Mobile platform war

I was presenting the following stuff on Hungarian Free Software Conference that took place in Szeged last Friday. The pre-defined 20-25 minutes presentation time was a serious constraint that didn't allow presenters to make lengthy presentations.

You know, I believe in a presentation style where the presenter doesn't simply read out his/her presentation in front of the audience, but completes it with meaningful and useful information. I'm sorry for not being able to do the latter this time, yet hope that the material alone will be readable and useful.

Enjoy,

Tote

Smartphone OS market share - 2012

Yes, you read it right: it's 2012. Gartner published a report (link: Computerworld) in which they forecast the following smartphone OS market share for 2012:

We could all see the trend which players remain, disappear or gain strong foothold for a while by now. Nokia has always been the strongest when it comes to smartphones and they will be able to keep their position according to Gartner. They have a huge loyal user base and Nokia as an Internet company and phone manufacturer in one will probably be able to fight successfully against its competitors.

Apple has great technical innovations (form factor, made touch trendy with multitouch, etc.) in addition to the ability to sell (how easy it is to forget about this!). Their tight control on most parts of the mobile value chain is very different compared to what their competitors do, but it has proven to affect user experience in the right way and made this business very profitable for the company.

Google is a goliath in Internet business with huge influence on people's lives already. They use this power to become successful in mobile business with a great strategy: cost reduction for everyone, let it be manufacturers, network operators, developers, users, etc.

All these companies are able to make people passionate about their devices. The term, convergence, has been already accompanied with smartphones in the past few years, however, it's always been about integrating something into the device: MP3 player, FM radio, digital camera, GPS, etc. This time it's different: we're living the age of integrating the mobile phone into an even bigger thing, a cloud called Internet. It's no surprise why Google is successful with Android: people are already dependent on their services and they "only" had to provide the means for mobile users to access these services via their beloved gadgets.

It wouldn't be surprising if these figures became true by 2012. All the remaining players are less innovative (Palm Pre is a copy of iPhone), struggling with finding their identity (M$), are not offering a portfolio that is wide enough (BlackBerry is a business phone), etc. It might be worth noting that data communication will be dominant by 2012 and will drive the growth of MID-market. Wonder if Gartner has reckoned with this, too.

Tote

Ps.: Google Chart API is our friend. :)

Fate of Symbian C++

Historically, Symbian OS has evolved from EPOC, a mobile operating system written originally by Psion. The foundations were laid down in the 80's and a lot of work had been done to it while it became EPOC32 in the late 90's, the direct predecessor of Symbian OS. Also for historical reasons, the developers of Symbian decided to deviate from standard C and not-yet-standard C++ and create their own flavour of programming language. They thought their own exception mechanism (aka leaving), string handling (alias descriptors), naming conventions (C, M, R, T classes), etc. are better than anything else and make it the most appropriate tool to write an entire operating system and related frameworks for resource constrained devices.

They were probably right. But since it was a deviation from "normal" it was a question of time to turn out if people tolerate the difference. People, also known as developers. Through developers the whole market. Small and big players alike.

When Nokia acquired Trolltech speculation started. About Nokia's real reason, I mean. A lot of people didn't believe that it was "just" about making a common framework for smart- and feature phones + desktop computers. Personally, I thought it was a really valid reason alone, though naturally wondered how it would affect the future of Symbian.

People also speculated if not only will Nokia replace Avkon (the UI framework for Symbian S60) with Qt, but change from Symbian to Linux, too. Time has proven that it was not the case. Symbian OS was - and it still is - so valuable that it wouldn't have made sense to throw it out. Nokia has achieved so much with this operating system, put so much money in the development of it and most importantly the system has proven that it DOES work so that it is reliable, secure, can be customized, etc. It simply made sense to keep it.

The latest news about Qt vs Symbian C++ is that "Qt will take over the application layer on Symbian devices, among others, reducing Symbian development to under-the-hood core programming at best" (from El Reg). At best. So finally it seems the market (again, through developers) didn't tolerate the afore-mentioned deviation. Not as if developers didn't have a bunch of alternatives to develop for Symbian devices: Flash, web run-time, Java, Python, .NET, etc. Still, the programming language that offered the most freedom to developers has apparently failed to attract and keep the masses. It is now time to retreat in the wings.

In the closing words, let me chew upon how much marketing could have supported this programming language to become more popular. Take, for example, the "official" language of iPhone development: objective C. Is it a deviation from standard C? Yes. It's not even C++, if that counts at all. Is it easy to learn? Personally I didn't have the chance to study it, but my ex-colleagues did and they told me that it wasn't that difficult as they had anticipated. Admit that they had a decade of experience in mobile sw development that most people don't. What I'd like to point out, though, is that there are languages that are much easier to learn and use in practice, such as Java, Python and the likes. All in all, I think Obj-C is at least as much deviated from the standard as Symbian C++.

Then why is it so popular in contrast with Symbian C++? Perhaps it's because of the tools - compare the two emulators, for example. Or is it the processes - there are pros and cons on both sides: Symbian Signed has received much criticism, but Apple approval process is not much better, either. Or is it the hype that surrounds iPhone devices and related development environment that made developers to forget about the imperfection of this language? I think it's pretty much that case. What made the hype? Innovation and marketing, i.e. that Apple could find out something new and they could sell it, too.

Symbian C++ could have been saved with a bit more selling power, in my opinion. It is not going to disappear, just less apparent. And I don't cry for it, because I know it's called evolution. I just wonder what those years will be worth of that I had spent with it.

Tote

The $1 business model

There are two kinds of developers: those who want to sell their programs and those who write software for fun and/or for fame. The latter type is happy with writing freeware, most probably open source software. This article is about the former.

Of course, most developers want to get paid for their programs. As much as possible. The wiser usually analyses the market first:

• Would people be interested in the program?
  
• Would they be willing to pay for it?
• How much will they think the program is worth?
• What about competition, would our program fill a gap or it would just be one of the many?
• How can I sell my program, what distribution channels are available, what is the revenue share, etc?
• How much do I need to invest in writing the program financially, in terms of effort, etc.?

And the list is not over yet. But it contains the most important question from this article's point of view: how much is a program worth, how much can we ask for it? Note: the answers to these questions are not necessarily the same.

It is very difficult to foretell how much a program is worth for the users. The answer depends on so many factors, such as target group, their spending habits, type of software (e.g. leisure vs professional), what other programs with similar feature-set cost, etc. Naturally, price calculation is so often affected by that how much a developer appreciates his/her own software ("I put so many hours in creating it that it can't be cheap!") - and the expectations and the reality are not always in balance.

