Opinionated comments on mobile phone industry news

How To Boost Your Handset Margins points out that Nokia sells phones for developing markets to developed ditto (slightly modified) and that way increases margins. From a business perspective that makes sense, right?

I actually consider it an excellent strategy by Nokia, and I'm sure Motorola will deploy the same strategy to fight current losses:

• It re-uses existing technology and design, hence quick and inexpensive to deploy more broadly. There’s no down-side, except possibly increased logistics due to even more phone models.
• It compensates for some of the losses in the developing markets.
• Most people only need (not saying they necessarily buy) a basic phone, and that goes for people anywhere in the world. Phones being status symbols kills that argument, but in a perfect fluffy fairy tale dream world it would hold true.
• Basic phones like this are excellent for prepaid.
• They are less of a burden cost-wise for operators.
• “Basic” is a relative term. These phones are very far from basic if what you need is only voice calls, SMS and a phone book. They have plenty more features than that.
• The UI/usability of such simpler phones tends to be better than on more advanced. It’s not given, it’s just what I’ve experienced. Less/simpler features typically means easier access to those features. They also tend to have more practical, less designed, keypads.
• As most such phones support downloadable ringtones, MIDlets etc, there’s still a considerable after-market, creating revenue beyond the phone sales.

Nokia 3109 Classic: Lack of a camera is a bummer and the display resolution is pretty low (128*160), but they at least didn't skimp on Java features:

• MIDP 2.0
• CLDC 1.1
• JSR 120 Wireless Messaging API
• JSR 135 Mobile Media API
• JSR 172 Web Services API
• JSR 177 Security and Trust Services API
• JSR 184 Mobile 3D Graphics API
• JSR 185 JTWI
• JSR 205 Wireless Messaging API
• JSR 226 Scalable 2D Vector Graphics API
• JSR 234 Advanced Multimedia Supplements
• JSR 75 FileConnection and PIM API
• JSR 82 Bluetooth API
• Nokia UI API

I hope this operator behavior won't get popular in Europe: Sprint: no GPS but our GPS.

GPS is inherently outside of operators' control, but A-GPS isn't, and neither is navigation services, provided operators disable access to GPS from third-party applications, or like in this case, threaten with a lawsuit.

The Mobile Operational Management Spec (JSR 232) - about management, fragmentation, and what about MIDP? confirms what I wrote in OSGi to the rescue for mobile developers? that this new JSR won't solve the existing fragmentaton issues that are much more related to misunderstandings of sometimes too loose specifications, multiple KVM providers including phone manufacturers' internally developed/optimized implementations, system software (not the least multimedia support) affecting the Java behavior to a large degree, etc.

JSR 232 is mainly aimed at CDC implementations. As there are hardly any such implementations around, and market-share-wise CDC doesn't even show up as a titsy-bitsy fraction, it's clear JSR 232 won't do much of anything in the short term. As mentioned before, I believe much stronger in MIDP 3 than CDC for the foreseeable mobile future.

ViewRanger And Nokia N95 Create A New Horizon For Outdoor GPS Navigation presents a service for off-road navigation with trailing/tracking, 3D maps etc, now supporting the Nokia N95 GPS phone.

It's in my opinion still way more optimal to use dedicated fixed navigation equipment in a car than a mobile phone, yet off road it's the other way around, as you can't carry a lab full of equipment when hiking in the wilderness. Power is an issue though, and the power hungry N95 (as in battery power; not the 'take over the world' kind of power) forces you to carry spare batteries or keep the time spent in the outback short.

I understand why analysts and media tend to hype smartphones so much: They are the very latest news in terms of mobile phone technology, being the most advanced phones available, supporting the most advanced (and in some cases even bleeding edge; check out e.g. Samsung with 10+ Mpixel cameras, phone-based speech-to-text etc) features that will/might also be available in "lesser" phones later, and by then those features have become non-news. Also, analysts and journalists are gadget freaks like everybody else, and are even paid to be gadget freaks.

Mobile Phone Accessories Generating More Revenue than Smartphones in 2007 indicates that accessories is a more viable business than smartphones in the future. The note doesn't say for mass market phones (even though that's my bet), rather smartphones, but I think that again tells what kind of skewed world analysts and journalists live in.

China's Growing Cell Phone Market says there will be 500M phone subscribers by June this year, and separately 500M is also mentioned for India, yet at 2010. That means China and India are soon larger markets than Europe and USA combined, the latter markets being much more mature, and slower growing, than China and India.

