Opinionated comments on mobile phone industry news

Up to 5 songs for $7.49 and 5 more songs for the same amount more in AT&T's/eMusic's new mobile music offering. That's pretty steep. Especially if you want to download a complete album, and considering the audio quality sucks. Will also the data transfer cost be added to this? I hope not.

You also get a copy of the songs for PC use. On the other hand you could buy the CD or CD single, possibly for less, and upload to the phone, legally.

As convencience seems to be more important than audio quality when it comes to downloaded music my quality arguments might not stick, but the cost is still steep... This is an effect of all the ones involved and a conservative view of music distribution.

The correct way of thinking for music companies is "To avoid piracy we should lower the price of downloaded music as distribution cost is 0, compared to CDs where the distribution cost is the lion share of the consumer price. We'll still get more revenue, if we just can get rid of the middle men."

I'm surprised still so few larger music companies have online stores for music. Instead they let Apple etc control that business. What are they thinking? That piracy will go away and somehow consumers will return to CDs? Wake up and smell the CDs burning.

AT&T, eMusic Launch Mobile Music Service

Here are a few business ideas that I'm sure would fly, but I'm too lazy to get going myself. If you find anything interesting and you want me on the advisory board (for something in return), just let me know. I'm not mentioning business ideas I'm currently involved in.

An online-only music company, that would only release music for on-line purchase and download. Would maybe fit e.g. my favorite distributor InsideOut Music, that currently releases also CDs and DVDs. The targeted audience tends to be a bit audiophilic, so it's critical that CD/DVD quality music can be downloaded as well, but much more compact file formats would be needed for e.g. mobile use. At least this kind of music is still very much album focused, so it's important that whole albums can be purchased and downloaded. It would certainly fit smaller niched music companies. The running cost for distribution is amazingly low and not scaling up with increased sales and revenue.

A free SMS service. This is nothing new of course, but despite years of such services there still seems to be potential for more players. Of course "SMSs" would be sent over the data link, cutting the per-message cost substantially. It should also have chat features, so that many could receive the same message simultaneously and there should be a message log, buddy list etc. It could also emulate MMS for sending photos, videos and audio. The question is how to get revenue from it, but maybe a small monthly fee would work, or other means for revenue, like ringtones sales, advertizing etc. An obvious function is a gateway to real SMS and MMS, but with local rate, overcoming the high roaming costs, but that would also add revenue.

An invitation-only messaging service that would always transfer e-mails in encrypted form, and one would grant people right to send e-mails, similar to chat services. That way there would be no possibility for spam, and we would get back e-mail as a practical form of communication. Of course mobile access would have to be there from day one. Normal Internet e-mail addresses would be used for compatibility with lesser messaging services.

Mobile stock service, that would provide stock information for all the world's public companies via agreements with all relevant stock info providers, and that would allow e.g. setting up portfolio lists, see stock charts graphically and zoomable, support triggers for alerts, e.g. level limit up or down, speed limit up or down, TA factors etc.

'Why I use NetBeans Mobility Pack to write Cotopia' is a list of generic arguments for using NetBeans Mobility Pack for developing MIDlets.

'In all fairness there are a few competing projects out there but none comes even close in terms of functionality. There is the Eclipse MTJ and some Mobile Java support in IntelliJ but neither offers as much as 10% of the functionality.'

See also my NetBeans page for more arguments.

Actionscript.it has published chapter 5 of its Java ME / J2ME guide. It doesn't say how many chapters there will be, but there have to be more, as there's a lot more to cover, so place a bookmark on this page.

Two interesting new GPS devices:

Nokia LD-4W Bluetooth GPS Module Approved by FCC
Will replace the trusty LD-3W that works with phones of any brand, which this device is also likely to do. It seems to be considerable smaller, and designed to be used in a key ring.

Samsung's i550 brings GPS navigation
Sporting Series 60 possibly makes it comparable to N95 in feature set. I doubt that it's a slider, as proposed in the note. Rather the top and bottom are based on different materials, hence the design "seam".

'Fixed voice disappearing in Europe' needs no comments, just quotes:

'At the current rate of traffic migration, 90 per cent of all voice minutes in Finland will originate on mobile phones by 2008.'