The available distribution channels also influence the final price: what they demand from the developer, what they offer to him, their revenue sharing model, etc. As to the latter, for example, although the 70-30 revenue share wasn't typical 1-2 years ago it is now becoming a standard. Apple's App Store, OHA's Android Market, Nokia's soon-to-be-opened Ovi Store all offer 70% off the revenue to the developer. Revenue share is not everything, though: for example, App Store is such a place where it's not uncommon to hear success stories and big earnings, whereas Android Market's community prefers free software. If you follow the news, you might have heard of the coming BlackBerry App World. I found it very interesting that they set the minimum price for a paid-for application to be $3. They said any software that is not worth this amount shall be freeware. I think it's ridiculous: these guys are not aware of how many developer they will alienate from themselves with this approach. Do they really want developers to sell BB apps or not?

The typical revenue models for developers are as follows:

• Release free application first with limited features and make it paid when it really gets traction (thousands, tens of thousand downloads per month). The application is available either for free or as paid-for (exclusive OR). Question: won't people turn away from your application once they have to pay for it?
• Write an always paid program, which means that your application must be really cool and advertised so well that despite the price (i.e. that it costs money) people buy it. Question: can you compete with free programs with similar features?
• Make a Lite and Pro version of your program, Lite being free and Pro paid. The free version supports a subset of Pro's features making it compelling enough to purchase the paid version. It is a very typical approach among developers. Notes: increased maintenance efforts + separation of free and paid-for features must be well thought-out.
• Free program with ads. Notes:
• Not all people like ads
• You need to find a good ad provider
• It is challenging to implement a good advertising solution on mobile devices, and there is no good framework available.
• Change model dynamically on an experimental basis: see if you can make it with paid version, if not then make it free, then make it paid again when it becomes popular (this is the path iStrip followed, actually). Question: when will people get bored with this behavior?
  

Please note that I did not include that model in the above list, where the client program is free, but it is essentially a light-weight interface to a server solution, which is exactly what your customers are paying for. Opera Mini's business model is based on this, for example: Opera Mini, the application, is available for anyone as a free download, however, it's Opera's customers (i.e network operators), who pay the price. This article is simply not about this model.

It's also worth noting how important user ratings have become recently. Some developers faced that ratings can kill: unhappy-uneducated users gave low ratings just because "game was too short", they "expected more", "it was free not too long ago", etc. Perhaps these users are not aware of how much power they have in their hands when they rate. Applications written for Android platform and distributed on Android Market are especially vulnerable to this effect. 

Finally, getting closer to the point: how much can we ask for a program? Even though this habit is changing, it's still quite typical from people that they think that "cheap cannot be good" or "if it's good it can't be cheap". However, App Store's success stories have proven right the opposite: developers claimed that their revenue had become much higher when they lowered the price to $0.99. You know, this is such a low price that basically anyone can afford around the world even for the silliest program. Developers are now facing the fact that unless they sell their software at the lowest price there will be others who ask less than them. This basically forces them to sell their apps for $1 from the beginning.

Is it the final price, though? Can a $1 hit be sold for $2, too? No-one knows. It's all about making experiments. If I were to sell my app that I think is worth more than being distributed as a freeware, I would ask $1 for it. If people don't buy it at this low price, then I saved the hassle of price calibration. If it gets successful and my program is (one of) the best(s) in its category, then I would increase the price gradually until the download rate gets stabilized and I couldn't expect more revenue from making it even more expensive.

And actually this is what I call the $1 business model.

Looking forwad to your comments,

Tote

Smartphone market share, 2008

Gartner released their statistics about worldwide smartphone sales, which contains useful information not only the previous quarter (Q4 2008), but the whole past year. I'd like to share the following two figures with you:

Comments:

• Nokia is still #1, but it's market position is seriously challenged by RIM, Apple and HTC.
• Even Apple is suffering from decreased sales in Q4, but that didn't prevent them from being ranked as the third vendor by sales.

Comments:

• Symbian had lived better days a year ago, but it's still a bit more than 50% of smartphones that runs this operating system.
• RIM and Mac OS X performed exceptionally well even during the tough economical situation.
• Although the share of Windows Mobile shrank a bit, it still maintains its third position. Only blinds can't see that not for long.

Finally, some words on regional sales:

• Dramatic increase (69%) is experienced in sales of smartphone in North-America, which now accounts for 20% of mobile phones in this region. Carriers are agressively pushing data plans that is beneficial for vendors, too, offering vertical mobile solutions from hardware manufacturing to providing developer SDKs to cloud services.
• While overall device sales dropped, Asia/Pacific recorded a 2.3% growth in smartphone sales.
• EMEA region were up by only 2%, Western-Europe sales increased by 9.6%. Samsung drove sales in 2008 with Omnia as its most successful product.

Tote

Mobile Monday Budapest - Mobile Software Development

It's time for the 2^nd Mobile Monday Budapest event! This time the topic is mobile software development and we selected the three hottest platforms: iPhone, Android and Symbian. I wrote 'we', because I'm among the organizers as well as one of the presenters: my presentation will cover Symbian-based development.

Some information on the event:

Date: Feb 23, 2009

Time: 18:00 - 21:00

Venue: BUTE, Magyar Tudósok Körútja 2, Room 019

For more information, please refer to Nokia's new web service, Bantora, or Mobile Monday Hungary.

Everybody is welcome!

Tote

Predictions for 2009

I'm only a little bit more experienced in predicting future trends than I was last year, still I'd like to continue what I started a year ago. Who knows, maybe I'll be at least as right as I was last year?

