mobile 2.0 1 comment

Mobile 2.0 – T Minus 3 Days

By on October 12th, 2007

Mobile 2.0 Logo
I can’t believe it was almost a year ago that we ran the first Mobile 2.0 event. Mobile 2.0 was originally conceived last year as a meet-up for the mobilly minded ahead of the Web 2.0 Summit. It quickly turned into much more than that – an event in its own right that put the spotlight on innovation in the Mobile Web and mobile data space in general. I wrote a post before the event trying to put a definition together for Mobile 2.0. Why? Not because I care about creating a new meme (actually the Mobile 2.0 moniker was already been thrown around by many so all I was doing was trying to consolidate it a bit) but because I wanted to highlight a trend that I saw building in the mobile industry. That trend, which has only gathered pace over the past year, is all about the collision of the Mobile and Web industries. This collision is creating huge market disruption and huge opportunities for established and new players in both industries. Take Jaiku, for example. Five guys in Finland create a Twitter clone and the world shrugs. The Google folks who bought them understand that the value Jaiku brought was in the sophisticated way they weaved together the mobile and Web experience. Jaiku was in some ways a prototypical “Mobile 2.0 Company” – a next-generation service offering that brings together the Mobile with the Web in a seamless way such that the sum is greater than the parts.

Web 2.0 Summit Session on Mobile The Crowd at the Mobile Panel at Web 2.0 Summit (2006)

One reason we developed the Mobile 2.0 event last year was the appalling lack mobile-oriented content on the agenda at the Web 2.0 summit. I was on a panel on mobile (the only panel on mobile) at Web 2.0 Summit last year which packed the room. Later that year at their own Web 2.0 Expo, Eric Schmidt told John Battelle that the Web’s biggest growth area is “Mobile, mobile, mobile.”

Well John and O’Reilly Events apparently haven’t got the memo, because once again at this year’s Web 2.0 summit, there is only one single solitary panel covering mobile topics.

Well. If you are attending Web 2.0 this year (as I will be) all I can say is this. If you want to hear the real deal about the future of the Mobile applications, services and the future of the Web itself as it becomes a mobile medium; if you want the rest of the story about the evolution of the way people will create, consume and interact with digital services and communities; if you want to get a glimpse of the future, come to this year’s Mobile 2.0 event on Monday the 15th, up the street at the Hyatt on Union Square Park. You will not be disappointed.

Mobile Web, Mobility 4 comments

So the iPhone

By on October 4th, 2007

The iPhoneA week ago when I was in San Francisco, I picked up an iPhone, with the intention of unlocking it when I got back to the UK. When the software update came out (and the iBricking started), however, I decided to activate it in on the AT&T network (allowing me to use the device) and then deactivate my AT&T account by phone within the 30 day grace period. So now I have essentially a Web pad / music player device. Why not go for an iPod Touch? Well, I still hope to unlock it and get it working with a Voafone SIM but until then I can also use the Apps that the Touch doesn’t have like Mail and Google Maps.

But mostly I’m interested in how the browser performs.

What are my initial impressions after a week with the iPhone?

In general, I am very impressed. Breakthrough device. Blah blah blah. I’ll refrain from gushing.

I am deeply concerned about the whole locking fiasco. I don’t think Jobs is in the right. Apple should allow and encourage third party development to thrive on this platform, and they should allow you to buy the thing unlocked or at least activate it without attaching to a mobile operator, especially considering the price you are paying up front for the device. It seems to me that this is a strategy that has evolved from the iPod platform – a platform which Apple is used to controlling with an iron fist. But iPod is an embedded OS. The iPhone (and iPod touch) are a different ball-game. What’s clear is that developers will find a way around Apple’s locks so Apple should probably just give up now before they find themselves fighting a war of attrition. Jobs: declare a general amnesty for the iBricked and make steps to open up the iPhone platform itself.

Having said that, I am very enthusiastic about the messaging Apple is putting out there about using the browser itself as an application deployment platform. This reflects a general industry push towards use of the browser and of Web technologies to deliver application-like UI. We explored many of the issues around this topic at the Mobile Ajax Workshop last week (a workshop where Apple was conspicuous by their absence). But if Apple is serious about letting developers create content using Web technology, then why not let them create Widgets, a-la Apple’s own “Dashboard” technology?

Anyway, on to the nitpicks:

I had hoped that the 1.1.1 update would include SVG support in the browser but it doesn’t appear to have. Even the 1+ year old browser in my N73 based on an ancient version of Webkit can do simple embedded SVG images inline.

