Mobile applications, RIP

Summary: The business of making native apps for mobile devices is dying, crushed by a fragmented market and restrictive business practices. The problems are so bad that the mobile web, despite its many technical drawbacks, is now a better way to deliver new functionality to mobiles. I think this will drive a rapid rise in mobile web development, largely replacing the mobile app business. This has huge implications for mobile operators, handset companies, developers, and users.


The decline of the mobile software industry

Mobile computing is different from PC computing.

For the last decade, that has been the fundamental rule of the mobile data industry. It was the central insight of Palm Computing's "Zen of Palm" philosophy. Psion came up with similar ideas, and you can hear echoes of them from every other successful mobile computing firm: Mobile computers are used differently from PCs, and therefore must be designed differently.

We all assumed this also meant mobile devices needed a whole mobile-specific software stack, including an operating system and APIs designed specifically for mobility, and native third-party applications created from the ground up for mobile usage.

That's what we all believe, but I'm starting to think we got it wrong.

Back in 1999 when I joined Palm, it seemed we had the whole mobile ecosystem nailed. The market was literally exploding, with the installed base of devices doubling every year, and an incredible range of creative and useful software popping up all over. In a 22-month period, the number of registered Palm developers increased from 3,000 to over 130,000. The PalmSource conference was swamped, with people spilling out into the halls, and David Pogue took center stage at the close of the conference to tell us how brilliant we all were.

It felt like we were at the leading edge of a revolution, but in hindsight it was more like the high water mark of a flash flood. In the years that followed, the energy and momentum gradually drained out of the mobile applications market.

The problem wasn't just limited to Palm; the level of developer activity and creativity that we saw in the glory days of Palm OS hasn't reappeared on any mobile platform since. In fact, as the market shifted from handhelds to smartphones, the situation for mobile app developers has become substantially worse.

That came home to me very forcefully a few days ago, when I got a call from Elia Freedman. Elia is CEO of Infinity Softworks, which makes vertical market software for mobile devices (tasks like real estate valuation and financial services). He was one of the leaders of the Palm software market, with a ten year history in mobile applications.

I eventually moved on from Palm, and Elia branched out into other platforms such as Blackberry. But we've kept in touch, and so he called recently to tell me that he had given up on his mobile applications business.

Elia gave me a long explanation of why. I can't reproduce it word for word (I couldn't write that fast), but I've summarized it with his permission here:

Two problems have caused a decline the mobile apps business over the last few years. First, the business has become tougher technologically. Second, marketing and sales have also become harder.

From the technical perspective, there are a couple of big issues. One is the proliferation of operating systems. Back in the late 1990s there were two platforms we had to worry about, Pocket PC and Palm OS. Symbian was there too, but it was in Europe and few people here were paying attention. Now there are at least ten platforms. Microsoft alone has several -- two versions of Windows Mobile, Tablet PC, and so on. [Elia didn't mention it, but the fragmentation of Java makes this situation even worse.]

I call it three million platforms with a hundred users each (link).

The second technical issue is certification. The walls are being formed around devices in ways they never were before. Now I have to certify with both the OS and with each carrier, and it costs me thousands of dollars. So my costs are through the roof. On top of that, the adoption rate of mobile applications has gone down. So I have to pay more to sell less.

Then there's marketing. Here too there are two issues. The first is vertical marketing. Few mobile devices align with verticals, which makes it hard for a vertical application developer like us to partner with any particular device. For example, Palm even at its height had no more than 20% of real estate agents. To cover our development costs on 20% of target customer base, I had to charge more than the customers could pay. So I was forced to make my application work on more platforms, which pushed me back into the million platforms problem.

The other marketing problem is the disappearance of horizontal distribution. You used to have some resellers and free software sites on the web that promoted mobile shareware and commercial products at low or no charge. You could also work through the hardware vendors to get to customers. We were masters of this; at one point we were bundled on 85% of mobile computing devices. We had retail distribution too.

None of those avenues are available any more. Retail has gone away. The online resellers have gone from taking 20% of our revenue to taking 50-70%. The other day I went looking for the freeware sites where we used to promote, and they have disappeared. Hardware bundling has ended because carriers took that over and made it impossible for us to get on the device. Palm used to have a bonus CD and a flyer that they put in the box, where we could get promoted. The carriers shut down both of those. They do not care about vertical apps. It feels like they don't want any apps at all.

