Rants And Ramblings About Mobile Technology

Introduction

It's my pleasure to present to you this week's round of 'best of' blog entries within mobile. More than 15 entries and of high quality too, and there are at least two new contributors.

If you are new to the phenomenon of Carnival of the Mobilists, you can find information about it here.

To continue on the carnival theme, here's info about "Lundakarnevalen", a university-influenced phenomenon that takes place in my home town of Lund in Sweden. Slightly less exotic than the Carnival in Rio, but at least as crazy.

As Sony Ericsson's feature phone division and Ericsson Mobile Platforms are located an Lund, as well as numerous product and professional services companies focused on mobile technologies, there's a lot of mobile stuff going on around here.

Contributions

UI design

Steve Litchfield at All About Symbian provides arguments for having alphanumeric keypads in phones in Gotta have QWERTY?. Steve likes alphanumeric keypads as much as I do, which I've written about now and then.The functionality of smartphones and now also most featurephones are aligned for alphanumeric keypads, but most lack such.

Daniel Taylor at Mobile Enterprise Weblog provides an end-user's woes on trying to use mobile-adapted services in Who Designs This Stuff?. There seems to be an apparent lack of end-users involved in the design of phones and services, and a gap between features added to phones and features needed by services.

Multimedia

Nicolas Fogelholm at About Nokia gives practical advise for how to get better photos in How To Take Good Pictures With a Camera Phone. My experience of camera phones is that they still create much lower quality pictures than dedicated cameras (and for obvious reasons), so this might lend some help.

My favorite from SmartMobs this week is The Mobile Phone As Musical Instrument.It hints that the mobile phone can be used for amateur musicians for recording as well as an instrument in itself. I guess it's as always the younger/youngest generation that will determine the real destiny of mobile phones.

Application platforms

Matthew Miller at ZDNet Mobile Gadgeteer has written an anecdote about Are Treos the traveler's preferred device? that ponders on the possible continued life of Palm OS for smart/high-functionality phones.

Tam Hanna at TamsPalm wonders why it's such a big deal that Palm OS afficionados evaluate new mobile application platforms in Dmitry Grinberg evaluating PocketPC…so what?.

C. Entrique Ortiz at his Mobility Weblog indicates that it's time for new application platforms and how to go about developing new services in The Return of the Platform.

Business

Barry Welford at StayGoLinks contemplates Will TV Ad Dollars Move To The Mobile Web?, based on a study from McKinsey. The answer is of course ... well, see foryourself. Several analysts have reported about the trend towards Internet advertising, as many people are spending more time in front of a PC than they do in front of a TV, so the shift is a logical and necessary one also when it comes to mobile.

Tomi T Ahonen at Communties Dominate Brands tells a story based on real events about how windsurfing can be a good way to get into the mobile biz in How I became a Mogul in Mobile part x - BulkSMS from Capetown. It's interesting how a very specific personal need could become a general need so the business could grow.

Darla Mack at Days in the Life of a Mobile Diva highlights the huge logistical issues a major phone manufacturer faces in Ever Wonder How Nokia Phones Are Made?

Messaging

Justin Oberman at MOPocket goes through in detail why he thinks SMS has yet not exploded in USA in My Thoughts On WhyWe (The U.S) Don't Get The (Text) Message. Be warned: The note is very long.

Bonnie Bogle at MobileActive.org provides interesting insights into how mobile technology can be used during war time for both good and bad purposes, in this case in Lebanon, in Mobile Aid and Mobile Warfare. I just wish the war would end very very soon. Please...

Mobile Web

Dennis, editor at Wap Review discusses how mobile-adapted sites could be made easier to navigate via mostly simple changes in Mobile Web (un)Usability.

My own Mobile News contribution for this week is Finding volume drivers for mobile data that hints at what might become the main drivers for a boom in mobile data use. See what for yourself.

Convergence

Martin Sauter at his Mobile Technology Page digs deep to reveal flaws in the drivers for Intel Centrino chipsets in Centrino WLAN vulnerabilities - Getting your virus with a malformed packet.

Russell Buckley at MobHappy goes through how and why Sprint has chosen WiMAX as a complement to CDMA, and interestngly (and at least possibly) created an internal competitor(my speculation) in EV-DO in Sprint Races Ahead, Chooses Mobile WiMAX For 4G.

David Beers at Software Everywhere goes through the The economics of fixed-mobile convergence, and points out that central control (by operators) of pricing has both advantages (economics of scale) and disadvantages (blocking other providers).

And the award goes to...

This was a tough one, but I finally chose Who Designs This Stuff? by Daniel Taylor. I'm strongly convinced things need to be reasonably simple to use, for them to get used.

Next time...

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