MobHappy

Another Use For Mobile RSS: Presence

I wrote last week about RSS on mobile phones, and it's been kicking around in my head a little bit. Like I said in that last post, a lot of people seem to get hung up on RSS as just a method with which to follow blogs, but if you consider RSS as a platform, bnot only an application, there's a lot more you can do with it. One such idea I've had would be to use it to broadcast presence information to and from mobile devices.

It's a pretty straightforward idea. You'd have an application that publishes an RSS feed with your presence info, and when you change that information, the app republishes the feed. It could then be followed by anybody with an RSS reader, or by other purpose-specific applications on PCs or mobile phones. As much as I'm trying to escape thinking about RSS in terms of blogs, using the analogy might help explain my concept: basically the application would be publishing a blog that contains a users' presence information. Only the latest entry, showing the most recently updated information, is important, and RSS could be used to broadcast it.

At the most rudimentary level, users could upload status messages, like those in IM programs: away, busy, available, at the store, in the shower, and so on. Their contacts could check their status before trying to call or message, and tailor their communications accordingly. The info could be viewed by anybody with an RSS reader. On a higher level, perhaps the application could update the feed, which is then read by an element in the network that then controls how people can be contacted. If a user says they're in a meeting, it shuts off push email and sends calls to voicemail, or if they say they're at work, it diverts personal calls or something similar.

There's some holes in this rough idea, mostly having to do with the speed with which the information can be updated and disseminated, but I'm sure somebody more clever than I could figure out a way around them. All I'm trying to do is again illustrate platform thinking -- realizing all these tools at our disposal, whether it's something mobile-specific like SMS or MMS, or a wider technology like RSS, aren't just applications in themselves, but they can be used as the foundation for applications as well.

So when can I expect somebody to have a beta version to share? :D

SIM Applications -- Huge, But Largely Invisible, Market

Last night's Mobile Monday Austin featured a couple speakers on smart and SIM cards, and they turned out to be far more interesting than I expected. Bill Muscato from Axalto talked a lot about how SIMs are marketed in other parts of the world, and in particular about operators that use SIM applications. I'd heard of this before -- Radiolinja had one called DJ Esko when I lived in Finland many moons ago that sold ringtones and operator logos and such -- but I'd pretty much forgotten about it.

These are pretty basic applications, really, but they're interesting and important because they're a way to get data applications to emerging markets where low-end, basic handsets are the norm. Operators can preload the applications onto SIMs, then they can be updated using SMS as a data bearer. Applications can't necessarily be added over the air, but content can be added via SMS, so if the right kind of application was put on the SIM, it could act as a framework to create the appearance of new applications. These are typically very basic apps, typically storefronts for mobile content or basic information services, though Axalto's come up with quite a list (PDF alert).

Although most phones these days have Java capabilities, it's still not uncommon for new handsets in emerging markets to not support it, or any data services beyond SMS. SIM applications can give developers and operators a way to introduce content services and applications to these markets -- the very markets that are driving the industry's growth.

Anybody know of any examples of particularly cool or successful ones?

Welcome Our New Widget Overlords

I like a good widget, and I've been waiting for them for my mobile. Looks like that's getting closer, with the new Opera Platform. Many of the headlines got hung up on how this will enable the current Web Development Buzzword AJAX on mobile; more perceptive people saw the widget angle.

Opera Platform is significant because it represents a development environment for small, task-focus applications (ie widgets). While most of what will be done with it could probably be accomplished with a J2ME app (see Google Local Mobile), it's important to create a simpler, less intensive environment in which widgets can flourish (as Erik pointed out, sorta like Flash Lite). Check out the available Apple Dashboard widgets to see where this can go when development is made easy.

Things like Opera Platform and Flash Lite are significant first steps. What would be even more impressive, though, would be to see a handset manufacturer adopt one of these tools and dumb it down even further to the point where people could easily create their own widgets. Not only would the number of applications greatly increase, people would have an opportunity to really customize their mobile devices to access the services and information they want, by letting them develop widgets themselves. More open development environments foster creativity -- and ultimately success.

Homebrew Handsets

If further proof were needed that mobiles are the new rock n roll computers, CNet has this feature on how a select few are starting to build their own mobile handsets.