Let's start with reviewing what I wrote previously and what really happened in 2008:

• I commented on ad-driven content and how much e.g. Google depends on operators in allowing their users to use the Internet at a fair price on their mobile. Well, it was only a concern that I raised, but Google's (and Apple's) move was brilliant: they showed that it is not impossible to change the rules. What I really mean is that both companies have their phones offered by network operators with a flat-rate data tariff (it's according to the agreement between the handset vendors and operators), which is really the way for free Internet usage.
• As to NFC, I disagreed with the statement of one of my fellow champions, Paul Coulton, that 2008 would be the year for the rise of this technology. I now think that I was right in this question: this technology had so many challenges (let it be technical or political between banks and operators, for example) that 2008 would have been too early for the rise.
• Touch - I have only seen the hype around Apple's new phone at the time of writing my previous prediction, but even the early signs were enough to predict that other manufacturers will try to copy Apple's success. I was right in this, but of course, having only this new feature is not enough for success, though obviously is a mandatory component in the recipe of success.
• As for Java and that it would be becoming more popular again on mobile platforms, to be honest I can't see any measurable change today. Okay, Android development environment requires mostly this knowledge (not to mention Brew), however, this platform is yet too young to have significant influence on Java's success.
• Awakening of North-America to smartphones: it DID happen. People on that continent has finally realized that there are other features that a mobile phone can offer, there are other services that they can use with their favourite gadget, and in general there is much more that they can do with their cell phone that they could ever imagine. And since North-America is in a very strong position when it comes to technology, the awakening of people living there will surely give a boost to innovation and further spread of smartphones.
• Finally, I wrote that manufacturers who really think in big will not only sell phones, but also provide Internet services to users. This has also become true, although this will be a never-ending process currently with two-kinds of players: one that has already proven on service-front (e.g. Apple, Google) and the other which is already a recognized brand in mobile (e.g. Nokia).

What will happen in 2009?

• Most importantly: the trend will continue for smartphones to become a commodity. Despite the financial crisis more and more people buy smartphones as they become more affordable (mostly due to binding contracts, though prices get lower, too) and once users get used to advanced features they'll be reluctant to give up using them.
• As to advanced smartphones with binding contracts, the two newcomers, Apple and Google, managed to achieve that their devices are sold in a contract with flat-rate data tariff. The obvious effect of this is that users will use the internet much more and will be online for much longer.
• More services will become available, their integration is a key factor for handset vendors (Nokia: Life Tools, Comes With Music, Mobile e-mail and mail on Ovi, etc.; iTunes & MobileMe for Apple; Zune for Microsoft; GMail, Calendar, Docs, etc. for Android-powered phones, etc.). Thanks to these services network operators will be in a worse position to fight for users who not only purchase phones and pay monthly subscription-fee, but also willing to pay for additional services.
• Touch still rules with such innovative ideas as gloves, multiple devices to share their resources, etc. Even more, touch display will not remain a smartphone-only feature, but other devices in the lower-segments will also be equipped with it (e.g. Nokia's first feature phone on Chinese market: http://www.mobilemonday.net/news/nokia-announces-shows-chinese-touchscreen-phone).
• 3^rd-party apps and app stores: we'll see the introduction of new and re-newed application stores with client integration. Commercial software can be downloaded as well as freeware, revenue share will be more advantageous for developers than it's been so far. The fact that handset vendors are providing their application stores, too, will cause hard times for such independent players as Handango, for example. On the other hand, the obvious advantage of these regular providers will not really disappear: the variety of mobile handsets for which they offer content is much bigger than the coverage of any of the new stores will ever be.
• NFC - it seems the time has come for this buzzword to become more popular. In last November, GSM Association called for Pay-Buy-Mobile handsets so that NFC technology be built into commercially available mobile handsets from mid-2009.
• Android phones spread all over the world: we have already heard about the second handset that Kogan, an Australian company will ship this January, but rumours have been told about HTC, Huawei and other companies, too, that there will be other phones based on this platform.
• Nokia finally to gain more market share in North-America thanks to AT&T for seeing lots of potential in Symbian to become the main smartphone OS in their portfolio
• Use of mobile phones in new areas: Nokia Life Tools for users at the bottom of the pyramid (mid-range, low-end phones mainly), Nokia Home Control Center for advanced users who wish their smart home to be controlled by their smartphone, etc.
• Transforming smartphone market shares: Motorola, Palm getting weaker (former betting on Android, latter introducing yet another proprietary system), RIM, Sony Ericsson "to survive" (RIM closed a surprisingly good 3th quarter in 2008; Sony Ericsson is also giving a try to Android), Apple getting strong (iPhone Nano in the queue), Samsung remaining strong (very innovative company challenging Nokia, the leader, all the time), although Nokia's position gets slightly weaker, it still remains the most dominant player (one of the most versatile players in this arena with lots of innovation in different areas of mobile space), Microsoft to struggle (has any one of you heard anything about them lately?).
• Open-source model to gain ground - license-free handsets, free development environments, high inspiration for developers & tech companies to help each other, etc.
• LTE - let's return to 4G and LTE next year, okay?
• WiMAX - don't expect mass adoption of this technology in mobile phones yet (though pioneers have already appeared in 2008)
• Mobile TV - the future is still foggy: which standard to follow (DVB-H or DVB-T?), will people buy this service at all, etc.
  

Did I miss something? Sure. Can you correct me in anything I wrote? Anything to add? Please do! Thanks!

Tote

The diversity of Symbian development

When talking about mobile software development lots of people forget about the fact that it's not only the native programming language that can be used on a given platform. I've read a lot of comparisons between Symbian/C++, Win32/MFC/.NET of Windows Mobile, Objective-C on iPhone, Android, etc. lately discussing the advantages and disadvantages of these options, maturity and popularity of the underlying platforms, probability of writing successful programs, etc.

The problem with these comparisons (in which Symbian/C++ is typically at the end of the list with its peculiarities and steep learning curve) is that they discuss only half of the picture. The more advanced a mobile platform the more you can do on it - which applies to software development, too. I strongly believe that one of the strengths of software development on Symbian platform is that it's not bound to a single programming language, SDK, etc. A lot of you might not know that for Symbian-powered devices you can write software in

• Java - Mobile Java (JME) has been available since the early days,
• Flash Lite - Adobe's Flash has been added to S60 phones 1-2 years ago,
• Python - Python for S60 is an open source initiative enabling rapid application development,
• Ruby - Ruby for Symbian is one of the newest additions to S60,
• .NET - Red Five Labs's add-on to S60 platform is tempting Windows Mobile developers to use their skills on another platform,
• NS Basic - Powerful development environment and run-time framework for programs written in BASIC (link),
• HTML using other web technologies like CSS, Javascript - Apple's WebKit rendering engine is becoming the de facto standard for mobile browsers making them capable of showing full web pages (i.e. not only WAP or mobile web). This enables widgets development for a range of smartphones like S60-phones, iPhone, Android, etc.

You can see from the list above that Symbian development is much more than native application programming. On the contrary, I dare to claim that native programming is becoming less and less relevant over time. Of course, each option has its strengths and weaknesses (as well as native programming) the point is diversity, the possibility to choose. This (among others) makes Symbian OS's position stronger than its competitors': if you can develop for one mobile platform it's almost sure that you can use THAT knowledge for Symbian development, too. One exception for this might be Objective-C on iPhone, but I wouldn't be surprised if that became a reality on Symbian in the near future, too.

