You’d think it’s absolute rubbish… until you see it. Have a look at these two demo videos:

HoloToy is $0.99 (or £0.59) on the iTunes App Store (link). I imagine Ben is ready to help anyone else implement his technology for their games too. You can get Ben over at Kode80.

Who? What>

Yeah, unless you’re a regular viewer of television advertising in the UK, you probably aren’t going to get the reference immediately — but suffice to say if you’re British and you don’t immediately know what I’m talking about, the wall-to-wall advertising is sure to have caught you at some point… which means this Meerkat in an evening robe will get the synapses firing:

So what the hell is CompareTheMeerkat? It’s a website. It’s a spoof website that belongs to a Russianish meerkat by the name of Alexander who, it seems, is fed up of his website getting confused with CompareTheMarket.com. Which does car insurance.

Basically the concept is tried and tested: Furry animals sell stuff. The advertising agency, VCCP, decided to knock up an iPhone app to extend the brand — to extend the ‘heh’ you feel when you see the little meercat walk on to your TV screen.

What they’ve done is commission a soundboard app complete with an array of dodgy Eastern European cum Russian backing music playable on demand. The app consists of a four-screen soundboard, 12 sounds on each screen. Tap a soundbox and the related audio plays. I’m a particular fan of the “OMG” one.

Fundamentally the app doesn’t do much except to provide hours upon HOURS of pleasure to a certain segment of the population who will, I tell you know, be absolutely tickled pink to have 48 different meerkat-off-the-tv sounds to delight (and possibility, begin to irritate) their friends.

Here’s the main screen:

What’s important, though, is that CompareTheMeerkat is entertaining its target audience. This app is just an extension – like the website and the Twitter account — and I’m sure it’s going to go down very well. Sitting and playing around with it, I’m already developing good feelings toward CompareTheMarket for making it happen. I should also point out that, apart furry animals, I don’t know a single thing about comparethemarket beyond the fact that you can save, on average, 300 quid off your car insurance. With just a few minutes exposure to the whole meerkat/market brand, I find that pretty effective.

Nice one Simon (and VCCP).

You too can get hold of the Meerkat app (“iSimples”) in the app store with this link.

And, in case you were wondering, a meerkat is not a type of mongoose.

I just saw a study (coming out shortly) that backs up my assertion that — in the UK at least — women (young in particular) simply can’t get enough of BlackBerry, particularly the BBM functionality.

There’s a slight issue with BBM though — it’s hooked into your device ID on the BlackBerry network — commonly known as your ‘PIN’, an alphanumeric monicker that is a bitch to remember. Hardly a deal breaker I know.

BlackBerry Messenger 5.0 has a solution for it — in the form of a barcode or what we used to call ‘QRcodes’. Modern BlackBerries running BBM5 can use these barcodes to easily determine a user’s BlackBerry PIN without having them type it in. All you need is a facility to make one of those barcodes.

Enter the Facebook BlackBerry Messenger app. Just install it on to your profile in a few clicks and boom, your friends will be able to add you to BBM in a jiffy.

I tried it out this afternoon:

And here’s the output, customised to my specific BlackBerry model:

Get it on your profile from Friday: http://apps.facebook.com/bb_barcodegenerator/

And if you haven’t upgraded to BBM5, here’s the link: http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/3729

If your phone doesn’t have built-in location features (and it won’t if it’s a low cost device), then decent GPS navigation will require you to go and buy a personal navigation device or “PND” as they are known. Often that PND could end up costing 5 times as much as your actual handset.

What do you do if you’ve got 5,000 employees all using some fairly reliable handsets without GPS facilities… and you’d like to give them all mobile navigation service?

The answer is talk with BlueSky Positioning and Telmap. They’ve integrated real-time location-based navigation services into a sim card with A-GPS facilities.

I like the idea of being able to augment mid-range handsets in this way. You can run it on cheap-as-chips handsets but they’ll need to be able to run the Telmap software (which might be a big ask).

For most people, A-GPS (“network-assisted-GPS”) is a fairly good alternative. You won’t necessarily get a precise location fix, but it should be good enough to handle most navigation requirements.

Since we’re talking about the sim card, there’s a lot of potential possibilities there for operators to control the offering, particularly for specific market segments and not necessarily for consumers.

You can read more about the offering here.

More accurately, she’s having the baby. I’m bravely standing by, dutifully watching the awful baby programmes on television where possible and getting ready to attend the upcoming baby birthing classes.