'Traffic substitution is also progressing in markets that have previously undergone little FMS.'

'What is particularly worrying for fixed-line operations is not that FMS is happening, but the pace at which it is happening,'

'Gates sees no Google threat in phone software' is to me classical marketing smoke and mirrors, diverting attention from the real issues.

Of course Google is not a threat on software platforms for mobile clients, but they certainly are in terms of Internet-based mobile services, in part using downloaded mobile phone software in Java, Symbian OS etc, and that's where the market is moving. Phones will increasingly be platforms for downloaded applications serving as front-ends to services.

I see very little of new thinking in Microsoft's offerings on services. Microsoft still hasn't got alternatives to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce etc. It doesn't matter if those services are not profitable (even though I'm sure at least Salesforce is very profitable, and the others have an easy time getting investor money) if Microsoft is not even there to find out if such services can be made profitable. Rather it sounds like an argument from a player that can't keep up.

Also clear is that Microsoft's Windows Mobile is not really a threat to Symbian OS, or rather specifically the Nokia Series 60 flavor. I guess Microsoft doesn't want to speak too loudly about that.

'SK Telecom develops phone-controlled cleaning bot' that has a camera so you can watch how much in need of cleaning your apartment or house is. You can probably also watch the robot get stuck in all the litter you have on the floor, or get trashed by your dog. It's sounds like something you'd value for 5 minutes, but I guess it's too early to say.

Here's a collage of interesting notes about how and why the next generation uses technology, not the least mobile such.

'Kids say e-mail is, like, soooo dead'

Interestingly it's not even IM that's replacing e-mail, but communities.

'"Sometimes I say I e-mailed you, but I mean I Myspace'd or Facebook'ed you," [Martina Butler] said.'

'And if you're among those who believe teens are the future, then e-mail could be knocked down a rung.'
Teens as in the next working generation, yes of course. Said another way: Teens are just people soon to be adults (my quote). Usage patterns learned/preferred now will be migrated to adulthood.

'Young keep it simple in high-tech world: survey'

It's about the fact that existing technology is transparent/invisible to kids. It's just there, so the question is what to use it for, and this note indicates person-to-person communication.

'Young people don't see "tech" as a separate entity - it's an organic part of their lives'

'New Global Study From MTV, Nickelodeon and Microsoft Challenges Assumptions About Relationship Between Kids, Youth & Digital Technology'

The note includes this summary, so I leave it without comments:

• Technology has enabled young people to have more and closer friendships thanks to constant connectivity.
• Friends influence each other as much as marketers do. Friends are as important as brands.
• Kids and young people don't love the technology itself -- they just love how it enables them to communicate all the time, express themselves and be entertained.
• Digital communications such as IM, email, social networking sites and mobile/sms are complementary to, not competitive with, TV. TV is part of young peoples' digital conversation.
• Despite the remarkable advances in communication technology, kid and youth culture looks surprisingly familiar, with almost all young people using technology to enhance rather than replace face-to-face interaction.
• Globally, the number of friends that young males have more than doubles between the ages of 13-14 and 14-17 -- it jumps from 24 to 69.
• The age group and gender that claims the largest number of friends are not girls aged 14-17, but boys aged 18-21, who have on average 70 friends.

Here's an interesting note listing different similar services. Will there be black figures for all of these services? I doubt it.

2.0 much supply?

'You know I get the long tail and all that stuff… there are also some basic things like supply and demand that don’t change.'
How true.

'Social Networks Frantically Go Mobile', and they should too, as that's where the users are: Today, young people with great certainty have their own mobile phone, but less likely their own PC, especially when looking at China and India, where there's no history of PC adoption. Also, a PC is a bit bulky to carry around everywhere, so the mobile phone is an obvious device for communicating with community and UGC services. Also, phones can take snapshots and shoot videos, enabling new ways to communicate information to others.

'When it comes to the social network, everyone agreed that the mobile experience has to look at feel as close as possible to the PC experience.'
I don't agree. Mobile phones have both advantages and drawbacks that PCs don't have. See here for some of the pros and cons. Use those pros and cons to your advantage.

