Mobile Ajax

What is mobile ajax?

Ajax is ones of web technology which originally developed for desktop. Ajax can make the web more interactive with user, and enrich user experience. Do you ever use desktop application? I bet you had, because to read this article itself you need a application called browser. Anyway, we used to use desktop application to faster and ease our job a decade ago, but now desktop application start to get replaced by web application, which can be accessed not only on single computer like desktop application, but we can access web application every where on earth! Ok, I know I mean every where you have internet connection.

Ok, what is the relation beetwen web application and ajax. Ajax will make the web can respond to user without any refresh, so web application run faster, and interactive because it don't need to reload the whole page just to make slight difference. If you want to know more about ajax, just take a look in your yahoo mail , or gmail, you can chat with people inside your mailbox, isn't it? Do you see the page refresed everytime you send or receive message, of course not, because they use ajax.

Mobile ajax

Currently, mobile application keep getting user attention, and i ever heard people can get US$ 250000 just by selling one game on apple itunes! Mobile game and application popularity grow very fast.But it has one very annoying problem, which is more and more company enter this industry and develop mobile platform. So what is the point? Because those company develop their own platform, and their own hardware, so in the market we can see bunch of mobile phone variety. Application developed for ones platform often not compatible with others. So, if there is 100 platform on the market, developers need to customize their application for every single platform, WOW what a hard work.

Oh, there is alternative for that, why don't we use web application instead of traditional application on mobile phone. The challenge is interactivity, in mobile application we can more interactive and get fast respond than browsing a web. But, this challenge will be answered by leveraging mobile ajax. So, if we can develop robust mobile ajax application, we can make our application accessible on every mobile phone, and every mobile platform, WOW!. Why?

Do you ever see mobile phone doesn't have browser nowaday? of course almost mobile phone have browser, except you buy old mobile phone for the sake of an art!

Conclution

Mobile ajax is the future for mobile phone, more and more people will need to develop mobile web than mobile application. It will worth their time, no need to customize their application for every platform. GO AJAX!

Next Gen Mobile Phone : Nokia N97

It has been rumored that nokia going to release their true smartphone, named nokia N97. This phone seems to be the upgrade from nokia 5800 express music which has no QWERTY.
N97 has specs below :

• a 3.5 inch widescreen 16:9 touchscreen
• haptic feedback
• full QWERTY slideout keyboard
• 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Tessar lens and dual LED flash
• up to 32 GB of storage
• up to 16GB additional memory via microSD
• Symbian S60 5th Edition
• up to 37 hours of music / up to 4.5 hours of video
• A-GPS and GPS
• HSDPA, Wi-Fi, USB 2.0, stereo Bluetooth connectivity
• a 3.5mm headphone jack.

This phone rumored to be released in first half of 2009. With such a spec, this phone has a very good potential to beat the iphone. N97 win from iphone in camera, HSDPA, QWERTY, and also storage, so N97 will be absolute winner. The price will be about 550 euros.

How people use their mobile phone?

Based on survey conducted by Azuki System on US mobile phone users, this is the result:

+ 33% talk on their mobile phones more than 10 hours per week. The youngest generation is spending even more time, with 34% of those 17 and younger talking for more than 15 hours/week.

+ OMG: Of the 79% who send text messages from their phones, 29% do so for more than two hours/week. Again, the younger generations prove to be power users, with 37% of those less than the age of 22 texting for more than two hours/week. With only a gradual drop-off in text messaging for 23 to 44 year-olds, a generational gap is evident with a sharp decline to almost no usage for those approaching age 60 and older.

+ Hooked on e-mail: 50% access their e-mails from their mobile phones, with nearly 30% of those between the ages of 35 and 44 doing so for more than two hours per week. 

+ Going surfing: 52% access the Web via their mobile phones, and 35 to 44 year-olds are leveraging this technology the most, with 60% spending time each week surfing the Web. Perhaps fueling a significant portion of this growth was iPhone adoption, which according to the survey results appeared strongest among 23 to 44 year-olds.  In addition, there was clear evidence of 23 to 34 year-olds trading up their feature phones for smart phones as they move into the corporate world.

+ TV time:25% access video on their mobile phones, with 88% of this group spending less than two hours/week, which may indicate a growing appetite for rich media with shorter duration viewing patterns.Survey conducted on 275 US mobile phone users. As addition, from the survey, mobile advertising have a positive reaction from user as exchange of free mobile services, and addition of location spesific ad would be an advantage. 65% respondent would take use of this opportunity.

Choosing the right language in fragmented mobile platform

Today, there are a lot of mobile platform available because more company enter this fast growing industry. Symbian,  palm, iphone, blackbery OS, windows mobile, linux and now Google Android. And the list may keep longer. This open an opportunities for developer to choose and to create, and sometimes it will confuses developers which platform to choose. Many platform seems promising and worth to learn, but this fragmented platform will be challenging for developers who need focus. 

