When I talk to people about working in the mobile space, I always try to impress how invigorating it is to be working in the extremely dynamic area of mobile phones and connected devices. A year ago, I remember sitting down with the folks at Northwestern Medical School to discuss the available platforms for implementing their depression sensing mobile app (Mobilyze).
At that time, we had two main contenders, the iPhone and Nokia’s Symbian OS devices. We didn’t consider Android in any serious manner, as the available hardware at the time was pretty lackluster and we were not sure whether the OS was mature enough to base the next year’s work on. We eliminated the iPhone from our deliberations due to its lack of background processing and ended up settling on Nokia’s XpressMusic 5800 Symbian^1 touchscreen phone as our target hardware and the beta version of the Qt Symbian runtime as the software platform.
In the months that followed, Google, Motorola, and Verizon launched the Android 2 rocket with the release of the DROID, Apple responded with an updated version of the iPhone OS (now called iOS) and razed the netbook market with the iPad. Palm continued selling an outstanding operating system on mediocre hardware before being absorbed by HP, and Nokia continued (slowly) evolving the Symbian platform. In the short year since I really began working in the mobile space, it’s been one disruption after another. While I wasn’t old enough to appreciate the early PC era, I imagine that it was probably a lot like this.
Now, as we enter the last quarter of the year, I wanted to share some of my thoughts and impressions about this space.
Android: My first serious Android experience was with Motorola’s DROID, and since then, I’ve been impressed with the progress that Google has made with their mobile platform and how the talk of the “iPhone killer” finally died after Google and their partners released a steady stream of phones that continuously improved with each iteration. As a pretty committed iPhone 3GS user at the beginning of the year, I am now preparing to leave AT&T and the iPhone forever for T-Mobile and the new HTC G2/Vision.
Android won me over in two ways. The most important aspect of the Android platform for me is that it doesn’t treat developers like children. Google’s laissez-faire attitude really resonates with me. Secondly, the fact that the platform is more open and capable than the iPhone is also a major bonus. Many of the apps that I work on are not always basic apps that you run and quit. I’m interested in writing apps that work in the background and do something useful without direct user intervention.
For example, in the Shion mobile applications, I have a feature in place where the phone can report its location to the desktop applications at home. The idea is that if the desktop application knows where you are, it can be more intelligent about starting lengthy processes such as putting the environment in a comfortable state by the time you arrive. It’s no fun getting home to a cold apartment and waiting 20 minutes for it to warm up. Similarly, it’s not fun paying the heating bill for keeping your place fit for human habitation when you’re home less than half the day. A location-aware home automation environment solves that issue.
Implementing this feature on Android is fairly pedestrian and routine. It’s nothing special. On the iPhone, I can’t even contemplate implementing this feature the way it should be because “warming the house” doesn’t fall within Apple’s handful of functions that they will allow to run in the background.
In terms of the Android user experience, I’ll agree that it’s not as polished or fluid as that found on the iPhone. However, Android’s usability has passed my acceptability threshold, and I rather enjoy using it more than Apple’s phones. I find the widgets quite useful and the independence from iTunes as a major bonus. I like having a podcasting client available that lets me download what I want, when I want it.
Also, count me a fan of vanilla Android. As Audacious Software has picked up more Android hardware for testing and development, I’ve had the opportunity to use HTC Sense, MotoBLUR, and the Samsung Galaxy user interface “enhancements”. Aesthetically, I remain a fan of Google’s stock Android look and feel and will be sticking to vanilla Android for devices that I use myself.
One more thing: I’m quite interested in Android’s evolution from a phone OS to a tablet and television OS. If the evolution is not a flop, look forward to Audacious Software adopting the television as a platform for ubiquitous applications.
iPhone & iPad: From my perspective, Apple’s iPhone has not evolved quickly enough to keep up with the Android juggernaut. Apple still makes a nice pocket computer with a mediocre phone, and I understand why it’s still the phone to beat. However, for me, owning an iPhone has been a like a death from a thousand cuts. There’s nothing major that sinks the platform for me, but all the minor problems add up. I’m not a fan of the AppStore model, and Apple’s reluctance to allow third party developers full access to the phone’s features is depressing. Count me in the camp that would prefer a physical keyboard instead of sacrificing half my screen to type simple text. I’ve had numerous problems using the device to make calls, and the AT&T lock-in is something that I could do without.
When I give up the iPhone, I will miss some of its games and the Safari web browser, but that’s about it. In the last year, Android closed the gap in terms of the other features that I care about in a mobile phone.