By the way, Simon Judge made a quick comparison between different platform development options - it's worth a read. As well as Andreas Constantinou's  post at Vision Mobile - a well-written article about mobile application runtimes for better understanding this world.

Any comments are welcome,

Tote

Random thoughts on recent news

Hi,

So many things have happened in mobile world recently that I can hardly cope with their sheer volume. This time I would just add my quick thoughts to some of them, one-line comments that I would like you to comment, too.

Let's start with VirusGuard Coming to Android Market in 2009: yeah, a clear disadvantage of full openness coupled with user-controlled security policy is that such a software is necessary. Remember that famous anti-virus software vendors also tried to gain a foothold on mobile phones based on Symbian OS, too? Unfortunately, Symbian's security mechanism works so well that there is no real demand for such software on these phones. Note: since Android Market is  only for free software (yet), this commercial software can be purchased from Handango.

I've read two interesting reviews on the user experience of T-Mobile G1 and Nokia S60. In fact, these two were compared to each other. It was funny to read how two people with different needs could come up with contradictory results. Whilst Matthew from Darla Mack's blog found Contacts, Syncing, E-mail support and a "lot of other things" being superior on G1 he confirmed it too that there are many things that need improvement in upcoming Android-powered devices as well. Chris Walters from TheNokiaBlog, on the other hand, found just the opposite: he thought he could at last forget about S60 and can enjoy all the things Android can provide, but realized that S60 is still superior to Android in many aspects: build quality of device, camera, not being locked to any carriers, etc. There are two immediate conclusions I drew from these (and other) reviews:

• Don't believe to any reviews, but make your own decision based on your own needs. For example, how would you decide based on these two reviews cited above when they both claimed that G1/S60 was superior to the other platform in Syncing?
• Nokia had been the king of user experience on mobile phones until iPhone and G1 appeared on the horizon. The structure of menus, applications, settings, etc. were logical, consistent and compatible across a wide range of devices. It was engineering-driven so it couldn't be in any other way. Following an engineering-driven approach, however, is not enough anymore. In my opinion these companies could learn a lot from each other. It's not a sin (well, generally) to copy one's idea if that has proven whereas ours has not stood the test of time. The point is better user experience, which is better both for users and vendors.

The third thing I found worth being mentioned is Nokia Friend View. This beta software is similar to IYOUIT (for example) that I've already given a try to and liked much. I can see this kind of software being useful from another point of view (than what they advertise), too: I'm a family man and although my kids are small I know that the time will come quickly when I will let them hang around but still would like to know where they are. The wide-spread of such a software (and hardware!) will hopefully keep me relaxed in those times.

Finally, Nokia has made a very important announcement in the past week: they introduced Nokia Life Tools along with 7 new models under €100 price range. According to the press release, Nokia Life Tools is a range of innovative agriculture information and education services designed especially for rural and small town communities in emerging markets. Knowing that the opportunity at the bottom of the pyramid is huge, and handset manufacturers and network providers alike are working hard to fill it with phones (this time cited from PCWorld) it's no wonder why these new models can be purchased at never-seen prices. Nokia has finally entered the war fought for phone owners with thin wallets with the introduction of Ultra Cheap Phones.

Tote

Transforming mobile industry

I read the following quote from Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia CEO, in InformationWeek:

"The industry as whole is in the middle of a transformation, and it's a very exciting time," said Kallasvuo. "It's moving from a device industry to an experience industry, and we're making a conscious long-term effort to capitalize on that."

It is so true that it inspired me to write a summary on how things have changed in the "smarter" segment of mobile sector (read: smartphones) lately. Let me recap what was the situation in the near past and then talk about how things are changing recently.

In the classic device manufacturer - network operator - user triangle the roles were as follows (simplified version): user purchases mobile phone from network operator (or elsewhere) and uses those services that are primarily provided by the network operator. The manufacturer never gets any money after purchase and the user  is often unhappy with the content/quality of provided (value-added) services.

This is now about to change. The two most important changes (as I see it) are that 1: the above triangle is "rectangularized" by an old/new member of the value chain, a separate content/service provider and 2: that device manufacturers such as Nokia and Apple OR operating system vendors such as Microsoft and Google want to get money after sales, too: they'd like to enter services business. As to point #1, not as if content providers hadn't been present so far, however, the means to access content and the capabilities of devices have not been ideal so far to say the least. As for point #2, there are two reasons why manufacturers would like to enter services business (take it over from operators?): first, there's a great demand from users to consume content that operators have not been good at providing and second, there's great money in it. Apple and Google are very good at providing services now they'd like to be involved in adding new means (i.e. phones) to accessing their services. Whereas Nokia and Microsoft are both in a strong position in smartphone market and naturally they'd like to get more money out of the whole business.

Another aspect in the new business model is whether or not shall mobile OS vendors require license fee for their software to be included in shipping devices. I'm talking about free and open-source mobile OSes, like mobile Linux. Although mobile Linux stacks have not gained so much popularity in the past years, they still do attract manufacturers wishing to lower their bill-of-materials (BOM). Google Android and the new Symbian (Foundation) OS are another two good examples for "license-fee-free software stacks" and Windows Mobile is for fee-based. iPhone's Mac OS X cannot be mentioned here, since Apple doesn't allow anyone to license their software stack, but make everything on their own.

How do mobile OS vendors pamper their developers?

• Of course, with a free SDK to develop on. Most of them can be used only on Windows (except iPhone on Mac OS X), true emulation is available on Windows Mobile and iPhone, where development is done on the same platform as the target platform,
• Free tools for development. Unfortunately not everything can be done with these tools, but you have to pay for their fee-based version should you need to use more advanced features (e.g. on-device debugging in Carbide.C++),
• Signing your own installation package is mandatory for both iPhone and Nokia S60 phones, but not on Windows Mobile and Android. Latter advocates that the user is always capable of making proper decisions on security-related questions and it does not restrict the availability of 3rd-party applications by requiring signature. As Symbian's David Wood put it: let's see what operators will say on it.
• As to developer support, old players are in the best position here: there's a great community support for Windows Mobile developers as well as materials to train themselves. The same is true for people who are developing for Nokia phones. Whereas the first non-beta Android SDK has just been introduced (you can imagine the level of support Google provides at such an early stage), not to mention Apple who wanted developers to sign an NDA that essentially prevents free information flow, writing books on development, etc. This has changed recently, since Apple finally scrapped their iPhone NDA and promised a new contract with less restrictions. Note: if Apple hadn't made this step they would have lost the majority of their developers.
  