I think it suits us both for her to select, choose, configure and manage everything until she feels my input is required. So for the most part, up until now, most decisions have been down to her, with me offering opinions where required.

Friends of mine (pre and current dads) are making make what I consider to be a courageous* move by demanding (for example) they purchase an all-terrain mountain-capable monster pushchair instead of the standard ones generally approved by Mother & Baby magazines across the world. I’m sure that sort of thing doesn’t go down well any the lady who’s set her heart on a Mamas’n'Papas or a Bugaboo.

We’ve actually got the pram already. Two weeks ago I woke up one morning to find that the brand, style and colour was decided. I approved. To be honest I can’t ever see myself disapproving of her taste or decisions — that’s why I married her in the first place.

The pregnancy has, thankfully, been pretty straight forward — he says, writing with both hands glued to the wood of the desk. We’re due on the 25th of May so there’s a good few weeks yet. But it’s coming soon.

It’s on the horizon.

I haven’t bothered you, dear reader, with this news beyond an occasional reference up until now. That’s not about to change, however I felt it was necessary to make a statement on the subject because there is a mobile angle — this is principally where I need your help.

The due date is something like 10 weeks out so this evening yet I found it necessary to properly configure and assure my N86 handset was in good working order. That, you see, is the handset I plan to have on my person for decent photos. The iPhone 3G doesn’t cut it. Indeed no other handset cuts it. If you want a decent mobile phone camera, you have to go Nokia. Agree?

So I’ve got the handset ready, as well as my other usual devices.

My wife spotted a rather handy iPhone app to use for measuring contractions (or “birthing waves”) which looked pretty nifty. Although I can’t help but wonder how she’d react if I actually did whip out the iPhone every few minutes to press buttons. I wonder if — in the heat of the moment — that sort of thing becomes rather irrelevant.

So here’s where I really need some help.

I’m looking for your mobile-related suggestions for run up to the birth, during the birth and beyond. Have you tried any apps, services, products and what-not that were really helpful?

I’m definitely considering the obligatory ‘it’s a boy/girl’ Touchnote mobile postcards.

I’m wondering as to the possibility of some kind of SMS group chat for my the immediate family for updates. I can imagine sending out frequent multi-addressee texts might get a little bit annoying.

I will use the super-super-secret-mobile-service that I’m testing to connect my relatives via audio (more on that soon).

I’m wondering whether to buy a battery pack for the iPhone — you know the type that turns it’s normal sleek appearance into a ‘Brick’ phone from yesteryear? I do have a nagging worry that batteries will go flat, especially if the whole procedure requires me to exit to hospital quickly with the wife without having given the handsets a full charge.

What apps, services, products and devices have you used or do you recommend for this period?

To help with context, we’re having a hospital birth, all things being equal. And we don’t know the sex.

I’d very much appreciate your perspective.

Feel free to comment below or, if you prefer, drop me a note by email.

* I put that in for The Blandford and anyone else who likes Yes (Prime) Minister

Posted via email from MIR Live

Ewan,

Can anyone out there recommend a lawyer that specialises in the mobile space? I’ve a had a UK company ask me that question and I thought that someone out there is bound to be able to help.

Thanks!

What firm/lawyer do you recommend?

The all new Amplicom M600 hits the marketplace shortly priced at £99 (pay as you go).

Do consider this for your mums, dads, grannies and so on.

Here are the details from the release:

For those who want simplicity, the PowerTel M6000 has SMS text message, a 500-memory phone book, Bluetooth and loud hands-free speaker.

The big buttons combat dexterity or visual problems. Whilst people with hearing loss will benefit from the extra loud ringer (up to +100 dB), extra loudspeaker (up to +30 dB) and powerful vibrating alert.

Two crucial features, the “Man Down” fall detector and hidden “SOS” panic button will bring peace of mind to those who are vulnerable. Both activate hands-free operation and pre-programmed emergency numbers until a response is received. Three dedicated quick dial buttons also help in an emergency.

The large clear 4.3 cm colour screen has big easy to read fonts and the keypad has an automatic lock.
With a desktop charger the M6000 is Hearing Aid Compatible so great for those with Hearing Loss. The phone is ready for use on any network with Pay As You Go SIM card or contract billing.

You can pick them up at silverphone.co.uk.

Here’s the agenda:

Agenda
Following on from our two successful MEF Enablers webinars, our speakers will explore new business models (Sender Pays, Crediting) and highlight how specific enablers can be used to create an enhanced consumer experience and generate value from both the content community and network perspective.

