Day 1: Mobile “data” World Congress – it is all about the software when it comes to a rich data experience!
MWC has always been about the “traditional” wireless industry heavy weights – you saw them every where from the big posters in Barcelona airport to the bright pavilions of Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Ericsson, TI, Qualcomm (to name just a few) in Hall 8, to the event announcements and meeting room directions in the FIRA Palace hotel and Hotel Catalunya Plaza, and the banners seen from the Plaza Espanaya. But in 2010, it is the shadow of the two presences that are not so visually overt but nonetheless they are in every conversation and thought – Apple and Google. Google CEO Eric Schmidt is a keynote speaker on Tuesday and Android devices announcements are everywhere at MWC 2010, though Apple of course is not a participant. Which made me (like many many other industry followers and experts) wonder – why? What is the secret? How did this phenomenon happen?
The answers are many – but the one that I find most interesting is that the much talked about convergence of the internet and mobile world has finally happened – and today it is all about software in its purest and most beautiful form, it is about the user and what the device can become for the user, and most importantly the developer community and what inspires and engages millions of people to spend their own time and resources to create for the device. Which is why it took two companies with a strong understanding of using technologies to engage the masses and to fire the imagination of millions, to finally change the game that has been played out over the years at MWC / 3GSM.
So, what are some of the key features of these two software platforms? Firstly, simplicity of use and development and a solid foundation of core features that just work – without having developers to spend time tinkering and optimizing and looking around for the best place to start. Secondly, well defined interfaces to underlying components ranging from the accelerometer to the radios and GPS. Again straight forward and simple functional interfaces that are easy to program with. Third and related to the second one, is the right level of abstraction. In the case of the iPhone software, Apple dictates what level of access within the device the programmer and user can have. Android, even though open source, is also very well thought out in terms of programming access. All these features allow developers to focus on their unique value-add towards a polished end product ready for millions to use, without having to deal with messy interfaces and drivers and either too much access or no access at all to the necessary hardware components.
The last interesting feature common to both is how voice capabilities have been dealt with – integrated but some how still separate. Both frameworks realized up front that voice is a necessity but data is the focus. So, things like the dialer and telephony has not been ignored and even though there may be better frameworks to deal with voice related features, iPhone and Android users and programmers have a good basis to work with.
Before signing off, here is a good summary of the landscape in smart phone software frameworks published yesterday, including all the major players in addition to Apple and Google – Symbian, Palm, RIM, and several Linux frameworks.