'Even a representative from Sprint Nextel admitted that exclusivity deals to certain social networks, in the end do not benefit the company or the user because people want to use their networks with friends and family members who are on other carriers.'
That's open-minded by an operator, and of course that's the way it has to be. The operator is just an ISP.

Community key to Web 2.0 success tries to provide some wisdom about Web 2.0. You are hereby warned.

'"I think we [can] substitute the word 'community' with 'users'," Teo said. "If you have no users, you have no business. [But] if you have users, you have a community."'
I guess that's pretty obvious to everyone already, as UGC services are focused on user-to-user communication one way or another. Without any recipients of submitted information no one will submit, and the other way around. That of course also means the bulk of services will not get popular unless they have a twist, as people will flock to the services where there are already lots of people in the right age group, interest group etc.

'Web 2.0, he added, is an "interesting misnomer [that] categorizes a significant amount of change in the industry all at once, [such as] the user experience revolution and the way customers interact". '
That's a good way of saying 'We haven't got a clue what Web 2.0 is about.'

Actually I sense it would be less confusing if the Web 2.0 term wasn't used, and we instead talked about what the services offer, what they actually are used for, who they address and where the revenue streams are.

E.g. cab drivers in New York, that don't want to be tracked when using the cab for private use. Understandable, but at the same time arguable. I wonder:

• Why do they do that? Wouldn't driving in a yellow cab make people think the driver is still on duty?
• Private use would anyway mean the gas bill and wear-and-tear should be on the driver, not the taxi company, so it's actually not a bad thing that it's possible to see what use is private and what use is work; do the drivers own their cars?
• Can't the tracking system be turned off, or at least not send any information to the central? I guess that's not what the Taxi and Limousine Commission wants.

I sense something else is the reason. At least in part. E.g. that the drivers are supposed to pay for the car units.

'New York cab drivers threaten strike over GPS system'

'Cabbies Promise to Strike Over Taxi GPS'

'NYC Cab Strike Over GPS Installation Seems Imminent'

SMS has been with us for 15 years. Its birthday was July 23, so I'm a bit late with the celebration, and I forgot to buy a present too. Oh well...

According to telecom mythology SMS was initially intended for service messages and communication between telecom maintenance workers, but after a while (actually several years) it got picked up by teenagers as a way to cut costs on telephony. The rest is history.

SMS wasn't marketed initially, so its success relied totally on being taken up by users. I don't mean that good technology necessarily sells itself, rather that users didn't see it as a technology at all. Just as a cheaper way to communicate.

SMS is probably the least exciting technology I know, with the possible exception of HTTP, but the interesting thing is what has been done with it (which also applies to HTTP). The majority of SMSs are still transferred between phones and users, but there's also a substantial volume of SMSs transferred for mobile content, tickets etc. Content is no longer sent with the SMS. Rather it includes a link to such content, as it can no longer be transferred in the SMS itself.

Nowadays teenagers try other means for communication, as transferring messages as data is way cheaper than SMS, so SMS is certainly challenged in the long run. Such services are often called "Free SMS", even though SMS is not used. Analogies are of course important for immediate understanding (analogy in function, not in technology).

MMS is not really a competitor, as no one sends peer-to-peer text messages via MMS.

Surprisingly, free SMSs between subscribers on the same network don't seem to lower the total revenue much.

At least in Europe there's still no sign of SMS spam, as the one sending the SMS pays.

SMS remains the main mobile messaging method (volume- and revenue-wise) throughout the world, and is likely to stay that way for many years to come, but expect community services to increasingly take over the traffic and for a much lower per-message cost.

And for some history: Yahoo - SMS History

A few news of note:

Will Safari Make iPhone The Smartphone Of Choice In Business?
Reason being that it sports a more or less complete web browser. So do Series 60 phones, so why specifically the iPhone? Also, several Series 60 phones have a full keypad, which is essential for business use.

iPhone says "Hello World," here come the 3rd party apps
And we are talking real local applications here, not browser ditto. Not a polished solution yet I'm sure, but it shows it can be done.

Apple shares fall on iPhone numbers
If you expect too much you get disappointed. Clearly the stock market expected the impossible. The question is why. I'm sure the stock value will bounce back quickly.