MNO senior executives will review enablers being launched and discuss how content players can create compelling end-user products and gain meaningful data to improve offerings to consumers.

An overview of the MEF Member Guide to Enabling Services will be provided. The Guide, produced in association with Ovum, will deliver vital use cases and in depth quantitative and qualitative industry data. To participate in this authoritative Framework for Networking Enabling Services please visit the MEF website for details on the content submission process.

Today’s event features some excellent people who should be good value.

- Mark Kortekaas, BBC
- Andrew Bud, mBlox
- David Sheridan, MX Telecom
- James Parton, Telefónica O2
- Ray De Silva, Vodafone
- Christian Rouffaert, Accenture
- Suhail Bhat, MEF

(Hello to Andrew from mBlox and David from MX, by the way!)

It all kicks off today at 3pm London time. Here are the times around the planet:

Doha 6:00pm / London 3:00pm / Los Angeles 8:00am / Sao Paulo 12:00pm / Singapore 11:00pm

Registration is free – register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/297177361

Posted via email from MIR Live

Posted by the chaps at free mobile internet settings service, Tweakker.

Heh…

You can sign-up here: http://www.theapplicationreview.com/get-the-newsletter/

And if you’ve got any suggestions (on any platform), tell me about them.

If you’d like to hire the team that built and created Garmin Connect, the world’s largest repository of recorded GPS activities, then today is your lucky day.

Garmin decided to shut down operations at its San Francisco office just over a month ago — and thus move all Garmin Connect management and development back to Nowheresville, Some State. (Olathe, Kansas, if you wanted to know). Most of the Garmin Connect team aren’t bothering with the relocation.

So they’ve knocked up a site to showcase their talents, talk about Garmin Connect and how they built it.

If you’re in the market for a location-based team of geniuses, you can hire them as one team, ready to rock. Given how hot location is at the moment, I doubt the team will be waiting long.

Every success, team!

The site you need: http://thegcteam.com/

The nice chaps at Mobile Entertainment magazine ran my ‘Fear The Googlepipe‘ opinion-piece yesterday morning. Did you catch it?

It’s based on a post I did a little while ago about the launch of the arrival of the Nexus One and what that could mean for your common-or-garden mobile operator. I say ‘based’, but the guys at Mobile Entertainment — proper media — have sprinkled some editorial dust and turned the original wail into a half decent looking piece. Thank you ME!

Here’s the first bit…

Well that was a day to remember. The day Google got stuck into mobile merchandising and nailed the mobile operator to the wall.

That’s it: thank you for coming, mobile operators! You did your best. But now you’ve been ‘owned’.

That’s it: thank you for coming, mobile operators! You did your best. But now you’ve been ‘owned’.

Well, maybe not yet. But do look out for the big G. With the Nexus One, Google has ushered in an entirely new way of buying a consumer handset: from its website in six clicks. Shit! Is it that simple?

Continue at Mobile Entertainment –>

Thank you to the delicious people who retweeted it — including the Infomob chaps, Mitcan, SLAMobile, Peggy Anne, Martin Wilson, Radek and MEF.

I caught some news today about myFairPartner, a new online temporary employment service. They’ve integrated absolutely everything into one online portal which, if you’re a temporary worker (or, you hire a lot of them), will be an absolute dream come true.

It’s typically an absolute arse, hiring temporary workers. I’m sure many readers have, at one time or another, been a temp. There is so much wastage, it’s unbelievable. The lady from the agency phones you. You’re on the phone so she leaves a voicemail. You phone back 10 minutes later but that job’s gone. But she thinks she might have something for you. You wait 2 weeks. Then phone back. She’s tried calling you for 3 jobs but you didn’t respond… yeah, ridiculous. This kind of inefficiency is built right into the system.

But hopefully myFairPartner can fix that with their online approach that enables companies to begin the hiring process immediately. And crucially, because myFairPartner has integrated SMS (powered by the good people at TynTec) into the system, the information distribution and response circle should be that much tighter. Employers should, for example, begin to get replies from applications almost immediately — because SMS is something that people can respond to when they are working (even if it means a quick trip to the restroom).

I’ll be interested to see how things work with myFairPartner and TynTec. Good news.

That there is the next Nokia handset — the X9 — supporting 720p quad LED, microSD, HDMI, dual mini USB, AMOLED screen…

No wait…

Alas, it’s just a concept.