Inability to select text is a problem. Even though there’s no copy/cut/paste function (which I think is a mistake – I mean come on, at least allow this as an advanced option) it’s still handy to be able to select text, for example, when you’re entering a URL in the location bar of the browser and you want to one part of the text string but not the whole string.

iPhone: Missing ScriptsTypography and fonts: In the Web browser context, the iPhone’s scalable font technology is impressive, and it does feature many more international characters than your standard mobile phone. Out of the box it appears to support Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cyrillic, Greek and all the European character sets. So what’s there is miles ahead of most other smart phones in terms of rendering and font support. But it’s not a patch on full MacOS’s support for international characters. No Arabic or Hebrew, for a start.

The WiFi is flakey. To be fair, this is more to do with the way many public or guest WiFi WLANs are set up. Because the iPhone sleeps after a short period of inactivity, it drops off the WLAN. The guest WLAN in my office then releases its IP address from the DHCP register which means when I pick it up I have to log in again (through the interstitial Web form). I had the same experience in a hotspot as well. Not great. On another WLAN which has simple WEP security but a hidden SSID, the iPhone keeps dropping off the LAN. The “simple” user interface of the iPhone makes this kind of problem difficult to debug.

The screen keyboard is very difficult to use compared to the RIM keyboard I’m used to. The usability is much better in landscape mode where you have more to work with, but then you have very limited screen real-estate left for the actual thing you’re trying to work with (e.g. a Web form) which can be frustrating.

For some reason, it drives CPU on my laptop whenever it’s connected (even when iTunes is not launched). This has something to do with PTPCamera.app automatically launching in the background whenever the thing is plugged in. This is annoying because my Powerbook fan then spins up and makes and awful racket.

It’s big. I know it has to be to have such a big screen but this necessarily limits its usefulness as a totable music player. It’s bigger than my second generation iPod! I’ve used it to watch a video on the Tube on the way home (the Designing Web Content for iPhone video from the Apple Developer Connection site), but you don’t actually need a screen this big to watch video content like this – an iPod Nano would be perfectly adequate. And the thing gets really greasy. So much so that I would hesitate to hand it to someone else to use just in fear of grossing them out.

On the topic of Web content, some impressive Web applications are starting to emerge for iPhone, such as iphone.facebook.com. [Disappointingly, however, the iPhone interface to Facebook, though mimicking the iPhone UI very well within the browser, doesn't have as much functionality as the regular mobile site (for example, you can't accept an invitation to an event on the iPhone while you can on the regular mobile app).] Incidentally, mobile web sites like m.facebook.com or dev.mobi work really well on the iPhone browser. I have encountered some sites, however, that seem to be permanently zoomed in and do not allow you to zoom out again using the “reverse-pinch” gesture.

Those are my thoughts so far. Having watched the vieeo and read the developer guidelines document, I am left with the feeling that a lot of Apple’s guidelines are actually what one might term “hacks.” For example, Apple tell you to use the following link syntax to use a special stylesheet for iPhone:

<link media="only screen and (max-device-width: 480px)"
href="small-device.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

Um. I hate to quibble, but this code won’t do what Apple says it does. In fact, it will use the referenced stylesheet for any device with a screen width under 481 pixels. The only reason Apple is getting away with this statement is that they happen to be one of the only mobile browsers out there that actually supports this kind of media query syntax. I can’t test it because I don’t have a device to hand, but I think this code would load the very same style sheet on, say, a Windows Mobile device running Opera Mobile. Anyone care to verify that? It’s not necessarily a bad thing if this happens, but developers need to know that if they put this bit of code in they should also test on some other media-query aware platforms.

That’s it for now. I’ll keep putting thoughts and observations up as I have time.

Mobility 4 comments

Nokia Releases Cutting Edge Conversations App!

By on September 27th, 2007

Nokia Conversations Screen ShotThe Register reportedon the launch of Conversations from Nokia “Beta labs” division. So don’t get me wrong. I applaud Nokia’s efforts on releasing this and in particular in releasing it for existing handsets. However, this release brings some questions to mind.

First of all, why wasn’t this feature part of the original functionality of the device. Integrating the SMS inbox with the address book surely should be one of those features that you should expect to be on every device. The fact that this is being released in 2007 as a high-tech, cutting edge, “beta” function is a little sad I think and belies a dysfunction in the mobile industry with regard to integrated user experience.

But leaving that to the side for a second, who now gets to benefit from this innovation? Certainly not the majority of Nokia S-60 owners since they will likely never install the app themselves. It’s only the early adopter users and industry insiders who know how to install apps on their phones that are able to benefit. That’s not a critique of the app as much as it’s a critique of the whole mechanism by which software updates roll out onto handsets. There should be a mechanism for automatic over-the-air updates analogous to the software update functions prevalent in the desktop world.

Having said all that, the app itself is definitely a step forward for SMS discussions and I can see myself using it a lot. However, applications like Jaiku already go so much further in allowing one to many messaging, integrated with a Web user experience. SMS discussions is a great tweak on top of a “Mobile 1.0″ service but it doesn’t really seem like the kind of envelope-pushing application that I’d expect out of a “lab.”