'Nokia makes finding yourself faster with new A-GPS service' is a press release from Nokia about a service that provides a quicker position fix than when using GPS only. The N95 is terribly slow at this, but that can't be the only reason. Nokia's LD-3W module is much quicker.

It doesn't say how it's technically implemented. I doubt that Nokia has knowledge of all operators' base station positions and cell IDs around the world, so how is it done? Please fill in, if you know more.

'O2, Telstra pull plug on i-mode' indicates two more operators are abandoning i-mode in Europe. Despite being very popular in Japan, the services and the need to switch phones haven't appealed to a broader part of the European market.

'isn't it just a deck of content on a 3G phone?'
Yes and no. i-mode uses its own flavor of Compact HTML, incompatible with "normal" phones. This was an obvious bad decision by DoCoMo, that was a newcomer in Europe, compared to being the creator of the mobile information market in Japan. Never assume a success can be repeated in a new market if that market is not understood and adapted to.

I'm a bit biased here, as I'm involved in doing business with products for the Indian market, but it might be interesting for others as well.

Brewing India on the VAS Map
'According to a survey carried in a news magazine recently more than 50% cellphone users play games on mobiles, while more than 70% download ringtones.'
Another proof that mobile information services come to fruition in India, while they are still treated as the "ugly/crippled cousins" (but not for much longer) in USA and Europe. Don't take the Java vs BREW slant too seriously. Java is already much more used in India than BREW (like in all GSM dominated regions), yet with less operator influence.

Rapid growth seen for India's mobile market
Gartner:
'Most of the growth will come from rural areas, where only 2 percent of the population have access to mobile phones today' ... 'with aggressive rates and handsets priced at under $25'
'Revenue from data will outpace that of voice services and contribute to about one fifth of revenue in 2011'

The choice of mobile TV technology is not an obvious one, with at least 3 competing technologies: DVB-H, DMB and MBMS. According to 'Mobile TV format hits crunch point' and 'EU backs Nokia-led mobile TV standard' EU prefers DVB-H, and Nokia, Samsung och LG already have phones supporting DVB-H. Motorola should be on its way. Sony Ericsson claims to be supporting both MBMS and DVB-H (I apologize for the Swedish; didn't find any better article).

In my opinion the most realistic technology is MBMS (especially as the business case for mobile TV is not proven), that can use the same antenna and radio that's used for 3G, and that way lower the cost of phones and possibly also lower the battery drain. That will not be so though, as I hear very little about deploying MBMS nowadays.

The trend is video-on-demand (not the least evidenced by iTunes and its offerings of TV shows, as well as YouTube), so streaming over flat rate 3G (or similar) is probably equally interesting. Exceptions being sports etc that people want to see while they happen.

In any case, choosing one technology will benefit the industry as a whole.

For more information about the technologies:
Digital Media Broadcasting
Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld
Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service

Microsoft Research explores location technologies is really about applying GPS to different scenarios, not about new technologies per se, except for the health information reporting scenario.

All the scenarios mentioned have been done and/or are offered commercially by others, but I guess/hope Microsoft has things in the lab that they don't mention. Especially considering 700 people are working on this. It would otherwise probably have been less costly to buy a few start-ups.

Both Ubisoft and Gameloft are well-known and well-respected brands in their respective field of digital games, so this is a bit strange, as mobile gaming is proven to be a high growth business. Due to overall issues at Ubisoft?

France's Ubisoft sells stake in Gameloft

Updated with disruptive arguments.


Considering the iPhone is currently AT&T only, why do people consider 25% high? I'm aware my IQ is below 140, so what point am I missing this time?

If anything, this shows customers are interested in the iPhone, and the operator/carrier is the secondary choice (read: more or less a don't care). Similar to the situation in Europe. Maybe that's why I didn't find this strange.

