Monthly Archives: January 2007

Apple I Phone

The much predicted Apple I Phone was unveiled yesterday. It lives up to the hype! It solves some major problems that have been holding back mobile computing. Here are three reasons why the iphone is innovative:

Problem 1. HCI. Data entry

Phones have a user interface problem. If you want to type in stuff you need a keyboard but the phone is too small for a keyboard. Solutions have tended to revolve around:

1abc
querty
touch sensitive screen and stylus

iphone.jpg
(a composite image if text input methods)

None of these methods is completely satisfactory. Apple have come up with finger input on a touch sensitive screen. Every solution is a compromise between size and ease of use. The bigger screen on the I Phone gives finger input the edge. So now its easy to write in a URL. Being able to write in a URL is a major step forward for the mobile web – wobile.

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Viewpoint: The development of the wobile – mobile web (97-07)

Here is my list of the punctuation marks in the development of the mobile web – wobile. The first ten years.

Some of the punctuation marks are flops, others are significant high points. Which ones are which?

1997 WAP starts

1999 DoCoMo launch IMODE in Japan -smileys and anime graphics (green screen)

Green screen WAP apps in Europe….taxi booking etc

KPN adopt DoCoMo’s IMODE in Holland

2000 astonishing growth of sms in Europe

2001 start of Colour screens on phones

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Wobile – The Mobile web

The dream is well known: instant, relevant, information about the thing that you want, anything and everything on an easy to use portable device – something like a mobile phone. The mobile internet eventually will have some break through and catch on and become as established and as normal as the web. But something is holding the development back, there are some missing ingredients

maybe it’s a some sort of marketing name – wobile?

maybe it’s a technology – easy to use fingerprint ID?

maybe it’s a killer app – mobile banking and payment?

maybe it’s a product that will make the breakthrough – an apple i phone? – maybe