It's not cheap (parts cost c $400) and you have to be highly technically literate - writing and installing your own Linux operating system is the name of the game here. Though, for the marginally less talented, I guess it's only a matter of time before this is available as a download.

What you end up with though, is a programmable phone that does what you want it to, not what an operator or a handset maker thinks you should be able to do with it.

However far from mainstream this might appear at the moment, it's at the edges that real innovation occurs and the move to mainstream can happen remarkably quickly. Computers were very much the realm of geeks until really the early to mid-1990's. And blogging (both reading and writing blogs) was a very marginal activity even 3 years ago.

I also wonder how long it'll be before smaller players start to build handsets to order and when the larger players will start to follow them.

SavaJe? They're Still Around?

It's been widely reported today that LG announced a phone that uses SavaJe's Java OS -- I was pretty surprised to see this, having thought (honestly) that SavaJe had quietly gone under, since they've had no news since last December. SavaJe's big thing is that their OS is supposed to be easily customizable by operators, which is hardly surprising given that Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile own a quarter of it.

When SavaJe first emerged back in 2003, it was in the midst of the grand battle between handset manufacturers and mobile operators over branding -- carriers wanted their brands to have a bigger presence on handsets, while the vendors wanted theirs to have top billing. That was an argument squarely won by the operators. I postulated then that investing in SavaJe wasn't much more than ploy by carriers to say "hey, we've got our own smartphone OS thing going on over here, so, really, we don't need you" to the big vendors, and I'm doubt it's much of a coincidence that there hasn't been much news coming out of SavaJe since, while major manufacturers' phones support customization pretty much across the board, and their smartphone OSes now feature easily customizable options.

It's hard to see SavaJe ever being more than a bit player. But it wouldn't be surprising to see it hang around in the background and get trotted out by the operators the next time handset vendors won't accede to their wishes.

Why Does This Still Happen?

The Pondering Primate had a post earlier about a new mobile site from Fandango, a US movie listings and tickets site. Looking for movie times is something I do not infrequently on my phone, so I'm always interested in new sites with mobile movie listings. I fire up the browser on my phone and get the screen you see at left.

Why does this still happen? This isn't porting an application to different handsets; it's a web site. Web sites shouldn't have to "support" different devices, certainly not now. This looks like the most extreme application of the "optimized site" viewpoint -- optimizing the site to the point that it will only work with devices you've optimized it for, not even letting other devices attempt to load the page. It's also pretty stupid -- it means they've got to keep up with every new device that comes to market (assuming they care).

But the bottom line is this: will I (or anybody else that gets this same screen) ever visit the site again? No. Who's going to "check back soon" to see if their device is now supported, particularly in a field with so many competitors?

ShoZu Your Photos to Flickr

I've documented the problems of MMS many times and two of the central problems always come back to ease of use and cost.

ShoZu might just solve these issues, making it much easier to upload your photos as you take them on your camera phone and share them with friends and family.

ShoZu is a simple application you can download to your phone. Once installed, it offers to upload a photo to your Flickr account every time you take one. It's as simple as that.

Assuming (and it's a big assumption) that your phone's internet settings are correctly enabled, that's all there is to it. No complicated installation or software to learn. And no costly MMS charges - just the cost of the data transfer one time and you can share photos on the web and via email.

I don't know what the business model here is. It's a free-to-download application currently, so maybe the plan is to sell this once the product has moved out of beta stage. I'm also a little surprised they don't offer a choice of the more popular photo-sharing sites - Flickr might be the darling of the chattering classes, but there are others like the insanely popular WebShots, as an example.

It's also interesting that they've gone for a B2C model, unlike Cognima, who have focused on providing white label services that do pretty much the same thing. Cognima raised $12 million in the Summer to expand.

I'd say the value in the chain here is a B2C play, if they can make it happen. B2B invariably gets commoditised, squeezing margins until someone comes along with a way to make it happen cheaper than you're prepared to do it.

Platforms vs. Applications

In the presentation I gave at Mobile Monday Austin this week on messaging, one of the key points I tried to make (and hopefully the audience took away) was that things like MMS and SMS aren't just P2P messaging applications, they're platforms that allow for other applications.

