Mobile Phones

Just a quick follow-up to my early post about the future of paid content.

Long coming, Hulu Plus is now available for TV-watchers. My guess is we’ll start to see more invasive advertising on regular Hulu now, less choice and more inducements to move to Plus. By the way, Plus, still requires you to watch ads. #FAIL

John Biggs, on Crunch Gear, talks about the pay wall. He highlights the Onion’s Future News TV show – on the iTunes Store – and Popular Mechanics iPad app as examples of content providers moving to the for-pay model.

The key here? Compelling content, expertly produced. Isn’t that what we all want anyway? Without the interruption of invasive advertising?

While the developed world is rapidly moving over to smartphones, the preponderance of the wireless users are still using basic devices. Sebastian Anthony, in this post, asks how so many people – 4.8 billion, by his count – could be ignored when it comes to providing them with exciting applications.

I don’t know Sebastian, but it seems he’s asking the same questions many new or unfamiliar with the wireless business ask when they encounter this field. This has grown even more true of commentators – professional and amateur – who know only the success of the iPhone and wonder why that success can’t be applied to other devices.

There are, in my view, two reasons why the explosion of applications – available at a full range of prices – happened only on the iPhone (and, more recently and to a lesser extent, on Google’s Android platform): the wealth of the underlying market and the inherent compatibility of all other devices.

Sebastian, here’s something that’s hard to swallow: there might be 4.8 billion mobile phones in the world, but only a few hundred million of those devices are owned by people who have the disposable income to purchase (what amount to) frivolous applications. By frivolous I mean applications that are not life-saving, do not substantially reduce personal or business costs, and do not result in significantly lower expenditure of natural resources. Modern applications for the iPhone and Android are, largely, for convenience. And the members of world society who are willing and able to pay for convenience have, relative to the owners of those other 4.8 billion devices, wealth. Their wealth makes it profitable to develop applications.

The bigger problem, though, is device incompatibility. The marketplace for feature phones (which, in fact, have very few features) is vastly different from the marketplace for smartphones. Feature phones dominate the world market in terms of volume – those 4.8 billion devices are mostly feature phones – but are themselves dominated by the demands of the world’s mobile carriers. Let me tell you about how that market works.

Feature phones run one of many real time operating systems (RTOSs) all closely guarded by, and usually proprietary to, the device manufacturers. Until Nokia’s Series 30 and Series 40, numerous variants of each RTOS where created as new “features” were developed. I’m talking about “features” like one-tap-to-voice-mail, or special-ringtone-for-mom. Nokia tried to standardize that a bit, given the breadth and depth of its worldwide coverage but, largely, the operators rebelled. They wanted each phone to be slightly different from its logical twin on another network in order to differentiate in the marketplace. Further, each feature phone is tediously vetted by each mobile carrier (at great expense to the application developer) and carefully packaged with “features” that lock the customer into other carrier services (voicemail, ringtones, payment, etc). Sony Ericsson’s C902, for example, might have different features in the UK market on the O2 network than it does on the Telefonica network in Spain.

The software industry behind the very popular Java programming language tried to change that. Put one language runtime on all proprietary RTOSes and developers will be able to write one application that will run on top of all of them without change, they said. But the software industry did not anticipate how deeply ingrained the differentiation model was to the carriers’ way of doing business. Each carrier mandated different release levels of the Java runtime, and different suites of Java’s “optional packages”. Developers were back to square one – building for over 100 variants of Java in any typical release cycle. It was simply unprofitable to continue, and firms that tried to make it easier also shut down. Java’s promise of write once, run anywhere became a myth in mobile, recognized as early as 2002 – years before iPhone. But until iPhone, feature phones – even with very little true software innovation – remained the core of the business for both device manufacturers and wireless carriers. And it’s still the success model the carrier’s know best.