'But even with 500 million mobile-phone subscribers, most Chinese still don't own mobile phones. That figure represents a penetration rate of roughly 38 percent, given China's population of 1.3 billion, and is certain to keep growing over time.'

'users no longer pay for calls they receive on their cell phones'
Very good decision. When will USA do the same?

Beatnik Offers Music Format For Low-Cost Phones doesn't say anything about the audio quality, and I very much doubt that an audio file 1/10 the size of MP3 would sound equally good (or bad). AAC, a much newer format than MP3, is roughly half the size for similar quality, so this is a quite a big leap. I'm sure there's a quality trade-off, but in this case it might not matter, as the music will only be played on the phones it's been downloaded on. Not that I would ever buy music in lesser quality than CD, but it's clear the consumer market has already accepted lesser quality than CD via iTunes etc.

A camera with lower resolution and lack of WiFi are the biggest differences according to Nokia 6110 Navigator mobile phone packs similar specs as N95. This is also one of the first notes I've read about the N6110. Based on the one comment it seems leaving out WiFi might not have been a good decision, considering the cost of downloading maps via the mobile network.

Could it be better than the N95 in terms of battery life? I doubt it, but I prefer the N6110 in any case due to the price. It has the chance to become a best-seller. It's not out yet though.

Based on the JSR list it seems to be a great phone for advanced MIDlet development: 75, 82, 135, 172, 177, 179, 180, 184, 185, 205, 226, 234 (I noted SATSA, SIP and AMMS).

Nokia N6110 Navigator (UK)

Ebooks haven't been a success in the past, except for the audio book kind. In Japan though, where people can commute for hours, reading ebooks seems to work better, and Japan's latest mobile craze: novels delivered to your handset indicates it now has a boom of sorts, where even original material is wrtten for mobile reading.

Standardizing location-based services (LBS) outlines a set of standards provided by ISO that will make it easier to communicate between different vendors' devices and services in the future. I like this a lot, as there are e.g. way too many incompatible landmark formats being used today.

The Web 2.0 is Mobile 2.0’s Worst Enemy says that smartphones and ditto advanced browsers (with Ajax) are needed for Mobile 2.0, which is not true. See my slightly anecdotal comments for additional guidance (?). One of the comments got chopped off. I don't think I used any swear words though.

Martin's Mobile Technology hosts it this time. See what others write about mobile technology and mobile uses.

Is OSGi the Solution for Mobile Java? hints that JSR 232 Mobile Operational Management could fix some of the issues with Java ME (or rather specifically CLDC/MIDP). OSGi is a Java-based framework for dynamic loading of classes, when needed and when updated.

The article provides a list of issues that I don't think JSR 232 will solve in itself, except the third one...

• Fragmentation of the Java ME platform
• The absence of mobile runtime environments that adequately leverage the capabilities of advanced "smartphone" devices
• The difficulty of managing mobile applications and configurations once the device has left the building
• The architectural chasm that separates common Java web development skills and APIs from the specialized rich client practices employed when developing for mobile devices.

...and I add some more (equally non-solved by OSGi, mostly):

• Not trivial to re-use the massive amount of desktop-adapted Java code. There's not much code examples and complete open source projects for MIDlet developers.
• Lack of a graphically/multimedia focused UI (compare with Flash Lite).
• Lack of a widget-like RAD-like programming environment (a la "make an app in a snap" (TM)).

What OSGi can provide though is a more transparent application behavior, where the user doesn't have to deal with updates and such. It could potentially also lead to class sharing as well as "DLL hell" (the issue of different applications using different versions of shared classes).

Nokia is supposedly a pioneer in this field. I like how Nokia seems to be early on with new technology that matters. They were early with GPS and early with functionality for transferring mobile content (Smart Messaging). They might not be first with 3G and such base technologies, but based on sales figures, consumers are more concerned with useful and "tactile" features than necessarily the highest performance.

Cell Phones That Tell You Where to Go reflects where the US market is right now in this quickly emerging segment.

A misconception: 'The primary difference between navigation services on mobile phones and dedicated GPS devices designed for use in automobiles ... is that phones must pull maps and other data from servers over the carrier's network, while GPS devices store this information locally on a drive or a flash memory card.'
That's just how it's done right now. Phones could very well hold complete city maps etc. As they anyway need a lot of memory for music and videos (soon in the gigabytes), they can as well use that storage for maps, landmarks etc.