Mark Donovan of M:Metrics (who coincidentally I interview this week for my next Gizmodo column) has posted a blog entry illustrating this point, via an anecdote about a road trip in an RV. If I had to pick just one sentence out, it would be this: "I only care about your technology if it makes my world better when I need it to make my world better." Technology is great, but it's real power is as an enabler for compelling -- and ultimately useful -- applications.

Improved Froogle Still Wide of the Mark

A post on the Google Blog mentions the "enhanced" version of Froogle Mobile. It's not really clear what's exactly been enhanced, but it still looks pretty underwhelming.

Froogle's a no-brainer for mobile; it seems like something like this should be very popular. After all, how often do people see something in a store and wonder "how much is that online?" The problem is that Froogle's pretty weak. It's simple and straightforward: you type in what you're looking for (ok, that might not be so simple), and hit search. That's all well and good, but why not make it read barcodes through the cameraphone? That might be some cutting-edge functionality (actually, not really -- Semacode already has a reader for Java phones), but as part of Google Labs, shouldn't it be?

Amazon already has an application like this in Japan, and I'd imagine a similar one in the West would drive plenty of sales of the company's staples -- books, CDs and DVDs. But adding this functionality to a non-vendor-specific service like Froogle would be better for consumers, and would help solve one of Froogle's bigger problems: its results.

The results pages can be pretty bad. While the page I get at first when I search for "ipod shuffle" is pretty okay, it's not sorted by price -- and if I'm using Froogle, aren't I interested in finding the lowest price? When I switch to sort by lowest price, the page it gives me are some $4 silicone covers for iPod Shuffles. I've got no idea how far I have to go before I find the real listings, because I'm on GPRS and I don't want to spend the time waiting.

Adding in barcode reading eliminates this problem because there's no ambiguity about what I'm looking for -- the product that belongs to this unique barcode. It saves time, makes things easier and ultimately makes Froogle much, much cooler and more useful. As things stand with its basic WML page, it's hard to imagine it's getting much use.

These are the kind of real-world connections mobile needs, hooks to bridge the physical and mobile worlds. Companies like Semacode that are working on barcode-reading applications may start by offering people a way to make nifty little QR codes to send people to their Web site, but it goes much deeper than that. Price information is but one possibility for product lookup; the Japanese are also tracking fish meat via QR code. They're also using QR codes on TV shows for promos and contests and RFID to distribute tourist information.

Opera Releases Java Browser

The discussion about optimized browsers vs. optimizing sites has been limited to the most part to smartphones, since there haven't been too many (if any?) high-powered browsers written in Java. However, Opera announced today that it's released Opera Mini, a Java version of its powerful mobile browser.

It gets around the limitations of low-end Java devices by running the pages through a server for pre-processing. Opera does something similar with its Mobile Accelerator product, which works with its smartphone browsers to speed things up, and it's also used by Danger for the browsing on its Hiptop devices.

It's hard to not feel like something like this should have happened a long time ago. It should provide for a much more robust and compelling browsing experience on standard handsets -- and given moves by operators to encourage browsing by giving away better browsers or using Google as a start page, implementing this sort of client-server setup would extend that proposition beyond the relatively small part of their user base that's got smartphones.

Optimized Sites vs Optimizing Browsers

One thing that pretty much everybody seems to agree on is that browsing the Web on mobile phones isn't what it should be, The disagreement comes in on what to do about it. One the one hand, you've got people pointing to the content as the problem, offering up the .mobi domain as a zone for mobile-specific content. On the other, you've got mobile browsers that aim to deliver a desktop-like experience, such as Opera, and Minimo -- the release of a preview version of that this week having spawned this line of thought. (There are also proxy services to consider, like Google Mobile or AOL's new mobile search, but I think they're generally fairly frustrating and useless, so I'll leave them out).

