#1: Two hours more battery life
Hooray! Increasing use of personal devices for all sorts of things at events – apps, audience participation, way-finding, or simply staying connected to the outside world – means batteries can drain more quickly. Two hours, if it turns out to be true, is a huge improvement and we (plus every busy event planner glued to a phone) welcome this with open arms. Even better, though…
#2: Wireless charging
Tech-savvy event professionals have realised the positive impact they can have on delegates by providing charging stations, or at the very least, spare charger leads. Charging by pads or plates is far easier for event profs to deploy than banks of mixed wires. We can’t wait to see what some of the hardware suppliers do here!
#3: Mainstream augmented reality
The Pokémon Go phenomenon might now be consigned to history, but it proved that people are prepared to embrace AR if it’s simple enough, engaging and rewarding. Now Apple is making AR applications easier to develop, there are all sorts of opportunities in the events space. For example, trade booths could be visualised in-situ before being built, or even stay that way with ‘virtual trade booths’ for attendees to navigate!
#4: Cost-effective face ID for registration
We’re yet to see exactly how this will be available to developers, but it suggests facial recognition will become more mainstream. There are plenty of facial recognition registration tools on the market, but standardising this as a core feature within an Apple device could bring new entrants and so reduce prices. The big question is whether delegates will find this too creepy.
#5: Animoji interaction opportunities
The next wave of event photobooths could include animoji options, perhaps even a dedicated animoji for the event itself. Attendees could record (and social-share) a Captain America animoji at Comic-Con, or a poop animoji at a waste disposal conference. Glisser allows audience members to use emojis in their Q&A responses, so we’ll be looking at what we can do here…
