Mobile World Congress
I think I know where I want to go one day. MWC. I haven’t really followed the event in the past, so I don’t know if it’s usually this exciting. It could just be due to huge change and innovation in the mobile industry right now, but it certainly is a busy, interesting world out there in mobile land at the moment.
Not only have new phones been announced, but a plethora of new mobile operating systems and application platforms. I can’t wait to see how they turn out, and wish the best to each of them. The busier this pond, the better it will be for the consumer.
Windows Phone 7 Series
Windows have finally got their act together in the mobile arena, and are going to try and do something innovative. Their Windows Mobile operating system did well for me for the last few years, but really in hindsight was a pretty tired old thing. It was designed for early PDAs, and hasn’t to any real degree been updated since then. Windows Mobile 6 was a refreshing upgrade from 5, but for me that was mostly thanks to innovation on HTC’s part, and their Sense user interface. There was 6.5, but it’s not like that really made a dent.
WP7S (shortened to an acronym which is just as much of a mouthful) has been totally redesigned to look and feel nothing like it’s predecessor (though still based on Windows CE). Like the Zune HD, it has been designed to be finger friendly, nice visually, and fun to interact with.
Maemo + Moblin = MeeGo
Among the announcements of new OSs, came a surprise merger. I’ve liked what I’ve seen of Nokia’s Maemo flagship, the N900, and am hoping it does okay. It’s now out in shops and appears to be getting a reasonable advertisment backing in shop windows. Although not perfect, it’s an interesting platform, and certainly has a lot going for it. From what I’ve seen it seems very powerful, and as it’s based on Debian it’s quick to port to so there are lots of apps out there already available for it. There are also a number of development language options.
But it looks like sort of good bye to Maemo. It’s merging with an open-source project from Intel known as Moblin, and becoming MeeGo. I’d not previously heard of Moblin, a netbook OS, but based on what I’ve seen of it so far, it looks like quite a nifty little OS. Forgetting the merger with Maemo for a moment, I’d like to download Moblin and have a play.
With a partner like Intel, and an OS which on the face of it should be able to handle the mobile and netbook markets (and tablet if that’s a market yet), I’m hoping for good things here.
WAC
Yes, WAC. Wholesale Applications Community. A combination of many mobile networks, and some manufacturers like Sony & Samsung in there too. The “Sh*t we don’t have an app store” group. Fair play to them, they need an app store. What’s interesting here is they’re aiming to create a cross-OS application platform, and using Adobe AIR!
The first OS to support the WAC’s platform will be Android. This could be nice. If they get the API right, so we can make the same calls regardless of the device or OS, then this could prove very popular with developers. And of course popular with consumers, which will be able to re-download the apps which they paid for even after having gone out and upgraded to a new phone with a different OS.
What could be the result though, is a platform which feels like a restrictive middle-man. If that’s the case and it doesn’t bother you, it’d probably be sensible to make a (hugely more pervasive) web-app.