Mobile GourmetTasty Apps. Delectable Devices. Meaty Platforms
Mobile Gourmet: Gartner’s New Coke?
May 4, 2012 by Jason Wong
Don’t you hate it when you’re used to something and all of a sudden it changes on you? Probably the most extreme and infamous example of this was in 1985 when Coke was changed to “New Coke“–not only in name but also in the formulation (due to getting beat by Pepsi in their taste test challenges). People boycotted New Coke and within months, the “old” Coke was re-introduced as Coke Classic. Plus Coke Classic outsold both New Coke and Pepsi!
New coke didn't last long, and Coke Classic quickly took its place
Another less extreme example was when the Mars candy company rebranded the Marathon bar to “Snickers” in Britain in 1990. It made commercial sense since Snickers was the bar’s brand name elsewhere in the world. Nevertheless, UK customers grumbled about the change, but it stuck–and clearly they did not boycott the candy bar. Snickers is the world’s best-selling chocolate bar of all time!
Well, in the mobile world you may have seen or heard that Gartner released their latest Magic Quadrant report on mobility (if you haven’t you can request it for free here). Mobility solutions for enterprises have been around for a long time, and just a few years ago there were many names for such solutions, such as mobile middleware, mobile platforms and mobile frameworks. In fact, Gartner started out referring to this space with without any reference to mobile at all–they called it the Multi-Channel Access Gateway (MAG) market.
Then as mobility became a way of business–and life–Gartner eliminated MAG and created the Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP) and Mobile Consumer Application Platform (MCAP) reports. (Why not? Double the exposure!) MEAP was a funny, but catchy name and soon almost everybody dealing with mobility latched on to it (MCAP not so much–maybe because it’s two syllables). If you Google “MEAP” you’ll find loads of references and almost universally people in technology will understand what you mean when you say MEAP.
Which leads us to the present, where Gartner has decided to combine MEAP and MCAP into (drum roll please)… Mobile Application Development Platform or MADP! “Mad-P.” It doesn’t really roll off the tongue like MEAP, or heck even like “M-Cap.” Will MADP catch on? Will this be a case of a New Coke failure, or will the market gradually accept MADP as the new Snickers. What do you think?
Commercial Plug: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Antenna is excited and honored to have grabbed a spot in the Leaders Quadrant of the MADP Magic Quadrant this year, so whether it catches on or not – MADP is cool by me.
Mobile Gourmet: Tastes Like “Steak”
April 5, 2012 by Jason Wong
In the movie “The Matrix” (the first one), there was a scene where the turncoat crew member Cypher is dining with the bad guy Agent Smith within the Matrix. He chews on his filet mignon and says something to the effect that he doesn’t care if the steak is not a real steak, as long as it tastes real to him.
In the mobile world, often times we – the ones who are building and deploying apps – get caught up in what is a real native app and what is not. A “real” native app, at its root, is one built on the native language and SDK of the device platform – such as Objective-C using Xcode for iOS. This is equivalent to a “real” steak from a freshly butchered cow.
Can you tell if this is the real deal?
However, there are “native” apps built using non-native technology – such as PhoneGap, Appcelerator or AMP Hybrid Client which all use web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript to build an iOS app (and for other device platforms as well), rather than that native Objective-C. But the output from these solutions is still called a native app because the app can be deployed and installed via the native app store and can utilize native functionalities of the device hardware and software. So in effect it acts, behaves and feels like a true native app. Yet many purists label these as hybrid apps or “wrapped apps” to denote their lesser pedigree; as if to say these are like meat grown in laboratories, not meat from a cow!
As a user, what do you care about? You get an app from the app store. It works smoothly and looks fantastic. It even has geo-location functions and maybe even an image capture feature. Do you care if it’s a “real” native app or one built with non-native tools? Chances are you won’t even know, and you probably don’t care as long as the app works well. Technology has caught up in the mobile world where the lab grown meat can now be passed as grade A steak! As Cypher says while savoring his cut of beef, “Ignorance is bliss.”
Mobile Gourmet: Year of the Mobile Dragon
January 13, 2012 by Jason Wong
2012 is the year of the Dragon on the Chinese Lunar Calendar. According to astrologists: ”the Year of the Dragon will be marked by excitement, unpredictability, exhilaration and intensity. People will respond to the spirit of the Dragon with energy, vitality and unbridled enthusiasm, often throwing all caution to the wind.”
The Chinese New Year doesn’t start until January 23rd (technically February 4th), but already in 2012 in the mobility space we are seeing quite a bit of energy and unbridled enthusiasm. Less than two weeks into 2012 we have already seen three acquisitions: one by WalmartLabs buying up Small Society, another was Deloitte scooping up Ubermind, and the third was Financial Times acquiring Assanka. These are small acquisitions by multinational companies, so it’s not exactly “throwing all caution to the wind,” but the common thread is that companies are clearly showing enthusiasm for mobility and looking for talent.
Let’s face it, mobile technology has come a long way in just a few years, but the technology itself — in terms of the mobile OSes and browsers — will probably not change all that much over the next 3-5 years (have you seen all the “new” gadgets announced at CES 2012?). Sure there will be more devices and cooler features, but the basics of mobility are set in a pretty firm place. An iPhone 10 will probably have a traceable lineage to iPhone 4S, rather than the difference between the original Moto Razr and the new Moto Droid Razr. That’s why in 2012, businesses, agencies, SI’s and ISV’s will make a big push to get the talent they need to build out their mobile strategy to both compete and differentiate.