You can read more of Elia's commentary on his weblog (link).

Add it all up, and Elia can't make money in mobile applications any more. As he told me, "Mike, it's time for you to write the obituary for mobile apps." More on that later.

Although it's a very sad situation, if Elia's experience were an isolated story I'd probably just chalk it up to bad luck on the part of a single developer. But it mirrors what I've been hearing from a lot of mobile app developers on a lot of different operating systems for some time now. The combination of splintering platforms, shrinking distribution channels, and rising costs is making it harder and harder for a mobile application developer to succeed. Rather than getting better, the situation is getting worse.

I've always had faith that eventually we would solve these problems. We'd get the right OS vendor paired with a handset maker who understood the situation and an operator who was willing to give up some control, and a mobile platform would take off again. Maybe not Palm OS, but on somebody's platform we'd get it all right.

I don't believe that any more. I think it's too late.


The mistake we made

We told ourselves that the fundamental rule of our business was: Mobile is different. But we lost sight of an even more fundamental law that applies to any computing platform:

A platform that is technically flawed but has a good business model will always beat a platform that is elegant but has a poor business model.

Windows is the best example of inelegant tech paired with the right business model, but it has happened over and over again in the history of the tech world.

In the mobile world, what have we done? We created a series of elegant technology platforms optimized just for mobile computing. We figured out how to extend battery life, start up the system instantly, conserve precious wireless bandwidth, synchronize to computers all over the planet, and optimize the display of data on a tiny screen.

But we never figured out how to help developers make money. In fact, we paired our elegant platforms with a developer business model so deeply broken that it would take many years, and enormous political battles throughout the industry, to fix it -- if it can ever be fixed at all.

Meanwhile, there is now an alternative platform for mobile developers. It's horribly flawed technically, not at all optimized for mobile usage, and in fact was designed for a completely different form of computing. It would be hard to create a computing architecture more inappropriate for use over a cellular data network. But it has a business model that sweeps away all of the barriers in the mobile market. Mobile developers are starting to switch to it, a trickle that is soon going to grow. And this time I think the flash flood will last.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm talking about the Web. I think Web applications are going to destroy most native app development for mobiles. Not because the Web is a better technology for mobile, but because it has a better business model.

Think about it: If you're creating a website, you don't have to get permission from a carrier. You don't have to get anything certified by anyone. You don't have to beg for placement on the deck, and you don't have to pay half your revenue to a reseller. In fact, the operator, handset vendor, and OS vendor probably won't even be aware that you exist. It'll just be you and the user, communicating directly.

Until recently, a couple of barriers prevented this from working. The first was the absence of flat-rate data plans. They have been around for a while in the US, but in Europe they are only now appearing. Before flat-rate, users were very fearful of exploring the mobile web because they risked ending up with a thousand-Euro mobile bill. That fear is now receding. The second barrier was the extremely bad quality of mobile browsers. Many of them still stink, but the high quality of Apple's iPhone browser, coupled with Nokia's licensing of WebKit, points to a future in which most mobile browsers will be reasonably feature-complete. The market will force this -- mobile companies how have to ship a full browser in order to keep up with Apple, and operators have to give full access to it.

There are still huge problems with web apps on mobile, of course. Mobile web apps don't work when you're out of coverage, they're slow due to network latency, and they do not make efficient use of the wireless network. But I believe it will be easier to resolve or live with these technical drawbacks in the next few years than it will be to fix the fundamental structural and business problems in the native mobile app market.

In other words, app development on the mobile web sucks less than the alternative.

Here's a chart to help explain the situation. Imagine that we're giving a numerical score to a platform, rating its attractiveness to developers. Attractiveness is defined as the technical elegance of the platform multiplied by how easy it is for developers to make money from it. The attractiveness score for native mobile app development looks like this over time:



This is why mobile app developers are in trouble. Even though the base of smartphones has been growing, and the platforms themselves have become more powerful, the market barriers have been growing even faster. So attractiveness has been dropping.

Now add in mobile web development:



Based on what I'm hearing from mobile developers, the lines just crossed. The business advantages of mobile web development outweigh its technical limitations. More importantly, if you look at where the lines are going, the advantage of mobile web is going to grow rapidly in the future.

