The UIQ Evangelist

Where we analyze the mobile platforms available, as if they were developer platforms like any other.

Part VI: “Application development on mobiles”

Software development on mobiles has had the typical long- winded track- record associated with any other closed platform. Initially groundbreaking, then boring, then overpriced, and ultimately obsolete and with no future. In fact, only when java games turned up, did anything at all start to happen in development for mobile platforms.

There are several reasons for that. One is that the program would be common across all devices. More or less, it would run unmodified on almost every device. It has requirements specified on beforehand. Implementation is not hardware- dependent (and so not locked down in endless licensing issues), and is not fundamentally based on proprietary optimisation techniques that only licensed developers have access to.

“But,” I hear you say - “why in the world would anyone develop software for mobile phones? That’s silly - no one buys software for mobiles! It’s just a niche- market”.

But just as intel inadvertently figured out when the PC turned up - the market for programs is actually much larger than many imagined. Not only that(!), oh no. Selling programs - and now get this - selling programs actually increased sales of the hardware! Incredible.

And here everyone thought that the only way to make money off any platform was to sell software that only works on that one single device using that platform. Since everyone would have to have the program. Because I mean - otherwise, no one would buy your hardware or software over any other solution, now would they?

Skip forward twenty years. And strangely, the mobile industry is still obsessed with this idea.

Which, admittedly, makes sense to some extent. After all - if the phone- providers didn’t own the antennas and the frequency bands, what would stop people from competing with them, right? Or actually paying the children’s workers they use in Bangladesh, for example? And if the phone- makers didn’t have a monopoly on providing phones for use in those nets, how else would they earn money at a reasonably unlimited rate of growth?

But that excuse, however sound and high- minded, only goes so far. Because running various types of software on a phone doesn’t actually have anything to do with undoing the knot that is the mobile industry. Instead, as was the entire idea behind symbian, well- developed software has the potential to be a great asset when selling phones. Since, evidently, developing pim software and games for a phone - this will /increase/ it’s appeal.. without having any direct impact on, say, how much a phone- provider charges a MB for sending multimedia messages.

Indeed - after e-mail became generally available on mobiles, MMS still cost a ridiculous amount of money a piece. A cost that has nothing to do the transport costs or the network maintenance. Also, sending an e-mail across national borders with a mobile will still incur an exorbitant and artificial cost through “roaming” network fees. And entire companies still base their business off sms services to drive their unique push- mail techonology.

So since that’s all taken care of - why, then, is the pda market still dominated by proprietary solutions throughout, closed development and crippled SDKs? Why, for example, does Apple try to launch “Widgets” as their own platform exclusive, instead as a web- based offering for ajax- compatible browsers? Or why will RIM develop their own browser that only works on their phone? How come Sony Ericsson develops a walkman application for /one/ of their phones, instead of /selling/ it to the ones they’re not bundled with?

Again and again, we see these clearly illogical decisions perpetuating themselves throughout the industry - and the real question clearly is “why”.

Most likely the answer is in the chosen business- model. Obviously - opening for free software development on that market upsets things, and would remind people it’s no longer 1990. And that would smart really bad, obviously, and cause Ragnarok, at least. So the transition must be gentle.

Naturally, admirable progress has been made by several visionary and exceptionally forward- looking companies lately. Microsoft has launched what they call an “open platform” with Windows Mobile. Which is translated into meaning the platform can indeed be used to make “software” on. Which is just so much amplified doxa. By the same standard, Windows for desktops is, I suppose, a “wide open” platform, and virtually has no limits of any kind. But it wouldn’t mean much for the merit of the platform.

Apple also launched the Apple store, for online purchases through their online capable devices. Which are not only content checked and subject to approval, distributed with uncertain licensing, and so on - but applications also must be made in a framework that cannot provide multitasking, among other things.

But why this high- minded charity from phone- developers lately, then, in reaching out to developers? Simply because the business- model they maintain is that if they can provide the most popular closed source platform, then they will also sell the most phones, earn money - and then take over the world.

And once again, we return to the aimed for monopoly situation, where we go through the following stages: Initially groundbreaking, then boring, then overpriced, and ultimately obsolete and with no future.

But this is chosen, even if - as has been shown again and again - providing the best and most comprehensive software development platform, and the most modular devices, is what will net you the popularity, and sales of both devices and software.

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So what does responding to that reality mean in practice for the phone- makers? Ironically, it means shifting the effort slightly from programming irremovable and infuriating sounds and pictures into the welcome- screens on every device - and over to implementing commonly known standard libraries. This will probably have to be done in- house to some extent - but nevertheless, providing real support for high- level languages should be the primary concern. And where any restrictions would apply, those would have to be overcome by offering comprehensively documented apis.

Take for example the various hardware buttons, WLAN control or the volume panels in UIQ - neither can be manipulated through public apis, apparently since these functions were thought to be uninteresting for any 3rd party developers. Although Symbian and UIQ both aim at providing the framework for making use of exactly such functionality out of house.

In other words - in spite of all, the amount of work that would transform for example UIQ into a very usable platform is tiny. It’s not a conceptual shift we’re talking about - it’s merely taking the final step that’s required.

But - as we watch SE (like other manufacturers) handicap themselves, ensuring by design that there is no continuity between the different generations of devices. And failing to provide the necessary program apis. All resulting in closing themselves out of various markets for handhelds - we’re obviously getting no closer.

And the “revolution” never comes.

next: Part VII, “Backward compatibility”.

Categories: Comments, Operating Systems
Tags: applications, Development, industry