In late 2006, Apple, with its huge modern reputation staked on the iPod and iTunes Music Store, leveraged its strength to completely reverse this model. Instead of cow-towing to carrier demands and building tens of incompatible devices, Apple went to market with a single carrier and a single device. Luckily, it happened to be a compelling device – the likes of which the industry had never seen. Customers doubled their expenditure for mobility overnight and every carrier on the planet wanted to take part, no matter Apple’s demands. And when, later, Apple developed a software model that was controlled by Apple rather than by the wireless carrier’s – a model where any developer could create an application for the phone without needing to have it vetted by the carrier – developers jumped at the chance. Even more important, over time Apple has maintained a high degree of software compatibility across its devices. An application that runs on an early iPhone still runs on the newest iPhone – whether it’s running in the US on AT&T or in Luxembourg on Tango. Simply put, this model makes software profitable. Google has successfully used this same strategy for it’s Android platform which has the advantage of leveraging the big device vendors and their creativity and experience in building hardware. But Android devices are expensive smartphones, too.

There is some hope. In modern times we have GetJar, a big-tent app store which is now vending applications at a rate of 80 million units a month to a vast gallery of mobile devices. The jar in the name comes from Java’s software packaging model – witness to the fact that Java is barely hanging on as the only cross-device compatibility model. GetJar’s modest success shows that developers are keen on the low-cost, high-volume model. And it also shows that consumers are willing to trust a previously-unknown entity (GetJar) much more than they are willing to trust their wireless carrier when it comes to buying applications. Let’s hope so – at 80 million/month it’ll take only 600 months for GetJar to reach every phone in the world!

Relative to the iPhone 4’s antenna issues everyone’s howling about, I’m trying to square this with this. Is the software really displaying the reception-strength bars wrong, or is it really a hand-position-muffles-antenna issue?

Independent, Apple loses an opportunity to shed its ‘too authoritarian’ image by stone-walling, especially with it’s somewhat shocking press release on the topic, parodied here by @gruber.

The Anandtech review – using real reception measurements not the graphical bars – indicates that iPhone 4’s antenna is better than earlier models in areas of low reception. This is great news for folks who have to endure poor connectivity in their usual locations, but it does nothing to explain the mysterious death grip issue – whereby holding the phone in a normal and comfortable way reduces the antenna’s effectiveness.

It’s important to point out that all phones employing the built-in-antenna or antenna-inside-case paradigms can suffer from attenuation just being held in the hand. It’s just that Apple’s problem seems dramatic – and surprisingly like something that would/should have been caught early on in the product cycle.

From my viewpoint – I’m not an iPhone owner, though I have had a long succession of smartphones – it makes perfect sense for iPhone 4 owners to get themselves a bumper-type case which reduces (resolves?) the attenuation problem. The double benefit: normal handling doesn’t ding up the phone’s case and even an occasional drop will be tolerated. To those who would get pissy over spending $29 on such a case, I’d simply ask that you take a long look at what the iPhone is costing you over the two-year period of your contract (upwards of $2000 including all fees for hardware and services) and recognize that perhaps $29 is worth it to protect that investment.

UPDATE: Here’s a great, recent, review of the iPhone 4 discussing both the quality of the device compared to earlier models (and Android devices) and the antenna issue (which, it’s claimed, happens only under low-connectivity conditions).

Microsoft is ending production of its Kin line of mobile phones, just a few weeks after US launch and days prior to their projected European debut.

That Microsoft would kill a product this early in the production cycle is a stunning change of strategy. Stunning also, given that Microsoft opted for a very different character for these devices: essentially feature phones with rich social networking capability. This approach was strikingly opposed to its traditional it’s-all-about-Windows-OS approach of the past. And it cost the top people in Microsoft’s gaming and mobility division their jobs.