I'm not saying all native mobile development is dead. In fact, we're about to see the release of Apple's native development tools for the iPhone, and as Chris Dunphy just pointed out to me, they are sure to result in a surge of native development for that platform. But I think even a rapidly-growing base of iPhones can't compare to the weight of the whole mobile phone market getting onto a consistent base of browsers.


What it all means

If you're a mobile developer, you should consider stopping native app development and shifting to a mobile-optimized website. That's what Elia did, and he said it's amazing how much easier it is to get things done. Even mobile game developers, who you'd think would be the last to abandon native development, are looking at web distribution (link; thanks to Mike Rowehl for pointing it out).

See if you can create a dumbed-down version of your application that will run over the mobile web. If the answer is yes, do it. If the answer is no, try to figure out what technology changes would let you move to the web, and watch for those changes to happen.

There are exceptions to any rule, and I think it makes sense to keep doing native development if your app can't work effectively over the web, and it's a vertical application so popular that you can get about $50 or more in revenue per copy. In that situation, you probably have enough resources to stay native for the time being. But even you should be monitoring the situation to see when you can switch to the web, because it will cut your expenses.

If you're a mobile customer, make sure your next smartphone has a fully functional browser that can display standard web pages. And get the best deal you can on a flat-rate data plan; you'll need it.

If you're an operator or a handset vendor, get used to life as a dumb pipe. By trying to control your customers and make sure you extract most of the revenue from mobile data, all you've done is drive developers to the Web, which is even harder to control. You could have had a middle ground in which you and mobile developers worked together to share the profits, but instead you've handed the game to the Google crowd.

Congratulations.


Oh, about that obituary...

In loving memory of the mobile applications business. Adoring child of Java, Psion, Palm OS and Windows Mobile; doting parent of Symbian, Access Linux Platform, and S60; constant companion of Handango and Motricity. Scared the crap out of Microsoft in 2000. Passed away from strangulation at the hands of the mobile industry in 2008. Awaiting resurrection as a web service in 2009. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you make a donation to the Yahoo takeover defense fund.

I'm reading: Mobile applications, RIP

Geotagging Integrated into N82 on Next Firmware Update

According to S60 Blogs, the next firmware update of the N82 should include Geotagging integrated into the camera settings. No firm date was offered, but the update is on course to be released during Q1.

The post also says:

Work on Location Tagging is progressing well, some other new features are also being added (that I can't talk about yet).

I wonder what those features will be?

I'm reading: Geotagging Integrated into N82 on Next Firmware Update

Get Together in London

WOMWorld is a website where you can find listed in one place chat about NSeries phones. They scour the internet and link to discussions on forums, posts on blogs and general news stories about specifically the Nokia NSeries range. I've found many an interesting post and blog via their site.

The guys from WOMWorld, friendly bunch that they are, have decided to get together in London one evening early next month, to share with like minded NSeries freaks (I mean that term in the nicest way, including myself under that description) to share a chat over a beer about the greatest mobile products in the industry.

Also, during that evening, Ryan Gallagher from Camera Toss is going to be passing through as part of his excursion on the Nokia NSeries Urbanista diaries, and he will give a demo of 'Camera Toss' (Something I could *never* see myself doing!). I hope everyone is keeping up to date with the excellent Urbanista Diaries project, you can find more detail here.

The WOMWorld event will take place on the 5th March, at the Crown Pub in London which is just a three minute walk from Holborn Tube station. A map is linked here.

The WOMworld crew will be there from 6.30ish onwards, so if you are up for a lively evening and will be in the area, pop in and meet the guys.

I'm reading: Get Together in London

N78 Advertising

From AAS, this ad for the N78. It has to be said when I first saw the N78 I was far from impressed. Now I'm starting to change my mind. It could actually be even a more popular handset than the N96.

I'm reading: N78 Advertising

What would you like to ask the mobile OS companies at CTIA?

I've been invited to moderate a panel on mobile operating systems at the CTIA conference this April. No doubt this will be the highlight of the entire conference ;-) , so make your travel reservations early.

Participants tentatively will include Symbian, Microsoft, Access, RIM, and several others.

Here's the session description:

Operating Systems, User Interfaces and Browsers: Where is the Technology Going?

