Going Mobile!
‘We want to be mobile!’ the web site crowd roared in the year 2010.
‘What are you talking about?’ came the response back, ‘We have been mobile for years. We went mobile back in the mid-1990s, some early pioneers went mobile way back in the age of disco.’
The crowd stood silent with disbelief, just like my parents did on the day disco died. I know, disco, what were they thinking?
The History of Mobile:
What do businesses mean when they want to be mobile? I’ve had some very interesting conversations and confused looks over the past year when I ask people to help me define what mobile means to them. Before looking at the here and now, however, it might be interesting to review some history.
The first mobile computer, IBM’s 5100, became available back in 1975. It didn’t come with Angry Birds installed or Internet access, but the sexy design more than made up for those minor oversights.
The first World Wide Web browser was created by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991. Not exactly mobile, but another important milestone. The first mobile browser was created back in 1994 for the Apple Newton PDA, and finally, the first mobile phone with a browser came from AT&T in 1997. Like the iPhones of today, it also didn’t support Flash, but now we’re talking about customers, on the move, being mobile.
Finally, Apple launched the App Store on July 10th, 2008, about 14 years after the first mobile browser.
So what are we talking about today?
Did the iPhone and App Store reinvent mobile? I think so. Phones, the smart ones, finally surpassed the clunkiness of IBM’s 5100 and truly became the device that people wanted to use anytime and anywhere. Browsing the Internet or running apps on earlier mobile phones quickly became a frustrating experience and forced people to flee back to their PCs to read the news, watch videos, play Madden 2009, or buy the latest best seller from Amazon. With the iPhone, however, the mob finally had the perfect mobile device and an app store from which to download very user friendly applications – applications that could make checking the weather report fun and interesting.
So, I propose the following as a way to define what ‘mobile’ means today.
Anatomy of Mobile 2.0:
Screen Size – how much real estate do you have to play with? Phones, tablets, and laptops, are all mobile, but each has a different resolution. Your app needs to work on both small and large screens. Dynamically changing the interface based on screen inches available is in some ways the holy grail here.
Input Method – support a physical keyboard, track-ball, mouse, touch-screen, motion sensors, or all of the above? Will your user have a smooth experience regardless of their choice of favorite input method.
Location – do you need to know where in the world your user is located? It seems that every app I have downloaded recently has asked my permission to track where I am hiding. So, will knowing the phone’s longitude and latitude add value to your application?
Camera – have you ever wondered what those nameless and faceless people look like? Almost every device has a camera these days, so obtaining mugshots is now possible. Do you really want to see them?
Phone – of course! But tablets and laptops don’t have the ability to call home when they run out of money. Will you integrate phone capabilities?
Connectivity – G, 2G, 3G, 4G, wireless, tethering, coffee shops. From weak to strong signals, sending just data or streaming the Super Bowl, what kind of bandwidth will be needed?
Web or Native App – web apps can be built once, changed quickly, and accessed by any browser compliant with well known standards; native apps can take advantage of native device features and performance, but lead to higher maintenance costs, more time needed to make updates when distributing through an app store, and require multiple versions of the code to be maintained.
In conclusion:
I think ‘mobile’ means many things and has been around since the 1970′s. It only seems new because of the technical advances and improvements over the last few years made by Apple, Google, and others. How do you define it?
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Tags: Ed Dekema, Enterprise Mobility, Mobile Apps, Mobile Devices, Mobile Dog, Mobility - General
