Are you late for Mobile 2.0...
If you haven't heard of Web 2.0, don't bother to read this. If you do, well this is happening and is (going to) already dramatically (change) changing the mobile world. It is defining the the way web is consumed in the near future. Rapid changes in mobile access broadband technologies like 3G, UMTS, VOIP and recent WiFi enabled phones is already merging the differences in standards of fixed and wireless phones services. As devices become hybrid and access methods becoming cheaper day by day, mobile web will become the dominant web access platform.

To understand Mobile 2.0, its good to look at something that revolutionized the PC based web platform - "Web 2.0".

Web 2.0?
I had this question since years and i never understood the value of what it can do to me as an end-user. May be because i hate facebook, Orkut or any other social site which have each terra gigs of use-less content that is hardly appealing to me. Well, this is my personal opinion.

I then tried looking at it from a business perspective and you know the value of these open services - Flickr, youtube, facebook and blah blah. 3 billion for Facebook!

The protocol of Web 2.0 is simple -open standards & inviting to everyone.
To put a definition around this; This is more of user intelligence or cashing on the dumbness and a far less highlight on the smart technologies that enable users to apply their human semantics to create what they use/want the most in their day-to-day life. End result, you get more intelligent (may be foolish :)) web.

For the mobile world, its not exactly the same as Web 2.0 due to current limitations like continuous connectivity, network usage costs or even the device screen size & capabilities. But this is going to change soon, well i'm already late/wrong, it is already changing with Wimax, Bluetooth or even unlimited Data plans from the carriers.

What consists of Mobile 2.0

• User Experience
• Openess
• Intelligent SOA implementations
• Integrated Search
• Seamless integration with Device capabilities (camera, geo tagging, etc)
This list can grow as new innovations happen.

Mobile 2.0 is going to break the walled gardens soon and carriers are getting ready for the change as it unstoppable. Apple also opened up its SDK to be open and be gloabally innovative. IPhone and Google Android based TMobile phone are already a step inside the Mobile 2.0 and trying to eveolve further deep into it...

So what is all this got to do with your business-

Product company - I cannot imagine a product company not having web presense today. The time is already ripe to be mobile compliant. If you're in ecommerce, you're late. Before its too late, catch the wagon.

Product services - If you're not in the mobile product services, you're late. For those who're already into this business, here are a few things to consider when developing applications that survive the ever changing mobile world.

• User experience is everything, so make it the top priority. Of course, this is the biggest challenge today.
• Build solutions based on pluggable model & open standards. SOA is the key.
• RSS/OPML and other web standards are crawling into the mobile world, so be ready to plug-in.
If you cannot innovate, at least try borrowing ideas from Apple & Google who are hyper-active in this.

None of the above - try the faceless book idea and i'll put my grandma's photo with a stupid boring story and you can sell yourself for a billion! Don't forget to localize the crap else the red indians may not blog with their dreadful stories :)

New Phone on the Block - Google Android

Has the time come to bid adieu to old bulky computers and laptops? If not, then the scene is not too far-flung.
Say hello to Google's new Mobile operating system "Android".
Is it another Google's scion? The answer is “No!”

Android was a Mobile OS developed by a small company called as 'Android Inc'. Google acquired Android thereby adding another weapon to its arsenal to combat the mobile development world. All that Android needed was Google's brand name, and the world started following it!

Google Android is a platform built upon Linux kernel with a customized virtual machine called as Dalvik.
The Android SDK was released even before the first Android based phone was launched. Android SDK comes with a phone emulator and many features with which you can develop applications in Java using the APIs in the SDK. Though it may sound like just another SDK, trust me, it is FULLY LOADED! Moreover, it gives you the flexibility to add any jar file and continue the development for the phone applications.

There are many features the SDK provides like Google maps, Google APIs, Gmail etc. Developers can use on or many of these features to build applications on Android. E.g. the “Location Finder” app that was developed finds the location of your phone book contacts in Google Maps.