Mobile phones are plagued with interoperability issues, making it difficult for applications to run properly on all handsets, hurting both consumers—who find their handset incapable of running the desired application—and applications developers—who have to develop multiple versions of the same application. What are the pros and cons of open versus closed handheld operating systems? This panel will address the likely outcome of the openness rage should it move to the handset, including the long-term effects of this possible technology shift.

Should be a fun conversation.

The panel will consist of brief presentations followed by Q&A, so I wanted to give you an opportunity to participate. If you'll be at CTIA, please come by the panel on April 2 at 2:30. If you won't be there, let me know what questions you'd like to see asked. Just post a comment below, and I'll see what I can do. I'll also post a report after the session.

(By the way, if you'll be at CTIA and want to chat, drop me a note at the address here.)

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Nokia N95 8GB - First Impressions

So, now the N82 has been returned, I've had to look across the market to see what phone I should get next. Normally, I go back to the N73, but I'm finding that is now becoming just that bit old now, despite being one of the best NSeries phones, ever.

So, not wanting the N73 again, I've looked to see what took my fancy. There's not a lot on the market right now, really. The new NSeries, N78 and N96 are still a while off, and really anything other than a smartphone just doesn't cut it. I considered the Sony Ericsson W960, and also the Nokia E51, but ultimately decided on the N95 8GB. I've owned the N95 a couple of times in the past, but this is the first time I've owned the 8GB version.

This phone just looks good. Huge screen, easy to use navigation keys, comfortable keypad, and nice black colour.

A few initial thoughts on the phone. It is sold as coming with the Spiderman 3 film, but if you want to keep it functioning don't upgrade your firmware. I backed up before upgrading last night but despite this, the film now no longer works. I can't understand why Nokia don't carry through this functionality on a firmware upgrade, is it really that difficult? A quick scan of the Nokia discussion boards shows a lot of dissatisfied users who've lost the film after upgrading their firmware, some backed up, some did not because, as a brand new handset they didn't think there was anything too back up. Surely it isn't hard to rectify this issue?

Another point, that mini USB cable is just too short. My phone barely reaches my desk from the PC, it is that short.

Minor points really, but annoying enough to mention them. Overall I'm very happy with the phone and I'm sure it will last until the Black N82 hits the market.

I'm reading: Nokia N95 8GB - First Impressions

Iconic Handsets

There have been some iconic mobile phones, over the years. Handsets that have really stood out, and stood the test of time. The reasons a handset becomes part of mobile folklore will usually be either because of a classic design, or outstanding features. Take the Motorola Star Tac, for example. Feature-wise nothing special but it is a real design classic of a mobile phone. Or who could forget what popularly became known as the Motorola Wings, the Motorola V3688. This handset was tiny, and just felt great to use, despite being absolutely useless for anything other than calls. The V3688 even sucked at SMS, with poor message input and early handsets had no link to the phonebook, so unless you knew the number you didn't know who messages were from. Great keypad for such a small phone though.

Moving on from the Motorola design classics, we come to another iconic handset, the Nokia 6310i. Certainly not a popular handset because of its looks, this is one of the most sold handsets Nokia have ever produced, it sold in its millions. It was such an easy phone to use, simple in layout, it had Bluetooth and GPRS back in the day when this was important and new. I know people now who still insist on their 6310i and won't swap. There is a roaring trade on 6310i refurbs on Ebay. This is one phone that will run for a few more years. A friend told me he is taken with the simplicity, whilst at the same time of course, there is the legendary 6310i battery. That thing just goes forever!

Personally, I just the iconic status of my handsets by the amount of time I buy one. It works something like this. I buy a phone, use it, like it, buy another, but the replacement doesn't cut it, either in usability, or design, or features, so I purchase another of the model I had previously. It's like my little vice, I don't drink, smoke or gamble, I do buy lots of phones! Over time phones like the V3688 and 6310i have been iconic handsets in my phone ownership history. Also the Nokia 7650, the first camera phone in the UK, the first Symbian phone, the handset that got me hooked on S60 in general, became an iconic handset. The 6600 after it, the N73, all iconic handsets.