Mobile Web, Web 2.0 1 comment

My Talk at AJAX World

By on September 26th, 2007

The Turn-Out for my Talk at Ajax WorldFrom this picture, the turn-out for my talk might look pretty small. And it was. But I was actually impressed that this many people managed to find the room which was tucked up away from the main conference. In general, this feels like an event that should be a lot bigger than it is. I can’t help but feel that this is due to the extremely high ticket price. On the positive side, there are some real developers here and real exciting stuff being presented, such as the Laszlo presentation on the use of their toolkit to build mobile Web apps. The participants that are here are here to learn and are asking good questions as well. One delegate commented that many of the presentations were little more than sales pitches. After sitting through some of them (especially from Adobe and Microsoft) I have to agree.

So I was in the “iPhone” track of this conference. However, my message was “it’s not all about the iPhone – develop for one Web.” This message was well received. I was expecting the room to be filled with iPhone devotees. On the contrary. People seemed very receptive to this message.

London, Technology 6 comments

OnePulse: So Far, not so Good

By on September 21st, 2007

Barclaycard Onepulse Ad on the London TubeUpdate on the Barclaycard OnePulse. Apparently, getting an application out to me in the mail is too difficult for these guys because I haven’t received it yet. I also don’t quite understand why I have to re-apply for this card. Instead, shouldn’t I, as a valued Barclaycard customer living in London, have been offered the opportunity to upgrade/whatever to the OnePulse card? Big campaign behind this OnePulse thing all over the Tube (see inset: “Welcome to the Future.”) I don’t feel very welcome in your future, Barclaycard. In fact, I’m on the verge of canceling my existing card and writing the whole thing off.

mobile 2.0 5 comments

Location is What You Make of It

By on September 17th, 2007

This weekend, I was sending out a Jaiku message (or updating my presence, depending on how you think of it) during a brief lull at the playground with my kids. There I was, in the middle of Highgate Wood in north London, and I realized something: Jaiku knew where I was. In fact, it had k known where I was all day as I went from East Finchley to Muswell Hill, then back to East Finchley and then to Highgate Wood. As I had briefly updated my presence in each location, it had attached my location information. Big deal, you might say, so what? Yes, but it’s the kind of location that Jaiku was tracking that started to intrigue me. Locaiton to Jaiku is not a GPS coordinate but is tracked entirely by Cell ID. If I travel somewhere new and set my location (as I did in “Vodafone HQ” today, for example) it remembers this, not by X, Y coordinate but simply by the text that I’ve entered. This way of thinking about location actually maps much more accurately on to the way that real people think about location. When you tell your friend where to meet you for a drink after work, you don’t say “meet me at lat xxx, long xxx plus/minus 30 meters.” You say “meet me at such-and-such pub.” In fact, this kind of casual location is most suited towards social applications like Jaiku. Different social groups might call the same location by different names. This is bcause location is a social construct. Sure, you can measure location against strict x,y coordinates and for some applications this is fine, not for applications like Jaiku. Even GPS direction finding applications need to map x,y coordinates into a human-consumable form of street names and landmarks (“turn left at the next intersection.”) So for apps like Jaiku and Plazes (and social media sharing such as Zonetag), cell-id based location is actually ideal. It doesn’t require additional battery, it maps very closely onto the granularity that people care about in this sort of social app, and it’s free.

Mobility, Technology 7 comments

Smart Cards, Digital Money, Oyster and the Effective Use of a Hole Punch

By on September 14th, 2007

So Barclaycard (the credit card arm of Barclay’s, a major UK-based bank) is rolling out a new product, Onepulse, which more or less combines a few payment instruments into one card. Firstly, it’s a regular “chip and PIN” credit card, now ubiquitous across the UK. Secondly, it’s an Oyster card. Oyster is the brand name for the smart card system now in use across London’s transport network. It’s a “touchless” RFID card that you can either load with money that decrements with each journey or with virtual tickets that allow unlimited travel over a period of time. Oyster has been around since 2003. The third instrument on this Onepulse card, however, is something new, at least for the UK. It’s called “Visa Onetouch” and appears similar to something MasterCard has rolled out in the U.S. called Paypass.

So why is this at all interesting?

Well. I’m always interested in new smart card technology and how it changes our behavior and impacts our society. I participated in a digital cash trial in Manhattan in 1997 (that famously floundered). I’m an early adopter of this kind of stuff, and I also am drawn to the promise of greater convenience. Convenience was a notably missing element from the Mondex trial in Manhattan (where you had to bring your card to a special equipped ATM and load money on it in order to bring it to a specially equipped vendor so they could schlep out a huge multi-part card reader – for which you would have to use a separate pin in order to buy a 60¢ orange – the glares I got from these people, let me tell you!). The Paypass system, however, isn’t a separate stored value — it’s just an easier way to make regular credit card transactions for low (under £10) amounts. But will combining this contactless payment approach with the Oyster really yield greater convenience?