About 25 percent of iPhone buyers are 'switchers' to AT&T

The iPhone Made People Switch To AT&T


The iPhone and ditto business model is disruptive in a number of ways:

• Apple is more or less completely in control of pricing, and the margin is pretty fat (50% according to Apple; why do they brag about that? simply arrogance?)
• It's locked to Apple (via iTunes) for activation, hence Apple has full insight in who uses the iPhones and can sell those customers after-market stuff by directly addressing them (what other phone manufacturer can do that?), which might generate a lot of add-on revenue
• AT&T came crawling to Apple, not the other way around; that's one of the more mysterious parts, but I figure that if Apple hadn't been successful with the iPod, the situation would have been reversed
• The iPhone relies on soft keys and a display-sized touch screen, increasing flexibility (but not necessarily ergonomics) substantially
• It doesn't support any of the dominating application platforms, instead relying on third-party functionality via the browser
• The information and multimedia functionality is primary, the level of radio technology is secondary
• There's already signs of an iPod-like accessory market; will Apple take 10% of the revenue from that as well?
• I also see indications that Apple will provide continuous firmware updates; that would be very different from traditional manufacturers that want to "sell and forget" so they can provide completely new phone models as quickly as possible; the subsidizing model favors that set up
• Also different from other phone manufacturers I believe Apple will only release a few models (maybe 3 or 4, in different price and functionality levels) per season, compared to e.g. Samsung that releases over 50 models per year

Especially the two last points are quite speculative, but let's see at the end of the year whether I was right.

If anything, I hope Apple's model will make people in the telecom industry think more outside the box.

I'm sure Apple understands they need to churn out new and more cost-efficient models quickly, similar to how they kept away iPod competition and increased (or at least kept) a high margin. Like Bill Gates is supposed to have said: "If you don't outcompete your own products, your competitors will".

This sounds like a good way to continue the work on Galileo, that has had some issues lately regarding funding and motivation. Through this combination of effort there's also a chance for higher precision, as there will be more satellites up. I've also read that Galileo might provide higher precision than GPS even without such a collaboration, which means there will be a win-win for all, including USA. At least in theory.

US and EU nearing agreement on GPS / Galileo partnership

US GPS, EU Galileo to Work Together

Initially intended as a statistics overview, A Mobile Software Primer also goes into some detail on the characteristics of each platform, and it's refreshingly unbiased.

The best definition of a mobile application platform in this context (and the definition I generally use) is 'enabling after market installation of third-party software'. Hence a phone that runs e.g. Linux as its OS, but only supports after market applications as MIDlets, has Java ME / MIDP as mobile application platform.

The figures are obvious guesstimates, but to me they don't look too far off the mark. The deployment figure for Flash Lite is surprising though. Considering maybe 40-50M S60 phones were sold the last year, 151M phones with Flash Lite sounds too high. What other phones run Flash Lite?

There's an explanation in the comments as to why there are not stats for BREW, even though it's the second most deployed platform.

'Often the best source of statistics is to just look at your weblogs though. This will tell you what types of people are trying to access your content, and over time will generate some more usable information.'
That's how I believe Mobref gets its stats.

A clear sign that we are way behind in Europe: GPS phones getting strong acceptance in Japan

'In 2006, and 43.5 million 3G phones were sold in Japan with 98 models. Among these models 45 were GPS-enabled.'

'In the advanced Japanese mobile phone market, the shipment of 3G phones exceeded 92% of 47.8 million phones sold in 2006,'

'Where in the world is ... ? - GPS lovers zero in on new source of fun' describes the phenomenon of geocaching, something that I believe is much more popular in the States than (yet) in Europe. I can understand the joy of it: It's a treasure hunt, with the excitement of exploring unknown territory and finding stuff, yet without the dangers that Indiana Jones always got himself into.

As can be seen here it's also very economical and ad hoc to arrange, so once there are enough phones with GPS I guess geocaching will come along as an inevitable hobby. In the article it seems dedicated GPS receivers/navigators are used though, but once almost all new phones have GPS there's no excuse anymore, unless you consider geocaching silly.

Apart from going treasure hunting on foot, geocaching could also be done by bicycling or driving to the different places, e.g. combining with problem solving etc.

It seems that many now think the future will be mainly Web-based applications for mobile phones, forgetting that most mobile applications are games. For chat, user generated content etc it might work fine with Web-based applications as there's not much need for performance and advanced graphical features, and it's mainly text input and output. There's of course still the issue with how to add photographs and videos to your blog, profile, chat session or whatever. I haven't read anywhere that Apple has solved that via Javascript/Ajax.

