Having a smartphone gives people a little bit of a complex. It makes us think we can find whatever we want, whenever we want it. This isn’t a bad thing by any measure, and the majority of times, ussmarties can get the information we seek. It’s when we find out that we are limited that our blood starts to boil, we look at the slab in our hand and think, what is the point?

Recently, I went to a concert at Wembley Stadium. There was a bit of time to kill and time to get food earlier in the day passed me by. Being the nations home of football, a symbol of our country and a modern meeting place, I of course knew there would be plenty of options for food inside. The problem was, what food? Where was it? Where was the entry marked poorly on my ticket?

Taking these questions into account, I did what we all do. Out came my smartphone for a quick search online. After waiting what felt like an eternity for the Wembley Stadium website to load, it became clear that it had been designed by someone who clearly worked in the vicinity of the stadium (they have super-fast fibre optic broadband). The site is full of rather large images that, lets say 20,000 other people using O2′s mobile broadband, take a while to download.

Navigating around the site on a mobile isn’t a pleasant experience. It appears to be very much designed for the desktop environment, which is fine, unless you happen to be going to the stadium and want to find out information. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but being the national stadium, surely this is something up to 80,000 people may want to do on a regular basis. After giving up on the website, I thought, logically, there must be an app – which there is, though not one by Wembley. The app is by a guy called Daniel Earl and provides information about getting to the stadium, a link to wikipedia for stadium information and a bit of written text about food and drink in the local area.

While one must applaud Mr. Earl for his efforts to provide at least some information about the stadium, it’s hardly the type of real-time, convenient guide that you need on the go. In 2011, mobile search grew by 236 per cent demonstrating that even people without smartphones, want to be able to access information on the move. While I’m not asking Wembley to develop an all singing, all dancing app – I do at least expect our national stadium to at least have a mobile optimised site, available in multiple languages, to provide all of the information one might need if they turn up on the day.

Of course, if they were to do an app, here would be my wish list:

Augmented Reality:

• Recognises your ticket and directs you from your location to the entrance you need
• The ability to superimpose the old Wembley towers onto the new stadium for those of us that like a bit of nostalgia

• Enter in how you are travelling and the app will let you know ahead of time what the transport situation is like.
• Find out what the parking situation is (if you decide to drive at the last minute, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to reserve a space from your phone?)
• Receive an alert if it recognises you aren’t near your seat when a show/match is about to begin

• Information about the facilities, where they are located and the ability to find food you want based on price
• Information about where toilets in and, in the event some might be closed, an alert about that

Of course, it isn’t just Wembley Stadium that hasn’t quite caught up to speed with mobile users. Research released by Google and the Mobile Marketing Association found that in the UK just 17 per cent of businesses have their websites optimised for mobile. While this doesn’t matter in the majority of circumstances as many sites just require a pinch to zoom, for the entertainment and service industry, the ability to deliver information instantly and with ease is essential.

Here’s just hoping the Olympic committee have thought about their mobile strategy!

By Robert Haslam