In an article that was published today, Gartner is forecasting that worldwide mobile phone sales are on pace to grow 11% in 2008.  Although this was the main focus of the article I found that the additional information they discussed was more interesting, specifically five key trends in mobile devices through 2009.

• Established Vendors Consolidate and New Players Join the Fray
• Device Vendors Build Out Ecosystems
• Devices Makers Will Focus on Removing Complexity for the User 
• Mobile Devices Increasingly Become Lifestyle Statements 
• High-End Device Platforms Become “Field-Refreshable"

Some of these trends are starting to take shape now and others will grow later this year and into next year.  It goes to show how quickly the mobile space is evolving and the importance of consumer needs being thought about by the handset manufacturers, operators and other ecosystem players. 

If you're a mobile content creator think about 'removing complexity' and 'lifestyle statements' when designing your experiences.  The iPhone does a good job of removing complexity by it's use of click efficiency, or tap efficiency and you should consider minimizing the number of 'clicks' a consumer has to
do in order to interact with your content. 

Sony Ericsson and Nokia devices allow for things like wallpapers, themes and screensavers that consumers can select to customize the UI of their phone.  Simple things like having a wallpaper change it's appearance based on the time of day or other device state info is something that Flash Lite developers do today and these same features can be incorporated into a Flash Lite application or game.