For now, Symbian which is developed by Nokia take a major market share compares to others.

Symbian OS from Symbian Ltd.  (46,6% Market Share)

iPhone OS from Apple Inc.  (17.3% Market Share)

RIM BlackBerry operating system (15.2% Market Share)

Windows Mobile from Microsoft  (13.6% Market Share)

Linux operating system (  5.1% Market Share)

Other OS  (  2.5% Market Share)

**Data based on Sales until Q3 2008 in Canalys report**

As seen above, Nokia take the biggest pie with Symbian S60. Nokia has put a lot of effort to make a documentation and tutorial that help developer to jump in, which also support variety language, such as Symbian C++, Open C++, Java ME, and Python. Java ME, and Python seems to be a generic platform, so application made by them supposed to be easy for porting to another platform. Choosing the generic platform will have developers to target more phone users,since every user may use different phones and different platform. Ya, I know that Python currently not easy to port, but we will see that python will be supported by wide range of phone manufacturer because of it's simplicity and rapid development nature.

Here are good information about Symbian C++, Java Me, and Python Comparation :

• Which technology should I use? Round 3: Python
• Which technology should I use for development? Round 2: C++
• Which technology should I use for development? Round 1: Java

Mobile web browsing to generate $38 billion in 2013

According to the Strategy Analytics Wireless Media Strategies service report, “Mobile Internet Forecast Update 2001-2013,” demand for popular content and services on the web, such as social networks, email, and news sites, while away from fixed internet connections, will drive consumer spending on mobile web access products from operators. As discriminatory charging for off-portal browsing disappears, data pricing for casual use is reduced, and the overall browsing experience on 3G feature and smartphones is improved, usage and spending on mobile web will increase. The launch of 4G in near 2010 will be major stimulate for mobile content and services.

Handset browsing has been popular in Japan and Korea to date, but not so in Western Europe and the US. However, according to Nitesh Patel, Senior Analyst of the Strategy Analytics Wireless Media Strategies service and author of the report, “Prospects for mobile web access in Western Europe and the US have brightened over the last 12 months as the browsing capability and user experience on handsets improves, and as more operators introduce flexible low-cost monthly and casual browsing plans to suit both heavy and casual users. Fundamentally, access to desirable content on the web, such as social networks, webmail, and infotainment, will drive demand for internet access products."

David Kerr, Vice President at Strategy Analytics, noted, "Although we have entered into an economic downturn, Strategy Analytics continues to forecast increased spending on mobile internet access products over the next few years. During this period we anticipate price competition on data access from operators, as well as greater consumer adoption of flexible casual browsing options that meet the needs of a broader base of cellular users, such as low-priced, daily capped rates."

Nokia preparing Linux Phone

Nokia plan to launch linux based phone. So far, nokia is a big fun of their just acquired  symbian S40 and S60 platform.

Actually, nokia already use maemo (linux based) for their internet tablet (Left picture). Maemo platform is completely open source.

Why they are not going to use android anyway which is gaining a lot popularity? One of nokia people said that they didn't find any positive side of android than maemo. 

Update: A closer look-see at Reuters' report (ignoring the misleading headline) indicates that Nokia has not specifically committed to rolling out Linux on phones -- rather, it has simply said that it intends to expand its use of Linux across its product portfolio. We figure that handsets are bound to get swept into the mix at some point, but technically, we could just be looking at other kinds of devices. Always room for another Internet Tablet or three, we suppose. 

Google sells unlocked Tmobile G1 at $399!!

Wow, this is a great news. We are appreciate google effort to make the android platform available to countries outside US. 

Now, people like us who live outside US can have this first Google phone, and use any operator available on the country.This unlocked G1 will be sold exclusively for developer, because we need to be registered in Android Market to be able to buy this phone. And registration fee is $25, ach.. 

The question rise on my head after knowing this is 'Why?? What is Google's consideration?

The answer pop up on my mind, oh may be Google want their android platform available for developer outside the US, so they can stimulate the grow of android platform, and attract more and more developers to program for android. And in the mean time, developers outside the US will also add substantial value android.

The unique things regarding this unlocked phone selling is the shipping charge. Free shipping for US, and arround $200 for country outside US. Hm.. may be the phone will be shipped with alumunium and gold alloy....

I guess that the shipping cost outside US a bit unreasonable because $399 is to cheap for unlocked phone like HTC Dream. Just make compare to unlocked iphone which sells at $500+. Anyway, why this phone sells cheaper in US?

I guess that Google think that US developers will add more value to their android platform, than developers outside US, so Google won't give any subsidy in outside US.

For now, the phones will be sells at 18 countries in international market, which are Amerika Serikat AS, Inggris, Jerman, Jepang, India, Kanada, Prancis, Taiwan, Spanyol, Australia, Singapura, Swiss, Belanda, Austria, Swedia, Finlandia, Polandia and Hungaria. 

If your country not yet listed, just wait patiently coz there is a issue that more countries will be added on first half of 2009.