It's also important to note that this level of browser functionality primarily exists in phones running Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, Linux and now Mac OS, so service providers can't just drop the platforms they use now (mainly WAP2.0/basic HTML, Java ME, Flash Lite and Series 60) thinking that it's all fully featured browsers from now on.

The approach Apple has taken is very clean, and should be acknowledged, but the industry must not draw the conclusion that from now on it's only iPhones and Ajax that matter.

The iPhone, dotMobi and the Future of the Mobile Web

Optimizing Web Applications and Content for iPhone

iPhone Gets High Marks For Accessing On-Demand Software

Mobile Development Models

Not quite like MATLAB, but as 'A math lab in your cell phone' says it can be used to experiment with different mathematical solutions and at places where you might not have access to a computer. Developed as a MIDlet it's claimed to run on most mobile phones.

It beats my Converter Pro.

Math4Mobile Download

I like things tiny, and Python-programmable GPRS and GPS modules describes what is claimed to be the smallest commercial GPRS and GPRS/GPS modules. Actually this is the first GPRS/GPS combo I've seen for surface-mounting, making it optimal for small and on-line car navigators, fleet management, sports navigation etc.

Round Solutions

GSM-GPS Modem/Module

At least according to GPS quality on the N95, but in the cases they show the tracking precision still seems to be dismal at best. My Nokia LD-3W GPS module comes much closer to perfect tracking, even on city streets that are often obscured by tall buildings. Back to the drawing board for Nokia?

blueapple.mobi is an interesting new free service that converts and streams videos found on Internet sites on-the-fly (and this means both scaling and format conversion) so that mobile phones can show the videos.

This requires quite some horse-power on the service side, but according to Jay Borges at XinLab (that provides the service) blueapple can handle 1000s of simultaneous conversions, which is quite impressive.

Note that it's a .mobi site. I tested it on a basic featurephone and it converted the pages nicely to the smaller format.

As there's no operator involvement the transfer of the videos over the mobile network will cost, unless you have a flat rate subscription.

Contact Scott Miller (scott blueapple.mobi) for more info.

Twits to Go: Top 12 Twitter Apps for Your Phone is not a review, but rather a listing of the best clients available. Most are Java based, so they should work on most phones, including cheaper ones. Abiro Jitter is mentioned.

'And although Twitter works great through SMS, there are a large number of mobile applications that let you save on SMS bills and get the best from Twitter on your phone: here are the 12 that stand out.'

JumpStart Wireless' concept is based on task-specific forms (implemented as MIDlets) that users fill in and submit to the office. Abiro provides a similar concept via Mobilizer, yet not as an off-the-shelf product offering.

From Yahoo! News - Workers use cell phones to submit data:

'Bonar said the typical customer pays about $35 per user, per month. JumpStart is currently processing more than 350,000 transactions per month.'
It doesn't say how many users there are, but let's assume 1 transaction per user per day. Not a huge business, but the margin should be pretty good, provided it's easy for the customers to design task-specific forms using a tool.

'According to estimates by the Yankee Group, a technology research company, about $5.9 billion will be spent on work-related software for mobile devices in 2009, a 47.5 percent increase from $4 billion in 2006.'
Not a quick growth by any means. The corporate world seems to be a tough crowd to convince about benefits with mobile phones for information access.

As the cost of GPS equipment plummets, businesses increasingly reap benefits from knowing where their valuable equipment and goods are. Business world finding more ways to use GPS technology specifically talks about rental of farming equipment, but also covers the general corporate case.

'Experts say GPS is taking the guesswork out of many business transactions and improving efficiency. Within the next decade, some say, even the smallest mom-and-pop companies will be forced to use GPS-enabled equipment.'
Be forced to sounds harsh. It's more likely they will want to, to protect the stuff they own.

'Of course, commercial systems aren’t quite so inexpensive [as $200]. They must, for example, link to a company’s back office, include tracking technology that works inside a building, or have other professional-grade bells and whistles. But they do cost less than they used to, a reflection of the declining price of the hardware and software they’re made from.'

