There are more than 100 new features in Apple’s next version of its Mac operating system, dubbed “Mountain Lion” or Mac OSX. The ones that interest me most are those that advance the notion of post-PC productivity: experiences that help people be productive using multiple modes and devices. In particular, product strategists should pay attention to Apple’s:

• iCloud integration of Docs and Notes. Mountain Lion users will be able to sync notes created in Apple’s Notes app, and documents created in its iWork apps, across Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Think of it as Amazon’s Whispersync for productivity. The catch is, though, that the synching is only within the same “app”—so if you create a document in Pages on your Mac, for example, you can sync it through iCloud to a Pages app on your iPad, but iCloud synching wouldn’t be compatible from Pages to another document editing app like Quickoffice. Third-party developers could use the Documents in the Cloud feature, but it would be sandboxed only within their app. This is an interesting twist for the many product strategists developing cloud-synched productivity apps. Evernote, for example, would have less value to users of ONLY Apple devices, since iCloud Notes synching is built into the OS. Evernote’s value proposition, and Quickoffice’s, will now revolve more around the multi-platform use case — users that need access to their stuff across iOS/Mac, Windows, and/or Android. Luckily, this is still a big market: Forrester’s data as of Q4 2011 show that 58% of Mac owners also own at least one PC, and 60% of iPad owners own another type of phone besides iPhone.

At our Marketing & Strategy Forum last November, Sean Gilchrist, head of digital banking at Barclays Bank, talked passionately about the importance of customer experience to the work being done by his team at Barclays. It's good to see some of the results of that focus on customers in two innovations introduced by Barclays in the past few weeks:

• Firstly, Barclays has started rolling out a new online banking interface. While I'm sure that not every customer will like the change, the point is that Barclays is taking a modular (or widget-like) approach to displaying content and functionality in anticipation of having to serve customers on a rapidly growing range of digital devices. We think that approach is going to become increasingly common as eBusiness teams adjust to the fragmentation brought by the Splinternet.

The New York Times recently published an article based on a Forrester report (Mobile Is The New Face Of Engagement) about the uptake of smartphones worldwide in the years to come. And for 2011 it was estimated that just under 500 million smartphones were shipped. Knowing the drivers behind the growth of smartphones gives businesses confidence in mobile technology investment — even when uptake is currently still limited.

In the US today, Consumer Technographics® data shows that mobile usage is still far from mature in many industries. Take the financial industry as an example: 21% of US online adults with a mobile phone do any form of mobile banking versus 73% of US online adults who do online banking. When looking at the different generations, we see that younger generations, who are more likely to be early smartphone adopters, dominate in mobile banking.

Over the years, I have worked with dozens of health insurers on the usability of their member self-service sites. The sites have admittedly gotten better over the years — easier navigation, fewer confusing links, clearer presentation of information, and even better feedback in response to user actions. But most companies are still struggling to show the value of their self-service solutions. This breaks down into two fundamental problems. The first is measurement — a problem I’ll tackle in a future post. The second is a problem I can most succinctly describe as garbage in, garbage out.

Digital customer experience professionals and eBusiness professionals responsible for website design typically have no control over benefits and claims content. That means that while sites have arguably made users’ tasks of finding claims and benefits information more efficient, the information is just as useless as it is was a decade ago.

This content is rarely designed with the consumer in mind. It’s written by lawyers and for lawyers — and (sorry, Dad) lawyers don’t speak English. They usually speak CYA. But CYA doesn’t answer people’s questions — real average-reading-level human beings who just want to know what different procedures will cost before they blindly follow their doctors’ advice.

This is the fundamental problem with the majority of today’s health insurance member websites, at least as far as claims and benefits are concerned. Until insurers produce better, clearer information outlining what is covered, what is not, how much services will cost, and (for claims) who owes/paid how much and why, it is not possible to design a member site that drives self-service for these critical areas.