A few months ago, I was invited to the launch of the Nokia N82, with a few other bloggers, and we were given a live handset to take away with us and put it through its every day paces. A fantastic opportunity to get real hands on with the latest S60 product, and really find out how it performs. I cannot recommend this handset enough. In the three months I've used this phone it hasn't failed me. Recently I purchased an 8GB memory card so storage was never an issue, the N82 has a great camera, WiFi, HSDPA, easy email to setup and use, an excellent web browser, the acceleromator, GPS, a handily placed 3.5mm audio jack on the top of the phone, a great bright clear screen, all in my favourite phone shape, the classic candybar.

The trial period with the N82 is now at an end, and the handset is going back. It is the only time I've ever trialed a handset that I really didn't want to give back, the N82 is that good.

I am going to by another N82. In my mind, the N82 has achieved the level of an iconic handset, to me personally. However, I am going to wait until I can get my hands on the black version, I've seen one in the flesh, so to speak, and it really is nice. In the meantime I will use an N95 8GB which I haven't owned since they came to market, but I've had the N95 previously and the N82 to me is a much better handset, even if just for the form factor.

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Hands on with the Nokia N96

At the Nokia Press event today, I also had the opportunity to get some hands on time with the Nokia N96. The first thing I noticed was the size, it was smaller than I expected. The design is similar to the N95, with the dual slider, but overall reflects more the N81 in design. Some people are not too impressed by this, for myself I like the look of the phone.

The screen is large, and dominates the handset when closed. Open, and you see a good keypad, well laid out and very easy to use. There will be no problems with text input on this phone.

A lot of the innovation on the N96 is inside. Firstly there is support for DVB-H which is basically support for digital television. I'm not sure how this affects us in the UK, the last time there was a Nokia phone with DVB-H support it didn't release in the UK as our digital signal is not compatible. For more technical detail, see here, here and here.

The N96 is endowed with an impressive 16GB of internal memory and there is also support for Micro SD cards, so in theory you could increase capacity to an amazing 32GB. For now you will have to make do with 24GB as 16GB cards will not likely be on the market until towards the end of 2008 (My guess, not based on any concrete info)

The N96 has a mini 'kick stand' at the back. In place it sits flush around the camera lens, opened out it allows the phone to stand for watching video. The N96 will support WMV videos and it is expected to also support DivX video during the handsets lifecycle.

Overall I was again impressed with the Nokia N96, the build quality was solid, the slide worked well, and the screen is very bright and clear. One thing I did like, thanks to the FP2 support, is using the phone theme you can finally remove the Nokia calendar from the front screen. Well, kind of. What actually happens is the theme will remove the standby icons from there normal position across the main screen, and list them down the left handside. You can choose which icons appear, so if you decide not to include the calendar, then obviously it won't appear. If you do choose the calendar, then appointments are only shown if you highlight the calendar icon, a mini screen pops up. Much better than the way all appointments are shown on the main screen right now, but not quite as good as the ESeries plugins.

Tomorrow I am flying out to Barcelona to attend the MWC, I will try and get some more info on the new phones, and some more pictures.

I'm reading: Hands on with the Nokia N96

Hands on with the Nokia N78

Earlier on today I attended the Nokia Press Conference in the new flagship store in Regents St in London, as Nokia presented live from Barcelona their new handsets. In all four handsets were announced, the Nokia 6210 Navigator, Nokia 6220 Classic, Nokia N78 and Nokia N96. Here, I'm interested in the two NSeries handsets.

First, the N78. The N78 is a direct replacement for the very popular Nokia N73. The N73 is probably one of my favourite ever handsets, it matched a good feature set, for its time along with a very good battery life. Overall Nokia sold over 50 million N73 handsets. But, as with all things in the mobile industry, we move forward.

I saw an N78 a few months ago, and to be honest, I was not impressed. It is always hard to judge what is clearly a prototype handset, however I didn't like the look, I didn't like the feel and neither the design. And that keypad, it was awful! So of the new handsets to be seen, the N78 was the one I wasn't really to bothered about.

Well, I'm happy to say those initial impressions have been shown to be misplaced. The N78 I saw today, whilst still a prototype, was way ahead of the model I saw just a short while ago. The keypad seems to have been changed slightly, in the numeric keys are more aligned than I remember. And, whilst it does still look uncomfortable, it actually isn't. Three months of using the N82 and you soon get used to using those slim keys. The keys on the N78 are slightly different, they are not separate but one long line. In fact, none of the keys are cut out separately, but part of one whole plastic design. You can get an idea of this from the pictures below. Just click on the image to see them in full size.

