Mobility is such a widely and disparately understood term. Even within IT. Everyone has a different interpretation of what mobile technology is, and what it means (or doesn't) to them. About the only constants seem to be that:
- Mobile technology is now mainstream - The numbers speak for themselves, last year roughly 200m computers (laptops, desktops, workstations, and servers combined) were sold. Mobile handsets surpassed the billion.
- Mobile technology is ubiquitous - Over the next couple of months I'll be in Marbella on the Spanish "Riviera" and Port Douglas on the Queensland tropical coast. You can bet I'll be connecting to family, friends, news, and work with my smartphone.
- Mobile technology is enormously enabling - I'm not just talking about voice calls or SMS, although these are the most obvious and commonly used functions. Staying on top of my email, preparing for a presentation, checking the weather, capturing a poignant picture, and never getting lost, all feature daily in my use of the Samsung SGH-i780 (my current device) An interesting observation this morning was that both my wife and I have replaced alarm clocks. You guessed it, we use our phones. 3 of our family have the 3 Skype Phone - sold on the 3 network and developed by Skype. They regularly talk, for free, to each other and friends and family overseas, from their mobile phone.
So with all of these compelling reasons for people to adopt mobile computing technology, and for developers to develop for this technology, why is it that only few seem to? Yes, there are a billion phones being sold, but very few of these will get much more processing use than SMS messaging. Yet, they all have screens, keypads, processors, memory, portable power and connectivity. All the ingredients you need for infinitely flexible applications.
Park that thought.
Over the years in my career, I've garnered a reputation as somewhat of a gadget freak. Yes, it's true. Although I don't always have the latest technology. Just about every 6 to 9 months when I go through a seemingly genetically driven refresh cycle. After almost 14 years of marriage, Lucy still doesn't understand this need, although benefits greatly herself. "You really don't need a new camcorder do you?" she'll ask, to my aghast reply, "What do you mean? HD has been out a year, and my camcorder is two years old!!"
eBay helped for a while, allowing me to appease Lu's thriftiness by selling the older devices to fund the new ones.
Nevertheless, I've had PDA's since the original USRobotics Palm Pilot - long before they were phones. For a long, long time I've noticed two observations:
- People have regarded my devices as somewhat expensive toys. Too small to have anything more than frivolous usage, and too expensive by far for them to buy. "How does your wife let you get away with such frivolous spending?" (and I'd go into the eBay funding model)
- People have regarded them simply as too hard to use. Even in Compaq Consulting, when expert technologists got iPaq's for free as prizes or bonuses, these would often sit at the bottom of their drawers, unused. The shame!!
Overly expensive, unusably complicated, toys!!!
- or -
The technology that will literally change every aspect of our economy, communication, social, political, entertainment, and learning environment!!!
That's why I love the Apple iPhone.
It is still more on the side of toy than tool. But what a cool toy it is. Apple have done their usual brilliant job of aesthetically pleasing design work. The benefit of controlling the whole platform is the ability to ensure simplicity, beauty, and quality in a way you simply can't with 5000 partners, all interpreting standards just slightly differently.
With that design, coupled with their huge market share in the MP3/Media player ecosystem, it seems that they've reached the tipping point. Shifting smartphones from a relatively limited business world to broad consumer reach. Now people, who inately believe in the Apple brand promise of "simplicity in usage" are buying these, oh so beautiful, toys. In their droves. These same people are discovering for themselves what I've experienced for 12 years, the liberating power of mobile technology.
Already I'm having in depth conversations with people never before open to these topics: Parents of the girls friends, friends from church, people in non-IT industries.
Here's the cool bit: if you develop in .NET you're just one step away from developing powerful applications that will change the way people live. The .NET compact framework uses the same languages, the same IDE, the same toolset as the .NET framework. Also, Windows Mobile is the most open platform on the planet for developers. With Nokia buying Symbian this week, that seems likely to be the case for the near term future.
Although I do love the Apple iPhone's design, and functionality, I won't be buying one.
And not because I work for Microsoft. Because although I admire Steve Jobs design aesthetic, I prefer my phone to have a proper keyboard, and prefer to have choice of where I buy my applications. And with Windows Mobile, whether you like a candy-bar type phone, a flip-phone, a more traditional PDA, one with a slide-out keyboard - you can choose. You don't have to subscribe to the i-anything (undeniably cool) aesthetic.
Do you want to develop applications that will change the world?
Do you want a proven platform, with mature & tested technology?
Do you want to develop for a platform which is open and encourages developers, without a lottery for installation keys?
Do you want choice of handset, with full GPS, true HSDPA at 7.2Mbps?
Do you want to use a toolset and languages you're used to?
Then I'd encourage you to look at Windows Mobile...
Is your next application a toy, or a world changing tool?
Even if you just want seriously cool design and technology, then look at the HTC Touch Diamond (which btw already has true GPS and true HSDPA as well as the coolest interface)
R42