• Developers reward programs (MVP from Microsoft, Forum Nokia Champion program from Nokia), fee-based support for ISVs willing to pay for advanced services, webinars, trainings, books, etc.
• Stores to capitalize on applications, themes, etc.

As to the stores mentioned above,

• Apple's (in)famous App Store acts as a central distribution channel for 3rd-party applications. Unfortunately, Apple keeps this place under such a strict control that bitters lots of developers' life who simply don't understand why their programs can't be sold just because they're similar to the built-in applications. On the other hand, Apple keeps only 30% of revenue making App Store more compelling than lots of rival portals, such as Handango.
  
• Having introduced T-Mobile G1 a few weeks ago, Google has also thought that it was a wise idea to create their own Android Market, a market place for downloading Android applications. What is surprising, though, is that Google is not planning to capitalize on sold applications, but expects mainly freebies to populate this place. It wouldn't be Handango if they didn't make the best out of this situation: why not use Handango to get some money for your Android app? It's also worth noting that Google, similarly to Apple, will be able to remove any 3rd-party applications (downloaded from Android Market) from Android-powered handsets if those applications turn out to violate developer distribution agreement.
• Nokia already has their Software Market, however, things might change with the start of Symbian Foundation next year: as Antony Edwards from Symbian put it "[they're]  pushing hard for a ensuring a zero, or a close as possible to zero, cost to the software vendor: so no cut of revenue for the Foundation".
• Finally, Microsoft hasn't maintained their own single portal that ISVs could use for selling their 3rd-party applications, but people had to (and still have to!) use other providers. This article shows what one can conclude from job postings: with the coming of new devices based on Windows Mobile 7 a new portal, SkyMarket will also come in Q1 2009.

Nokia is very keen on transforming from being a device manufacturer to an "internet company". Their Ovi and Mosh are two examples of already launched services, which they just want to further improve with Instant Messaging (by buying OZ Communications) and Comes with Music. On the other hand, whilst strengthening their services portfolio they restructure their businesses so that they focus less on own product development (selling Nokia IntelliSync). Sometimes lowering the prices raises the revenue - wonder how the recent price cut will work out. It's especially important that since  more and more people own Nokia devices, it increases after-sales revenue, too.

I've been already thinking on what Microsoft's reaction will be to open source and then found the answer: Steve Ballmer doesn't understand what's good in open source for Symbian and Google and anyway they won't get into handset business as long as they can make a lot of money from software only.

What they've started to work on lately, which you might have already heard of in the news, is 'Windows Cloud' OS. This idea is not new at all, however, it might affect the way how people use their mobile phones today: all you need is a portable device with a tiny display, some computing power and a good browser (you can call it 'smartphone') plus a good connection to the "cloud". Data, business logic, resource intensive heavy computation - all done on remote server(s) and you get only the result to your handset. I wrote 'this idea' was not new, however, what is new is Microsoft's patent on sharing device resources. Now this one is really new, but I don't know how much I can expect from it in real life - what it shows you, though, that it would be too early to write Microsoft off. Side-note: let me recommend you Ajit Jaokar's thought-provoking blog on how network operators could make use of cloud computing.

One more point to add to why M$ is not to enter the handset business today: HTC, designer & manufacturer of feature-rich phones, says that although they can see the potential in Android devices they do belive that Android and Windows Mobile complements each other.

As to Android, it's amazing to read about the ambitious plan to reach 4% US market share by the end of 2008. If that's so easy with a single device, a not perfect software and hardware AND suppose that they will achieve it - may I ask how on Earth Nokia could not do the same?

Anyway, I found a great analysis over at Telco 2.0 on the strategic impact of Google's first handset on the mobile industry. I especially liked the statements, such as "increasingly intense competition with new entrants who are willing to change the rules" and "the world in which handset manufacturers crammed the latest technology into devices simply for the sake of having the best specification sheet and operators flogged them to consumers on the basis of megapixels and memory is changing" and finally "it has been fascinating to watch ‘old school’ industry commentators pick apart the technicalities of the G1 spec sheet and Android platform, all the while forgeting to look at this announcement through the customer’s eyes".

Finally, some words about other members of the mobile industry whom we don't hear much about (well, at least I haven't lately).

• Sony Ericsson has rationalised their R&D investment recently. This move, however, didn't prevent them from announcing a new run-time environment, called Capuchin, mixing Java ME and Adobe Flash Lite technologies. SE is eyed-up on Android, too, not only Windows Mobile (Xperia X1) and Symbian so this along with Capuchin will make their way to follow Nokia's approach by offering lots of alternatives for mobile software development.
• Motorola is also interested in Android, so much that they are building-up a team of 350 people to develop on Android.
• Samsung is not interested in anything else but manufacturing. This will not make their position stronger in today's competing market.
  

That's all for now about mobile industry news, thanks for reading so far!

All comments are welcome,

Tote

Silicon Valley doesn't respect Nokia

In response to the article I found on Forbes.com, Nokia Software Problem, let me collect my remarks on the statements in a single post. The list of statements below simply follows the same order as they appeared in the original article.

"Nokia sells close to half of all smart phones worldwide"
Well, around 70% would be more accurate, but then it couldn't have been said that "close to half".

"N95's only edge was in watching video"
Hmm, let me smile at it. I think GPS, 5 megapixel camera, WiFi, etc. also come in handy every now and then. These things were all new in a Nokia device at the time when N95 was introduced and although Nokia might not have been the first in introducing them, the point is that video was not the only thing users could enjoy.

"Symbian is not dead, but it has a limited amount of time to act to capture developer mind share before it is too late,"
I don't know how many times I wrote this on various forums: developing for a Symbian-based device does NOT mean pure Symbian/C++ development. On the contrary, the range of possibilities is much wider: you can program in Flash (Lite), Java (Mobile), Python (for S60/UIQ), (Open) C, Widgets, .NET, NS Basic, etc. My question is not solely addressed to Apple: is there any other manufacturer in the world who can compete with this at this very moment? Is it the not-closed-but-not-too-open-either Apple who although enables Objective-C development, but nothing else? For example, Java, which is not only available on all other platforms, but also the primary language for 3d-party development on Android? Not as if I had heard too many good things on iPhone developer support, but are they really the ones who will save the world?