An interesting new service type (yet similar to earlier hyped 'Friend Finder' solutions): 'Conversely, some new GPS phone services don't involve navigation: Boost's Loopt, for example, lets you keep track of buddies who also use the service (and vice versa). That's something no car-navigation system you can find will do.'

Review of GSM/UMTS-communicator Nokia E90 shows the E90 to be a natural evolution of the 9500 and previous Communicator models.

Here's what Mobile-review had to say about its GPS functionality (not overly positive):

'GPS-navigation. I want to make a note here that for this device the GPS-navigation feature is somewhat useless, but on the whole in this mode it lives for about 2,5-3 hours.'

'GPS-navigation. For a communicator, addition of GPS-receiver appears to be a soft of running-in of future technologies, attempt to keep up with the times, rather than a vital need. It is really interesting to read on various resources articles praising Nokia E90’s navigation front, conclusions that in this sense it is on a par with Nokia N95 and thanks to a bigger internal screen looks preferable for checking maps. It is good and smooth, if only all this refers to artificial environment of Nokia E90 – in a pocket of its tester. In real life, the limitations of Nokia E90’s GPS-navigation use outweigh its undisputable draws.'
Part of the reason they think so is that due to the flip screen it's very hard to use it as a car navigator.

Apart from GPS it seems to be a good evolution step, with a large landscape display (800 by 352!) and alphanumeric keypad, making browsing and messaging way less painful than what you experience on most other advanced phones.

'GoPass AVL-900 monitors action in your car, lets you listen in' describes another specialized GPS/GSM device that sends an alarm when the car is outside a boundary. Technically therefor very similar to PetLink, but it can also record and send audio.

Gopass has numerous GPS-related products, including Bluetooth GPS modules etc.

Making SIP Make Cents provides a basic description of how Session Initiation Protocol and related protocols work. Most VoIP systems over the Internet now uses SIP, with the exception of Skype and a few others. Within enterprises there's still some use of H.323 and maybe even MEGACO. Actually Microsoft's NetMeeting uses H.323. SIP is inherently a much simpler protocol than H.323, but as always, as time passes it's grown into a beast of its own.

IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is also based on SIP etc, which is a good choice, and SIP will be a key component in the All-IP concept of future mobile networks.

(via Mobility Weblog)

The video at Java ME and the Netbeans Mobility Pack shows the new features in Mobility Pack for NetBeans 6.0, currently available in a preview verson that can be downloaded by anyone.

Visual Composer for CLDC (previously called Visual Mobile Designer) is said to be only useful for consumers. I doubt that many consumers make MIDlets, even for their own phone, but there are a lot of corporate developers that could use this tool effectively to speed up development, and to simplify early user evaluation by creating visual mockups of the real thing. It's not of much help for Canvas-based applications, but can be used if you combine high-level widgets with a Canvas-based main screen. That's how I use it right now to make a client for an LBS.

It's also said that there's a need to build hundreds of different versions of each application to support all phones. I doubt very much that's true even for advanced games, but even so, the porting features of NetBeans Mobility Pack are appreciated.

I'm watching the video right now (it's almost an hour), so I might add more later.

3G operators scrabble for killer apps starts off with 'Mobile operators around the globe are busy rolling out 3G services and upgrades, dreaming of a day when users casually make video calls and download movies, allowing companies to reap several times more revenue per phone', that I'd like to counter with a few words of advice for operators:

• People won't use video conference. They will do a lot of multimedia downloading though, of course mainly of music and videos. The cost should be for the content, not for the download, and content must be DRM-free and in popular formats (read: not 3GPP).
• The costs need to be realistic. Operators are in the falsehood of believing that consumers will actually invest much more in total mobile fees than today, and also that any new service will/must generate revenue. The latter hasn't been the case on the PC-accessed Internet, and neither will it be for mobile. Most services on the Internet are driven by advertizing and have no revenue from the actual service, which leads to...
• Advertizing is a very viable revenue stream also on mobile. Reap the benefits from that instead of leaving that huge pile of revenue to others.
• Services don't need to be advanced to be useful. Just look at Twitter (and SMS...). Twitter's problem is rather that they don't have any visible revenue stream. Not even advertizing.
• There are tons of service providers that want to go mobile if it only had been easy and quickly profitable. Enable them to do that. That would also generate a lot of revenue for you. That includes enabling location-based services.
• Realize that you can become the ISPs of the future, something that scares the sh*t out of many people, including me.

