Today I finally hooked-up with a friend, a serial founder and CTO of mobility startup companies, who I haven't talked to for some months now. So I said “hey, so how are things going?” His response “I hate handsets”… And I understand his frustration. Note that he is a very experienced mobility technologist and
entrepreneur, who has brought to market many mobility products, and is currently developing handset software for his customers.
And he is (re) living the painful reality of what is to create mobile applications — the lack of consistency across handsets, and the huge
expectations from customers who wants it all, yet don't understand the complexity of things.
Customers need to know that because handsets are small physically, it doesn't mean it is less(er) involved to developed against, or lesser complex. Creating advanced yet consistent look-and-feel across handsets typically means going low-level with the UI and other features, not to mention, mobility apps are end-to-end; and because handsets behavior is not that consistent across, it is just a pain in the ass and frustrating. These experiences show the
immaturity of the mobility technology and industry — there is still a lot to learn, a lot to innovate, a lot to apply,
and a lot to educate — from technology, to customer expectations. Who was that VC that said that all that can be invented already has been invented? Not!
ceo