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What Makes a Good Mobile Application Great
What separates the good from the bad in the mobile web space? More importantly, what makes a good mobile application truly great? There are lots of examples out there, but what can mobile developers learn from them? Here are some common sense guidelines:
Mimic the desktop UI
Each web site or web application that we use in this Web 2.0 world has a feel that we’re used to; the mobile version of web sites should merely be an extension of that experience. Web developers should use the same fonts, color schemes and buttons wherever possible to make us feel at home. For an example, check out Mobile Facebook (here on the left), which uses the same blue hues and fonts as the Facebook I use everyday in Firefox. Facebook has also made it easy to click on a friend’s name and pull up their profile page with a mini-feed, contact information, and other Facebook features we know and love.
Good examples: Mobile Flickr, Mobile Google Reader and Pownce Mobile.
Strip it, strip it real good
A great mobile web site is a stripped-down, more functional version of its original incarnation, and simplicity is king — all unnecessary graphics should be be excluded. In terms of screen flow, content should be presented first, with navigation placed at the bottom of each page. Having to scroll past navigation to get to the real meat of a web page is the bane of any mobile user’s existence.
Good examples: Mobile Twitter, Google and Mobile Wunderground.
It’s the hardware, stupid
Smart mobile application developers utilize the hardware to its full extent. One example is the Nokia platform, which is known for being completely transparent and vulnerable to developers and has subsequently yielded some great applications.
Good examples: JoikuSpot will use the built-in Wi-Fi to turn your WAP cell phone into a wireless access point; ShoZu will use the N95’s GPS to automatically geo-tag photos and upload them to Flickr; Nokia Sports Tracker will use the GPS module to give you a map and stats about your workouts.
Know thy platform
Mobile web applications should be written natively for each device. Java applications, including GMail for mobile and others, are quirky and routinely lock up, requiring the user to either exit or restart. Having to write apps for multiple platforms may be tedious, but will result in happy users.
Google was able to take Google Maps to an entirely new level of usability by adding “My Location,” which uses cell-phone towers to give an approximate location and has been called a “poor man’s GPS.” It’s only accurate to around 1,000 meters, but saves keystrokes when trying to find a local pizza place.
Unfortunately with most mobile platforms, especially here in the U.S., hardware is limited by cell-phone service providers that subsidize handsets. But Google’s Android and the Open Handset Alliance will help put in motion a new era of “openness,” and consumers will be the direct benefactors.
And of course, Apple’s SDK is coming out soon, which will undoubtedly spawn numerous touch-based applications.
My prediction: The iPhone will be the most hotly contested mobile application platform and the App Store will be full of highly functional and downright fun applications to add to your precious iPhone.
Hey Microsoft, forget MIX, focus on Mobiles
It is hardly a surprise that the more en vogue and exotic MIX ‘07 is overshadowing a strategically more important event hosted by Microsoft - the 2007 Mobile and Embedded Devices Conference also being held in Las Vegas.
Given that mobiles are supposedly the platform for the next billion - aka a market Microsoft has to play in - it is a surprise that Microsoft and its vast press corps failed to send us a single alert about this conference, and instead chose to spend all their attention (and some serious dollars) on MIX 07. Such apathy is contrary to the progress Microsoft has made with Windows Mobile, which is one of the two future platforms of growth for the company. (Xbox is the other.)
“Today we already outsell RIM Blackberry in the marketplace, something most people don’t know,” said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division in his keynote, promising that Microsoft will sell 20 million Windows Mobile 6 units in 2008.
(Good luck, but the competition is going to be fierce, especially from some flavor of mobile Linux, Symbian and just maybe from iPhone.)
That’s not a lot. Every year, roughly a billion mobiles are sold. Twenty million also doesn’t compare favorably to Nokia’s 2006 smart phone shipments of around 38 million. But to put it in proper context, five years ago, Microsoft had one device, one operator and a UI that behaved like the dwarf-cousin of the real thing, aka Windows.
Today Microsoft can at least boast that there are almost 150 devices that run Windows Mobile for mobile phones, 125 operators that sell those devices made by about 50-odd handset manufacturers. The user interface has improved, but it is still a work in progress.
While it is unlikely that I would switch to Windows Mobile anytime soon, I have seen how some friends of mine like the platform. In fast growing mobile societies like India and China, Windows Mobile devices are popular despite their high price tag. Many use Windows Mobile (and other phones) for what we view as computing tasks in the US. It is their computer.
Microsoft has to work hard with device makers to bring the prices down to $100-a-pop range, and see its market share zoom. Microsoft’s relevance (and more importantly future profits) in these new mobile societies are going to come from mobiles, not PCs.
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RIM needs a better spin
Have you heard the sound of spinning? If not, all you have to do is read this piece in The Wall Street Journal (sub required) about RIM releasing some new software that will work on non-Blackberry devices (initially only for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile devices), and will be a fully featured release.
At present, RIM offers a Blackberry Connect software for Nokia and Palm devices, that has limited functionality. RIM says that software is going to be available “later this year,” so why talk about it now… unless it is to divert attention away from all the negative press the company is getting as a result of last week’s massive outage. Paint me cynical, but this is just SPIN.
Update: The RIM Press release offers more details, and only this bit is mildly interesting:
Support for BlackBerry® Mobile Data System (BlackBerry MDS) allowing organizations to develop their own BlackBerry applications or deploy third-party BlackBerry applications that can run on Windows Mobile-based devices as well as BlackBerry smartphones.