So, basically, what should change? Should sites adapt to the user, or should we all just get Opera? While I'm interested in finding the right answer from the publisher/content provider side as well, I'm going to focus on the user experience here. My primary concern (and frustration) as a user is being able to find the right content. Knowing where to go for mobile content can be a real problem, as it always has been. There was never a standard for where to find mobile-formatted content: wap.site.com. site.com/wap, site.com/mobile, mobile.site.com, even the ill-fated mmm.site com idea. That's assuming the URL had any sense to it at all: ESPN's mobile-formatted site sits at http://pocket.espn.go.com/ or http://proxy.espn.go.com/wireless/espn/html/pocketpc. How the hell am I supposed to find and/or remember that?

The .mobi idea is to have something like ESPN.mobi. That makes some sense, but how do I know which sites support it and which don't? I guess I'm just supposed to check through trial and error. Using a browser like Opera's got a simpler solution: I just punch in espn.com like on the desktop. The page loads, sure (though I get a memory full error), and the browsers got some nice technology to render pages for the small screen. But the result isn't always real pretty.

The second issue is what content's there. I've got certain things I've grown accustomed to seeing or using on certain sites when I access them from my desktop, and it's not unreasonable -- or at least it shouldn't be -- to expect them to be available on my mobile too. An advanced browser promises to give you everything on a site. With the mobile-specific content of .mobi, that's less clear. This is what Tim Berners-Lee was talking about when he came out against .mobi because it promises to create device-specific areas of the web.

So I guess the score is 1-1, indicating the solution's somewhere in the middle. While I think .mobi is a pretty stupid idea, it does highlight the need to make it easier for mobile users to find relevant content. But why not just have sites sniff what kind of browser or device is being used and change what's displayed? On the other hand, just having a powerful HTML-capable browser is nice, but it creates a fair amount of usability issues.

The way forward: give me a browser that can handle whatever I throw at it, but make sites a little more friendly by realizing that I'm on a mobile device and don't have a 1600x1200 display. Design the mobile site so it's easier to use, but don't cut out services and content I can access on the desktop. Don't corral me over on one small part of the Internet, either -- walling me into a garden will just annoy me.

Neither having a great HTML browser on a phone nor having a bastardized "mobile-optimized" site alone is the ideal solution, and asking for both isn't unreasonable. But until phone vendors and carriers on one side make browsers a real priority and content providers on the other side begin to understand and respect mobile users, the mobile Net will continue to suffer by not meeting average Joe Users' expectations of the Web.

Heh, noticed just as I was publishing that I'm not the only person thinking along these lines today -- Russell Beattie's got a nice post on reformatting vs. rethinking for mobile.

Oh, So Predictable

I saw the highly speculative post on Engadget titled "Could Nokia dump Symbian?" last night before I went to bed, and knew I'd wake up to plenty more speculative FUD, and I was right. I also knew I'd already found something to write about...

I was going to go through and analyze why I've got a really hard time buying into this at all, but Rafe over at All About Symbian has done a pretty thorough and convincing job of it already. I don't doubt that Nokia is taking a long, hard look at Linux and will use it in some devices, but I also don't doubt the company's not ready to throw away all the resources (cash, time and human) they've put into Symbian and related development.

I should reiterate Rafe's refutations of two of the prime pieces of "evidence" the analyst report that started all this cited: Nokia's licensing of Microsoft ActiveSync in addition to Symbian's licensing it, and the claim that most Series 60 applications are written in Java. Like many of the licensing deals Symbian signs, its licensees must ink separate deals with the original companies (MS in this case) to include the relevant technology on their devices. The Java app claim is disingenuous -- a fair comparison would be the number of Series 60-specific Java applications compared to native Symbian applications.

One interesting point to ponder, though -- how much of Symbian's dominance comes from the Nokia brand on the phones on which it's sold? When somebody picks up a Windows Mobile device, there's little doubt that it's a Windows phone. Symbian/Series 60/UIQ doesn't enjoy that same notoriety -- which keeps the OS brand (admittedly less important) in the background, where it doesn't compete with the device manufacturer's imprint.

Guidelines For Your New Mobile App

The blogosphere is sorta like six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Everybody's got the sites they read (you can see Russell and I's suggestions), and like Kevin Bacon movies, there's some overlap, and it's always sort of interesting to see when two seemingly unrelated sites you follow touch on the same topic at the same time.

