Archive for May, 2008
by Imran Ali
May 14, 2008 at 1:37 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0
While most of the industry is breathlessly anticipating the arrival of a 3G iPhone with its integrated Wide-Area Reality Distortion Field, users are continuing to utilise the Jesus Phone in unanticipated and innovative ways.
Take Albert Alberts, inspired by a story on slimming down your wallet (in size, not fiscal capacity), has stored scanned images of his plastic on his iPhone, with enough fidelity that barcode scanners can still read codes from the phone’s screen!
OK, it’s not ultra-secure or tamper-proof, but for low-risk identification, it’s entirely acceptable. There’s a spark of an interesting idea here…I’m not sure what, but tokenised temporary identifiers delivered - and paid for - by SMS/MMS could be interesting…
In the meantime, as a Muslim I should take more exception to the Jesus Phone nomenclature; we believe that Jesus was just another prophet, like Mohammed - not the Son Of Steve 
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by Imran Ali
May 14, 2008 at 9:34 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0
An interesting study by scientists at the UK’s University of Leicester has concluded that the cost of sending a five-penny text message is at least four-times more than the equivalent exchange with the Hubble Space Telescope…
“The maximum size for a text message is 160 characters, which takes 140 bytes because there are only 7 bits per character in the text messaging system, and we assume the average price for a text message is 5p. There are 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte, so that’s 1 million/140 = 7490 text messages to transmit one megabyte. At 5p each, that’s £374.49 per MB - or about 4.4 times more expensive than the ‘most pessimistic’ estimate for Hubble Space Telescope transmission costs.”
Coverage of this story (TXTING COSTS R $£&+%$*&!, Costs of Text Messaging vs. Space Transmissions and Is Text Messaging a Rip-Off?) all seems to focus on the apparently ’scandalous’ pricing of SMS messages, however is it really fair to compare this to something as niche and narrowly focussed as a 20-year old satellite? Value, not pricing is the real story here.
Market prices for mobile broadband, photo messaging and text messaging all point to an acceptance that pricing for these categories of data transfer provide value for customers. Yes, they could all be cheaper, but these are the prices that people are prepared to pay.
Interplanetary data transfer pricing isn’t a benchmark that’s useful for most people…
by Imran Ali
May 13, 2008 at 11:43 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0
Last week TwitterFone joined the universe of applications extending the popular messsaging service…actually strike that, Twitter is a messaging platform.
Founded by Cubic Telecom’s Pat Phelan, Twitterfone simply enables Twitter users to…
Twitterfone’s has a couple of UI problems (instructions for ending a call are unclear) but the overall user experience is a great example of complexity concealed within simplicty.
Ostensibly, TwitterFone might appear to be a gimmicky voice-based alternative posting interface for Twitter, however as the range of Twitter applications grows from everything to home automation to parking, Twitterfone becomes a powerful vocal command line for a whole chunk of your life…
Just as landline carriers lost control of their pricing to Skype and the music industry to Apple, it seems Twitter and services such as TwitterFone will gradually erode control of text messaging and voicemail. So much for not being a dumb pipe Mr. Cellco
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by Imran Ali
May 10, 2008 at 4:45 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0
Orange’s annual Partner Camp wrapped up a couple weeks ago with some interesting outcomes and revelations…
- 13 new APIs to access Orange’s backed systems, including hooks into conferencing, contact, messaging, media and authentication services as well as the experimental Bubbletop start page and Pikeo photosharing services.
- The launch of a developer ‘play-zone’ and a mash pit for experimenting and developing services in a safe environment.
- A speed-dating contest, matching entrepreneurs and developers with Orange staff and their partners.
Wow, these guys don’t sound like a telco…or my old employers! Throughout the day’s events, it seems a sincere openness and collaboration was foremost on the minds of France Telecom and Orange employees. I think I need to lie down, next thing you know, Apple and Google will be making phones…doh!
by Ewan Spence
May 6, 2008 at 5:36 am · Filed under Mobile Tech, News, iPhone
Should it be news when a popular website launches a ‘mobile’ version of their site? I ask this as a flurry of sites pick up the press release from Associated Press that around 100 of their member newspapers will ‘make available’ stories on a website for the iPhone and other mobile devices.
Come on! This is the 21st century, the principle of web design where content is divorced from layout has been entrenched for years, there shouldn’t need to be a big song and dance that a web service is ‘now available’ for a certain browser. We should be in a position where everything just works, the browser is detected as the site loads, and the appropriate style sheet is selected (or ajax code delivered, or flash disabled as required, etc, etc, etc).
But we’re not, and yes I do live in the real world, and these announcements are a good thing. Because it means that the usage of mobile browsers is leaving the realms of the geekerati, and moving into the real world. Which is exactly what should be happening.
And even though I live in the real world, and think that ‘iPhone and other mobile devices’ does a huge disservice to the hundreds of other mobile browsers out there - and yet again elevates the iPhone into an interesting position where the perception of it being a game changer actually makes it a game changer.
by Paul Ruppert
May 1, 2008 at 10:47 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, iPhone
Man Bites Dog!
Apple, Motoroloa and Sony Ericsson have lost market share in Q1 08 according to figures released by Strategy Analytics on Monday. Those regions–often overlooked in the mind of the western trade press blog media–such as Asia and Africa drove the surge in growth, compensating for sluggish demand in developed regions of North America and Western Europe. Seems a pesky recession in the west is crawling out of the swamp.
Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics, said, “Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Apple suffered downturns. Motorola and Sony Ericsson lost marketshare to rivals with stronger handset portfolios, such as LG and Samsung, while Apple has been hit by stock outs in North America and lackluster demand for its overpriced iPhone in Western Europe.” Although global mobile handset shipments grew a strong 14 per cent year on year, to reach 282 million units the first quarter, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Apple all lost market share to stronger–Korean–competitors.
The iPhone saw global shipments fall sharply, from 2.3 million units in the fourth quarter of last year to 1.7 million units in the first quarter of 2008. This resulted in the first decline in the company’s market share, which dropped from 0.7 per cent to 0.6 per cent. (Then again 75% of it’s time in the market has been up and to the right.)
Third placed Motorola suffered yet more woes as its market share dropped sharply from 12.4 per cent in the previous quarter to 9.7 per cent in the first quarter. While Sony Ericsson experienced a decline from 9.4 per cent to 7.9 per cent.
Market leader Nokia continued at a slow and steady growth pace, increasing its market share from 40.6 per cent to 40.9 per cent. While Mawston said that 2008 is shaping up to be the year of the Koreans, with improved handset portfolios enabling LG to grow at almost four times the annual industry average, while Samsung is growing over two times faster.
LG boosted its share from 7.2 per cent in the fourth quarter to 8.6 per cent in the first quarter, while Samsung jumped from 14.1 per cent to 16.4 per cent.
I’ve been observing the Korean handset manufacturers for three years now, including personally using both a Samsung and LG device for three out of the last four years. Their interface, functionality and stylish accesorizing has established a strong position in the market place which will continue to grow and solidify. The numbers don’t lie. iPhone may be the buzz of the glib technorati, but the reality is in the billions of revenues produced from the middle of the curve.
