Smart phone Platforms and Applications

For years, mobile services and applications stagnated, because of the complexity and cost of development, the abysmal user experience, the high cost to users, and low viewership. Thankfully, today that’s changed. Love it or hate it, Apple’s iPhone is a much-needed paradigm shift. It’s not a perfect device, but compared to the nonsense that phone manufacturers have been producing, it seems surprisingly close. Apple recognized that bad design wasn’t the only problem in mobile. In launching the iPhone, they used the leverage they’ve built with their iPod and computer product lines to negotiate with carriers to offer data plans at less-than-excruciating rates for consumers. And it has paid off: stats show that 95% of iPhone users surf the mobile web1, and iPhone users account for two-thirds of all mobile web traffic. They’re viewing more ads, too. And – through Apple’s ingenious AppStore – they’re even paying for content and applications. And carriers’ average revenue per user (ARPU) is notably higher for iPhone users.

Of all the great things Apple accomplished with the iPhone, the most important and impactful one is this: it reset consumer expectations for what a mobile device should be. Other manufacturers are scrambling to release devices that can compete with these new set of expectations, and they fall short. RIM, Nokia, LG and Samsung have released touchscreen phones, but in their rush to get them to market, the user experience suffered. It’ll take at least another generation of devices for these manufacturers to adapt their operating systems to come close to the smoothness and intuitiveness of Apple’s.

In the other corner is Android, a new, Google-backed, mobile operating system with all the freshness and capability of Apple’s OS. But so far there’s only one phone on the market that runs Android, and it’s only available in the US. The developer community is excited about this platform, and by some measures there are already
more profoundly innovative applications available for Android than for the iPhone.

So, if you’re ready to extend your content/campaign/reach to mobile, what devices should you support? The first decision is: web-based, or native application? The web browsers in recent smartphones are head-and-shoulders above those of just a year or
two ago; some having capabilities that even desktop browsers lack. If you can deliver your message using a mobile website, your cost, development time and maintenance costs will be a fraction of what they’d be by building a native application. And you can use that cost savings to customize your mobile website to provide a seamless experience for that many more mobile platforms.

Building native applications (the ones that appear in Apple’sv AppStore, for example) is slow and expensive, but offers access to some features and capabilities built into the handset that are inaccessible if you’re building for the web: 3-D graphics, accelerometer, GPS and camera. Building native apps also means re-writing code from scratch for each platform, and making some design changes to meet the
user interface guidelines for each. So far only a small handful of companies offer native applications for all platforms (e.g., Google, Yahoo, Facebook). Certainly,
that’s the way to guarantee the best reach. But these days, with people keeping a close eye on budgets, it’s smart to start with the platform(s) which: 
a) will allow you to deliver your content/message effectively;
b) has a reasonable development cost; and
c) reaches your existing audience using the devices they’re already carrying.

Some clever developers are building frameworks which give web applications access to GPS, and to simplify the process of building a native app for several platforms at once. These frameworks could save you lots of time and money, but they introduce
some new restrictions of their own – whether or not they’re suitable depends on the project. If you’ve tried a mobile campaign or initiative in the past and were disappointed with the results, now’s a good time to try again. Mobile still isn’t nearly as mature as the desktop web, but if your audiences are carrying smartphones and you’re looking for ways of engaging further with them, there are lots of possibilities today that didn’t exist even a year ago.

Gabe Sawhney is a partner in Echo Mobile, a consultancy and boutique design/
development firm working exclusively in mobile, and focusing on cross-platform
solutions. gabe@echomobile.ca | echomobile.ca