The N78 is equipped with an FM transmitter. This is the first time that a mobile phone has included an FM transmitter built in. I need to try the feature out, but it works in much the same way as those add on modules do for music players. The transmitter will scan for an available FM signal and you can transmit your music via the transmitter to your car or home stereo.

The N78 has HSDPA, and WiFi, and support for Bluetooth 2.0. There is also GPS support, and this includes support for geotagging, which will capture information when you take a picture, so when you upload the picture details are stored of when and where the picture was taken.

Overall the N78 did impress me, and I imagine that in two years or so, we will be looking back and seeing that the N78 has achieved similar sales figures to the N73.

I'm reading: Hands on with the Nokia N78

N78 and N96 Live Pictures

I've been down to London this morning, to attend the Nokia Press event. I got some hands on time with the N96 and N78. They also had the 6210 Navigator phone and 6220 Classic. I will be back shortly to add some detail about the handsets, but in the meantime here are some pictures (click the image to view full size)

Don't forget to click on the ticket in the post below to go to the online Nokia NSeries event.

I'm reading: N78 and N96 Live Pictures

Take Your Seats for NSeries at the Mobile World Congress

Most recently Nokia have had a few online events when they are launching new products. Tomorrow is the first day of the Mobile World Congress and once again there will be a virtual online launch event.

This will offer you the opportunity to talk online with product managers who have been involved with the latest releases, and there will also be chat rooms where you can discuss the new releases with bloggers and other NSeries fans.

To access the online site, click on the ticket at the top of this post. It all kicks off tomorrow, at around 10.20 CET.

I'm reading: Take Your Seats for NSeries at the Mobile World Congress

N96 Spec Leaked

Intomobile is always a good read, and one of my daily visits. This time they have come up with a great scoop, the confirmed spec list for the N96:

• Quadband EDGE
• Dualband HSDPA 850/2100 MHz
• DVB-H Class C
• 92 cc volume
• 125 gram weight
• 103 x 55 x 18 mm
• 16 GB internal memory AND a microSD slot;
• 950 mAh battery
• 6.1 cm (2.8 inch) 320×240 display with 16 million colors
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• WiFi (802.11b/g)
• AGPS
• 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens that also does VGA video recording at 30 FPS, Dual LED flash that can also be used when video recording!
• S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 (Flash Lite 3 enabled web browser included)
• microUSB

I'm glad to say the spec list includes the rumoured stuff I posted about here. I think you can also take as confirmed the spec of the N78 from that list, too.

The N96 is most likely to be confirmed, with a release date, at the Mobile World Congress which starts next week

I'm reading: N96 Spec Leaked

N82 Available in Black

The Black N82 is now official, as spotted by Stefan, over at IntoMobile. We'd always imagined that a black version would be available, and now we have confirmation.

I did actually get to see a live handset just last week, but I wasn't allowed to say anything. You don't know how tempting it was, and how hard to keep quiet!

The N82 looks as good, if not actually better, in the flesh, so to speak, than it does in the pictures. Like a lot of people I've always had a preference for phones in black, I think they just look very classy. The N95 8GB looks way better than the N95 Classic, the N73 Music Edition is way better than the original N73.

I can't find any confirmed details on a release of the Black N82 in the UK, but I would imagine the release is imminent. Network take up of the original N82 has been poor, with only O2 officially taking it on. Hopefully that will change with the black version.

I'm reading: N82 Available in Black

Turning Your Mobile Into a Live GPS Sports Tracking Tool

I receive an interesting email yesterday evening, about a new Java app called Map My Tracks, that offers real time GPS tracking, focusing on soprts enthusiasts. The app will work with handsets that have an internal GPS unit and also to handsets that connect to an external GPS unit via Bluetooth.

Here's the press release:

Launched today, Map My Tracks is a new Java mobile application that uses GPS technology to accurately track a sportsman's position in real time, displaying useful live information including pace, time and elapsed distance. A selection of screenshots of the service in action is available at http://www.mapmytracks.com/about/screenshots.

Once back home sportsmen can replay and analyse tracks to see where performances can be improved, as well as review useful information like average speed, maximum speed and distance covered. As Map My Tracks shows the sportsman's position live on the internet, friends and relatives can watch progress from the comfort of home too.