What’s really sad about the loss of Kin is that Microsoft will now return to its strategy of pushing the Windows OS (Windows Phone 7) – and doing so into a marketplace where the OS has become nearly irrelevant. It’s the application model which now controls the marketplace and Microsoft long ago became a non-player in that arena. Apple’s CocoaTouch (backed up by the iTunes App Store) and Google’s Dalvik (backed up by the Android Marketplace) both have solid cores of developers – who are able to make money in these markets without being hampered by the constraints of carrier-approval. And there’s yet another core of developers pushing the limits with HTML5 and Javascript. For a broad class of applciations, this mobile web application model works fabulously on mobile browsers based on Apple’s open sourced WebKit – including Apple’s Safari on iPhone and Google’s Android Browser, along with Nokia’s Web Runtime. Perhaps needless to say, Microsoft’s mobile browser – Pocket Internet Explorer – is not based on WebKit.

Further, Microsoft’s traditional hardware partner for mobile devices – HTC in Taiwan – has all but abandoned them in favor of Google and its hot-selling Android OS. HTC got PocketPC and Windows Mobile off the ground in the early part of the decade with HP’s striking and successful line of Personal Digital Assistants, called iPaq. Later, they built a long list of mobile devices running the Windows Mobile operating systems and branded by carriers. But, after the solid (if low-key) success of its first Android phone, the Dream device – branded by TMobile as the G1 – HTC has been going to market with its brand in the forefront. Without Microsoft.

Microsoft, once the undisputed king of the industry (not to mention the stock market), looks in total disarray in the mobile space.

AT&T is ending its unlimited data plan. Owners of Apple’s iPhone – who account for a very high percentage of data traffic on AT&T’s network – will be affected. But I predict most iPhone users will be affected positively. That’s because AT&T claims that 3% of its users account for 40% of the traffic. Once those 3% of users are reigned in – by making it more expensive to over-consume bandwidth – everyone on AT&T will start to see better performance, particularly in the very congested areas (New York and San Francisco in particular). And, the 97% of typical users will pay less for the bandwidth they do consume.

Frankly, you don’t need an economics degree to understand this situation. What AT&T is doing is arresting a true Tragedy of the Commons situation on their network. AT&T’s network approximates a public resource – a network utilized by a large customer base with widely differing aspirations and needs. Some of these users – a tiny percentage – have destroyed the resource by making overly-aggressive use of it, to the point the some users can’t even acquire access to the network at all for reasonably long periods. Everyone – including, curiously, the over-users – is frustrated.

Certainly, AT&T’s problem is not created solely by network over-use. AT&T has internal policies for managing its network, and the company in effect “places bets” on how the network will be used in order to craft the best possible access characteristics. AT&T also decides when, and how, to upgrade its network. None of us is privy to any of these considerations, and we can only believe AT&T’s public announcements on these matters. But overuse has seriously limited the tools AT&T has at its disposal. Something had to give.

It should be noted that Carnegie Mellon University – one of the nation’s most prestigious Computer Science schools – has instituted a fairly bold policy that throttles bandwidth available to users who have consumed too much in a given period of time. Students are subscribed automatically to CMU’s network, and there is no additional fee for network over-use. But this policy is deemed prudent here because it limits the tragedy of the commons situation (which affects all users). In the mobile arena, TMobile is already employing traffic shaping.

What sorts of usage consume lots of bandwidth? As explained here, streaming media, peer-to-peer file sharing and file download account for 66-75% of mobile bandwidth usage; web browsing 25-33% of usage – in both cases, dependent on region. To quote:

“…voice (VoIP), instant messaging, email and all other apps besides video and Web applications are a negligible driver of bandwidth consumption”

That’s right – the network is not being over-consumed by the Blackberry crowd, heavy users of Facebook, or people exchanging IMs. It’s being overused by consumption of media – streamed or downloaded files, legal and illegal. If you’re one of the people who’s got SlingBox Mobile, or a jailbreak phone running iHulu, or just can’t get enough AirSharing – well, you’re one of the people in AT&T’s crosshairs. And deservedly so (in my opinion).

Frankly, despite all the hype or what it’s called – 3G, 4G, LTE, WiMax, EV-DO – the mobile networks are simply not ready for high levels of media consumption. So those who do consume in this fashion need to compensate those harmed (impractical in this case) or pay more for over-consumption (which, indirectly, will compensate those harmed).