That happened to me yesterday, when Paul Whitaker and Charlie Schick separately posted some of their thoughts on things to consider when building mobile apps and services. Paul succinctly highlights three areas he says developers or providers must get right to be successful in the mobile space: consumer education, simplified user experience and cost. I'd agree that without having all three of these down pat, you're not going to have much luck.

Charlie's list is a little bit longer, and features what he sees as the attributes of a compelling mobile app: while he says they're in no real order, I don't think it's coincidental that simplicity is the first thing he lists!

While neither of these lists offers a roadmap to create the perfect mobile app (you should be so lucky), both of these posts can serve as valuable checklists and guidelines for anybody deploying an application or service.

YubNub - Brings out the Geek in You

OK, this has not a lot to do with mobile and everything to do with tech. It proves to me that beneath my sophisticated marketing exterior, I am, at heart deeply geeky.

YubNub is both a website and a plug in for Firefox. It's then simply, and rather brilliantly, a command line for the web.

As an example, I currently do a lot of image searching on Google, for my blog. To get there, I typically type in the image description into the Google Search Box in my Firefox Browser. It returns results for the Web, I click on "image" and I'm there.

But with the YubNub plug in, I type in gim (Google images) and then the description and I go straight to the search results. So if I want to find a picture of a cat, I type "gim cat" and get a page full of moggies, like the one above.

That's the principle. So "am russell buckley" gives you the search results on Amazon for me and shows you my book. "wikip gnome" takes you straight through to the search results for gnome on Wikipedia.

But the extra cool touch is you can set up your own command lines. Just enter a command (that hasn't been taken) and a website url and you have your own command for everyone to use.

YubNub was put together in a 24 hour programming competition by Jonathan Aquino. Which frankly makes me bow down in awe.

Way to go, Jonathan!

Story spotted on the excellent and ancient UK-Netmarketing forum in old London towne, posted by Edward Cowell of Neutralize. Clearly a man with his finger on the command line of search engine marketing.

Mobile Developer Resources

I bloaned (blog/moaned) last week about the lack of a central resource for developers to access information about handset models.

Mobile Weblog reader, Gideon, left a comment that I thought deserved a wider platform. So if you're a developer, you might find this useful.

As one who has been spending the last few weeks learning the A-Z of mobile web development and dealing with serving files to phones, etc. I can tell you that there 'is' a site and project that is doing something close to what you are talking about - it's called WURFL: Wireless Universal Resource File.

In short, WURFL is a HUGE XML file that has the specs for over 400 devices. Plus - they've built in a scheme for 'fall back' devices and a generic device profile - all of which can be used by a developer to understand what they serve to what device, what sizes, methods, etc.

What they don't offer, is a proper 'web' view of this data nor a way for one to search the XML file directly - you'd need to use a standalone java app, or you'd need to set the whole thing up and use the API to create some type of public interface.

For me, I was on the search for all phones that supported mp3 ringtones so I could integrate this into a music site/service I run: ArtistServer - I was quite surprised that this info was not found on the Web - that I had to comb through many sites to compile my a list. So far, I've identified over 150 mp3 ringtone phones - some of which aren't even listed in WURFL.

So there's still room for a someone to take on the role of providing a common location for all mobile device profiles.

It should be accessible by a query, by drill down browsing, by web services and... you should be able to generate extracts from the result sets.

To do all this, one would need to import the XML file into a database - then spend a good week collecting images of all the phones - 3-4 weeks of coding - a domain name and the whole thing would be ready to rock.

In terms of keeping it up to date - I just don't see the phone manufactures or the carriers spending their time submitting the data.

Another site that is 'close' but not there either, is PhoneScoop - here they have the data - they have photos - they even know what phones are with what carriers... but can you search the data? Yes, but it's a tricky search tool and if you try to actually find something like, "All phones that are mp3 players" you'll get the info... but it will take a long time. They only display 20 results - which means you have to be tricky about how you search in order to 'really' get what you want.

So I agree with you 100% - this is a dire need - and if someone reads this, and has a few weeks - build the site - do it - you'll find it will be a busy place within the next year.

btw - i just found your blog today, I'm adding it to my RSS reader - keep up the good work :)

- Gideon
http://www.ArtistServer.com

Has anyone else any useful resources to add, in this area?