"Applications written for the iPhone, by contrast, will run on every iPhone."
Ehh, typically naive, beginner approach. I wouldn't write an article if I were such a beginner, though. How many iPhone models can we talk about at the moment? Two. There's a rumour on Apple introducing iPhone Nano still this year and I bet that that device would introduce variation both in hardware (e.g. screen size) and software. And having spent almost a decade with mobile software development, I can tell you that software development becomes exponentially more complex with the introduction of variations. I think we should get back to this question in 1-2 years time-frame and then we'll see how programs written for old models will work on new ones and vice versa.

"Carriers here have been loath to give Nokia much love over the years"
Yeah, this one is a hit on the nail. I find it very interesting how much North-American carriers favour US phone manufacturers (Palm, Microsoft, Apple) and Canadians (RIM). It is one of the root causes (if not THE) why Nokia has failed to successfully enter North-American market.

As to developing software for mobile platforms, it's worth noting that it's becoming more and more popular to rely on a thin client software responsible mainly for the User Interface, while storing data and implementing heavy business logic on a remote server. So often, the thin client is a browser or an application capable of providing "browser-like" behavior. This is something iPhone, the latest Nokia S60 phones, Windows Mobile are (and the newcomer Android will be) good at. And lots of people say that this architecture is the most suitable solution for cross-(mobile)platform software.

In my opinion, it's too early to talk about the dethronement of Nokia by Apple and RIM. Just count the number of phones sold, how many models various manufacturers have on market, how long has a manufacturer been on market, etc. and we'll have just the right amount of information ... to be silent. The author of the article fails to see that global market is not equal to American market, over-emphasizes the importance of Silicon Valley and can't think of the possibility that these platforms, devices, manufacturers can co-exist with one another.

Otherwise the article was good,

Tote :)

Brief status report about smartphone market, mid-2008

Having followed the news of mobile industry in the past week, I thought it would be worth collecting some articles in a single post to see things from a bird's view, thus having a better overview on what's been going on lately on smartphone market.

RIM has been getting stronger in US market and Palm is unhappy with that. Although Palm's popularity had started to fall even before Apple entered mobile phone market, the new iPhone has just "helped" to boost the process. As to Apple, new countries have confirmed August launch enabling iPhone (3G) to gain bigger popularity and increasing its market share in other countries than US. In addition, the name of iPhone Nano has appeared again whispering words about the introduction of this device still this year. Apple is on its way to become stronger and stronger, but they're still in the "Other" segment of mobile devices according to ABI Research. And if Apple is making tsunami "from the bottom", Nokia is doing the same from the top with their price cut - I wouldn't like to be the stuffing in this sandwich.

It seems that we're living the time of foundations: this time it's LiMo that has picked up 11 new members to become stronger in the fight against Google OHA and Symbian Foundation. With the first LiMo handsets out, I wonder how they can catch up with industry leader Symbian, the also very powerful Windows Mobile and the likes. I did not mention Android deliberately, because to me it still exists only on "paper".

As to the creator of Windows Mobile, it's already well-known that Microsoft's Silverlight will come to S60. What is rumoured now, though, that Zune would also be available on Nokia devices. Zune clearly a competitor to Nokia's Ovi - will M$ and Nokia ever join their forces to fight against their newest pretender? I bet Apple will never open MobileMe to non-Mac device owners.

A new feature has been introduced on Ovi.com, namely file sharing, a fee-based storage option. Files on Ovi is a similar service to MobileMe's iDisk. As to MobileMe, the transition from .Mac to MobileMe was not as smooth as Apple had hoped. As Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, said "It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store". Well, although lots of people already think that Apple can only teach things to other players in mobile arena, I stronly believe that the opposite is also true.

Finally, let me recommend an article that well-deserved the title of post of the week at Carnival of Mobilists. The great post written by Andreas Constantinou from Vision Mobile was definitely a very useful foundation of this article.

Interesting times we're living,

Tote

Collection of great materials on Symbian going open-source

My regular readers may wonder why I've been silent on the great news of the mobile industry: Symbian is going open-source. The reason is simple: I was so shocked to hear it in the news that I just sat back watching the flood of new blogs and comments trying to digest this new information. But I've been digesting it, too. Other people whom I respect and think knowledgeable in this area have written their opinion and I'm now about to collect some of them in a blog and share it with you.

Andreas Constantinou from Vision Mobile was one of the fastests in commenting the news. He concluded that it was a logical move from Nokia (and Symbian, etc.) both from technical and business point of view:

• " ... [Symbian] was crippled without control of the UI, application stack and the core OS under the same entity"
• Eclipse (EPL) license is a weak one, which will make it desirable for OEMs to choose it.

He was also the first to point out that this move would cause lay-offs and some hard times for the following industry players:

• SonyEricsson and Motorola: they will eventually have to give up with UIQ, since S60 will be the dominant UI and ecosystem and S60 will basically swallow both UIQ and MOAP(S).
• Android's royalty-free, open source business model is not the only compelling alternative for OEMs, operators, etc. On the contrary, Symbian has already proved whereas Android has not yet.
  

Simon Judge over at Mobile Phone Development comments that " ... full access to the platform code allows for much more innovative applications using facilities that are currently hidden" and all this "only" for $1.500 is definitely a step forward.
He also cleverly notes that "Nokia and Symbian now see licensing the OS as a dead end" - I wonder what Microsoft will comment on it?
Finally, he raises his concerns on a technical question, backward compatibility: "... [the announcement] doesn’t explain whether this is source code, binary or application compatibility" - we wouldn't like to face with such a big break as what we did with the introduction of Platform Security, would we?

Mobile Opportunity's Michael Mace hails Nokia for their courage. He suspects, though, that "... the announcement is actually half cleanup and half power move: ... The power move is that it challenges Android ... The cleanup is that the ownership situation of Symbian was unstable and had to be changed eventually, and SonyEricsson clearly wanted to get out of the UIQ business".
He also asks what will drive Symbian developers after this change? While he believes that developers "respond to user excitement and the chance to make lots of money", he fails to see how the new Symbian strategy drives either one.
Finally, Michael points out that the longer it will take for Symbian Foundation to kick off, the bigger the advantage for Apple and Android. What about Microsoft? "This is Microsoft's ultimate open source nightmare, becoming real.

Rafe Blanford from AllAboutSymbian has written about Symbian Foundation unwrapped. He says that the tranformation of Symbian OS to a royalty-free, open-source system is according to today's industry philosophy and whilst it's a logical move forward it would not have been possible 10 years ago, since "...companies would have been unwilling to let Nokia or anyone else have such a dominant position". The new Symbian OS will challenge LiMo, Android and the likes on their own strength and "negates their key advantage". Apple's iPhone might be not affected, according to Rafe, since "it is difficult to see how Apple will expand to become a significant overall player in mobile space (rather than an individual niche player with lots of press attention)".

