Mobile Myths

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There is a handful of "universal truths" that I have come to doubt. Ney, that I have come to view with deep skepticism.

Myth: The future of mobile is the Web

Well, you better not be in a hurry if you believe this. This myth is highly buzzword compliant, a sure sign that the majority of revenue is currently made by "visionary gurus" doing strategy consulting and not from actual people using actual services.

The current state of the Mobile Web is that it is years away from resembling anything like a usable application platform. Mobile AJAX and mobile RIA's are currently only small scale experiments. Look at the big players on the web. Does companies like Google or Yahoo make web applications for phones? No. They make native or Java based applications. You can make great "static" web pages for the mobile web today, but if you want web apps, revisit this in 2010 or thereabouts.

Myth: Its a phone first

The myth is that the device you always carry is primarily a phone, other uses are secondary. This view is out of date. The "phone part" of the mobile has the highest urgency. When a call comes in, answering the call have and must have higher priority that any other function of the phone. But most people spend a lot more time with other features of the phone. Listening to music or podcasts, browsing, reading emails and not to mention sending SMS takes up the vast majority of time spent with the phone. "Its a phone first" is a myth that lead manufacturers to optimizing the phone for, well, phoning.

But look at the iPhone, the device that has shaken up the mobile industry. It is optimized for music. If it was optimized for calls it would at least have a decent keypad. Actually, you could argue that watching video is what the iPhone is really optimized for. The priority is video first, music second, browsing third, calls fourth.

Myth: Converged devices

There are two camps here. Some are strong proponents for the view that in the future we will all be carrying a single device that does everything. The other camp (the "separatistas") claim that separate devices will always be better as they can be optimized for a particular task. Well the truth is that they are both right and they are both wrong. Some people (about 40%) will carry a single converged device. People with enough pockets and money may carry 2 devices. People with backpacks or briefcases may carry 3 devices.

People will carry one device in some occasions and 2 or 3 on other, like for example when traveling. The point being that there is no rule and no clear direction that indicates that in the future we will all do one or the other. Plan on supporting a multitude of scenarios if you make mobile services.

Myth: Your users are nomadic

The myth being that since the mobile phone follows the user everywhere, your service may be used in all sorts of odd or extreme situations so you better design for that. There are certainly people that type SMS messages while riding a bike, but the reality is that the nature of your service determines where it is used. Users are highly unlikely to access your mobile news site while chasing the bus, when its raining, in the middle of the night, drunk. Close to 90% will use mobile services only in the comfort of their own home. The only services likely to be used when on the run are calling and a bit of SMS.

Myth: Fragmentation is bad

Developers new to mobile see the figure "3,2 billion handsets out there" and smile broadly. After a day or so they discover that those 3,2 billion handsets are seemingly all different!! They are used to a world where Microsoft Windows sits on 95% of all desktops, and powerful development toolkits does a good job of smoothing out the variations between PC web browsers.

The word "fragmentation" is the negative version of "variety". Lets try to substitute that. The variety of mobile phones is the very reason there are 3,2 billion devices out there. There is no "one size fits all". The variety of Java Virtual Machines (JVM) is what has led to cutthroat competition and several very low cost high performance JVMs in the market. There is a JVM  on every new phone sold except the most super basic phones. About 6 years ago manufacturers started putting Java on phones. Now there are more that 2 billion Java ME phones out there. This would not been the case is there was only a single JVM vendor.

Technology development has increased fragmentation and I'm sorry, but this is unavoidable. Bugs and inconsistent/low quality implementations on the other hand could been a lot less. My advice is: if you can, just don't support the worst phones.
But get used to it. Mobiles are varied and fragmented and its not getting better anytime soon, so find ways to live with it. Take comfort in the fact the the worst crap disappear with time.

Myth: The youth is leading the way

(OK, I'm out on a limb here) A lot of research has been done and a lot of effort has gone into studying the youth because what teenagers do today is what we will all be doing in the future. Errr, close, but no cigar. Young people live in a very different environment than adults. Especially in the western world where young people are grouped together and almost entirely surrounded by their same age peers. New things can have a fast uptake in a youth culture, possibly because of proximity. They live in a youth culture that influences their behavior to a large degree. When teenagers becomes adults their needs changes and so does their behavior. My point is that society changes and there is not a one way youth-to-adult influence. The entire society changes according to the needs of the different demographic segments. The fact that ringtones and phone covers were all the rage among teens in 2001 does not mean that we are all buying covers and ringtones now. There is a lot to learn from early adopters, but don't assume that early age and early adoption is the same. My take on how phone use is evolving is here.

 

Gibson said that "The future is already here, its just not evenly distributed". You could also say that "The past is also here, and its just as unevenly distributed". My perspective is what I see watching the mature mobile markets from northern Europe. Leave a comment or send me an email if you have a different perspective or if you think I'm way off.

Comments

[Alex]

You claim to be out on a limb with the final point... your first point was already out there. Google makes several apps for mobile devices... in fact, they make some of the MOST POPULAR apps for mobile devices: GMAIL client, Google Maps (with My Location!), and YouTube! Also, please note this weeks big news from Yahoo. What have they spend LOTS of money and time completely revamping? Their mobile website!

[Ian Wood]

Whilst I agree that we are a long way from the mobile web have to say that other observations I have to question.

Mobile Voice is bigger than fixed Voice in terms of both minutes and revenues. The strategy followed by Micheal Cremmer whilst at Tele.Ring, E-Plus and now Austria One over the last three years show that price elasticity exists.

Looking at mobile useage 70% of which takes place in a building shows that the key feature on any phone might be the address book. Another 20% of useage happens in transit from home to work. Which makes just 10% of useage mobile.

Don't assume that 3+ Billion handsets means 3+ billion users. Rather think about Credit Cards which also recently broke the 3 billion user base after over fifty years marketing. However most people who have a credit card have two, I think that this is increasingly true with mobiles.

[Morten]

Thanks for the comments!

I can certainly relate to the simplistic elegance of saying "everything is wrong". :-)

But let me add a couple of points:

Re 1: The reason Opera Mini is popular is not because it is used for application, its because it the only way to get a reasonable web viewing experience.

Re 2: PDAs died because phones are always online, PDAs are not.

Re 3: If you carry TWO converged devices, is there actually, eh, converging going on? And converged devices sell more, and so does everything else.

Re 4: No argument.

Re 5: Sure. Java ME is maturing. At the same time new platforms are introduced from Apple and Google.

Re 6: If you say 2 of wrong, you can't claim that 6 is wrong, because the youth is not using the phone for calls. They send messages.

Morten :-)

[Rocco]

i only read the 1st paragraph, here's a few comments:
1. the mobile web != mobile ajax
2. dynamic pages != pages using ajax
3. both yahoo and google DO mobile web AND applications, gmail for example or m.yahoo.com

sorry i can't agree with what you're saying

[Russ]

Wow, I like the effort to go against the grain, but I can't say I agree with anything you said above.

Here's some counter examples:

Myth 1: The most popular mobile application is Opera mini for a reason.

Myth 2: PDAs have died for a reason - it *is* all about the phone.

Myth 3: Converged devices sell more for a reason.

Myth 4: 90% of all stats are pulled of one's rear ends. Actually people are usually in one of three places: home, work and the third place (Starbucks).

Myth 5: EA spends insane amounts of money porting their mobile apps to various phones. The pressures to consolidate from big companies and small isn't trivial.

Myth 6: It's not my Mom or yours leading the way, that's for sure. Youth send more text, browse the web more and talk more and thus drive decisions from companies catering to them.

So really, again, I appreciate the attempt, but you're completely wrong.

:-)

-Russ