFi networks. How natural it is to walk into a hotel you visited a year ago (with different device) and being automatically connected to the WiFi network using credentials stored back then. Not to mention such obvious things like the contact list (yes we needed the OTT providers like Google and Apple to take care of our contact lists, the MNOs could not bring a cloud-based SIM backup service for over 20 years...).

Amazon is handling the context synchronization very well, across Kindles (I use two), Kindle apps (I use one on my tablet and one on the phone), the Kindle Cloud Reader and even the Kindle for PC. I especially like being able to highlight sentences while reading on a couch and have them accessible while in the office at my desk monitor.

So how surprising (and annoying) it is when some leading apps / services simply ignore the multi-device reality. I write this pointing my finger at Twitter. Yes, Twitter is a single - device service.

On a daily basis I use Twitter on four devices: my phone, my tablet, my laptop and my in-dash car screen. And how annoying it is they are never in sync. Usually during a breakfast I read through the new tweets (Twitter is becoming my #1 information and learning tool). Then I go to the office, click on a Twitter tab in my web browser and Twitter tells me there are so many new tweets. New since last accessed on this laptop, meaning I have to scroll, re-read and manually try to get in sync with what I browsed during the breakfast on my home tablet.

It is just hard to imagine Twitter still lives in a single-device universe where context is never in sync across all devices signed to a single account. While this feature might have been nice-to-have back in 2010, it is a must in 2013. It is also a reminder to other app vendors: get in sync. This is what users expect. Otherwise you will be giving them a daily dose of frustration every time they use a second or a third screen to interact with your service.