The hypothetical ("10 years old") problem Rafe was referring to is supported by The Register, too. They say, "the most damaging problem is that Symbian's licensees may have no desire to make Nokia stronger now that it owns the operation 100 per cent".
They also worry about that "the 'Foundation' may also prove to be an expensive liability for Nokia".
Finally they write that "it's largely Nokia that must be blamed for failing to make Symbian phones remotely 'enchanting' ..." and "... today it's the iPhone which has the enchantment factor. ... Symbian has done everything its original designers asked of it - a twenty year lifespan is not bad at all. But it's now Apple's business to lose."

Apple and world dominance. What about Microsoft? They're still bigger than Apple at least in terms of mobile OS market share, aren't they? Well, we've already got used to the style Microsoft comments similar announcements, thus it must not have come as a surprise that they have welcomed this move. To be more accurate, they have "welcomed the transformation of the Symbian mobile-phone platform into an open source project, because the software giant contends the change will create a host of new problems for the Symbian community." Sweet, isn't it? They use FUD referring mainly to the big 'F', fragmentation, saying that "there are more Linux consortiums that come and go than there are Linux phones".

Which might be true, actually. But don't lump Symbian and mobile Linux together. David Wood, EVP of Research at Symbian, has written a lengthy article about how he (and Symbian) sees this problem. He argues that 1: fragmentation really is a problem, 2: Symbian has the experience and ability to handle it. As opposed to Google, for example, says the side-note. :)

Finally, it's worth paying attention to Ajit Jaokar's article, who warns that "it is not possible to compare Symbian vs. Android; or Symbian vs. iPhone .. because it is not possible to mix operating systems with ecosystems". These are like "apples and oranges" in terms of "iPhone, Ovi and Android are ecosystems. In contrast, Symbian and Limo are operating systems or Operating system consortia". It's another lengthy article that is worth reading.

So I've been silent and haven't commented this news yet. Why? Because there are so many people to listen to ...

What about you?

Tote

Browser as an application platform

I've read the following analysis from ARCchart with great interest. I'm already familiar with the idea of writing applications for mobile browsers and that it can be considered as a real alternative for mobile software development. WidSets and Widgets are all around us, not to mention Flash Lite, Silverlight, two cross-platform solutions used for delivering (multimedia) content to more and more people.

The main point of ARCchart's article was to point out that the whole problem of fragmented mobile development could be solved by developing to a single run-time environment: the browser. The browser, which is today's most widely used applications on desktop and mobile computing devices alike.

What is this fragmentation thing, one could ask? Well, let's have a quick look at various mobile platforms, development environments:

• It's a known fact that Symbian/C++ opens the door to the wide variety of native features of S60 and UIQ devices, however, it still has a steep learning curve and its programming environment is not too developer-friendly, either, compared to e.g. Java. The vast majority of smartphones are running on Symbian operating system (whether iPhone-fans admit it or not), however, development is often more (cost-)efficient for other platforms. Portability is a serious issue in Symbian.
  
• Windows Mobile devices are very popular in North-America, especially among business users. However, its popularity is way behind Symbian phones' anywhere else in the world and don't forget the fact that there are much more consumers than prosumers. On this platform, you can write native applications in Win32/MFC/.Net, however, these applications are rarely portable across other platforms.
• Java? Hell, it's the king of fragmentation in terms of supported (or rather unsupported) features, so-called JSRs. Even though it was supposed to bring the Paradise to mobile software developers, it's still suffering from severe problems.
• What else? Linux? Show me some popular Linux-powered phones first and how people are making cross-platform, backward compatible programs for them.
• iPhone? Mac OS X with its Objective C just increases variation. Even though C++ can also be used for programming and there are, for example, attempts to port JME programs to Obj-C, as I said: it just increases variation, which is the nightmare of programers.
  
• Android? Although the whole system is based on mobile Linux, the primary development language will be Java. But which Java? Google's own. And although it's said to be a solid foundation for Google OHA members, it's still only a recommendation for them to choose whether various features will be supported in their devices or not. You can imagine how it affects fragmentation in the Java world - it will just make it even more complex.

Now how does a browser come into play? I'm sure that most readers of this blog have already heard of WebKit, an open source browser engine enabling mobile browsers to show and handle full-web content. It is used in Mac OS X's Safari (iPhone browser), Nokia's S60 browser, the built-in browser of Google's Android will also be WebKit-based, not to mention Digia's @Web, a recently announced port of WebKit for UIQ phones. Although there are other good browsers, too, such as Opera Mobile and IE in Windows Mobile, WebKit seems to be becoming the de facto standard in mobile devices (which is not necessarily a bad thing). It's also worth mentioning Opera Mini and TeaShark at this point, two Java-based browsers, both using remote back-end servers for pre-processing full-web content and showing only the digested content formatted for resource-constrained devices. Side-note: it's also WebKit that is running on TeaShark's back-end servers. :)

So is ARCchart right or not? Is the browser the ultimate solution for mobile software development? In my opinion yes and no. They're right that mobile browsers and complementing technologies (such as Flash Lite) are becoming more and more powerful, capable of rendering extremely complex web pages, performing surprisingly smart functions, letting the user interact with active content, exchanging data with remote servers, etc. However, whilst "older" web technologies (e.g. JavaScript) are not powerful enough to compete with the power of real programming languages, newer ones (e.g. Flash Lite) have not been widely adopted yet. For example, for a quick and very brief reference as to what the different versions of Flash Lite can and cannot do, visit this link. And even though there's not too much variation here yet, there will be: newer versions of Flash Lite will require developers to keep track of which mobile phone supports which version, how to distinguish between Silverlight and Flash Lite applications, etc. I'm afraid it won't be any different in the end.

In my opinion, web-based technologies will open up new alternatives (they've already done so, actually) for mobile software: not necessarily too complex ones, but at least enjoyable. And this is exactly what most people are looking for: they'd like to enjoy using these programs. These new kind of programs that complete the whole picture, add to it, but will NOT replace yet older but still powerful technologies.

Can hardly wait for your comments,

Tote

iPhone for 1 Euro?

Reuters reported that T-Mobile will sell Apple Inc's new iPhone for as little as 1 euro ($1.54) for the 8-gigabyte version together with a 69 euro monthly contract in Germany. I've already had a conversation in a Hungarian blog's post, in which people convinced me that the most important number most buyers look at is the entry fee that must be paid at the time of entering into a contract. Aftermath (i.e. how much it will eventually cost) is of less importance.

