So once again a collection of links and thoughts about the mobile world that I found interesting in the past few days. I felt as though this past week had been a little slower in the mobile world. Possibly less mobile announcements this week from Google ;-). Lets just see what tomorrow brings with Facebook's imminent announcement of Geo-services APIs! According to all the tech press announcements should be but a few hours away. Will worry about that tomorrow though! In the meantime!Oracle has filed suit against Google over its ever-more-popular mobile operating system,Android. http://awe.sm/59Iun via @mashable - Although Google fervently deny it, Oracle are suing them over Android citing "That Android competes with Java as an operating system platform for cellular telephones and other mobile devices and that the Android stack employs Java apps running on a Java based framework" and that their patents have been infringed. From the press so far I think this seems pretty clear cut to me. Oracle do have a case. This one will drag out for a while but I certainly hope that phones don't get impounded and destroyed. After plenty of lawyer hours, as lets face it they need the money, lets hope Google fork out the required money and people are friends again. After all I am sure Larry Ellison and Eric Schmidt are reasonable people right? Right? It would sort of suck if this halts Google development and thus slows down Android creativity. Surely its just patent collectors rattling sabres at each other. Let's see.
RT @mashable Google Launches “Chrome to Phone” - http://mash.to/2oMNV - on top of sharing history with your chrome desktop browser, announced last week, Chrome will now let you push websites to your phone as well. So just before home time push that article to your mobile so you can read on the train home. Another demonstration of how products can converge when you own the complete distribution mechanism, i.e. PC and mobile.
RT @ feebeyer HTC Breaks Into Top 10 List Of Gobal Device Makers Thanks To Android. Now holds the No. 8 spot, http://cnt.to/m7P - I really like HTC phones. Although pretty clunky the first Android Phone, the G1, was a real cracker. Now the HTC Desire is up there with the iPhone. I am not 100% enamoured of their Windows Mobile devices but their Android ones are great. Let's see what they can do with Windows Phone 7 though? Seems that the rest of the world is starting to like HTC as well. Now they are building HTC branded devices, where previously they typically built devices that were branded by carriers, they really are making a foothold in the market. 8th place in such a massive market is entirely respectable. I think they will be heading northward on the charts for the next few years.
T-mobile roaming data passes are a winner.£5 for 20MB over 5 days. Compare this to any other UK network and its a bargain. - ok so roaming data is unfortunately not free. I really wish it was but lets face it, it's not and it won't be for a good while, if ever. When I say free I do mean as part of your contract. However when I go to mainland Europe with my iPhone O2 want to charge me £3 per MB of data! What? In a world of apps where you don't know what is really going on in the background in terms of data transfer you have no idea how you can control your spend. I guess the same can be said for the browser. Do you really know how much data is being transferred when you access a web page? No not really. So you have no idea how much you are being charged. Its crazy. T-Mobile on the other hand force you to buy a roaming data bundle. You can get various packages but I typically go for the £5 for 20 MB, usable over 5 days. I note the same amount of data on O2 would cost £60! I can then go data crazy on my phone knowing that I will be prevented from costing myself a fortune. If I use all of the allowance my data access stops and, if I want to, I buy another pass. At all stages I know exactly what my spend is. Also 20 MB on your average twitter checking, facebook access and internet browsing does last a good while. Sure if you stream content it disappears rapidly but at least you find out immediately that you have consumed data and you can then choose to buy more or change your browsing habits while roaming. Roaming data passes are such a great concept and such a good deal. Safe and far cheaper than the other networks. I seriously wish the other networks would follow suite. Especially O2 where whom I have my iPhone contract with!
Actually http://www.mob4hire.com is a very cool concept. Shame none of the handsets I have matches a current project! Would like to try - one of the hardest things about developing in mobile is testing. There are so many devices with different form factors and different browsers. Also different mobile networks can create havoc with your product. Having access to all targetted handsets in every region is almost impossible! Especially as a garage developer. You might have the money in a big company to get access to handsets but in a small company or a startup, no way! This site attempts to hook up people with mobile phones in different countries to companies who want a specific phone, on a specific network in a specific country. Product developers post detail about their application and how they want it tested, and testers can bid to do the testing. That's right testers actually get paid to test. It's a brilliant concept that I hope gets embraced by the developer world. To be fair I have not been able to test the end to end process as the project I bid for had already closed. Still I got a nice note from the developer and I will check back regularly to see if I can lend a hand (and get paid ;-) )
RT MobileCrunch Qualcomm will ship 1.5GHz dual-core snapdragons in Q4, phones may come as early as Christmas - http://is.gd/ekaZ6 - OK so when did the processor speed become a selling point for smart phones? Was this late last year with the launch of the first 1GHz snapdragon processor or a little before? A couple of years ago no one cared! As long as the phone worked no-one really knew what the processor was doing. No-one really cared that the phone had one! Now it seems like a selling point! I cannot wait until I get me a 4GHz mobile processor for my hand warming application that will sell millions during winter! After all its almost impossible to work a touch screen phone with gloves on? so my app maxes the CPU out, less a little bit, so your other app can also run, in order to generate a massive amount of heat such that you can use your handset on even the coldest of days glove free! OK its a little ahead of its time but Moores Law tells me it should be fine by the end of Winter 2012. Rock on!!