Yup, it’s made-up — but it’s a really-good made-up set of images. It’s been published by the chaps over at Greek technology site, Pestaola and I picked it up from MobileLivingRoom.de via Chanse.

As MobileLivingRoom points out, this handset is technically feasible.

I hope that Nokia are working on something like this. Something fit for the ‘i’ generation. Something that, when you put it next to a (rather old looking) iPhone 3GS, it doesn’t look like it was conceived in the Bronze Age.

Bring it on.

I’d have one of those X9s, definitely.

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INQ, the handset manufacturer owned by parent company Hutchison Whampoa was always going to have an easy time of it with the 3 group of companies. A couple of phone calls from the big man and woosh, INQ had clients coming out of its ears. And their handsets, targeted at the mass market, have been very positively received by end-users around the planet (not least because although the devices are certainly capable, they’re also priced in a very attractive manner).

The challenge has been unlocking the rest of the non-Hutchison marketplace. That challenge gets just a little bit easier today though, as INQ have signed a deal with Indian network, Aircel, to distribute both the INQ Mini and the INQ Chat. I think the devices — with their data laden capabilities and attractive price, will be a roaring success in India.

Just to give you an idea of the potential of this deal — the INQ devices will shortly be available in over 5,000 outlets. Plus, cricket legend M.S. Dhoni is fronting the introductory marketing campaign. Yup. That’s a recipe for success in India.

Congratulations INQ and congratulations Aircel. I look forward to posting the ‘we’ve sold a million already‘ news in short order.

(Here’s the INQ blog post announcing Aircel)

I’ve been playing with LoKast for a few days and it’s raised some rather exciting possibilities. The application turns your iPhone into a two-way media server, enabling you to rapidly share any of your media (photos, video, contacts, music) to anyone else using the app on the same WiFi or Bluetooth connection.

My first reaction was ‘well, there’s just me at home, so…’ — but that’s to miss the point with LoKast. For any young’n'hip things regularly hitting music venues or gigs, LoKast could be hugely valuable. Provided you’re both running the app (and that’s the main issue) you can swiftly discover random people in your vicinity and start browsing the media they’ve elected to make public.

It’s an absolute breeze to use. Fire it up, give yourself a name, choose a profile photo and start tapping media you’d like to share. It’s stupidly fast — of course — because you’re not using the internet, you’re using the local connection.

‘Local-casting’ will typically work when you’re within 300ft of other LoKast users — provided there’s WiFi (or if there’s not, Bluetooth is a useful fall back).

Think about using it at a sports stadium, for example. That could be a rather interesting experience. One imagines you might be able to find some fantastic photos, videos and audio related to your team. But LoKast could be phenomenally useful around the music scene for anyone who’d like to receive (or distribute!) all kinds of band or artist related media.

Flip up the app, browse the users and you’re immediately browsing their public content. Click the ‘add’ button on anything and it’s yours (apart from DRM protected music — DRM music offers you a 30-second clip and the option to buy the track on iTunes — fair enough).

I love it’s simplicity. It’s essentially just a nice skin on top of a web server — but the simplicity is what is beginning to swiftly engage users. I hear it’s getting a riotous reception at the mediafest that is SXSX. I can well imagine why. I’m particularly keen on how the app ushers in an era of disposable media — the transitory experience of sharing media, never to be repeated again. Forget becoming friends or ‘adding people’, this is all about the media.

I’m not entirely sure where LoKast could go. I certainly think that if some of the cool’n'hip iPhone users pick it up around the music/gigs/events space, it’ll break out quickly from SXSX.

I think music is the way ahead though. Indeed, I understand that artists such as The Boxer Rebellion, The Ruse, Bazaar Royale, BlackMahal and Katia have all signed up to use LoKast at their events this month. I can imagine a lot of users all flipping up LoKast on their iPhone at the instruction of the band they’re watching. Very interesting indeed.

Speaking of SXSX, Mark Cuban’s Magnolia Pictures are reportedly planning on using LoKast to promote their new movies at one of the upcoming SXSX events. Again, that’s another area that makes a heck of a lot of sense.

I’ve made a quick video walk-through of LoKast so you can see some of the basic features in action:

You can, of course, find LoKast in the iTunes App Store (iTunes link — free). Enjoy…

It always gets exciting when The Blandford gets involved (that is, Rafe Blandford of All About Symbian). Responding to a query about successful Symbian downloads, Rafe pointed out that Quickoffice is on over 100 million Symbian phones. Including the 3 Symbian devices on my desk, here.

Rafe makes an interesting point for developers: Don’t forget the embed option.