Like many other Londoners, I keep my Oyster card in a separate little wallet I can take out and wave at the Oyster terminal when I need it, instead of taking out my whole wallet and waving it around in a crowded Tube station. With a combined Oyster-Visa-Paypass card, it seems likely I’d take the same approach, but what if I want to use the card as a regular Visa card? It’s not clear to me how this will all work in practice.

Check out David Birch’s take for more info on the Onepulse rollout, by the way.

So today I decided I’d try it out. I have to say, I’m not impressed so far with the application process. First of all, I am already a Barclaycard holder, so I can’t use the online form (according to very small text at the top of the form that I happened to read). Thanks. Ok I called customer service. After being transferred around for a while, I was told that I would have to “apply” for the card and that they couldn’t do it over the phone so they would have to send me forms in the mail. Is this really the future of digital money? I’ll keep a log here of the process of signing up for and using the Onepulse card.

The real holy grail, of course, is putting all of the above onto a… you guessed it… mobile phone. I know Transport for London is already doing trials on using NFC-enabled phones as Oyster cards (as reported by Card Technology and discussed by Janko Mrsic-Flogel, TfL’s mobile technology guru, at Mobile Monday London last month). Fantasy, you say? The Japanese don’t think so…

One more footnote on this topic. I was out at dinner with a friend in the States earlier this year and I noticed that his credit card had a hole in it, approximately hole-punch size. I wanted to know — was this some new card feature? Turns out that, when he received his new Mastercard in the mail and found that it had a Paypass RFID chip on it, he took a hole punch to it and punched it out. Why? Because, as widely reported and summarized here, there are very legitimate privacy concerns associated with RFID technologies (which is why privacy advocates have generally been up in arms about RFID’s use in machine-readable passports). I figure I’ve already destroyed any chance of digital privacy by becoming part of the Iris program, but I do wonder: will these technologies coming down at us, which are intended at least in part to reduce the threat of identity theft, instead encourage new and smarter methods of identity theft?

mobile 2.0 2 comments

Yes. We’re Doing it Again.

By on September 3rd, 2007

Mobile 2.0 Logo
We’re baaack. On October 15th, in San Francisco, Mobile Mondays Barcelona, London, and Silicon Valley together with the Open Group and SomeBazaar will present the 2nd Mobile 2.0 conference. This will be a one-day event, held at the Grand Hyatt in Union Square, covering the latest in mobile innovation and disruption and bringing together real mobile industry thought leaders from around the world. All this, plus a smattering of great Mobile 2.0 startups presented in the Mobile Launch Pad. We’ll feed you breakfast and lunch. We’ll buy you drinks. We’ll give you a super-concentrated tonic of mobile information that will leave your head spinning. If you aren’t there, you will have to answer to future generations. Your doe-eyed offspring will look up at you one day and ask “Why? Why didn’t you attend Mobile 2.0?” Do you want that to happen? I didn’t think so. If you only attend one conference on the mobile web and disruptive mobile innovation this year, make it Mobile 2.0. Registration will open shortly is up and running at www.mobile2event.com.

mobile 2.0, Web 2.0 No comments yet

It’s a Jaiku Moment!

By on August 31st, 2007

So while I was kicking around in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island last week, I was delighted to have been able to meet up with my good friend (and Mobile Monday London Irregular) Margaret Gold. Turns out Margaret was in town for the weekend for her parents’ anniversary. It was a true “Jaiku moment” – a completely unplanned meet-up that only happened because I had written about my itinerary on Jaiku. Now, social networking services can often result in serendipitous events in the real world, but the mobile-focused nature of Jaiku (the fact, in this case, that I could keep a continuous Jaiku thread going through my trip using only my Nokia N73) and the tendency of mobile social services to focus on location and proximity tend to accentuate this feature. There’s also a lesson to learn about privacy here. In the past, it’s been quite taboo to reval publicly that you’re going to be away from home (someone might break into your house!) But social media like Jaiku (or Facebook or whatever) changes our perception of what information should be private and public. In this case, disclosing private information into the public sphere led to a meeting with a good friend and some good discussion. Was that worth the potential risk of disclosing this private information? I think it was.

Blogs, Travel 1 comment

Not Dead

By on August 18th, 2007

I know I haven’t posted here in a while. Don’t worry — I’m not dead. I am taking a trip with my kids in the States and Candada. For daily-ish updates, check out my jaiku micro-blog.