I know many in the industry would cringe at operators getting revenue from advertizing etc, but I'm giving advice to operators here, so sod off ;).

Europe's Galileo Losing Out to U.S. GPS indicates the investors in Galileo consider it too expensive.

As far as I know GPS was almost completely government funded (as in paid by tax dollars), while Galileo is intended to be paid by private investors by 2/3. That's probably not a good idea. It's way easier to raise money from people that don't know about it (again, tax dollars (sorry, Euros) from you and me) than bet on private investors to shelf out money for a possible (and arguable) future ROI. Maybe some lobbyist (or maybe a few more) can convince EU that this is so important politically that EU should fund it almost fully.

NetBeans 6.0 Preview sports a number of general improvements as well as really useful such for mobile developers. Here's a rundown (copied from the site):

Editor

• Smarter code completion. The NetBeans editor is quicker and smarter, providing completions for keywords, fields, and variables. It also lists the most logical options at the top, and lets you dig down into the full options at the bottom
• Highlights. You can think of the highlights feature as an easy-to-use and more correct substitution for the editors Search. The IDE tracks the position of the caret and, based on it, highlights some parts of the code. The highlights are marked with a background color in the editor they are also put into the error stripe, which permits for having overview of the whole file.
• Better Navigation and Inspection. In addition to Highlights, the source editor lets you quickly navigate through your code with improved Navigator window organization and the Members and Hierarchy Inspectors.
• More than just code completion. With live templates and Surround With functionality, you can quickly enter commonly used blocks of code and focus on the business logic.
  

Mobility

• New Integrated UI for CLDC/MIDP and CDC development. The Mobility Preview now supports the project properties previously available only for CLDC/MIDP projects. These include project configuration support for device fragmentation, integrated obfuscation and optimization support, and multiple deployment options, all built on Apache Ant for easier coding and management.
• New game builder. Now it's easier to create mobile games with the Mobility Pack's visual editing support for the MIDP 2.0 Game API. The API supports animated sprites and the ability to arrange tiled layers into scenes.
• New Visual Mobile Designer. The Visual Mobile Designer (VMD) has been re-designed for improved functionality and usability.
• Design analysis. Design Analysis identifies unused components for removal from complex visual designs.
• New custom components. New components for the Visual Mobile Designer simplify the creation and design of mobile file browsers, Short Message Service (SMS) composers, login screens, and Personal Information Manager (PIM) browsers.
• New components for Flow Control.
• Generated code is now easier to modify.
• Re-written JSR-172 stub compiler. The new generator has support for Base64 type and is able to parse documentation from methods.
• Improved project configuration management. A new UI for the Project wizard makes it easier to add new project configurations for new mobile devices. It's now easier to create multiple builds for multiple configurations.
  

It seems to work fine with existing projects. I will test it further to see what the improvements can bring in terms of programming efficiency.

Positioning phones to create new social networks brings positive vibes about new ways people could interact by knowing where their buddies are, and what they might have submitted from the places they are or were. Think e.g. vacation trips, cross country hitchhiking, terrain sports, nature excursions, finding the best spot at the beach, etc etc, and you see that location adds both increased granularity and specificness to information.

A dark cloud (or at least grayish) is though the likely slow uptake of adding GPS to phones. The previously mentioned 'GPS on a SIM card' might speed that uptake provided operators endorse such cards.

Compare this to other forms of mobile social networking: Most need no special features in the phone. Basic messaging and browsing is sufficient, which all phones support, hence no need to get a new device just to 'socialize'. Twitter is an extreme case in point, using SMS for the mobile communication, even though a lot of functionality is lost compared to using e.g. a MIDlet like Abiro Jitter.

'Combined with mobile Internet access, GPS (global positioning system) is seen in the industry as adding a new dimension to social networking that could also have implications for the media business.'

Alain De Taeye, chief executive of digital map supplier Tele Atlas: "Market research predicts that 25 percent of phones in 2010 will have GPS. I would be a bit more cautious."

Might not seem so special at first, but note that it will take a long time before a majority of phones have (A-)GPS integrated. Switching to a SIM card with GPS makes existing GSM non-GPS phones location-enabled, and without the need for an extra Bluetooth GPS gadget.