There are a few developers I know right now who are currently doing embed deals with handset manufacturers (that is, getting their application pre-installed on the handsets). It’s not an easy process, but it can make you wildly, wildly successful.

For instance, one developer I know is going to go from maybe a few thousand downloads to 15 million installs, guaranteed, by this time next year. They’re integrating directly into the menu structure.

It’s not as simple as signing up to the iPhone dev programme and paying the $100 fee, but if you’ve got a particularly interesting, unique and relevant app, it’s definitely worth a chat with the manufacturers. You’ll also want some kind of revenue stream attached to it as you typically won’t have manufacturers paying you a lot (or indeed, any) money for an embed deal.

This said, don’t forget the embed option… !

It’s getting a little bit silly now, dear reader.

Ridiculously silly. We’ve had a good year now of mobile applications taking off, going ballistic. Now, though, it’s time for the industry to get real about the iPhone: It isn’t the only handset on the marketplace.

The World Is Not Flat

I understand that the iPhone is gorgeous, glorious, elegant, beautiful. Indeed, I have been first in the line to pan the painfully obvious failures of other manufacturers who had the temerity to vomit out handsets that couldn’t hope to match the ‘elegance’ of the jPhone (“Jesus Phone”).

I won’t go into specifics, suffice to say that for the last 3 years, any manufacturer stupid enough to show off their ‘iPhone killer’ looked, well, stupid. Very stupid.

And now that the plebians have got hold of them — i.e. you can get the jPhone free on contract in the United Kingdom — it seems there’s no stopping the iPhone juggernaut.

i-Limitations

As I discussed in my DevNest presentation last Wednesday, the iPhone has limitations. Here’s a good example: Anyone calling themselves a geek and actually using an iPhone as their primary handset is universally acknowledged to be wet. Highly wet. Aged-45-and-still-lives-with-his-parents wet. That’s because the iPhone is a glorified Fisher Price toy phone. It doesn’t do background applications. Like the proverbial thick-kid at the back of the class, the iPhone can only do one thing at a time. iPhone users are reduced to thinking and working in monotone.

[Sidenote: I do feel for the people showing off magnificently crafted applications that turn your iPhone into something awesome. I'm thinking of super-cool mobile messaging aggregators, VOIP clients or remote access clients, anything that's particularly nifty. How galling is it to know that when your users get a phone call, the whole sodding house of cards -- the simply fantastic system you've built -- falls to pieces because the device only does one thing at a time? And then the user has to fire up the application again... Simply rubbish, isn't it?]

Anyway, for the rest of the planet, the iPhone is a pretty nice experience. My mother loves hers. My wife — having dumped her Android G1 for the latest iPhone 3GS — is delighted. She is particularly enamoured with the nifty applications.

iPhone: 14% — still in the teens!

Gartner reckons that in terms of 2009 sales, worldwide, 14% of them were iPhones. 20% were BlackBerries and a whopping 47% were Symbian devices. 4% were Android (which, in case you were wondering, is why nobody is downloading your Android app). Just so we’ve got numbers in perspective, there were roughly 80 million smartphones sold in 2009. Looking at total handset sales — including rubbish devices — Nokia shipped 440 million phones last year. Samsung shipped 235 million, LG knocked back 122 million and both Sony and Motorola did about 50 million each.

Today, Nokia will ship about a million phones. Just to be clear: Over a million phones will leave their factories today.

And you’re busy developing on… iPhone.

Yes.

Great.

iPhone has served its purpose. It has demonstrated that mobile applications have relevance, that the market is worthy of attention. We have got past the stage of experimentation though. We know it works.

It is no longer good enough to only release an iPhone application. It’s fine to experiment with it. But if you’re a big brand and you only release on the iPhone, you’re stupid. Stupid, stupid and thrice stupid.

That’s because there’s a massive market sitting staring in the window wondering why they can’t do business with you.

The other platforms out there have been working really hard to make sure that the app experience on their handsets is beginning to resemble the elegance of iPhone. BlackBerry’s AppWorld is working nicely. Nokia’s Ovi Store is chugging back 1.5m downloads a day now. Samsung are working hard on their offerings, likewise Sony. Even the Android Marketplace is becoming useful.

Time To Think About Other Platforms

For a long time I’ve been complaining to Nokia. I’ve been going nuts over the fact that, a few months ago, I went out and bought a Nokia N86 on contract from UK operator, 3. The N86 is a piece of engineering genius and the camera is simply fantastic. I really do like it.