The Map My Tracks phone application is a Java Midlet built using Sun Microsystem's Java Micro Edition (J2ME). It is intended to work on any phone which supports Java and has access to the internet. For GPS positioning the Java Bluetooth API (JSR 82) is used to support internal GPS devices, while external GPS devices are supportred by Java Location API (JSR 179).

Find out more at http://www.mapmytracks.com/

Here is a YouTube Video of Map My Tracks:



The app looks good from what I've seen in demo so far, I'm hoping to give it a try out over the next few days. There is a monthly subscription to the service, more details of which can be found on the sign up page here. There is a free option so you can give the app a try out first.

I'm reading: Turning Your Mobile Into a Live GPS Sports Tracking Tool

Killer N95 deal - For Today Only

This offer comes thanks to the guys at E2Save. For today only, they are offering an N95 on a 12 month contract with 12 months half price line rental, on the O2 network. The tariff is O2 600, which offers 600 minutes and 500 text per month for what will effectively be £20 per month!

As with all cashback deals, make sure you check how to claim your money back. E2Save are one of the largest online retailers and part of the Carphone Warehouse Group of companies.

This offer is only open to UK residents over the age of 18, and is subject to a credit check, as per all UK contracts.

Click here for more

I'm reading: Killer N95 deal - For Today Only

Turn Your Symbian Smartphone into a Mini Wi-Fi Hotspots

Finland based software house, Joikusoft says that it has developed an application for Symbian Series 60 based smartphones which converts them into a Wi-Fi hotspot, using 3G cellular for the backhaul connection. When turned on, external WLAN devices can discover the open JoikuSpot and establish internet connection wirelessly using the mobile phone's 3G internet connection.

Joikusoft says that their software application also presents a new type of a business opportunity for network operators, saying that JoikuSpot encourages its users to upgrade their mobile data plans to faster and fixed monthly plans, and usage of JoikuSpot sizeably improves the user data ARPU.

Reading the instruction manual for the software though makes no mention of encrypted usage via conventional WEP/WPA or the ability to restrict users by computer MAC address. That means anyone in range can connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot and use the internet access. As the software is still in Beta, we can presume that this necessary feature would be added in the near future.

JoikuSpot is based on Joikusoft's patent pending technology, and the limited beta version for Symbian OS unveiled today is called JoikuSpot Light.

Source

I'm reading: Turn Your Symbian Smartphone into a Mini Wi-Fi Hotspots

Mobile World Congress 2008

It used to be called 3GSM. Now known as the Mobile World Congress (that name sucks) it all kicks off next week, 11th February. I am lucky enough to be attending the event, but due to other commitments I will only be there for one day!

I am flying out to Barcelona on the 12th February, at 6am, and flying back later the same evening. I think a lot of the announcements will happen next Monday, for Nokia at least, so my main focus will be getting live pictures and video of the new NSeries devices. I hope the N78 will be officially announced and also the N96. Who knows if there will be anything else?

I'm reading: Mobile World Congress 2008

How to beat Google (and why Microsoft + Yahoo probably won't do it)

Could Yahoo be fixed and thrive as an independent company? I think it could, but now we'll probably never know, because Microsoft wants to buy it. There are reports that private equity firms, and possibly News Corp, also want to bid (link). Even Google has supposedly offered to help (link). But by declaring its desire for Yahoo, Microsoft has basically acknowledged that its own Internet business is failing. Now that Microsoft has said that in public, it has no choice but to outbid everyone else.

Which is a shame, because I think the combined companies are likely to fail. To explain why, I have to talk about the right and wrong ways to compete with an industry leader...


How to fight a leader

In my opinion, the best way to fight a dominant company at the top of their game is not to go head to head with them. You don't launch a competing line of mainframes against IBM in the 1960s, and you don't launch a consumer operating system against Microsoft in the mid-1990s. What you want to do is challenge them in a business they don't understand, or better yet an area where their own strengths make them weak. That's what Google did -- while Microsoft was focused on beating Netscape, AOL and the other first-generation Internet companies, Google quietly established a franchise in search advertising. It's now using this secure base to subsidize free online applications (and a mobile operating system) that compete with Microsoft.