BlueSky Positioning

'BlueSky Positioning’s A-GPS solution for (U)SIM appears as a SIM/USIM Toolkit application'

I wonder how sensitive this solution can be, considering there's hardly any space for an antenna, and the phone might be too shielded to allow the GPS waves to come through.

The Minuet Browser claims to fully support HTML without any transcoding proxy. Whether that's a good thing is arguable, as one of the major benefits of Opera Mini is that by using such a proxy it lessens the amount of data sent over the air, cutting download times and costs considerably. A benefit may though be that pages are rendered more correctly on the Minuet Browser (not saying that's the case), as Opera Mini only supports narrow/one-column rendering.

All versions are MIDlets, yet with some more functionality for PDAs/smartphones. E.g. to run it on a Palm, the IBM J9 JVM needs to be installed.

Keep Tabs on your Car: The GPS Snitch describes the GPS Snitch that sends you an alarm if the car starts to move or goes outside a given perimeter. You can then also follow the car's position via the service's web site.

What caught my eye was the pricing ($399 + $30 fixed and $15-26/month). If this is an acceptable price level, then there's also an opportunity for other actors to come in with more optimized solutions.

Technically the device must of course be a GPS receiver combined with a cell phone.

uLocate is provider of the WHERE mobile widget engine (Java-based) for quickly creating location-aware widgets for mobile phones. That they get funding shows there's some interest among investors for this king of offering.

uLocate Locates Cash

uLocate GPS Platform Gets $11 Million

As I said in a previous post, it's advertizing and being acquired. Many Web 2.0 sites don't even advertize, and Web 2.0: Now and Next also indicates the acquisition game is what matters the most.

I'm not bashing the services per se (the list of service categories shows there's a lot of useful stuff here, with potential). I'm more concerned about people that think they understand a new concept by giving it a simple name (like 'The New Economy'; still nobody has figured out what was so new about it), and therefor investing in services that wouldn't have survived without that injection.

One thing is clear: The first ones in a new interesting category gets a hell of a lot of users, but the me-toos are soon forgotten, unless they can carve out a niche, with users that want to pay for the service.

'The sellers of these startups and their venture backers are the ones making money off of Web 2.0.'

There's some light in the tunnel though:
'Many companies are using Web 2.0. A recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that 85% of C-level executives see the sharing and collaboration aspects of Web 2.0 as an opportunity to increase revenue and/or margins.'

'Given its business risks and the low cost of entry, it appears unlikely that companies will invest significantly in Web 2.0 technologies as they did during the first Internet wave in the 1990s. Thus Web 2.0’s future depends on its ability to reinvent the media industry.'
The low cost of entry is an interesting one. That means many small ventures are flocking to provide such services, and by necessity many of those services are very similar to the others. Also, it means there might not be need for a business model either, as it's hyped and investment money lasts long enough to get the service going, without any (other) revenue stream.

I believe the best approach to the whole thing is to use Web 2.0, Mobile 2.0 (and the combination) in the marketing, but realize and follow through that the whole point of setting up a business is to do business.

JavaFX Mobile - Latest Mobile OS describes that JavaFX Mobile is a complete phone system software based on Linux and sporting Java VM 6, which means it has much more functionality, and is much closer to Java SE and CDC, than current MIDP-focused phone implementations are. That in itself can hinder the uptake, as CDC hasn't had any success so far. When Sun says '2 billion phones with Java', it's pretty much all MIDP.

I don't understand the 'Possibilities' part of the note. That seems to be a misunderstanding. JavaFX Mobile and JavaFX Script are two very different things: A mobile application platform and a script language for clients and servers, respectively.

Sprint unhappy about Mobile GMaps usage on its phones

This is one of those notes that is both funny and tragic at the same time.

Sprint has come up with the creatively stupid idea of accusing the provider of Mobile GMaps for taking away revenue from Sprint, as it uses GPS, not considering all the traffic it generates when downloading maps. Mobile GMaps is just the start of a boom of GPS-based phone applications and services. If Sprint thinks it can stop that they are pretty naive. Accusing a provider of a free tool is even more so.

'But Sprint doesn't like this and is threatening legal action against the maker of Mobile GMaps unless the company removes or obfuscates the GPS tracking functionality'
I hope all goes well, Cristian.

I wish there was something called business ethics also within telecom.

Update 20070511: Here's more about the device that's provided by Petlink:
Petlink dog collar features GPS for peace of mind
Based in Sweden.


Both solutions are GPS-based.