'Today 30 percent to 40 percent of fleet operators use “telematics” services, data-sharing applications that rely on GPS technology to link an employee in the field to the home office. In the next five years, Koslowski said, 60 percent to 70 percent of fleet operators will have the services.'

An interesting way to look at the iPhone is that it's the first truly information- and multimedia- centric phone, where the voice phone features are in the background. Hence it's more like a web tablet / multimedia player from a design point-of-view, but seemingly incorporating a well integrated application UI.

There are many iPhone reviews out now, but here's one of the most extensive: Review: Apple iPhone, In-Depth

Apple iPhone: Welcome to the Mobile Applications Party! confirms that the only way third-party applications can run on the iPhone as of now is in the browser as Javascript code. Also this note indicates it's not necessarily a bad thing, as such "half on-line" applications have been integrated well with the UI, but it's still not applicable to high performance applications like games.

The iPhone's Secret Blindspot hints that the application focus should have been more contemporary, and more towards social networks and user genereated content. Not that it can't support that via browser/Javascript apps, but how do you send e.g. a photo to Flickr this way?

Top 16 missing features from iPhone lists features that for whatever reason were left out from the iPhone, focusing on normal phone features.

Apple Takes Its Bite of iPhone Mobile Service Fees indicates Apple won't just get a hefty margin on the phones (~50%), but also extra revenue from the service fees. Obviously operators could choose to not provide the iPhone at all, but I doubt that will happen.

Using GPS for location based content and tours is about GPS and related services used to enhance the tourists' experience. They even call it GPS tours.

China flying high on GPS indicates that phones with GPS are still very expensive at $700. That's the same price as in USA and Europe, but the phones still find some customers (1.4M during 2006).

HortiBot: the autonomous, GPS-enabled weed eradicator is a bit too expensive for home owners, or farmers for that matter, at $71,000. You can get a pretty good tractor for that price.
"the crew hopes to ... reduce those charges when it (hopefully) goes commercial"

Localised Personalised Notes describes the notion of placing virtual notes in the geography by geotagging them, and when someone else visits the same place would see those notes. No obvious business case, and neither had the described Notificator from 193x. If digging/ranking is added to the notes it might suddenly be a way to recommend (or not) restaurants, music venues etc.

GPS enabled devices now allow mobile social networking is about new services that add location to normal social network features. Are we running out of domain names, considering the names of the services: Bliin, Trackut, and kakiloc? Yikes!

The 174M users at 2011 mentioned in Mobile social networks and phone statistics is of course anyone's guess and in my opinion too conservative considering it's 50M today according to ABI Research, and e.g. China and India are dominated by phones instead of PCs, and frankly worldwide mobile phones also dominate over PCs. These countries therefor rely more on phones for information and communication. Hence most young people at 2011 will mainly communicate via mobile phones, and almost everyone will have a mobile phone. It's very unlikely there would be a revolution in PC sales similar to the growth of mobile phones.

Now when the release dust has settled, and no more people are sitting outside phone shops for days, and they might even start to regret why they purchased two iPhones with a 2 year contract each, here are two more or less philosophical notes about the iPhone.

Is this the future of mobiles?
Noting that the iPhone is not optimized for business use. Not that it matters volume-wise, as it's a very small segment. More important is if iPhones sell to multimedia freaks that will generate a lot of after market revenue by downloading tons of music and videos.

Web 2.0 Startups Bypass Restrictions on iPhone
This article is kind of strange, because it describes how "some savvy startups are figuring out how to make their applications work on it—without cutting a separate deal with either Apple or AT&T", but actually describes the only way the iPhone supports Internet service access (hence not too hard to figure out): via the integrated browser. Of course, the same could be done with any phone. Yet, as the iPhone supports Javascript the user experience can be a bit better than via a WAP 2.0 / basic HTML or (worst case) WAP 1.x browser. Of course also Series 60 phones and many other support Javascript.

Fittingly the service is called Oops I'm Late!, and estimates (based on distance and speed) whether you'll actually be late and informs your colleagues or family members about that fact.

I wonder though if people that are notoriously and arrogantly late will use this, but for very busy people where this eventually happens it makes sense, as long as it's very easy to enter where you are supposed to be (and hence what you'll be late for).

GPS-based of course.