With February’s annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona now behind us for another year, smartphone addicts need not fret.
Year-round, there are mobile conventions in every corner of the globe, geared at showcasing the best, newest and most exciting innovations in the industry.
It was difficult to narrow them done, but we’ve chosen our shortlist of the top five mobile conventions you must add to your bucket list.
When: January Where: Las Vegas, Nevada USA
Now owned by social media giant Facebook, Instagram is a photo sharing platform that appears to have survived where many of its counterparts have failed.
Launched in 2012, Instagram is the brainchild of Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom, who dreamed up the name as a combination of ‘instant camera’ and ‘telegram’. It has gone from one million registered users in its opening year to well over 1 billion today. It also pioneered the use of hashtags for pinpointing trending topics (“MotivationMonday” etc), and with such a central role in how we communicate today, the app’s estimated $100 billion worth won’t come as any surprise to you.
When: February Where: Barcelona, Spain This legendary convention is arguably the most well known - and best - in the world. Each year, tech fiends wait with anticipation for February to come, when the biggest names in the smartphone business roll out their latest and greatest creations in the Spanish city of Barcelona. Mobile World Congress features keynote speakers from the mobile industry, exhibitions, awards ceremonies and seminars, as well as a chance to network with some of the leaders of the industry. 2019’s MWC gave us the world’s first foldable smartphone, and Huawei stood out as the brand to beat. We can only imagine what’s in store for 2020.
When: May Where: Mountain View, California USA Essentially the Google version of the aforementioned Apple conference, Google I/O is a chance for the best and brightest mobile technology developers to learn, listen, network and try out for themselves the newest Google creations before the rest of us. There’s a firm focus on mobile infrastructure and app development, and about 5000 tickets are up for grabs for each annual event. Attendees are chosen by random selection. Oh, what does I/O stand for? That would be “input/output”.
When: June Where: San Jose, California USA As the reigning name in smartphone technology, Apple’s annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is a must-visit mobile event that is now celebrating its 30th year. The conference focuses on new smartphone technologies behind the Apple operating systems. There are keynote speeches from a number of leading developers, of which about 6000 are lucky enough to score a ticket through a random selection process. If you are lucky enough to get on the guestlist, you’re a new member of the “in crowd”. Take us with you!
When: April (London), June (NYC), December (Berlin) Where: London, UK / New York, USA / Berlin, Germany The App Promotion Summit is an exciting event that aims to give app developers the opportunity to market their inventions on a global scale. One of the best parts of APS is that it is held in three major cities across the globe, giving the public a greater chance of being able to make it. The 2019 events are in London in April, New York in June and Berlin in December. The only decision left to make is - what city do you want to explore alongside your trip to one of the best tech conferences on the planet?
There are so many interesting mobile industry conventions out there, but these are the big gun in the industry. We recommend doing a search for smartphone conventions in your nearest big city in order to stay on top of what’s happening - and what’s to come!.