Here’s the example I’ve used — that really winds me up. A little while ago, Ocado (the grocery delivery service allied to the Waitrose chain of shops) launched an iPhone application. The app enables you to literally order your toilet rooms whilst you’re sat on the train. Genius. It’s basically an app interface to their existing online ordering portal.

My problem is this: How come the chump sitting opposite me on the train with his iPhone can order his toilet rolls with a few taps — and, with my Nokia N86, I can’t?

It’s because the people at Ocado decided not to create a Nokia/Symbian app. Instead, they decided just to focus on iPhone.

Initially I railed at Nokia for allowing this situation. And whilst the manufacturer did carry a substantial amount of responsibility for not creating the conditions to easily allow application creation and dissemination, the key issues are more or less fixed.

I don’t believe it’s Nokia’s problem any more. It’s companies like Ocado that are holding the marketplace back.

I’ll be more specific: It’s the digital agencies that are propping up the iFascist viewpoint.

I should point out that I haven’t phoned Ocado to find out if they did their development in-house or via an agency. I don’t want to because the Waitrose brand is held particularly high in my mind. I don’t want to destroy that by phoning them and finding out that they’re a bunch of numbskulls who haven’t even considered developing on other platforms. I actually did phone and got through to the voicemail of a chap called Ben.

But it doesn’t look good for Ocado. Oh no.

Silicon carries an fantastically illuminating interview with Jon Rudoe, head of retail at Ocado. Here is Jon discussing why they launched their iPhone app:

Silicon: What was your business case for launching an app?
Ocado: “The [problem] that people are trying to solve is: ‘How do I get my cupboard stocked and my fridge full with the products I want? How do I find, select and retrieve my weekly grocery needs?’ When you look at the world like that then you almost become platform agnostic. So, rather than sitting there thinking ‘well, I must have a website’, or ‘I must have a supermarket’, or ‘I must have whatever’, you actually find yourself thinking ‘I must have a mechanism for people to fulfil that want/need/job’… And then all you have to ask yourself is: ‘Do people want to do that on this platform?’.”

So we must assume that the Ocado chaps sat around the conference table and decided that anyone using a Nokia, a Samsung or a BlackBerry was unclean. Dirty. And of course, dirty people wouldn’t want to use Ocado on their device, right?

Here’s one more quote from the Silicon piece:

Silicon: How much research did you do before you launched the app?
John: “It was quite easy, at the stage we started developing, to look at the market and to look at where most of the phone usage was. We did some research and we can obviously spot which customers were visiting our regular website from which mobile devices and obviously we could understand general statistics about iPhones and other smartphone penetration. [An iPhone app was] a pretty obvious first place to start, basically.”

Goodness me.  This is why the mobile industry is screwed at the moment.

Numbskulls.

Ocado selected iPhone and for everybody else using a Nokia, a Samsung or a Sony Ericsson — or anything else — their message is (by default): If you want to order your toilet rolls on the train, sod off and buy an iPhone.

Unfortunately that isn’t a sustainable or sensible suggestion. It’s like suggesting customers trying to use Ocado Online from their Mac laptop should go and buy a PC first. Or vice versa.

Jon-from-Ocado goes on to point out that the iPhone now accounts for 2% of their online sales.

Let’s just stop there for a moment.

TWO PERCENT?

Their heads must button up the back.

TWO PERCENT of your sales go via mobile and you’ve limited that to ONLY iPhones?

What about Nokia?

What about Samsung?

What about BlackBerry?

It beggars belief, it really does.

The Cost Issue

Of course it’s expensive to develop on multiple platforms. Yes indeed. The kind of expense that small developers simply can’t cope with. And that’s entirely understandable. But if you’re an online retail giant — and TWO PERCENT of your sales are coming from iPhone already — what’s stopping you reaching out to other platforms?

Well it’s probably because it’s difficult.

That’s right. The one thing most digital agencies don’t tell their clients is that they don’t have a flucking clue how to develop for the other platforms.

Do ask your mobile agency about developing on Nokia. Or BlackBerry. Or Vodafone 360.  Watch their horrified look. Watch their faces screw up with mock disdain. It’s no longer possible to dismiss anything other than iPhone as ‘irrelevant’ or ‘not ready for prime time’.

This poses a real challenge for the Nike-wearing digital agency fraternity, who’ve had a really nice time knocking back the iPhone apps at pretty good rates.  Most of them have no experience with any other platforms. Most of them will — when your call comes in — be reaching for the phone number of that Eastern European mobile developer company, because the agency themselves — seriously — can’t tell a BlackBerry from a Samsung.