Although Google's direct impact on Microsoft's applications business to date has been miniscule, Google's tactics will eventually present Microsoft with a Catch-22 situation: If it tries to hold the line on prices, its customers will gradually migrate away. If it matches Google on price, it destroys its own revenues.

Microsoft's response has been to try to get a piece of Google's advertising revenue. First it tried to build its own search and advertising business. Now that's failing, so it wants to buy Yahoo's to get critical mass.

The problem is that even with Yahoo, Microsoft will still be far behind Google in search advertising. Google has a huge lead, and is willing and able to spend lavishly to defend it if it has to. I think what Microsoft is doing is equivalent to leading an infantry charge uphill against an infinite number of machine guns.

If Microsoft really wants to spend $45 billion, I think it would be far better served by investing it to attack someplace where Google is weak.


Google's weaknesses

A dominant company's strengths are also usually its weaknesses. (For example, IBM was so deeply embedded in corporate big iron that it couldn't understand the PC business. Microsoft was so caught up in monetizing a computer platform that it couldn't picture someone giving away the whole thing.) Google's weakness is its beautifully managed and consistent corporate culture. Google hires only the best and brightest software engineers. It hires them young, so they can be molded, and it brags about screening them all for "Googliness." That consistent culture means it acts far more predictably than many technology companies, and it has very consistent blind spots.

One of Google's blind spots it that it can't tell the difference between usability and utility. Usability is the process of making software easy to learn without a manual or extensive training. Google is extremely good at designing for usability. Its interfaces are clear, uncluttered, and generally self-explanatory. Utility is the ability of a product to solve a major problem for a user. That requires the designer to get inside the head of the target customer, understanding not only his or her rational needs but also the emotional landscape. Google is terrible at designing for utility. It tends to attack problems that engineers care about, rather than normal people; and it often produces elegant technologies that don't engage people emotionally and fail to deliver the full solution they need. (If you want a great example of the difference between usability and utility, compare the old Google Video to YouTube. Google Video was cleaner and easier to use, but it was launched without sufficient content, and was about as emotionally engaging as a slab of concrete.)

One of the best ways to compete with Google, then, is to focus on utility -- to create online products and services that solve real problems for customers, and address both emotional and rational needs. That's what Amazon is doing with Amazon Web Services (although in this case the customers are developers rather than consumers.)

There are many, many more opportunities to create high-utility Internet applications. What you need is a critical mass of bright engineers, a product management culture that understands how to design for utility, and senior management that focuses the company on its best opportunities. Designing for utility takes more resources than just tossing a product out there, so management must restrict the number of projects the company undertakes.

Yahoo has plenty of bright engineers, and I think it understands utility better than Google. Ironically, Yahoo's attempt to make itself into a media company probably helped here, because it forced the company to learn about engaging people emotionally.

What Yahoo has lacked, in my opinion, is the awareness that it's actually a products company, not a media company; and the management discipline to focus on a small number of initiatives.

Will a buyout by Microsoft fix those problems? I don't think so. Microsoft itself isn't great at designing for utility. Mostly, it focuses on copying and adapting things that have been developed by others. One of the most depressing documents I've seen on the Web recently was the alleged plan for Windows Mobile 7 (link). Assuming that the plan is genuine, it shows that rather than trying to do something new in mobiles, Microsoft is slavishly trying to copy and "improve" on the interface of the iPhone (so, for example, rather than just using finger touches you can also shake the phone to make it do things). This comes after Microsoft spent the last couple of years trying to copy RIM, and before that Palm.

Even the bid for Yahoo is driven by Microsoft's desperate desire to copy and co-opt another company's business model. That's exactly what Yahoo doesn't need. Rather than focused management that can pick out the most disruptive embers in Yahoo's portfolio and fan them into bonfires, Yahoo is likely to get layers of well-meaning ROI analysis, a distracting flood of resources, political integration hassles, cultural conflicts, and a mandate to "concentrate on the core."

The process will probably strangle Yahoo and distract Microsoft. I really hope I'm wrong, but I think there's a very good chance that the merger will be the beginning of the end for both companies.

I'm reading: How to beat Google (and why Microsoft + Yahoo probably won't do it)

Q. What do you get when you combine Yahoo and Microsoft?

A. Microsoft.

(Yeah, I know, it's an old joke. But it probably applies. More later.)

I'm reading: Q. What do you get when you combine Yahoo and Microsoft?