Satamatics introduces global personnel tracker
Specialized for personnel in risky areas, so I figure the device is rugged.

Swedish dog owners to keep track of pets via mobile
Supporting finding out its position by sending the device an SMS, as well as geo-fencing. It sounds like the solution could also be used for tracking stolen cars etc. I didn't find out who's delivered the GPS device, that must also consist of a mobile phone.

This time up at 3-Lib. You know by now what CotM is about.

I contributed my slightly venomous rant on mobile enterprise IT.

'Nokia Series 40 5th Edition Platform Announced' mentions that it now supports MIDP 2.1.

MIDP 2.1 is a much needed clarification of MIDP that also adds more mandatory features, that were previously optional but very much needed in practical use. E.g. JPEG is now mandatory.

More commentary:
JavaFX : the missed opportunity from Sun
Sun's JavaFX Hopes to Give Cellphones and J2ME an Extra Kick
Sun Revamps Its 'Java Everywhere' Message


'Sun tries again with consumer-flavored Java' sounds like Sun wants to take on Flash Lite, as it's becoming increasingly a 'PitA' of Sun. Adobe gets more media attention, and Java ME is almost considered a gray old technology not fit for modern services. This is of course not true, as we've just started to scratch the surface of using MIDlets as frontends to mobile services, being much more versatile than e.g. Flash Lite and WML when it comes to interaction with phone features. Not even the industry seems to realize how ubiquitous CLDC/MIDP has become, and Sun has in my opinion done a lousy job marketing that fact.

What's needed though is a simpler way to create applications, as web designer that are asked to go mobile would have a hard time learning to develop MIDlets.

JavaFX Script is supposedly very similar to Java, making it an easy transition for existing Java developers.

Note that JavaFX Mobile and Script are two very different things, as seen in the quotes below:

'JavaFX Mobile, a package aimed at mobile-handset makers designed to make Java applications more portable across mobile phones.'
Excellent. We need that.

'In the process, Sun intends to "attack" the notion that it is being outpaced in the field of rich Internet applications'
They are right about that, notion-wise.

'"It should be the sweet spot for Java. It's kind of tragic that Sun screwed up so badly with the applet performance and browser incompatibility in the late 1990s," he said. "JavaFX Script has an opportunity to redeem themselves."'

'A shrinked-down version of Java, called Java Platform, Mobile Edition (Java ME), is already installed on 2 billion phones worldwide, said Green.'
A few months ago it was 1.5 billion. Is he exaggerating?

'The JavaFX Mobile is technology that Sun gained through the acquisition of the intellectual property assets of SavaJe, a start-up that created software for writing uniform applications on Java phones.'
Good that the technology comes to use. It didn't in the hands of SavaJe.

Here are a few pieces that were published around and during the latest MEX conference in London, for your reading pleasure.

Strategies for when the wall comes down
'wall' as in walled garden.

Where is mobile user experience today?

MEX Day 1

Day 1 of MEX sets the UX agenda with sell-out attendance

MEX Day 2

Day 2 of MEX and summary

'Private-label handsets to bring in $10 billion this year' says something that surprised me: 'In essence, no longer are those exclusive private carrier "brands" being relegated to higher-end handsets and smartphones'. Actually I never thought they were. Most people only need entry-level phones, and such phones are very capable today, even for information services. This would be true in developed markets as well, if it hadn't been for the 'I must have the latest stuff'' troll. Also, when talking MVNO's they are mostly into providing the lowest cost on calls and SMSs, so why ship expensive phones that would never be utilized?

'This is what happens when we let engineers run the show' is an interesting piece about how listening only to engineers (or letting them fully control the process) when designing consumer devices might not be a good thing.

1. When an engineer tells you that something cannot be done, you'll spend the next week trying to figure out whether the limitation is the technology or if the engineer is telling you that they just don't want to do the thing you're asking. Most of the time, it's the second objection and not the first.
2. When an engineer tells you that something can be done, it will most likely be confusing and difficult to use. Think of programming a telephone using DTMF: the PBX is the ultimate engineer-designed product filled with services and features that less than 1% of users even know about and only 0.1% know how to access.

Daniel Taylor also provides a few good examples of when that seems to have happened.

I'm not a fan of the '2.0' label added to almost anything that's newer/different than the old stuff. I have way easier to understand such a label put on things that are really different on a technical level, but in this case it's added to behavior and perception. Why? Because 2.0-type services existed long before the 2.0 term did. There's maybe a more structured approach to it now, by using Ruby on Rails, Ajax etc, but that's it.

