Ben Galbraith's Blog

Ajax, and Mobile Phone Fatigue

This is not a blog about Ajax. But, I'm with Dion Almaer at the Adaptive Path / O'Reilly Ajax Summit. We'll be blogging about it at www.ajaxian.com. Check it out.

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I have fond memories of my first JavaOne conference in 2001. I knew very little about Java in those days and enjoyed drinking from a firehose.

I still remember being puzzled at all the mobile hysteria at the show. Nokia's president, whose name escapes me, got up on the bi-directional stage and promised to ship something like a trillion mobile phones in the next n years. The other speakers all hyped it up to death. I remember commenting to Richard Huss, my book editor at the time who I'd never met in person but by a curious chance I bumped into whilst in the queue for the JavaOne keynote (we saw each other's name tags), on my frustration that so many folks were chewing up our time talking about using these primitive mobile toolkits where there was so much really interesting stuff elsewhere.

Well, four years have passed since then. I just got an email from Forbes magazine claiming once again that mobile all the rage. Hmm...

I'm a mobile skeptic. I understand the economics of ringtones and mobile games. But when I hear about mobile being the next excitement center of the industry, or that the future of all computing is connected to cell phones, I can't help but roll my eyes. I don't want to use my thumbs as a primary input device, and I can't see that changing anytime soon. Folks are talking now about voice recognition as input, but with all the time I spend in meetings and public places, I can't see that being viable either. And that's just one of many problems with the platform...

What do y'all think? Am I being too closed-minded? Do you think mobile represents a compelling future, or an interesting niche?

Comments

• It depends on how you define mobile...

  If my mobile phone was also my PDA AND a high-resolution camera/video recorder AND an iPod/MP3 player AND it could beam output to high-resolution displays and work with wireless input devices AND WiMax (or equivalent) was available everywhere AND the deivce was under $500 to purchase and $50 a month to connect to services... then I guess mobile would probably be interesting.

  Posted by: johnreynolds on May 09, 2005 at 10:52 AM

• Any hype about cell phones as a platform will always leave you feeling disappointed until we can also get fast and free internet access with our phones. The screens also have to be sufficiently large and easy to use to read content. And it must also allow me to quickly link to multimedia content, like pulling the latest audio sports coverage from ESPN.com or the news from CNN or NPR as an audio feed while driving to and from work. This type of content could pay for itself like traditional radio.

  But the phone companies just want to push gimmicks. They act like they are in the business of selling tooth brushes. If they make it a different shape or color and give it a different arrangement of bristles and think it will cause people to buy their product. It may work for a while,b ut soon people will want a phone to be a phone without the useless and disappointing distractions. But what would truly sustain the platform would be practical application.s

  How about Netgear, Linksys, Tivo and those types of companies work with the phone companies to let me tie into home monitoring and security system? And the ability to tell me Tivo to start recording Alias because I forgot to set it to record. Oh, and also telling the stove to turn off because I may have left it on. Those would be practical and killer applications.

  Posted by: archers24mhc on May 09, 2005 at 01:41 PM

• I agree with Ben. I want a mobile phone that is a phone to carry in my pocket. SMS are also nice because they are cheaper. Anything else will just drive people crazy. Can you imagine all the rushed people sitting in front of you in the subway, trying to program tivo to record the tv program they are currently missing and checking they turned off the stove? No thanks. I think they should better read something or flirt with their vis-à-vis or just be quiet and calm down.

  Posted by: slohmeier on May 10, 2005 at 02:45 AM

• The problem with convergence of functions on a cell phone is that as they get more powerful, they get more expensive and more worrisome to carry for fear of them getting lost or stolen.
  I thought about getting a PDA and the potential features are awesome (mp3, wi-fi, gps, cell phone ,etc), but the price of my dream gadget got over $500 and I thought it would really stink if this little thing got lost or stolen. I think this will limit demand for high end PDAs/cells phones. However, I do think that whatever features that can be crammed into $100-$200 device will be hot and the potential for the "killer app" is there.

  Posted by: tim_dalton on May 10, 2005 at 08:28 AM

• To me the hype is puzzling as well. I even don't understand the fact that so many people out there are buying phones with cameras attached to them. In my humble opinion there should be a focus on simplicity. Do one thing and do it well. Personally, I don't need a phone that does anything more than connect me to the people I want, when I want, whereever I am. That's cool. All the rest is fluff. But, hey, of course, if people had been listening to me, there would be no billion dollar mobile phone market! Though, what I do imagine is the phone as a mobile proxy to secondary hardware like a laptop or stationary computer at public locations. (Like Apple AirPort.) But what I cannot imagine is a market for complex software on mobile phones. Maybe the J2ME people can shed some light on that mystery...
  

  Posted by: norb on May 10, 2005 at 11:27 PM

• Mobile phones have been hailed as the end all technology of technologies for a decade yet it hasn't happened.
  And it's not happening for the reasons you outline. Screen's too small to be useful, keyboard too awkward to use.
  Of course the cellphone manufacturers and network providers are pushing hard for everyone to buy buy buy ever more more more new phones and services that are all that keeps their product from becoming comoditised and thus becoming items that bring only marginal profits.
  And as they heavily sponsor technology companies to make those services see the light of day the technology companies aren't about to state the obvious which is that using a PDA or laptop to do the same thing is a lot more convenient. Instead they too will hype the cellphone option as the next thing since sliced bread even while themselves not using it :)
  I use my cellphone in ways that the network provider doesn't like.
  No package deal with 100 hours of calls and a thousand SMS messages they (and I...) know I'll never use. No GPRS, iMode, video on demand, etc. etc. which I don't need.
  It's a phone darnit, I want to use it to call people and get called and maybe send or receive a few text messages a year. I'm probably their worst customer, cheapest subscription and paying as I use instead of prepaying for far more than I'll ever consume...

  Posted by: jwenting on May 11, 2005 at 01:25 AM

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