Archive for May, 2009

JSR 271: Mobile Information Device Profile 3 — Proposed Final Draft

Friday, May 29th, 2009

It is good to see this. After a long time, hard work, lots of discussions, MIDP3 final draft has been submitted to the JCP…

MIDP3 includes a number of new APIs and functionality. And while the smartphones have gone their own way with their own platforms and environments, MIDP3 is relevant and will be a great environment for feature phones. For those asking what a feature-phone is, Phone Scoop as a good definition:

A Feature phone is any mobile phone that is not a smartphone or PDA phone. Feature phones have proprietary operating system (OS) firmware. If they support third-party software, it is only via a limited interface such as Java or BREW.

Compared to software for smartphones, Java or BREW software for feature phones is often less powerful, less integrated with other features of the phone, and less integrated into the main user interface of the phone.

This is changing, as newer versions of Java and BREW allow software to be more powerful and integrate with more features of the phone, although the difference is still present, especially on the interface side. While third-party smartphone software is a “first-class citizen” on the phone, third-party Java or BREW software is usually restricted to a special “applications” section of the interface.

The Proposed Final Draft Specification for JSR-000271 Mobile Information Device Profile 3 is now available at http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=271.

“This JSR will specify the 3rd generation Mobile Information Device Profile, expanding upon the functionality in all areas as well as improving interoperability across devices.”

I hope to start seeing MIDP3 devices later this year…

CEO

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Posted in MIDP3 | 3 Comments »

Android 1.5 Cupcake Install Instructions

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Below are modified instructions for Android 1.5 update/install:

  1. (Make sure the G1 is fully powered or connected to power)
  2. For Android 1.5 Cupcake download the update from: http://android-dls.com/files/ota/signed-kila-ota-148830.de6a94ca.zip
  3. Rename the downloaded file to “update.zip”
  4. Connect your G1 to your PC; mount the device
  5. Copy update.zip to your microSD card (the root directory)
  6. Shutdown the G1
  7. Start it again while holding down the Home key until you get a triangular caution icon next to a phone (this is after you see the normal G1 logo)
  8. Press ALT-L; this will open a menu of options, one of which is install the contents of “update.zip”; press ALT-S to start the installation
  9. Wait several minutes while the new firmware is installed; don’t touch / mess with the G1 — leave it alone!
  10. You’ll eventually be asked to push the Home and Back keys again; Back is near Home — not the Delete key on the keyboard; this will restart your Android device
  11. The firmware will be copied into ROM (this takes a couple of minutes or so)
  12. Your G1 will reboot itself

Good luck!

Disclaimer: if your G1 explodes during the installation process, I’m not responsible!

ceo

P.S. Adapted from / via: MobileCrunch.

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Posted in Android | No Comments »

A New (close to the family) TXT Messages Record

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

As I have written here before, a couple of texting “records” have happened in my family; at one point my oldest daughter had more than 3K text messages in one month, and more recently my youngest daughter had around 1,300.

This past weekend at soccer, I was talking to a good friend of mine about texting. My friend said…

“…so we had to talk to our daughter — last month her texting count was 19K text messages”

I, having previous experience with daughters and texting said:

“…nah, that’s nothing, my daughters had 1,300 and 3K”

he said:

“no, Enrique, you didn’t understand, I said 19 THOUSAND!!!”

To what I responded…

“what the hell, no way! that’s crazy!”

Wow, 19 thousand messages — that is an average of ~633 (sent and received) messages a day…

That reminds me, have you ever seen my essay Texting and The Evolution of the Thumb?

ceo

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Posted in General | No Comments »

Top 5 smartphones and MNOs – Q1 2009 (USA)

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

Via @hametner, a couple of handset and Mobile Network Operators (MNO) metrics of interest (USA).