Here are some examples of over-use, still not un-interesting per se:

Trip Hawkins 'invents' Mobile Game 2.0

Recap of Mobile Business 2.0

Except the now well-known descriptions of 2.0 (user-generated content, web applications etc), there's another (my own): 'We are talking real useful services now, but we still don't know how to make money from them, except by being acquired or publishing ads.'

Maybe with 3.0 we'll have an answer to the money issue too.

Now when most of the mobile phone technology focus is on completely other things that voice calls, it's easy it gets a worse treatment than it should.

'Aren't Phones for Talking?' means it's a fact, yet showing Sony Ericsson and Sanyo might be the beter ones in this area.

Quote: 'Almost none of today's cell phones sound as good as the $13 Princess phone I have in my closet.'

Actionscript generally covers programming for mobile devices, so far mainly about Flash Lite.

Considering the name, 'J2ME Guide - Part 1' will be continued. You can jump directly to 'The MIDlet development process' if you don't care about the theory. The example is using Wireless Toolkit. For anything but the simplest examples you should go for Eclipse or NetBeans.

Both CDC and CLDC are mentioned, but most (read: pretty much all) phones use CLDC, so that and MIDP is what you need to learn first.

I've mentioned before about adding Ajax support to Series 60 integrated browser. According to info from Nokia this is real Ajax, and not just slideware-Ajax, which should make it easier to port existing Ajax code. Note though that only Series 60 supports this, so service providers still need to provide other solutions for phones using other platforms and browsers. Considering that, MIDlets as a common denominator might not be so bad after all.

'Nokia s60 Widgets support: Mobile Widgets and the fulfilment of the Mobile Ajax dream' has more details.

The $15 Mobile Phone and the Manufacturer's Virtual Network Operations hints that as prices come down on phone components, increasingly phones (or whatever they should be called then) will be used for things (devices, equipment, gizmos, what have you). To this I guess could also be added animals, or at least the pet variety.

The telematics guys have talked about this for a long while, but development has been sluggish so far for all kinds of reasons:

• Telematics is mostly corporate, and we all know what that means in terms of time to adopt, or at all accept.
• Telematics device vs mobilized device might not add up to a compelling ratio.
• Stuffing SIM cards in a gazillion phones/modules is expensive. This has to be simplified by OTA-programmable SIM identities on 'glued in' SIM functionality.
• Not until recently has GPS technology been inexpensive enough to integrate. GPS precision is needed for tracking vehicles and cargos.
• etc.

Again, Wi-Fi is mentioned as an alternative to telecom networks. It's interesting to have a situation where operators are so unwilling to go forth into uncharted territory that Wi-Fi is at all considered, with such a spotty coverage that it's practically useless for telematics. MVNOs might be more likely to take on this opportunity.

Selling off 8% to private investors. It shows we have a new government. The question is for how long.

As found in Next Target of Cell Phone Industry: Navigation.

Even though the N95 is clearly not the choice for the masses wanting location, it seems Nokia is dedicated to provide GPS in also more mainstream phones: '"I believe it will quickly go through almost the whole of our portfolio," Kai Oistamo, head of Nokia's Mobile Phones unit, told a recent news conference.'

'The GPS technology enables handset makers to bypass mobile phone network operators'
Good for the handset manufacturers that want to stick out. Good for the third-party service providers that want to establish innovative location-based services. All in all, good for the consumers.

'with the acquisition of German firm Gate5, rolled out a free Nokia Maps service in February, giving away maps and routing data while charging consumers for a turn-by-turn navigation service.'
A good way to get revenue from more than phone sales. What about head-on iTunes competition?

Despite the arguable value of certain optimizations, highlighted by the second article, the first one is most valuable. Read the third one at your own risk. I didn't find much useful there. The last is, you guessed it, mainly about game optimization.

General advice from yours truly:

• Don't spend a lot of time optimizing code that is not performance-wise critical.
• Learn a few good general optimizations and use them directly when coding. After a while you get a feel for what makes sense, and not.
• The most important is that the code does what it's intended to do and is easy to maintain.

Optimizing for Speed in J2ME :: Extreme Tips for Lightning-Fast MIDlets

Java theory and practice: Urban performance legends

Optimisation tips and tricks for speeding up apps

J2ME Game Optimization Secrets