The MoPR Blog

There Really is an App for That

Consumers know that their smartphones can do just about anything. Shopping lists, sports scores, weather, videos, Facebook… There are thousands of consumer apps. But weren’t smartphones originally intended to be business devices? The cover story of this week’s “InformationWeek” magazine is all about the business applications of smartphones, and the innovative way corporate IT departments are putting them to use. In “What Goes Mobile” Mary Hayes Weier has written one the most comprehensive looks yet at the potential mobile apps will have in various business environments, from auto sales to health care.

In a companion piece in the same edition, Peter Rysavy writes about using the Mobile Web as an alternative to developing mobile applications. This theme is one that MoPR has hit on before with our own clients, such as Bitstream, the makers of the BOLT Mobile Browser. In “The Mobile Web Imperative” Rysavy speaks directly to IT departments and the developers building tools for businesses.

It’s the Year 2010: Still No Flying Cars

We’ve entered the season where writers and publications prognosticate about the trends of the coming year. You’ll see many articles with titles such as “2010: The Year of the _____.” “PC World” magazine has an interesting article which asks the question “2010: The Year of the Table PC?” Table PCs aren’t new. They just aren’t popular. Yet. But a lot of new features, such as touch screens, are reinvigorating the category. With pictures and videos along the way, writer Ian Paul walks us through the new landscape of tablet computers and makes a compelling case for why 2010 may be for tablet PCs what 2007 was for smartphones.

A Map You Can Step Into

I know, I know, the title of this column is “Weekend Reading” not “Weekend Viewing.” But one of our favorite writers, Jon Fortt at “Fortune” magazine has a video that showcases some of the cooler developments in location based technologies. Not coupons for the coffee shop around the corner from where you’re standing, but interactive maps unlike anything you’ve yet seen. Take a look:

In Case You Missed It: Cell Phones Cause Cancer… or Do They?

Throughout 2009 there were several stories about studies that showed a link between cell phone use and cancer. Not good news for those of us who not only are power users of our mobile phones, but also work in the mobility industry. In “Mobile Enterprise” magazine, Michael D. Cole looks at the results of a study released last week, an exhaustive 30 year study conducted in Scandinavia which concludes that there is no such link between cell phone use and cancer. Wait, don’t breath a sigh of relief just yet. Read “Study Refutes Cancer-Cell Phone Connection — But Rancorous Debate Persists” and judge for yourself.

As always, we invite you to share your comments.

Something ELSE in The Smartphone Market

We rarely lead our Weekend Reading Feature with a blog post, but it’s hard to get past this intriguing opening by Richard Lai in “Engadget“: “Folks, today might be the day when you start to notice how ancient our smartphones have become, even if they only came out in last few months.”

Lai details debut in London this week of a new smartphone and smartphone platform bearing the name “ELSE.” This Linux based smartphone from Israel’s Emblaze Mobile was “built from scratch” and features a sleek design and, by all accounts, an amazing user Interface. Read about, look at and watch why ELSE may be a game changer in the smartphone market in this Engadget post.

Future of the PC

Speaking of game changers, Jon Fortt writes in “Forbes” about the competing trends driving development of personal computers. Fortt asks, “Will tomorrow’s PC be a nimble netbook or a high-def laptop?” then details an explanation of opposing views offered by Google and AMD.

A Life Beyond Twitter?

One of the genius aspects of Twitter is how it engendered and surrounded itself with a vibrant devepoer ecosystem. Many of you reading this post are using third party apps and services built for and around Twitter. But could Twitter eventually walk away from this ecosystem? A “Portfolio” magazine article by Anthony Duignan-Cabrera examines how Twitter’s business interests are evolving and how developers are prepaparing for life after TWitter no longer needs them.

In a sometimes amusing companion piece by Jacqui Cheng of “Ars Technica,” Portfolio looks at the social networking behavior of young people. Is the generation of people under 35 taking social networking too far? One stat from the article: 36 percent of under-35 users admitted to checking Twitter/Facebook/texts immediately after getting it on.

In Case You Missed It: Search Engine Minimization

Traditional media is evolving so it can thrive in the New Media era. As part of that evolution, some online news resources are switching from free to subscription based distribution models. News Corp. chief Rupport Murdoch has concerns about news from his company’s various media brands being indexed in the Google search engine. With Google readers can find snippets of News Corp. articles, not only threatening his revenue model, but also be mislead by lack of context. So Murdoch is taking steps to block News Corp. news content from appearing in Google search results. As Bloomberg’s Greg Bensinger and Brian Womack point out in this story, News Corp. is not the only media outlet taking this dramatic step.

I love smartphones, and in particular the new touch screen smartphones based on the Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Web OS and yes, even Windows Mobile operating systems. With so many of these phones now competing against one another, we’re witnessing prices drop and adoption soar. It won’t be long until all phones are what we consider today to be smartphones.

One of the best features of this new breed of smartphones is the large screen that lets people surf the Internet, watch videos and easily manage the apps they’ve installed, all with by sliding their finger(s) across the screen.

The other day I was comparing my G1 Android phone to my iPhone (yes, I have an Android and an iPhone… I also have a BlackBerry and a Windows Mobile phone too, and I covet the Palm Pre). The G1 has a noticeably smaller screen than the iPhone. But because of the way HTC designed this first Android phone, the form factor isn’t much smaller. I noticed the G2 also has a smaller screen than the iPhone. I wondered if the iPhone is the large-end of the smartphone category and what this size differential means for usability?

Well if size matters, Sony Ericsson’s first entry in the Android category will have jaws dropping. Clearly the design team behind the Xperia X10 believes that bigger is better. Everything on this phone is big. While some features like an 8.1 Megapixel camera or an 8 GB microSD card may be welcome additions, the Xperia X10 boasts, or maybe I should say flaunts, a 4-inch touch screen with 480×854 resolution.

I don’t know if that 4 inch dimension is the height or the diagonal measurement of the screen (I assume the diagonal), but the iPhone’s screen is 3.5 inches along the diagonal (from upper left to lower right corners) with a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels.

Sitting next to the iPhone, the G1’s screen looks puny, but measures 3.25 inches along the diagonal. That means the Xperia X10 is huge. Just how big? Well see for yourself in Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 commercial:

For people who like to keep their phones in their pocket, this might not be the device for you. Do the Xperia X10’s dimensions presage a new trend in smartphone design? Will bigger mean better? Or is the Xperia X10 the Hummer of smartphones, gaining some interest as a status symbol until ultimately the public becomes aware that it’s just too big to be practical?

Time will tell, but for now the Xperia X10 is yet another exciting new addition, among many new additions to the Android lineup coming to a mobile operator near you.