The Mobile Web Tablet

The blog Communities Dominate Brands (CDB) has a long post on differences and similarities between the mobile as a mass media compared to other mass media:

I often hear various internet experts talk about how limiting the mobile phone is for internet consumption. That there are problems with scrolling, and the keypad entry is cumbersome, and we lack a mouse on the phone. This is as stupid as the TV experts. We should NOT try to replicate the existing internet onto the mobile. Mobile is not a “small internet”, it is a NEW mass media. As different from the internet as TV is from radio. We can do so much MORE on the phone that cannot be done on the internet.

The PC-based internet is the sixth media.

More:

But mobile adds five elements not possible on the previous six mass media, making the mobile the inherently superior mass media. First, the mobile is personal. It is the first truly personal mass media.

Yes, the personal aspect is extremely important. In fact, it might as well be called personal phone rather than mobile phone. Jan Chipchase makes a similar observation when it comes to personal TV vs mobile TV.

According to CDB the mobile is also billable on a micro-level (debatable since it’s really only being used for minute-counting for speech and for SMS – the operators are yet to implement a general billing mechanism).

There’s lots more interesting points in the text. Read it!

Updated: read more about mobile^d^d^d – sorry – personal TV here.

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Martin Geddes has an observation:

It’s official folks. You can access the Internet when mobile, but the Mobile Internet is dead.

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Context-aware search (I think the term “mobile search” has “horseless carriage” written all over it) is the next big thing according to Google founder:

“Mobile, mobile, mobile” were the words of Google Inc. (GOOG.O) Chief Executive Eric Schmidt this week when asked what technologies are most intriguing to the computer Web search leader.

What are the building blocks for context aware search? Location information, RFID-tags, pattern recognition in images and sound and of course one or more internet connected devices. We’re going from an internet of documents to an internet of places and an internet of objects.

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…the internet!

Yes, that’s right. Not S60, UIQ, Linux, iPhone OS, PalmOS, Brew or Windows Mobile. No, the net is what will provide the core of any mobile service of the future.

I know I’m contradicting myself somewhat compared to what I wrote the other day about Java and JSR248, Mobile Service Architecture becoming the framework for mobile applications. I still believe this to be the case.

However, the functionality a generic “mobile 2.0″ application requires from the native phone OS is rather limited. The bulk of most services will be on a web server. Google Maps Mobile, Widsets, Opera Mini or Gmail are all good examples of extremely capable mobile applications supported by a strong web service. These are all java applications, but as web browsers in mobile phones grow more capable we will see XHTML or Flash Lite-based applications. Widgets, if you like that term.

Even hardware intense applications such as video players or camera-integrated applications can be written with a simple API such as JSR234 (advanced multimedia) and/or JSR211 (content handler API) in Java.

It’s really only a thin slice of the mobile application market that requires full access to the native OS. If you absolutely feel you have to have this access, considering how full blown PCs are available the size of PDAs, I’d almost like to say: do it in Windows Vista in stead!

The majority of mobile applications will be web, web, web (by that I mean it will run on a web server) and then maybe some Java, XHTML or Flash Lite on top. Developers used to developing for the PC web browser might think of them as thin clients. Mobile phones on the other hand are ultrathin clients. This means the server has to do more work and there has to be two different GUIs to the same service: one thin and one ultrathin.

The problem with todays phones is not about access to the native OS, but rather how the web or downloaded applications are second grade citizens within the phone GUI. This, however, will change.

Nokias recent move to integrate a widget platform in S60 is a sign of exactly what I’m talking about. Sony Ericssons multitasking java and standby midlets are some other and so is the Apple iPhone. Good and useful widgets are really just a small window to a much larger web service.

So forget the mobile OS-war. Any phone that has a mature java environment and/or a good web browser or a widget environment can be used to build great mobile services. The underlying OS really doesn’t matter.

To paraphrase Clinton: it’s the web, stupid!

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Just got back home after visiting the first Nustart Hej!-conference about entrepreneurship and web 2.0. It was a pretty good conference with the same feel and content as Reboot or LIFT. A typical “conference 2.0″ where everyone is blogging, photographing or filming the event. Nice.

Amongst the speaker were a few entrepreneurs talking about their services or giving advice on how to succeed. So, anything about the mobile web?

Well, yes, to a certain degree (for example, Andy Smith from Jaiku mentioned the mobile phone but it seemed like it was the Twitter-like chatting that was the thing about Jaiku – and I don’t think that was Jyris original intention) but it is still assumed that by “web” we mean access to the internet using a web browser on a PC. All the innovation happens on this platform. This somewhat limits the true potential of the web.