Now, with respect the iPad, you can count me as an unabashed fan. While I don’t have any compelling reasons why my friends and family must have one themselves, I enjoy my own immensely and use it quite a bit. You can take away my iPhone, but you’ll have to pry the iPad from by cold dead hands. 
What I like about the device:
1. Third-party apps: Comixology’s Comics app is something that I would miss rather dearly if it was no longer available. As a lifelong comics fan, this app lets me keep up with titles I don’t care to collect in a more economical and space-efficient way than buying them and selling them back to the comic shop.
2. Video: The iPad is a superb device for taking video with you on the go. It’s become my go-to device for watching video around the house or for throwing something on in the background while working. While it won’t match the fidelity of a dedicated television, sometimes availability trumps resolution. Over the summer, I got caught up on AMC’s “Mad Men” using the iPad and didn’t feel that I missed anything once I started watching it on the television with my wife. While the Netflix app is mediocre in my opinion, I do enjoy having access to their streaming catalog while lying in bed. (It blows my mind that Tivo doesn’t have a streaming app for the iPad yet.)
3. Relaxed use: A side effect of the iPad’s limited features and lack of background processing is that it has become my “low stress” computer. I can still stay on top of my e-mail and RSS with the device, but I know that I won’t be able to do any serious work with it. Knowing that I’ll be just be able to check in helps me keep my Type A tendencies in check.
While the iPad inherits the limitations of the iPhone by virtue of its shared iOS heritage, I’m fine with the fact that the device is limited. While I can’t explain this cognitive dissonance, I suspect that it stems from the fact that I never had any high aspirations for the iPad to begin with. In my own work, I’m very interested in seeing how well the iPad works as a peripheral information display for applications like task management and process monitoring. There’s something appealing about being able to set up the iPad on a stand next to your bigger monitors.
WebOS: I really enjoy using WebOS and I’m looking forward to seeing with HP comes out in the future. At the moment, the major contribution that the Palm Pre makes to my life is that it gives me unlimited tethering from Verizon for a price that is competitive with the MiFi. I think Palm handicapped their devices by skimping on the hardware, and I’ll be interested to see what happens to the system on faster chips. To me, WebOS is “the little platform that could”, and I’m rooting for them to succeed.
Windows Phone 7 (or whatever MSFT’s calling it these days): I don’t have any concrete plans to develop for this platform, but I will be keeping an eye on it if only to see how Microsoft’s fresh approach to mobile UIs plays out. I actually think that this platform has the potential to become a major force, if only because of its potential integration with the Xbox platform. I’ll have fun watching this play out.
Nokia/Symbian: Symbian is the mobile OS that breaks my heart. I had a great time developing Mobilyze for the XM5800, but the criticisms leveled at the platform for developer hostility are completely true. Nokia has made some good progress on improving the tools (the substitution of Qt Creator for Carbide was wonderful), but despite my familiarity with the platform, it remains the most unproductive of the major platforms for development. The problem isn’t the Qt framework or the C++ language, but the convoluted compilation processes that result in 5-minute waits to deploy a simple fix to a phone. This situation is steadily improving, but not nearly quickly enough.
From my perspective as a developer, the core issue with the Symbian platform is its evolutionary sluggishness. While Nokia’s N8 will be out “any day now”, I’m still stuck developing for the same devices, using the same frameworks as I was using at the beginning of the year. I see a lot of potential in the Symbian base combined with a Qt runtime, but I’m skeptical that Nokia & the Symbian Foundation can keep up with Google or even Apple. As a NOK shareholder (I hold their stock because of their dominance in the emerging markets), I’m quite happy with the replacement of the upper management and I’ll be interested to see what happens in the next couple of months. Sanjay Jha executed a stunning turnaround of Motorola’s mobile division and I’m looking forward to seeing if Nokia’s new CEO can so the same.
In conclusion, working in the current mobile phone & device landscape is quite exciting. There’s an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the platforms available to users and developers, and the robust competition keeps life interesting. At the moment, I’m an Android fan, but have enjoyed doing work on the iOS and Symbian platforms as well. In the next couple if months, I’m looking forward to seeing how well the new Microsoft platform fares, and I’m also intensely interested in Android’s transition from a phone OS to a full tablet OS. Apple made that transition quite well (the iPad is a better iOS device than the phones or iPods), and I’m looking forward to seeing Android do the same.
Disclosure: I currently hold stock in the following companies mentioned in the post above: Apple, Nokia, Microsoft, and Netflix. I was a Palm stockholder prior to the HP acquisition, but do not hold any HP shares.
