Perfect Mobile Platform

What would make up the perfect mobile platform? What characteristics should it posses? Here are some of them, in no specific order:

• User Interface/Experience - a rich user interface that provides a great user experience. When using the phone, everything should come naturally, with ease, and should have the WOW factor that makes you never want to leave the phone out of your hands. Doing common tasks should not take more than a few clicks. 
• Application Ecosystem - Having many applications to chose from is not as important as having quality applications, those that satisfy a particular need, like finding a place to eat, checking your email, or playing Doom. Integrating location, social networking, and sensors is a must.
• Internet Browsing - surf the Web from anywhere, on the go. A mobile browser should be able to render pages properly and fast, navigation should be done with ease, data should be compressed as to save bandwidth, and use the latest web technologies (HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, etc).
• Battery Life - it better not leave me hanging after a full day of use, or in the middle of a call, or while searching for a place to eat using the GPS. 
• Development Ecosystem - provide a rich set of APIs that can access all the features of the phone, and can provide the best user experience. Provide tools that can be used to make it easier to write apps. Publishing an application should not involve much hassle. 
• Openness - here I refer to not only an open and free platform, but to a platform that allows any mobile technology to work on it.
• Enterprise - features such as security, integration with email/calendar/notes/contacts servers, messaging, to name just a few. 

There is no one platform that satisfies all these needs better than any other platform. What is needed is a platform that has the user experience of iPhone and Android, the application ecosystem of iPhone (and Android very soon), the internet browsing of iPhone and Android (mostly any WebKit-based browsers), the battery life of the Blackberry, the development ecosystem of Android and iPhone, the openness of Android, and the enterprise characteristics of Blackberry. 

Will we ever have such a platform? I really doubt it. 

Gartner's Top 10 Mobile Apps for 2012

Gartner has released its top 10 applications for 2012.

"Consumer mobile applications and services are no longer the prerogative of mobile carriers,” said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. “The increasing consumer interest in smartphones, the participation of Internet players in the mobile space, and the emergence of application stores and cross-industry services are reducing the dominance of mobile carriers. Each player will influence how the application is delivered and experienced by consumers, who ultimately vote with their attention and spending power".

LBS applications are at number 2. The LBS user base is predicted to grow to 526 million by 2012 (from 96 million in 2009). NFC is at number 7. I read here that some new version of iPhone is supposed to include NFC support (actually support for proximity), and I do believe it's about time for the mobile industry to get behind this technology.

You can read the entire report at Gartner.

Most Popular Android Applications for November 2008

FastCompany has published a post regarding the most popular Android Applications for November 2008:

SOURCE: fastcompany.com

Testing Mobile Applications

Mobile developers will tell you that probably the hardest part of the entire mobile application development process is testing. You would need access to hundreds of mobile devices, test on each and every one, and make sure that the features you implemented in your application work properly on each and every test device. Sure we have emulator, but all they provide is an emulated environment of the phone. Sure you should start with an emulator when testing the application, but eventually, to see how it works on a real device, you need to push further. The question that unfolds is what can you do if your company does not have access to hundreds and hundreds of devices. Here are a few possibilities:

Motorola offers a Handset Loaner Program through which you can test your mobile application on Motorola handsets. The kit that you will receive will consist of the Handset, Charger, Battery, and a USB Cable. The cost of the kit for a 30 day loan varies between $35 and $70. There are not a lot of devices available as far as I can tell. If you loose or damage the device, the fee is $1000 for most of the devices. A lot isn't it? Make sure you do not damage or loose the device.

Nokia offers the Remote Device Access program free of charge for all Nokia Forum members. It is a service that allows you to remotely test your mobile application on Symbian OS-based Nokia devices. "The main features of the service are remote controlling a device, installing and running applications, transferring files, and analyzing log files in real-time."

Sony Ericsson Virtual Lab service allows for remote testing of your mobile applications on selected 2007 Sony Ericsson mobile phones that are connected to a network 24/7. The cost varies between $18 to $20 an hour. The platforms supported are Java ME and UIQ 3.

Probably the most well known service is DeviceAnywhere, and this is because of the high number of devices/manufacturers/operators supported. It offers remote access to almost one thousand mobile devices from more than 25 manufacturers that run on more than 20 networks from places like Japan, UK, US, France, etc. Individual device packages are $100 a month each (and you can choose from over 20 packages); the hourly rate various between $13 and $16 and the hours can be used across all device packages. The unused hours do not roll over to the next month, since unused hours expire at the end of each month. You do get 3 hours of free trial to try the service.

DotMobi Virtual Developer Lab, powered by DeviceAnywhere, offers you 5 free hours to test your mobile application.

PACA Mobile Center offers access to more than 850 handsets. As far as I understood, you need to go to one of their centers (located in France) to get access to the pool of devices. The daily access cost is 500 euros, with the possibility of a 10 day plan starting from 3000 euros, and a yearly plan of 12000 euros. For start up companies, the fees are usually half off the regular price mentioned.

Mob4Fire implements the concept of crowed sourced mobile application testing. How it works is easy and straightforward: "The developer chooses a mix of handsets, network and OS's to test the software on, gets it tested by the crowed, gets feedback and pays the tester." There is an online rating system where testers are rated based on the quality and timeliness of the response. Developers are also tested based on how clearly they outlined the job testers need to do.

I will keep adding to this blog if I find new information. If you want to participate, you are very welcome, so please leave comments.