Please note that the altruistic blogosphere will no doubt erupt in anger over this change. Curbs on our freedom! Control by the Wicked Overlord! A slippery slope to usage monitoring, privacy invasion and government censorship!!! All very odd for a group of people normally in favor of spreading the most benefit to the most people (and disallowing the maximum benefits from accruing to the privileged few).

You’ll remember that I recently rooted my TMobile G1 so that I could run a WiFi tether and use my Apple iPad on the TMobile 3G network. Boy, is it sweet! That process (rooting) turned out to be more conceptually frightening than actually difficult. So with all the Android action at Google’s recent I/O conference (much of which can be found online here), I’m pretty excited to upgrade my device to the newer versions of Android OS.

At I/O, Google confirmed that running the 2.x operating system on the Dream/G1 was “technically possible”. That seems to be geek code for “you’re unlikely to see the upgrade via official channels” (e.g., the operators and/or Google itself) but, (b) “Dear hackers, go forth and prosper”. Cyanogen (and the community that have sprung up around his original work) seems to have heard that loud and clear. They’ve got Android 2.1 nearly baked.

This is great for a couple of reasons. The most important? It shows Google has gone to lengths to assure that their original hardware is still supported. We’re still very early in what is likely to be a very long game and it would have been unfortunate if Google decided to cut life-support. It’s worth noting, though, that the operators themselves are not being supportive of Google’s efforts. By appearances, they’ve determined the right approach is to make their G1 customers upgrade to a newer phone (which will likely require re-upping for a 12- or 24-month extension to contract as well). Nonetheless, in the past there was no avenue to upgrade an older phone. Google has, at least, given us one with Android.

The major reason to go to extremes (metaphorically) to get Android 2.1 is speed. These later releases of Android have, we hear, seen a lot of work on performance. So, it’s not just the modern hardware making Android fast – it’s Android itself. As with other open source projects, we’ve got lots of eyes on Android, and a community generating requirements. That seems to be pushing Google in the right direction.

In addition to speed, there are a number of new OS and application-level tweaks and features available with the 2.x OS upgrade. The list is virtually identical to this description provided for the Nexus One. Wow, it would be a shame to miss out on this stuff!

So, I’ll be upgrading as soon as Cyanogen gives the word. A quick thanks to both Google and Cyanogen for keeping Android’s original fans current!

I’m going to attend O’Reilly Media’s Developing Android Apps with Java class online – weekly over the next month and a half.

I’m anxious to see how Android’s implementation of something-like-Java-but-can’t-be-called-Java actually works. I have some pretty decent experience with Java Micro Edition and it’s raft of extra libraries. Java’s promise to make device programming easier never worked out, though. So, I’m anxious to see how well the Android team exposed the operating system’s functionality to Java.

I’ve been a fan of O’reilly’s book series since I started working with computers – and, gosh, how long ago was that?! I’ve always found their publications right on the money in terms of understanding my starting point, then getting me to the next level.

In this case, I also admire O’Reilly’s creative mechanism for charging for the course: attending the live sessions online is free, but access to the course materials after the fact costs money. The charge, by the way, is reasonably low – so if you want to go back for a refresher or just have a cache of examples to start from, it’s not going to be too expensive. I like that O’Reilly is working very hard to figure out what it means to be a publisher in this era of all things digital. I figure that’s something I can support.

Andy Badera, over at Flip Bits Not Burgers, has just gotten his talons on an HTC Droid Incredible from Verizon Wireless. Andy’s been a long-time Windows Mobile phone owner. As some of you may know, many of those phones where built by HTC as well. In fact, it could be said WinMo made HTC’s reputation.

Since many of my readers are Verizon customers, I’m providing a link to Andy’s review.

Net: Very positive. HTC seems to be learning with every new Google Android OS design. Looks like those of you looking to upgrade from Blackberry or a feature phone should definitely consider the Incredible. You’ve got the Motorola choices, too.

Before you’re overcome with book lust and shell out huge coin for books on the iBookstore, here’s a quick note about how to get yourself all the classic works of literature, for free, and legally, for your new iPad.