Image from Fury.com.

New media for the Mobile

People that have been wondering what ever happened to Macromedia Flash on Mobile Phones beware. After visiting Macromedia at 3GSM and CeBIT I downloaded the Flash Lite Player to my 6630 and started developing some content and was thrilled. It’s as easy as any Flash authoring and integrates nicely into the phone UI. Within minutes I had the first app up and running and the possibilities for developing content are nearly limitless. Now if you think of the tens of thousands Flash developer out there, only one challenge remains: Macromedia must get the Flash player on every mobile. And they have signed deals with Samsung and Nokia to do just that. There is no doubt that a new wave of multi media content and applications will come to a mobile near you. So stay tuned and if you really cannot wait, you can purchase and download the flash player for your mobile from the Macromedia website and see for yourself.

We thank Christian Ehl for writing this article.

You Can't Speak and Surf at the Same Time!

There's an interesting interview on The Feature with Nokia's games guru Greg Costikyan. It's slightly downbeat, which is a little odd when you consider mobile gaming is about to explode. If you believe analysts, of course and when they agree with me, I do :-)

But there's one thing that I'd never thought about before, although if you asked me outright I'd have known the answer:

Given the difficulty of inputting text on a mobile device, being able to use voice makes absolute sense, and after all, these are voice devices, right?

However, given the way data technology has been implemented on mobile phones, it is essentially impossible to make both a conventional voice and a data connection simultaneously, which I find astonishing, because this strikes me as key for a whole slew of mobile applications and not just games.

For example if I'm looking up restaurant listings on my phone, I want to be able to chat with my sweetie at the same time about where we're going to go to dinner. However, unless you are going to put in two sets of circuitry and make two simultaneous connections, there's really no way to do it other than by doing it all as data and packetizing the voice and doing voice over IP at the same time.

However, with current networks [Pathway to Glory], the bandwidth is kind of not there. The reason the N-Gage title works is it's a World War II title and it's a single duplex, somewhat fuzzy voice, which makes perfect sense in the context of the game because it sounds a lot like military radio.

Doesn't this make the operators' worst possible nightmare - Skype or another Voice over IP system - inevitable? Then operators loose the majority of their revenue, as juicy and profitable voice calls still make up the bulk of their business.

Sure, they'll still have data revenues derived from using the phone to make data calls, including VoIP. But that would surely drive the market further into commoditisation and the inevitable price war that accompanies this type of market.

Near Field Communication

Engadget also reports on a new, very short range wireless protocol developed by the mighty Philips. They've just licensed the technology to Samsung for their mobile phones.

Unlike RFID, it allows data to travel both ways (say, from a mobile to a PC), so the nearest competitor is dear old Bluetooth or even, Infrared.

As well as doing obvious stuff, like transferring data to PC's, it can be used to make micropayments or open locks. Or say, authorise and download music or video from kiosk-type machines.

I'm not sure the world really needs another protocol and another TLA, like NFC -unless I'm missing something. But it's meant to use less battery power than Bluetooth or WiFi. And with a rage of just a few centimeters, I think Bluetooth has the edge.

Mobile Phone Directory

I featured these guys a while back, but since then The Mobile Phone Directory has been coming on in veritable leaps and bounds.

It's a free resource for the mobile community - from the casually interested to the deeply techie, who needs the latest specs on handsets.

Check it out.

Bluetooth Guide

According to Engadget

Jon’s Guides has put together a pretty exhaustive guide on how to make your PC play nice with pretty much any Bluetooth device you might happen to own (and it seems like he’s tested them all). It covers everything from setup to security and even has an advanced section for those who aren’t scared of a little jargon.

The web at its bounteous best.

Developers - forget everything you know!

There's a very good article on Mobile Pipeline, spotted on Tom Hume's blog.

Aimed primarily at developers, it contains some real gems for all of us involved in mobile.

Forget what you know

It's essential for developers such as yourself to realize that the interaction between mobile users and their devices is fundamentally different from that of a PC user. The mobile user expects to get information quickly by "one-handing it" while riding in an elevator or waiting in an airport queue (which is much different from searching a hard drive in the comfort and convenience of an office).