That’s going to become quite a business challenge for a lot of companies, soon.

It’s Not Just Ocado

Of course it’s not just Ocado guilty of this iFascism (“only focusing on the iPhone”) — the industry is rife with it. While everyone is busy competing with each other on the iPhone, there’s a land-grab beginning on the other platforms. It’s been ok to ignore these platforms whilst they’ve been busy struggling to establish themselves.

They’re established now.

And if you’re not developing for these other platforms, if you think they’re irrelevant — be very careful. They’re now coming of age and looking for their own superstars to rise up and dominate their charts. Heroes are being made on a daily basis across the other platforms. Even BlackBerry’s AppWorld has now started creating millionaires out of developers who were smart enough to get stuck in way before the hordes descend.

It’s time for me to calm down now.

Update: For the Americans, here’s the definition of ‘wet‘.

Due to the huge competitive pressure generated by the market entry of Nokia and the upcoming launch of Google navigation, Vodafone is proposing to close down Wayfinder. While awaiting the outcome of the negotiations with the unions and the decision, we will not be working on any development and will not deliver any new Location Services.

What happens now?

Essentially, Vodafone Internet Services / Location Services (aka Wayfinder) stops development projects with immediate effect. A transition team helps in winding down the services and where possible, to mitigate adverse business impacts for a period of time.

Support for Tailormade Maps continues and service continues to run for H1/M1 as well as for horizontal handsets. There will be no bugfixes made on any of the horizontal platforms.

We will wind down the services in an orderly manner. What this means in practice is that:
- we stop embedding any of the services (Navigation, Locate) on new handsets
- we stop producing new releases, porting to new handsets, making software maintenance releases
- we start withdrawing the applications from app stores and similar download channels (in a way as to not harm the business)
- all projects, including World Cup Locate project and 368 development are stopped with immediate effect

I think it’s good news that Vodafone have wielded the axe reasonably swiftly. Unless Wayfinder could offer something particularly compelling, it was going to be quite a challenge to compete with free. As Vodafone’s own Anna Cloke points out in this Engadget piece:

“We could not charge for something that others gave away for free.”

Agreed.

What next for Vodafone and navigation? Well, as this internal email points out, Tailormade Maps for the Vodafone 360 H1/M1 devices survives, although from what I’ve seen of them on the H1, I really don’t think too much of them.

I’m encouraged that Vodafone have noted that it’s going to be seriously difficult to compete with ‘free’ — instead of plodding on for another 18-month cycle. I also very much like the concept of the company sticking to the knitting rather than getting involved in supplying services that often don’t necessarily compete at the highest levels with the external competition.

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Here’s the video…

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I checked-in to the event then headed straight over to Mr Smith to say hello. He was arsing around with his laptop. Looking up, he briefly said hi, before advising, “Never, ever get an integrated SIM module on a Dell, this thing never seems to work.”

The holding area began to fill up. A chap by the name of Gary Gale came by and handed me the obligatory sticker sheet.

“You might remember me,” says Gary, “We had a frank exchange of views over BlackBerry AppWorld on Twitter a while ago?”

“Shit!” I think, “Errr,” I say to Gary, “I… errr, was I a little bit direct?”

I began to remember the episode and actually, I think Gary did have a good point — I just disagreed. Turns out Gary was a speaker too. I hadn’t connected the Twitter name Vicchi with Gary Gale, top man at Yahoo Engineering for Geo Technologies. Gary’s presentation was all about WOEIDs, something I knew nothing about until he stood up and explained them. Fascinating — highly relevant to the Twitter developer audience and expertly delivered. You can catch Gary’s WOEID presentation here.

So Twitter developers — that’s what Devnest is all about — anyone who’s interested in creating services and mashups with Twitter would do well to go along. The Organisers had done a phenomenal job — the place was packed.

Michael Camilleri came bounding over to say hi. Michael is one of the chaps behind FooCall (See last week’s post: “International calling for… FooCall“). It was good to see him. As we were discussing the state of British Venture Capitalists (in the context of this post), Paul Webster of Critical Path arrived to give us a glimpse into what’s coming with ShoZu. I agreed not to spill the beans though. Steve Kennedy popped over to say hi and pointed out that he almost bought a ton of Critical Path email services when he was supervising business development for Demon back in the good old dotcom days. Steve presented his business, DBVU, to the audience later in the evening — the company provides centralised analytics and monitoring for MySQL database servers. Very smart indeed.