Top 5 U.S. smartphones sold in Q1 2009

  1. BlackBerry Curve
  2. Apple iPhone 3G
  3. BlackBerry Storm
  4. BlackBerry Pearl
  5. T-Mobile G1

Note that 3 out of 5 are BlackBerry handsets, and that 4 out of 5 are Java handsets! RIM seems to own over 50% of the *consumer* space in the US; i.e these numbers do not include enterprise sales. As @hametner ponders, “does this mean that Apple needs to expand beyond exclusivity to have a broader cross carrier offering?”… Yes,interesting…

Top 5 US MNOs by number of subscribers at the end of Q1 2009

  1. Verizon — 86.7M subs
  2. AT&T — 78.2M subs
  3. Sprint — 48.1M subs
  4. T-Mobile — 33.2M subs
  5. US Cellular — 6.2M

Verizon continues to be ahead, and with Verizon committing to LTE that means a very large LTE deployment supposedly starting in 2009, and with rumors that Apple and Verizon have been talking that would be a great opportunity for Apple and its “Pinky and the Brain” world dominance expansion plans for the iPhone!

Other MNOs, at&t and T-Mobile are all either committed or still evaluating LTE with eyes towards 2011, with Sprint pretty much committed to WiMAX (at this point).

Sources:

Disclaimer: I’m a Pinky and the Brain fan!

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Posted in Mobility | 1 Comment »

Android Widgets coming soon and they look fantastic

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

Android Widgets, which will be made available with the release of Android 1.5 (Cupcake) is a great addition to the platform; I’ve been waiting for such widget API for a while now.

Android Widget

Android Widgets is an example of Local widgets (as opposed to Web-based widgets). And because they are Local, you get the benefit of the (Android) platform to its fullest.

Android define their widgets or AppWidgets as miniature application views that can be embedded in other applications (e.g., the Home). These views are called "widgets" and you can publish one with an "AppWidget provider." An application component that is able to hold other widgets is called an "AppWidget host."

Below is a glimpse at Android Widgets (thanks to PhoneDog):

When Android widgets are used with the AppWidget framework, see Introducing home screen widgets and the AppWidget framework, developers can write “widgets” that can be dropped onto the home screen. (And with “home widgets” we are getting closer to something that I wrote some time ago – see the bit old but still very relevant piece titled The Next Battlefront for Mobile Applications.)

For those interested in developing widgets for Android, there are a couple of good developer guides available at developer.android.com:

Plus see my Mobile Widgets Page which provides some background, definition, examples and related information about mobile widgets.

ceo

Posted in Android | 7 Comments »

This one is for you, Bubbles!

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

It is said that dogs are man’s best friend…

And after 15 years, I’ve lost mine…

Bubbles was his name.

Always happy, always on-guard, obedient, playful and friendly, always waiting and wanting to be with one.

Today we’ve lost him, and will miss him very much.

Bubbles

ceo

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Posted in Personal | 4 Comments »

Mobile Social Contextual Applications & Services

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

A very nice slide-deck by Rudy de Waele (@mtrends) — love it.

I totally agree with this vision, which is one that has great potential, and is one that I’ve been passionately promoting for some time now:

“The mobile handset is, by its own nature, a social artifact; an object made and used by people to connect with people. This is the reason why the next big development in mobility and related services involves social software in some form or fashion, to enable better ways to find, communicate and share with friends and family, to learn about our surroundings, and to consume information. And the mobile handset is at the center of this.” I call this People-centric mobile computing.

We have many names for this, but four main concepts are at the center of this:

Posted in People-centric Computing | No Comments »

Carnival of the Mobilists #172

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

This week’s Carnival of the Mobilists #172 is at MobileStance.com and is packed with great essays from bloggers from around the world. A must read.

Thanks to Jamie Well who selected my blog entry as the post of the week!

If monetization of mobile apps turns you on, then head over to About Mobility and check out On Mobile Applications, Platforms and Monetization -”Show me the Money.” A very well thought out piece that really puts the space(s) through the paces. So good in fact, it’s our POST OF THE WEEK. Nice job, CEO – really top shelf!

ceo

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