Kevin Cawley Goes Mobile

Future… future of Mobile

A week ago my buddy Joe Pezzillo asked if I wanted to join him on a mobility presentation at RMIUG.  I can’t turn down ejoep.

He was going to be talking about the future of mobile and the app store.  I always like to argue with Joe because it’s fun and in this case it was easy.  I see the app store(s) as a transitional phase (a short term window) not even close to where mobile needs to be.

The real landing place is Mobile Web 2.0. The term Web 2.0 has gotten beat down quite a bit but the general notion of bringing client app behavior to web apps is sound and we need this for a true Mobile Revolution.

Here is the deck I put togethar and some bullets to suport:

• Customers and developers will get frustrated w/ all the app store options and need to port across platforms
• One app store, the iPhone App Store, is not the answer

• • The app store has opened the imagination of users to the possibilities on mobile devices.  BUT…
  • Consumers like choice
  • Developers don’t want to be locked down in a closed environment
  • Open/choice creates competition and innovation from device manufacturers
  • The promise of get rich quick is a fallacy - think Facebook apps 2 years ago

We need an environement where devs can build mobile apps once and have them run anywhere, consumers have many phone options, and phone manufacturers battle it out to make better and cheaper phones…. Mobile Web 2.0

Mike Sitarzewski made a great point that we already have these Mobile 2.0 capabilities w/ Webkit and that is true for the most part.  But I’ve used several Webkit based browsers on various mobile phones and the experience is way better but for the most part still kinda sucks.  And the idea of having only one mobile browser engine is just wrong… it’s great that we have Fennec, Skyfire, Opera, IE mobile, etc.  Now, if Webkit establishes the standard than that is a different story.