Up until recently, mobile development required specialists with knowledge of native languages. But with web technologies (HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript) playing a more prominent role on more mobile devices, mobility is now open to a wider playing field of web developers. Plus, with companies having dabbled in their first generation of mobile apps or web, now is the time to put the pedal to the metal and accelerate their mobile presence beyond apps.
Let’s unleash the mobility Dragon!
Mobile Gourmet: Five Predictions for 2012
December 21, 2011 by Jason Wong
Another crazy year in the mobile space and food world in 2011. I made some predictions a year ago and for the most part I was pretty on target–OK so maybe some of them were pretty obvious.
On the food predictions, Richard Blais did win Top Chef All-Stars (pretty easily I thought) and Korean food was “killin’ it” on the Great Food Truck Race show on Food Network (until they were accused of cheating and got kicked off), but David Chang alas did not enter the Next Iron Chef competition (he’s probably spending too much time counting his money).
On the mobile predictions, it was more of mixed bag. Microsoft did not buy Nokia but Nokia did go “all in” on Windows Phone 7 – success still TBD. My Playbook prediction was DOA, but my HP webOS prognostication was spot on. My HTML5 prediction was pure clairvoyance (it’s everywhere now – even Adobe has relented); mobile malware is certainly on the rise (especially for Android); NFC is still in early days; and finally Angry Birds didn’t quite make it to a billion dollars for apps, but have you seen all the licensed merchandise people are buying?!
So what’s in line for 2012? I’ll make it a shorter list of five predictions and keep it to mobile topics.
1. RIM’s BB 10 will underwhelm. It’s not about the hardware or the software any more. It’s about the ecosystem. And RIM just doesn’t have the developers, content and apps to compete any more. Their BES paradigm seems antiquated (did you hear about the outage?)and their value prop is just not relevant in 2012.
2. Facebook phone (if all the rumors are true) will be a dud. Facebook is useful and even fun for many people, but do you really want it to be your phone provider? Carrier IQ has gotten so much backlash, what will Facebook face in terms of the stuff they are capturing from your Facebook phone? Just say no.
Facebook phone won't socialize...
But Amazon phone could be a success
3. Amazon phone (again if the rumors are true) will be a success. Why? because the Kindle Fire is selling briskly and Amazon has the ecosystem to sustain a real mobile strategy (see RIM above). They have an app store, they have content, they have commerce and they have the new Steve Jobs in Jeff Bezos.
4. Microsoft will exceed RIM for smartphone and tablet market share. Windows Phone devices and Windows tablets will be embraced mostly by businesses and this will directly cut into RIM’s target market. Microsoft is an aircraft carrier that is slowly turning to get back into the mobility game. HTML5 and time will be its two biggest allies to help it catch up to Android and iOS.
5. Oracle will make their move and start buying mobile vendors to catch up to SAP and Saleforce.com, both of which are betting big on mobile as the new UI for their apps. If 2012 is really the year when mobility breaks through to the big time, you can be sure Larry Ellison won’t want to miss out.
Mobile Gourmet Review: Fooducate Me
December 8, 2011 by Jason Wong
Do you eat healthy? Do you know what goes into your food? Sometimes I’d rather not know. Take for instance the recent egg scandal around a large producer for McDonald’s. Or this article about everyday food such as potatoes and popcorn that pose hidden dangers.
In this month’s installment of the Mobile Gourmet Review, I have been playing with an app called Fooducate. The purpose of this app is to educate consumers on more than 200,000 packaged food products that we eat everyday. It’s like having a dietician in the palm of your hands. Fooducate provides a letter grade for a food based on the analysis of the food’s known ingredients list and nutritional values.
There’s also a tab that presents alternatives to your scanned product that you can click on. I scanned some M&M’s and one of the better options shown was an apple. Hmm – not exactly what I was looking for. Fooducate says that they are not sponsored or influenced by any food manufacturer, but based on some of the alternatives I was presented with, I’m not entirely convinced.
There are other app options such as a blog and a running tally of items you have scanned with their average grades, along with a comparison to others that have liked the same products as you. Fooducate is collecting great user information. I would like to see them apply it more to show what people are scanning most by category or by geography. Maybe they have this info and are selling it back to the manufacturers – that would be really interesting! They don’t have ads so you have to wonder how they sustain themselves.
Overall the Fooducate app is quite interesting and educational. And even if you don’t care what you eat, it’s a fun app to pass the time or entertain little ones at the grocery store.
Mobile Gourmet gives Fooducate: 5 out of 5 stars
Jason Wong
Jason is a Senior Product Manager for Antenna. My passion for anything mobile is matched only by my appetite for anything edible. I have worked my entire career in the wireless and software industries marketing the next great idea, and I have spent my entire adult life seeking out the next great meal. In my posts, I hope you'll take away inspiration and insight for your mobile project, as well as for your next breakfast, lunch or dinner! Follow me on Twitter @mobilegourmet
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