One example is Polar Rose who has a platform for recognising faces in photos. Now this could be a truly groundbreaking feature and I’m sure it will be a huge success, but it assumes that people are uploading the pictures to online albums like Flickr or Picasa. Of course the algorithm should be integrated directly in to the cameras so that whenever I take a picture I can see the name of the persons whos faces are in the picture.

For this to happen today, Polar Rose would have to cooperate with the camera manufacturers and license their software to them. The cameras would also require an internet connection which most digital cameras don’t have. Of course, the mobile phones are almost there, but the rest of our devices also need to open up for innovation with platforms such as Mobile Service Architecture.

Web 3.0 was mentioned as the “next big thing” but no one really knows what it is. I’m guessing that the “internet of things” comes close. When you can write a midlet that uses the Polar Rose web service API and install it in, say your fridge so that it can greet you personally each morning, then we’re close.

This might seem farfetched but as the price of hardware and software goes down, quickly a point is reached when the benefit of having a generic and open platform is higher than the cost of adding it. My guess is that linux, java and the web technologies will play a major part in this. Or, maybe Joe Armstrong is right and it’s Erlang that will be the platform of choice. The evolution of consumer robotics might be the path that leads us there.

Whatever will happen I’m sure next year in Hej08 we will know more.

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The fact that Sony Ericsson, my former employer, is about to launch a JSR248-capable handset is starting to sink in to the blogosphere. For example, this is what Disruptive Wireless is writing:

SonyEricsson Z750: first-to-market featurephone with Naked SIP?

So it’s nice to see that Sony Ericsson’s newly-announced Z750 and indeed its new variant of its Java platform, supports MSA JSR-248, an “umbrella” Java extension intended to be a new standard, which includes JSR-180 as one of its mandatory components when implemented in its “full” rather than “subset” version. This line in the press release is quite telling when it comes to SIP-enabled applications “Java Platform 8 (JP-8), supporting a range of new Java programming features including instant messaging / chat and presence based functionality”

Why is this so important? And what’s a “JSR”?

JSR stands for Java Specification Request as defined by the Java Community Process. It is a standardized API for java applications, enabling certain functionalities for a developer. For example, there’s JSR135 which makes it possible to playback multimedia content on the phone.

JSR 248 is an umbrella JSR which the entire industry (more or less) is behind. That means all the functionality in all the JSRs within JSR248 will be available in many phones that have java the coming years. Considering that there are over a billion devices on the market with java, it’s easy to understand that JSR 248 will have a major impact.

Within JSR 248 there are APIs for building location aware applications, SIP phones, vector graphics GUIs, FM radio management, security, SIM-card access, payment and internationalization to name a few.

Sony Ericsson phones also have the possibility to set a midlet as a standby application making it possible to build widgets running in the background on your phone. Add to that the OpenGL-ES API and Sensor API and it’s becoming difficult to tell the difference between a feature phone and a smartphone.

Sony Ericsson is first, but JSR 248 will become an important building block for the mobile web throughout the mobile phone industry.
It will be disruptive in deed.

And then there’s MIDP3…

Technorati Tags: JSR 248, J2ME Java ME, mobile services architecture

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A couple of years ago people talked about the difference between killing time and saving time when it came to mobile internet usage. Well, you know there’s progress when Google now presents no less than three different user scenarios:

“Rechis said that Google breaks down mobile users into three behavior groups: A. “Repetitive now” B. “Bored now” C. “Urgent now”

In one way this makes perfect sense. I just wonder if mobile internet usage can be simplified to such an extent compared to using the internet on a PC. On the other hand, maybe that’s one of the key differences between mobile internet and fixed.

When using the web on a PC you can switch between many different ways of consuming the net because that’s the flexibility a PC gives you. At the same time, you physically don’t move. You most likely sit by a desk in a chair. You have a full size keyboard and a large screen etc. A mobile device, however, is by its nature restricted. It’s also a completely different experience using a mobile device while walking around compared to sitting down. It’s even different if you sit down in a couch at home or in, say, a subway.

The mobile internet experience is the combination of the device itself and the surrounding environment. Do I have a surface to put the device on? Can I use both hands? Can I use even one hand? Do I want other people to see what I’m reading? Can I use sound or vibrations from the device? Can I read the display? And so forth.

What we call things affect how we percieve them. A “horseless carriage” and a “car” are two different things but they both originate from the same meaning. Maybe “mobile internet” should rather be called “dynamic environments internet” because that’s really what it’s about.

From that perspective I think there’s definitely more than three types of environments.

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It’s not just Apple and Nokia building web tablets. Intel bets on Linux as the OS:

GALLERY: Intel’s new Mobile Internet Device with Red Flag Linux | APC Magazine

Intel will shortly announce that its new Mobile Internet Devices will be powered by Red Flag Linux.

Though on the surface they look the same, I’m certain the Intel machine will be a completely different experience from the iPhone (good and bad).

Via Wendong.

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