Could someone enlighten me why the (new, old - the same) iPhone makes people go crazy? Why do network operators contend for selling it? Besides the UI (which is very compelling & user-friendly, I admit), what else is in it that is not available in other high-end devices? What could Nokia and others learn from Apple so that people would fight for their devices, too? Or is this just another bubble that will explode when other phone manufacturers catch up soon?

Tote

Pay or not to pay for incoming calls and messages?

Hi there,

This is going to be a short post. I was just amazed by the fact that the same topic was discussed in two different blogs coming to totally different conclusions. It inspired me to write about it briefly.

IntoMobile's (and also Nokia's) Stefan Constantinescu, an American blogger living in Finland, blamed Apple why they had started negotiations with network operators and why not tried to sell their handsets unlocked and unsubsidized. He explained why the "American model" sucked (people have to pay even for incoming calls and short messages, they're usually bound to contracts, there's big burocracy, etc.) and praised the freedom Europeans and basically the "Rest-of-the-world" enjoy.

On the other hand, it was shocking to read it from El Reg that an EU commissioner Viviane Reding would let mobile operators charge subscribers to receive calls". Back to stone-age, ehh? It's the very reason why Europe and some countries in Asia are ahead of the US in this area: the burden coming from having a SIM-card + mobile device is not as big here as in the US. American carriers demand too much from users (burocracy, long-term commitment, etc.) while provide too little (poor services, strongly controlled activities [in terms of used services, installable programs, etc.]). I think it would be a huge step back if this idea came true.

I promised that I would be short,

Tote :)

Mobile software development - Functional testing

Simon Judge's blog made me think, again. He wrote about Mob4Hire, a company offering people for mobile application testing. Testers get paid via PayPal after bidding on projects (i.e. mobile applications/solutions) and developers get testers at a (hopefully) reasonable price. Finding testers might be especially useful if your geographic area is not the one you'd like your software to be tested in.

You know, lots of developers (dare to say: most?) do not recognize the importance of testing. This is the least pleasant part of development, I must admit, yet one of the most important. There are various kinds of testing including (but not limited to) unit-, regression, load, "smoke", etc. testing. The one, Mob4Hire provides solution to is called functional testing, where one can test the whole solution end-to-end. You know, mobile handsets are very-very fragmented in terms of platforms: applications can be developed in many programming languages like Java, Symbian C++, Windows Mobile Win32/C#, iPhone Obj-C, Linux C/C++, etc. And even when sticking to the same platform and programming environment, JME for example, the supported features vary very much from device to device. This, along with the complexity of what operators allow 3rd-party programs to do, makes it very difficult for a new application to be thoroughly tested.

Nokia already provides a free service for developers wishing to test their mobile applications written for Nokia S60 platform: it's called Nokia RDA (short for Remote Device Access). It is an Internet-based solution, where you can remote control a real mobile phone. You can request, for example, that SIM- and/or memory card be inserted in the test device as well as more than one phone be reserved for your test session to test peer-to-peer communications.

DeviceAnywhere provides a similar solution to Nokia RDA, however, it's not limited to a particular platform, nor to only 1-2 network operators. According to their web site, their service is "a revolutionary online service that provides access to hundreds of real handsets, on live worldwide networks, remotely over the Internet". Unfortunately, it is not free of charge.

Note that you cannot test everything with these solutions. For example, applications that use camera, GPS, accelerometer are basically out of question as well as ones using external accessories.

Another option for functional testing is making use of the services of Test Houses. Professional testers verify the quality of your software (compared to Mob4Hire, for example, see Simon's opinion) so that you can be sure you get the most what you paid for. Sometimes it's even required for your application to pass certain tests in order to get certified by some authorities. However, you may need to pay a lot for this service, see the list & pricing of Test Houses that Symbian Signed accepts, for example.

Finally, let's talk about community-driven testing. Once your application is in such a shape that it is ready for external people to play with it, you can ask them to go and use it extensively. You can offer free copies of the software to them, for example, or they may do it just for their own gratification - it's the same. This way of testing works extremely well in solutions based on client-server architecture with a mobile front-end and a server back-end. It's quite common in these scenarios that the mobile-end is just a light-weight client software that can be freely distributed, thus it doesn't cause any inconvenience if software distrubition is not strictly controlled. The point is that you may get lots of people playing with your software, because it's their passion. And passion drives people to do their job well, simply because they enjoy it, they love your program and they'd like it to be even better. I'm really a great supporter of this kind of testing. :)

Can you recommend any other way for performing functional mobile software testing? Please let me (us) know!

Tote

eyePhone - Your tourist guide

I've stumbled upon this article recently and thought might be worth sharing with you.

If we put the name of this software aside a bit (it obviously tries to ride the waves of iPhone), the idea is great. Take a smartphone being able to

• take good quality photos
• use GPS
• communicate over Internet

and you have your on-line tourist guide always at hand. It doesn't require too much from the handset, no? I bet even a good feature phone would do.

Of course, the client software shall not be too thick, most of the business logic is on server-side, right? An average (phone) camera quality should be enough, a Bluetooth-attached GPS is sufficient and basically every mobile phone can transmit data over the net lately. Okay, if an angle sensor is also part of the phone, then the client can gather more data that eventually makes recognition more accurate.

As opposed to the client-side, the server must be very intelligent. Image recognition can be very complex, since poor image resolution, distant objects, pictures taken from different angles, etc. can make it very-very tricky if not impossible. Yeah, I know that the article mentions that the concept was proved, but I believe it only when I see it, you know. Obviously, the solution must be community-driven - you cannot expect any service providers to maintain such a big database alone. And I'm sure that from business point of view it's the server-side software that one can license, whilst the client software would be available free of charge. At least, that would make sense.

Finally, it's very interesting that others are also making experiments in this area.

• Android Scan is an application written for Android Developer Challenge that uses camera and mobile processing power for barcode recognition and scanning for metadata of CDs, DVDs, books on the internet.
• Nokia also develops navigating system based on image recognition, where you can just "take a picture of a nearby landmark, like the Golden Gate Bridge, with the camera in your mobile phone. Then, Nokia will match your photo with other landmark photos in its mapping database, and tell you where you are."
• J-MAGIC is a Japanese company that "sees market for picture-based search", too.

And the list is by far not complete. I wonder who will come up with the most innovative idea bundled with a sustainable revenue on the service so that both sides (i.e. consumers and providers) get what they want.

Any thoughts?

Tote