While the over-competitive PC development market often comes down to a battle of application robustness, multimedia mobile software must be as transparent as possible. In a mobile environment, it's get in and out with speed, which has a considerable impact on your coding. You must consider the features that are absolutely essential to complete the task, and discard everything else.

And remember, mobile content is sushi, not turkey and all the trimmings. It's designed to be dipped into and enjoyed periodically.

Browser Wars

A rather startling observation from the BlogOn conflab last week from Boing Boing

Probably 99 times out of 100 when he asks that question all the hands go up, right? Well first there was a pause and then a giggle and then a whoop of laughter as the audience looked around and realized that NO ONE had raised a hand. The presenter was thrown off his mark, but he recovered and said, "Wow! Okay how many of you wish we'd fix IE so you could use it?"

Still no hands....

Informal survey afterwards said the Windows users in the crowd were all using the latest Firefox. Wouldn't it be amazing if Mozilla ended up winning in the end?

While it has to be admitted that attendees at such a specialist event are hardly representative of the average user, this does represent an important and influential beachhead for Mozilla.

It's also interesting in the light of Nokia recent investment in Mozilla, as reported in The Register last week.

IP Based Assisted GPS - All you need to know...

Wayne Hulls of M-Location has kindly made this presentation "IP Based Assisted GPS - The Technical Benefits" available to The Mobile-Weblog readers.

If you understand the title of the presentation, the chances are you'll find it invaluable :-)

Mobile RSS Feeds

Want to read my blog on your mobile? Wendong has a useful list of RSS readers for mobiles.

Useful Site

Thanks to TJ for sending this in.

The Mobile Phone Directory is a very useful resource for anyone doing work in the mobile industry.

providing information about all aspects of mobile telecommunications from the history of the mobile phone through to today's technological gadgets. So, whether you are planning to buy a mobile phone, are puzzled by what the jargon means, or are merely curious about the issues involved, then you will find something on our website to interest you. The site is divided into four sections: Glossary of terms, Technology, Phones, and News.

The phone spec directory is especially useful, though not quite complete yet.

J2ME

The Feature has an article from the JavaOne Conference.

After noting recnet improvements in speed and quality, they write:

Although manufacturers are delivering users the Java phones and experience they want, they still are falling short with developers. Taken individually, each company's pitch about how great their Java implementation sounds appealing to developers.

But developers are still frustrated by differences between manufacturers' Java engines. Along with pitching their speed and implementations, manufacturers and carriers as well as third party vendors are all at JavaOne pitching compatibility testing. While testing and new cross-platform development environments assure developers an application will work on a number of handsets (eventually), this is still a sore spot.

As one who has experience of this, it's a bloody mess.

You not only have to worry about making it work across handsets (there are even differences within a handset manufacturer's portfolio), but in some cases, across operator networks. The same app will work fine, on say, Vodafone and Orange and not at all on O2 and T-Mobile (depending on what the app does, obviously).

If you've ever repaired a puncture on a bike, it's like putting the inner tube back in. It's not easy, but you eventually get it in and return to the part of the wheel you started with. Only to find it's popped out somewhere else.

Ahhhhhh!

Brew HaHa

Russ Beattie's been writing about the rise and rise of Qualcomm's Brew - basically another pplication platform to rival Sun's J2ME.

As you can see from the chart, the numbers are actually pretty impressive.

Honestly, in my mind Brew has had quite a bit of buzz lately even before this week's blitz of news. I'm not totally surprised, but one would think that because it is a closed platform unlike J2ME or Symbian, it wouldn't be doing well. But instead it seems to be quite successful and getting more buzz daily. There was an article from a report released just the other day showing that the numbers indicate that for now at least, Brew based apps are selling better than J2ME apps - even though there are many, many more Java phones out there. I mean, Verizon's sold 34 million downloads since the beginning of the year!!! I thought Sprint was doing well! That's pretty amazing stuff.

Two thoughts. One is that being a closed platform, it might be an awful lot easier to develop on. I can tell you from personal experience that J2ME's a bitch.

Secondly, where the hell is Microsoft in this? Are they doing something in stealth mode or do they just not get it? The mobile will do to the PC what the PC did to the mainframe. And it'll happen quicker this time.