UPDATE: I should mention that it’s even easier to get books from Project Gutenberg simply by visiting the site with iPad’s Safari browser and using Safari’s bookmarking capability to flag the entries you like. You can also add an icon for a book to your homescreen, via Safari’s “+” action. The choice here is really between using Safari to read or the iBook reader. My preference is the latter. To give it a try, follow the instructions below.

First, on your desktop, select the preferences or options view from your favorite browser and set the default download location to a fresh directory that will contain your EPUB-format books. You need set this only once – but remember to set it to another location after you’re done (you won’t want non-books in this directory, as iTunes will try to sync those files).

Project Gutenberg is your friend – a community of people who care have made thousands of out-of-copyright books available in digital form here. Visit the site, and browse the catalog there – many options for searching are provided: Author, Title, Language (a huge number are supported), Categories, Top 100, etc.

Eventually, you might find something like, say, The Kama Sutra. On each page, you are offered many file format options. In fact, you can use several of the available formats with your iPad, but I really wanted to try EPUB because it offers certain advantages when used with the iPad’s reader. Here’s the options portion of the download page for each book:

Find the option for EPUB (Experimental), and location the hyperlink for either main site or mirror – tap one and your book will start downloading immediately. You will sometimes see an option for EPUB with Images (Experimental). Choose that if you’d prefer an illustrated version (at the expense of storage space).

When you have slaked your classic books thirst – and believe me, the temptation to drink long and hard is significant – minimize your browser and dock your shiny new iPad with your PC or Mac. For most of us, this will start iTunes automagically. If not, fire iTunes up manually. You should notice your iPad’s name in the center of the left hand iTunes ednavigation column, under devices. If you tap the device name, iTunes will drop down a list of available media and, unless you have gone off to purchase books at the store already, you will not see a Books icon.

As a side note, when I first installed my iPad into iTunes, I was asked to download the iBooks application directly from the iPad. If you did not get this popup dialog, you’ll need to tap the App Store icon on your iPad, connect to the store, and download the iBooks application. When I tried this, I noticed it was the first available choice. Not sure how long this option will last – perhaps future iPads will be shipped with the app installed (ya think?!). You’ll see a reminded about downloading the iBooks application in the iTunes software, too.

OK, now we’re ready to load up our books library.

In your PC or Mac’s iTunes application, select File->Add To Library. This will bring you to a file dialog where you can select the directory from which to load books. Choose the directory you selected in your browser’s download preferences. There you will see files with names starting with “PG” (Project Gutenberg). It doesn’t matter what the file names are – since they are in EPUB format, iTunes knows how to snag the book title out of each and display that instead of the ugly filenme. You can select one-at-a-time to add to your library or (at least on my Mac) many at once.

Once you’d added all the books you want, tap on your device’s name in the desktop iTunes application and, from the selections in the tab bar, tap on Books. You’ll see two sync options: All Books, or Selected Books. Enable syncing by tapping the Sync Books checkbox and then select one of the options. Here’s what my screen looks like once I’ve asked to sync Selected Books

Now tap Apply in the lower right corner of the iTunes application to sync your books to the iPad. When the sync operation completes, tap the iBook application on your iPad, and you should see something like the following display, featuring your newly-acquired (free) books

I’ve loaded up a number and all of them work great – from resizing text to viewing illustrations, EPUB-format books look great in the iBooks reader.

Enjoy!

Looks like Google has delivered, as rumored, on the Nexus One. But, I’m going to stick by my prior opinion, for now: This phone – while sleek and elegant – is not the game-changer many had hoped for. Other than paying more for the privilege of unlocked-ed-ness via Google’s website, there’s no new mechanism for getting service. Let’s hope this is merely Google testing the water, before it makes a big commitment. If not, frankly I’m disappointed.

One good piece of news: the device will be available in the near future on Verizon – implying Google is going to continue its commitment to CDMA hardware, and making another world-class smartphone available for the large number of Americans who prefer that service.

More details here. Git’chasum here.