Another interesting application built on Android, which actually won the first prize in the Android Developer Challenge by Google is “Shop Savvy”. Shop Savvy, built by “Big in Japan Inc”, scans the bar-code of a product in a super market using the phone's built-in camera, finds its price and other details. It then comes up with the comparison of prices for the product in the nearby stores.

By giving the ability to parse and use any web service that is available online, SDK opens up enormous opportunities for developers to build applications to showcase the power and flexibility of Android.

Developers can download the SDK and other requirements from here and start developing your own applications. There are many tutorials and forums like
http://code.google.com/android/groups.html. All the tech-savvy people out there, this is something you should try out.
The stage is ready and the scene is set for the smaller species to take over their older and rather huge counterparts. And the spark has been ignited!!

Mobile Application Development Challenges

Because of the advancements with Web technologies over the Internet, a variety of apps providing rich content and services are now easily accessible from ones desktop. These apps have the potential to play the same role for mobile devices. However, the mobile Internet suffers from inherent problems that pose several challenges to a developer willing to create applications that can run on mobile devices.

Most of the differences between fixed and mobile user experience fall in these categories:
• Types of content
• Presentation due to screen real-estate
• Network and device capabilities
• Context in which the content is received. An example of the content issues involved is a large bitmap. The bitmap may be unsuitable for use on a mobile device and it would need to be resized or cropped, while maintaining the relevant information.

Examples of device and access network capabilities that need to be considered because of possible technical or economic implications for a mobile user include:
• Bandwidth - Basic cellular radio access often offers lower bandwidth than a fixed connection
• Battery - Battery capacity is very constrained in mobile devices - certain activities tend to increase power consumption and shorten battery life
• Capabilities - like screen size, memory size, etc. Eg. The most important information has to appear at the top of the screen ensuring first view
• Cost - Cellular network connectivity is commonly charged per data volume
• Input - Mobile device input capabilities tend to differ, but are usually more constrained than in desktop terminals
• Memory - Significantly less working memory and storage is available on mobile devices than in desktop terminals
• Processing power - Significantly less processing power is available on mobile devices than in desktop terminals
• Text input - Text input tends to be very slow and cumbersome on a mobile device

Any application that needs to be successful in the mobile world will need to address the above challenges in a suitable way.

Keep watching this space for ways to address the above challenges…. J

Apple and Amazon redefine MVNOs.

Apple and Amazon have started a new category in the MVNO market place. They are fundamentally so different from the current MVNO players that maybe we should start talking about MVNO 2.0 now.   

The definition of a MVNO is " A company that provides mobile phone services but does not have its own licensed frequency allocation of radio spectrum".  The last I know, Apple does provide mobile services and does not have its own licensed spectrum. The question is why does this apply to Apple and not say LG which also provides phones on networks like Verizon? 

The answer lies in the brand. Apple has kept a strong brand with the iPhone. It is stronger than any other manufacturer on any other network except for the Blackberry. Already people are discussing what would happen with the iPhone after the Apple and AT&T deal expires. I am yet to hear these discussions for any other phone. 

Amazon too has entered this market. Kindle (the Amazon e-Reader) uses the Sprint infrastructure to connect to the Internet and download new books. The brand here is Amazon all the way. I had to do a google to figure out which network they are using. 

While older MVNOs like Cricket, ESPN mobile continue to face difficulties, the advent of the new brand of MVNOs is on the way. 

Prediction: You will see more established and nimble brands enter this space. I don't think the day is far when Google, eBay would come up with mobile services using infrastructure from established carriers.  The carriers will go further and further away from the consumer and move closer to becoming the "dreaded data pipe".

In my opinion it is a welcome move.  Leave the consumer facing applications to the geniuses in companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft etc.  Leave them to the startups coming up over the world who are passionate about consumer behaviors and know how to build applications that are a pleasure to use. The carriers should instead focus on their core expertise and  improve the infrastructure available for these applications.