RT @IntoMobile Microsoft confirms game based on Halo franchise coming to Windows Phone 7 http://bit.ly/cbYbXR 50 - 60 games at launch - this one crept up on me a little. Games titles for the Windows Phone 7 launch. They actually look pretty good! Also the tie in with Xbox 360 and Halo could also drive some traffic to WP7 from the hardcore gamers out there. This is something that will sell these phones I think. OK I havn't tried the games or the integration to Xbox 360 but it's sounding very good. Interesting to see what happens in this space. To be honest I had sort of written off WP7 a little but maybe I have done this too early. Now interested to see what they can do. Look forward to the release.
OK so after a chore break (Going to the club for a jar or two and then chores) and several formatting issues with Blogger, I need to finish this off!
RT @mklucher That's a lotta games: http://bit.ly/9L7cms and http://bit.ly/cXsj4B #WP7 launch titles - more links to news about the games available for the WP7 launch.
RT @openvideoads has a new home at Longtail Video.. new releases, documentation, forums and a dev site @ http://www.openvideoads.org - This is the work of a friend of mine. I have often said that a developer site, other than hosting stuff at Google Code would do wonders. I think this is a really great start. I am sure that there is more to come down the road. I am not currently in the business of Video advertising but do follow what my friend is doing with keen interest. If you know anyone into video advertising on the web do send them in this direction. It could be worth their while.
RT @feebeyer @foursquare announces some more controls for how users share location and contact information http://rww.tw/chDOkl - this is good. Foursquare seem to be paying attention to the privacy concerns of their users. Privacy with respect to location based gaming and services is clearly an issue. Having worked on internet services for the German market I know in some countries it is far more of a monstrous issue than in others. Web services need to allow users to control who sees their information and when. They also need to do this simply. Just because a user interacts with a web service doesn't mean they want the world to see the results. Location is an even more private, or at least should be, concern as it allows people to see where you are exactly at this moment. The possible consequences of this should be obvious to see. Happy to see foursquare looking into this and addressing concerns. Will also be happier when Gowalla do.
At the time of the Peanut Butter manifesto you had to think the guys a dolt. Sometimes thou I really understand where he was coming from - OK. I have long campaigned for the fact that if a Customer feels they belong to a web service then they are more likely to use it, believe in it and evangelise it. Apart from creating a great web service, tools have to be given to a Customer to feel they can belong. The first is a mechanism to engage with the creators of the web service. If you give a Customer a means to suggest a new feature, or a mechanism to comment, and the creators of the service actually respond, then you have a Customer that is far more likely to repay in kind and be an active user of the service. It's common sense. If a Customer has their concerns, comments or praise addressed then their time and effort, and hopefully creative input, is clearly valued. Give that Customer the means to share their positive experience, or negative experience that was turned around to be positive, then there is a chance that they might become an evangelist for your product. Nothing of course is set in stone, but provide the tools and it might happen. Don't provide the tools and it will never happen! For developers of a web service, or in fact the builders of any product, if they are empowered to make changes and can see their ideas coming to fruition they they too will feel that they belong to the service. A sense of empowerment breeds a sense of responsibility. Once the creators of a service ultimately have the responsibility for its delivery then guaranteed you will not do things to meet the minimum requirement. Instead you will have a group of people that choose to excel and deliver beyond expectations. Empowering developers with responsibility will ultimately empower Customers to choose to use your service and promote it. Remove responsibility? The ultimate outcome? Average product and people who will deliver whatever is required, but will probably not go the extra mile. The choice, in my view is simple and obvious.
G2 coming to T-Mobile US http://g2.t-mobile.com/ Intrigued to see the spec, and if good when it will be available in the UK - despite it being rather unattractive, with a bizarre what could only be described as a quadruple chin, I really loved the Android G1. It was the first Android device and to me it really showed what Android was capable of. OK the form factor sucked but the keyboard was actually great to use. As with anything in mobile it's lifespan was limited and within 6 months it was basically obsolete, especially in the Android time frame! How many Android releases have their been in the past 18 months? That said a great phone. Consequently I am intrigued my the concept of the G2. I know nothing about it. Don't know the spec, don't know the form factor. I hope it is Android Froyo. It has to be right? Lets see if the hardware lives up to my high expectations. If it does I would like to know when it will be available in England please!!
OK that's all for this entry. Given it's Wednesday night now I don't think I will post more mobile news on Friday. Maybe who knows? I should probably be getting back in the garden anyway! OK thats it!
See y'all later
Cheers
M
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