[Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco] Mobile 2.0: Design and Develop for the iPhone and Beyond
Speaker: Brian Fling (Fling Media)
This was a 3-hour work shop given during the first day of the conference. This workshop goes thru the basics of mobile technology and explains the current and possible future mobile environment. The talk also included a healthy dose of iPhone development.
Brian takes us through the jargon map for the mobile landscape and further explains mobility using a layered diagram. See slide #56
A slide of the Top Network Operators. See slide #59
A slide of various GSM Mobile Networks and their speeds. See slide #63
A pie chart comparing various mobile devices. See slide #67
A table listing various mobile platforms and their descriptions such as Java ME, Palm, iPhone, etc… See slide #69
A table listing various mobile operating systems and their descriptions such as Symbian, Windows mobile, OS X, etc… See slide #71
A table listing various application frameworks and their descriptions such as BREW, Web, Flash lite, etc… See slide #73
An awesome video showing why companies are finding it hard to innovate with mobile phones due to government and industry restrictions. The video is taken during Jason Devitt’s (founder of Skydeck) appearance before the US congress on July 11th 2007.
Here are a couple quotes from Brian that I certainly agree with - “Mobile will revolutionize the way we gather and interact with information in the next two years.” & “Mobile has the potential to reach anybody through any medium”
Mobile 2.0 is used to describe the current and new advancements (evolution) with mobile phones and devices.
Brian offers 5 points to why the mobile device is unique as a computing platform.
1. First truly personal mass media
2. First always-on mass media
3. First always-carried mass media
4. Only mass media with a built in payment channel
5. Offers point of thought
An important mobility feature that is changing mobile usage is location awareness. Methods of triangulation to provide location data: wifi access points, gps, and cell towers.
Location awareness brings with it many opportunities to help bring a new level of context and value to users. How does knowing whether your customer is in close proximity to your office affect how your site and data is presented to the user?
A good slide on the mobile evolution based on types of phones. See slide #145
This slide shows the differences between Web 1.0 & Web 2.0. See slide #148
Good summary of Mobile 2.0. See slide #158
See slide #187 for a list of iPhone strengths
Types of iPhone Applications:
1. Productivity (eg. Calendar)
2. Utility (eg. Weather reports)
3. Immersive (eg. Use of accelerometer, physical movement of device)
A comparison of benefits between web apps vs iPhone apps. See slide #235
Brian’s suggestion: “Build Web Apps first. iPhone Apps second.”
A comparison between network speeds such as EDGE vs Wi-Fi. See slide #255
Brian shows off his Leaflets technology which he uses to showcase an iPhone web application and describe iPhone web application best practices. See slide #266
eTech key take aways:
1. The number of iPhone/iPodTouch devices on the UW campus should reinforce our development focus on Safari webkit applications.
2. Web applications for mobile devices will provide a new vehicle for UW data and information to reach our constituents around the world like never before. For example, we can tackle research which is taking place in developing countries where data connectivity is challenging.
3. Location awareness within mobile devices will help enhance the services we can bring to students, faculty, and researchers in every UW campus. A simple example is an interactive campus map on a mobile device which guides a student from one class to another in real time.
4. Taking pop quizzes to the next level, where timed quizzes can be given to students any time of the day. 
Tags: mobile, web 2.0 expo
May 1st, 2008 at 9:41 am
While I can believe mobile technology will be huge in a couple years, it frightens me a little. It seems that could lead to people being a lot less secure about their information.
But really, I just wanted to say that as a returning student, point #4 at the end of this post really really scares me. I just keep getting images of receiving a text message waking me up one Saturday morning from my professor telling me to answer a set of questions in the next two minutes.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Thanks for the comment. If you plan on taking my INFO344 course this summer I promise that I won’t follow thru on the pop quiz idea.
July 13th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
in reference to slide # 67, I have a feeling smartphones are going to gain marketshare faster than any other type of mobile device, especially since most of the major wireless providers are offering more affordable unlimited plans whick include data and other previously expensive features.