 

Mobile application testing

According to the statistics generated early this year, there were 222 different mobile devices which were being sold by the various carriers in the US in February 2008. These do not include the ones which were discontinued by the various carriers and the ones which were no longer being advertised in the carrier websites. The number of mobile subscribers increasing from less than 100,000 in 1985 to close to 3 billion in mid 2008 has obviously got in the need to keep the market up-to-date with new devices. As we can see, the competition among the different device manufacturers and the carriers in releasing attractive devices is at the peak these days.

People who are most affected with this device boom are the engineers who develop and certify their mobile applications. If the QA team has to test their applications and certify them on all the available devices or even the most popular ones in the market, it could take months and months before you can release an application to the market. The most common way adapted for testing is by making categories of the devices in the market and grouping the available devices into these categories. QA team then picks the most popular devices in a particular category and certifies the applications on those devices. There are risks involved in this method as the applications behave differently from one category to another and even from one to device to another in a particular category. Identifying these defects in the different devices remain a big challenge.
Will there be an easy solution to this in the near future?

T-Mobile G1....

So, like the rest of you, I've been trying to keep an eye open for the G1 - to come out later this month. The initial reviews started to trickle in... a blog here, a post there...

For a first look, I expected a "Wow"... instead I saw - http://androidcommunity.com/first-t-mobile-g1-user-review-20081009/

From the blog -

"phone does not run as smoothly as you would think";

"Some of the applications “stutter” as they start up and from time to time the device must be restarted in order to run smoothly"



Also, it wouldnt have exchange support right off the bat...makes me wonder, if I switch now(as soon as its out), how will I manage my work mail/calendar...



V-1 trouble? 1 person review? Dont know....





No one said waiting was fun... did they?

True cost of the iPhone 3G

$200 for the slick iPhone 3G looks like a steal. But if you look deeply the true cost is much higher. 

I did a very simple calculation by comparing rate plans between a normal phone with email capabilites and iPhone both on AT&T. The cost you would pay on an iphone for 900 mins of talktime, unlimited data and messaging is $50 higher than the same for any other phone. Which means that over a 2 year contract you would pay an extra $1200 for the iPhone. 

Even if you discard the difference for data as the iPhone is on the 3G network, the difference in voice itself is $30 per month. Which translates to an extra $720 over the two years. 

In essence you are buying an iPhone with a down payment of $199 and then are on a payment plan of $50 (or $30) per month for two years. Is it still worth it?  I sure do think so. 

Device testing

The growing demands for new applications/new features have always risen or they have been always tried to be a step ahead of user’s expectations. New phones on the market, new capabilities, etc, the complexity to develop applications always increases and at the same time testing new applications and making sure there are no regressions to it is a humongous effort. There are more than hand full of devices in store that always get opened during every release.

There is always a time factor and the go-to market increases as the race to give feature rich applications rises, as such the effort involved during new release roll out gets more critical both in terms of functional as well as time. Executing test scenarios on a more than a bunch of phones also takes more effort and there is always the case of regression; a new bug fix might break someplace else. As such the need for tight quality measures. Today, there are a variety of automation tools already in market place; there are simulators, to ease some QA aspects.

Usage of automated tools relatively takes off the ease on the quantity of scenarios to be run, however they necessarily not address all the UI corrections/fixes. They always need to be verified on the actual device itself. The more number of scenarios here the more time spent, device anywhere hosts such a large number of handsets grouped according to carriers. This eliminates companies to keep a repository of physical phones. All that needs to happen is to access devices from device anywhere and run tests. Early on usage of device anywhere carried few confusions of providing such services as simulations, but these devices actually work on electrical signals sent by user’s keyboard or mouse.

There have been quite a few upgrades made on device anywhere, how about recording scripts to support test cases (both UI and functional), capturing frame by frame screen prints that can enable developers to have more information on a bug on a speicifc device. How about getting an ability to migrate existing automated scripts that allows companies having scripts similar to as provided by device anywhere then they just copy need to be copied over to device anywhere suite and run them seamlessly. In net device anywhere provides fairly significant amount of backbone support for device testing, more information can be found here: http://www.deviceanywhere.com