With oodles of pizza having arrived and been consumed along with a good amount of beers, we headed into the auditorium and got started. I was wondering precisely how my presentation would be received, given the copious amounts of iPhones on show.

Angus, one of the organisers, had asked me to give a kind of ’state of the nation’ about mobile development, so I’d worked to create something like that, with due deference to the fact that most of the people in the room could write and deploy a desktop Twitter app in 180 seconds. Mobile might not be their forte, but I was working on the basis that they could easily adopt various mobile platforms with a low amount of friction, so I decided to keep it pretty high level.

The thrust of my argument was — yes, iPhone is great; Android..yeah… but please, please, please remember the fact that Nokia makes 1.4m handsets a day. A *DAY*. And don’t forget BlackBerry, either. And while you’re at it, a lot of the other platforms such as Vodafone 360 would be delighted to work with you.

Here’s the presentation:

The other presenter that evening, Paul Kinlan, was talking about Google Buzz. Paul is Developer Programmes Engineer at Google and, goodness me, he knew his stuff. I managed to keep up with most of the REST and CURL stuff — essentially he was outlining how Twitter developers could make use of the various Buzz APIs now becoming available. Very smart indeed.

I missed the majority of the buzzzy.com pitch, but essentially they’re providing a search interface for Google Buzz. I doubt it’ll be long before they’re snapped up.

Todd Chaffee delivered his pitch, “Social Media ROI in 140 seconds” and had me thinking carefully about the ROI issues with social media. Fascinating stuff. If you’re interested in the field, Todd’s presentation is here. Definitely talk to him.

There’s been some great feedback from the event — I’d like to thank everyone for taking the time to write a tweet regarding the presentation. It’s very kind of you. Instead of flooding my Twitter feed with ‘thank you, thank you’ messages, I have decided to cut’n'paste your messages and put a link into your Twitter profiles here on the site:

bensmithuk @3mobilebuzz Yep. Listening to @ew4n now. #devnest

vicchi I want @ew4n’s tee-shirt #devnest http://twitpic.com/17rh3j

chaffeet 30% of mobile apps are still developed for RIM according to @ew4n at #devnest 7.

richardBarley @ew4n banging the drum for Symbian at #devnest. Great stuff and good to hear

iamdanw Being pitched at to develop apps for symbian again. Shame symbian is an awful app environment, for both users and developers #devnest

(Dan, I agree, but do check out qt.nokia.com — Qt is really going to change things for the platform)

stevekennedyuk Great talk by @ew4n about mobile state of play – it’s all about Symbian #devnest

ketan @ew4n I would’ve stayed with nokia but ui and sync with my computer for email/music much easier on iPhone #devnest

(Fair point Ketan, but remember, you’re using the equivalent of a Fisher Price handset — capable, but the one-thing-at-a-time user model drives me nuts)

vicchi Just heard @ew4n equate Vodafone 360 with wife swapping. Never thought #devnest would be this much fun.

natts Amusing yet realistic talk by @ew4n at#devnest – iPhone only has 14% of world smartphone market in 2009 – http://bkite.com/3np10

michchapman At #devnest listening to @ew4n. Hmm when would be a good time to sneak out for more pizza?!

MarkABaker Fart apps is where its at. via @ew4n at #devnest

docstuart Enjoying first visit to #devnest, great first talk from @ew4n

ketan @ew4n great talk on mobile app development! Thanks. #devnest

MarkABaker missed recording @ew4n presentation at #devnest shame as execllent. Will ask him to do it again later on.

becva great first presentation from @ew4n #devnest

richardBarley Great talk from @ew4n on state of mobile development landscape. #devnest

nuxnix After @ew4n s talk at #devnest I am thinking the unthinkable – switching my iPhone. No not back to Symbian, but to give Android a try

@ew4n great presentation on #devnest yesterday

micrypt @ew4n Thanks for the splendid talk at #devnest yesterday. http://slidesha.re/9MRW10

Thank you everyone for your patience and attention — and thank you to the organisers for inviting me.

By the way: The organisers of Devnest have a 48-hour hackathon event coming soon, all focused on twitter. It’s called WarbleCamp and it’s on the 8th and 9th of May in London. Plus, it’s free. All the details you need are here: http://warblecamp.org/.

Finally, kudos to the sponsors of Devnest: PayPalX, Inuda, Sun Startup Essentials and Multizone Limited.